A-Infos (en) SchNEWS 416, Friday 25th July, 2003

[SchNEWS <schnews@brighton.co.uk>]

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WAKE UP! WAKE UP! IT'S YER TIME TO YANK OFF... SchNEWS
I’M AN AMERICAN – GET ME OUT OF HERE!
“You, like me, know who the real heroes are: those brave service men and
women, yours and ours, who fought the war and risk their lives still.” -
Tony Blair to the US Congress, receiving a Congressional Gold Medal for
services to The Empire.
“US officials need to get our @***s out of here… I say that seriously. We
have no business being here... All we are here is potential people to be
killed and sitting ducks.” - US reservist in Iraq with the 307th Military
Police Company, July 1.

Think back about six months. If you spent too much time back then listening
to politicians, you’d have been forgiven for thinking that life was going to
be pretty sweet for US and British troops in Iraq once Saddam was out of the
picture. Nothing much to do, just driving around in a jeep, waiting for
grateful Iraqis to run up and thank you for ‘liberating’ them. Well, it’s
nearly three months now since Dubya decided the war was over, and the story
that US troops are telling is a little different.

“What are we getting into here?” a Sergeant from the 4th Infantry Division
asked the Washington Post last month. “The war is supposed to be over, but
every day we hear of another soldier getting killed…Saddam isn’t in power
anymore. The locals want us to leave. Why are we still here?” It seems the
occupying forces aren’t as popular as they were told they would be. “Little
kids wave at us and their parents slap them in the back of the head and make
them stop”, one soldier told Associated Press. “It makes me feel like I
wasted my time over here and they don’t appreciate what we did…”

But maybe it’s not so much that they don’t appreciate it, as that they can’t
forget it. Some soldiers can’t. Here’s how one Sgt. Meadows describes his
combat duty: “For me, it’s like snapshot photos. Like pictures of maggots on
tongues, babies with their heads on the ground, men with their heads halfway
off and their eyes wide open and mouths wide open. I see it every day, every
single day. The smells and the torsos burning, the entire route up to
Baghdad, from 20 March to 7 April, nothing but burned bodies.” And as the
occupation drags on, many are getting increasingly desperate to get out: “At
night time you think about all the people you killed” one Corporal told the
Evening Standard. “It just never gets off your head… There’s no chance to
forget it. We’re still here. We’ve been here so long.” “Most soldiers would
empty their bank accounts just for a plane ticket home” wrote another
soldier in an anonymous letter to Congress.

It’s no wonder they want to go home. They were told that they were there to
get rid of Saddam and his Weapons of Mass Destruction. But it’s three months
since Saddam legged it, there’s not a WMD in sight, yet there’s still
155,000 occupation troops in the country, and their commanders expect them
to be there for the foreseeable future. They were told they would be
welcomed as liberators; instead they’ve got angry demos and grenade attacks.
44 US troops and 6 Brits have been killed in ambushes since the war
‘finished’, and attacks are increasing. So far this week there’s been an
average of two troops killed a day.

It’s harder to say how many Iraqis have been killed since the occupation
began because (surprisingly enough) the occupying forces are less interested
keeping those records. But they’re being killed daily. Two men were killed
in Baghdad today when troops opened fire on their car after they drove too
close to an American checkpoint. Even after the Falluja massacre in May
(when US troops used automatic weapons to break up a “boisterous but
peaceful” demo, killing 15 and wounding 75), there are still reports of
troops using live ammo against demonstrators. 2 stone-throwers were shot
dead during a demo outside US HQ in Baghdad on June 18. And in late June US
3rd Infantry forces began Israel-style ‘punitive demolitions’ of the family
homes of people thought to be involved in armed resistance.

Yesterday Amnesty International published a report accusing the occupying
forces of a string of human rights abuses against Iraqi civilians, including
murder, torture, detention without trial, and inhumane treatment of
prisoners. The report highlighted the case of one 12-year-old boy who was
shot on June 26 by US soldiers conducting house-to-house searches whilst he
was making his bed. When neighbours tried to rush the boy to hospital they
were stopped by US troops. “The soldiers forced the neighbours to the
ground, and after 15mins ordered them to return home because the curfew had
started. [The boy] was already dead.” Hard to understand why Iraqis don’t
want them around, isn’t it?

