International solidarity

In a quirk of history, Margaret Thatcher died a little more than one month after Hugo Chavez. Thatcher was a figurehead for the global class war in the 1980s and '90s known as “neoliberalism”. Chavez was a figurehead for the struggle against it and the alternative starting to be built in Latin America over the past decade.

British groups have for three months been pressing Shakespeare's Globe Theatre to withdraw its festival invitation to Israel's National Theatre, Habima, in response to the Palestinian call to boycott Israeli cultural institutions, Mondweiss.net said on March 29.

Australian Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Sydney released the statement below on April 12, after the Student Representative Council voted to support an academic boycott of Israel. *** The Student Representative Council (SRC) at the University of Sydney passed a motion this week endorsing Associate Professor Jake Lynch’s academic boycott of Israel.

In recent weeks, there has been a dramatic wave of violence and repression in Guatemala that has led to the deaths of many human rights activists. Among them are peasant leaders, trade unionists, journalists and indigenous peoples. In light of this, the Guatemala Peace and Development Network (RPDG) has sent out an urgent request for support and solidarity from around the world to bring pressure to bear on the Guatemalan government to halt this repression.

On March 30, Students for Palestine organised a rally against Australian university complicit in Israel's crimes. BAE Systems is a defence company worth $US38 billion. They make everything from assault rifles, missiles, tanks, drones, nuclear weapons, and even the shackles used in Guantanamo Bay. BAE has been targeted because of the horrifying weapons systems it sells to Israel.

A protest was held outside the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Sydney on March 19, to oppose the controversial state visit by the Myanmar president Thein Sein. Prime Minister Julia Gillard met with Thein and announced a $20 million two-year aid program, as well as the posting of a resident military attache and a trade commissioner in Yangon. Protesters representing the Rohingya, Karen and Kachin communities demanded the Australian government address the gross human rights abuses before business and military deals are made. Photos by Peter Boyle.

The Real News looks at the gains made by Palestinian prisoners' hunger strikes against Israel.

It takes more than an individual to upset the international chessboard as dramatically as it has been in the past decade. Forces unleashed by the logic of capitalism have drawn a new geopolitical map, in which the United States has lost its former place as the world's centre of gravity and the ultimate arbiter of the key issues of the economy, politics and war. Yet, though changes of such magnitude were obviously not the work of one person, the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’s hallmark was a profound intuition of this impending change.

More than 200 people attended the "Todos Somos Chavez — We Are All Chavez" memorial meeting at the Addison Community Centre on March 16. The event was one of several memorials held around Australia to honour the life and political struggles of Venezuelan socialist leader Hugo Chavez. Organised by the We Are All Chavez Committee, and supported by the Embassy of Venezuela in Australia, the event featured a night of toasts, music and videos in memory of Chavez.

As an Aboriginal woman, from the Kairi and Gubbi Gubbi nations of central Queensland, I identify with oppressed people around the world and I see our liberation as tied closely to that of other indigenous and subjugated peoples. In September last year, I had the great pleasure of participating in the Australian Venezuelan Solidarity Network Brigade.

The Victoria Refugee Action Collective held a forum on March 20 called “Persecuted in Sri Lanka, detained in Australia: the plight of Tamil refugees”. Former journalist Trevor Grant said the Australian public has been taught to be fearful of refugees. The language used to speak about them — including terms such as “illegal” and “border protection” — is designed to create fear. Grant, who is active in the Tamil Refugee Council, spoke of the use of torture and rape by Sri Lankan government forces against Tamils.

The United Nations General Assembly paid tribute to late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez during a special ceremony on March 13, Venezuela Analysis said the next day. The ceremony hailed Chavez's “commitment to social justice and advocacy for society’s most vulnerable groups”, the article said.