Unlike some troops, Iraqis know that the US didn’t come looking for WMDs.
And they know that the US isn’t about to go until it’s got control of the
oil reserves, got a new base in the Middle East, and opened up Iraq to
foreign investment. But plans for a quick in‘n’out invasion have gone badly
wrong. As journalist Maria Tomchick puts it, according to the original war
plan, the Pentagon “expected the Iraqi military to refuse to fight, to
depose Saddam in a coup, and to maintain control of the security situation
in Iraq so US troops could waltz into Baghdad and set up a new government.”
In other words, Iraqis were going to be kept in line by the same bastards
who’ve been calling the shots for the past 30 years. But when war began
Baath party officials all over the country legged it, went into hiding, or
were killed by local residents who hated the regime. And the US/UK were left
to do their own dirty work.

The US can’t just leg it out of Iraq like it did when it fucked up in
Afghanistan. There’s too much at stake. George, Tony & Co. are going to keep
this one going for as long as they can. But as one Iraqi exile warned last
month “Some have claimed it is in the interest of the US to…stabilise the
region and create opportunities for US investment and reliable oil supplies.
[This] rosy scenario failed to take account of the views of the Iraqi people
and the history of their…struggles for freedom. The dawning of this reality
on the US administration helps to explain why the occupation forces are
increasingly resorting to terror tactics to subdue the Iraqi people.”

*Whilst US troops are wishing they could get out of Iraq, US corporations
are queuing up to get in. The Corporate Invasion of Iraq,
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=73, gives a detailed run down
of who gets what. SchNEWS favourites include Cheney-backed Halliburton, and
building firm Fluor Corporation, who allegedly hired security guards dressed
in KKK robes to terrorise black workers when they were contracting in
apartheid South Africa.

*Stephen Funk, a Marine Corps Reservist and conscientious objector, is
facing a 2 year sentence for refusing to fight. For info, or to support his
defence, see paydaynet.org.

More info: www.occupationwatch.org Recommended reading Weapons of Mass
Deception – the uses of propaganda in Bush’s war on Iraq
www.constablerobinson.com …& while yer at it SchNEWS Annual 2003 – Peace De
Resistance.

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CRAP ARREST OF THE WEEK

For chatting to friends
A 15 year old French girl fell victim to a new French law which makes
blocking the communal areas of apartment blocks illegal with a maximum two
months in jail or a 3,750 euro fine. The girl was handcuffed and taken to
the police station, where she was held for 17 hours. Youth worker Richard
Moyon complained. “They were only standing outside their home at midnight,
outside school hours.... that’s hardly a crime!”
http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3208—327416-,00.html

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SchNEWS in Brief

Want to get involved in some radical ecological direct action? Then get
along to the Earth First summer gathering happening on 13-17 August
somewhere in North Yorkshire. Costs £10 on the gate
www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk ** “It seems that more people spend their
Sundays in supermarkets than they do in Church. We live in a world where
worship of the product is more popular than religion.” Whirl-Mart is a
shopping awareness ritual where a group of whirlers gently invade a
cathedral of consumption (ASDA) armed with empty trolleys. If you wanna give
it a whirl then meet at Ye Olde Black Cross beer garden, Bromsgrove for
debriefing at 1pm sharp! www.breathingplanet.net/  **A tenant at Brighton’s
council run Horsdean Traveller site has been given 3 days notice to quit for
complaining once too often that the on-site toilet and shower block has been
broken for six months. Rather than fix the block, the council have decided
it would be easier, and presumably cheaper, to evict the tenant who is
recovering from a recent hip operation. Raise your objections with Pat
Foster at Brighton and Hove council 01273 290000. For more info call the
Sussex Traveller Action Group 07941 460866. **Indymedia Cinema presents
Necropolis Now! about urban redevelopment and gentrification next Thursday
(31) at The Other Cinema 11 Rupert Street, London W1 Tel: 020 7437 0757
(Piccadilly Circus tube) £5/£4 kicks off 9.30pm www.indymedia.org.uk **
Indymedia are also organising monthly screenings at The Spitz in
Spitalfields Market and setting up an independent media centre for the
global days of action against the massive arms fair happening in London this
September. http://www.dsei.org/ ** There’s a planning meeting next Tuesday
(29) for the London Reclaim The Streets street party planned to disrupt the
London arms fair. The meeting is at LARC, 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES
(Whitechapel tube) partyintheroad2003@yahoo.com ** Target racist right wing
rags who openly scapegoat refugees and asylum seekers for all of society’s
ills. Demo this Saturday (26) outside the Daily Mail, Derry St, next to High
St Kensington tube 12 noon 07951 493 232 www.worldrevolution.org.uk  ** Cuba
from an anarchist perspective’ talk and debate 8th August at the London
Anarchist Forum, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London (Holborn tube)  8pm
www.trak.to/laf  ** ‘All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the
Women of Afghanistan’ is a newly published book, and the author is asking if
anyone could help get the book published in other languages other than
English: rawa-ml@rawa.org  ** Volunteers are still needed for a summer work
camp, sponsored by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions from
August 8th-22nd in East Jerusalem. “We will build Beit Arabia (House of
Arabia – House of Peace) on the site of a house, which was demolished four
times for the lack of a building permit. The Centre will also be used for
educational and activist events relating to the Occupation and peace
building among Palestinians and Israelis.” 0207 700 6192
www.palestinecampaign.org **
For more party and protest dates check out the SchNEWS website.

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POSITIVE SchNEWS

Mention the words “school dinners” and many of us start reaching for the
sick bag or think of chips with everything, but one woman who works at St
Peter’s Primary school in Nottingham is changing all that.

Jeanette Orrey started providing school meals on site using as many organic
and locally produced ingredients as possible. And although ingredient costs
have doubled, the cost of a dinner has stayed the same thanks to cutting out
contract suppliers and bureaucracy. Soaring demand for school meals at St
Peter’s has also helped – 80% of the kids eat there now, compared to a
national average of 45%.
Dinner time has also taken on an educational role – kids designing menus and
learning about and the amount of pollution caused by food traveling
thousands of miles. Parents can now eat at the school any day and on
Wednesdays senior citizens are served by some of the older children who then
sit and eat with them. See:
http://www.eat-the-view.org.uk/pdf/Jeanette_Summary.pdf

* A new report ‘Good Food on the Public Plate’ by Sustain and East Anglia
Food Link says that buying local food for use in our school, hospital and
prison canteens would boost local economies by at least £5 billion. Copies:
020 7837 1228 www.sustainweb.org


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COCA-KILLER

“We ask Coca Cola to stop killing ... and you to stop drinking Coke”  Carlos
Julia, SINALTRAINAL, Colombia.

Tuesday saw the fizzy beginnings of a global boycott of Coca Cola In
Piccadilly Circus hundreds of people listened to speeches and danced to
samba beats while four ‘waitresses’ wiggled through the crowd offering
everyone (literally) bloody Coke drinks. Marta Hinestroza, a refugee lawyer
representing peasant farmers called for a boycott of Coca Cola products.
Earlier in the day Cardiff Anarchist Network took direct action against one
of the blood bottlers’ plants in north London. Protesters locked themselves
to lorries, and the plant’s gates, while others pressed emergency buttons to
stop the production line.  The protesters were detained but released after
Coca Cola decided not to press the charge of ‘conspiracy to commit burglary’
. One protester overheard Coke managers saying over the police radio that
£30,000 worth of output had been lost.

The aim of the boycott is to stop the violent repression that has seen the
assassination of eight Colombian Coca Cola workers in recent years.
Colombian food and drinks workers’ union SINALTRAINAL accuses Coca Cola of
working alongside paramilitary death squads to wipe out union activity in
its plants. The most glaring example of this was the Carepa plant in
Antioquia where 5 union members were assassinated between 1994 and 1996.

Since the US-backed Álvaro Uribe Vélez became president in August 2002, 92
trade unionists have been assassinated. 8,000 politically motivated
assassinations happen every year. The UN estimates that the state and
paramilitaries are responsible for more than 80% of them. The vast majority
of the victims are unarmed civilians; most often targeted are peasants,
human rights defenders, womens’ organisations, indigenous groups and trade
unionists. Peasants are murdered or moved off their land to make way for BP
pipelines. So how have the human rights defending UK / US governments
responded? Well Blair gave Uribe’s government a huge loan to continue his
fantastic policy of ‘democratic security’, while Bush has made Colombia the
world’s second biggest recipient of US military aid.

Faced with such bottled up repression SINALTRAINAL and families of
assassinated plant workers have taken Coke and its bottlers (Panamco and
Bebidas) to court in Columbia and the US. In March a US judge ruled that the
case for human rights violations can move forward, but strangely he removed
the Coca Cola Company from the court case.

While the case continues, SINALTRAINAL and its supporters have called for a
year long boycott of all Coke products until a number of demands have been
met, including an end to assassinations, that Coca Cola prints a memoriam of
the murdered workers on its labels and pays full reparations to the victims’
families. The union has also demanded that Coca Cola supports an annual
forum on human rights for workers in multinational companies. Predictably
Coke reckons the charges are “completely false” and are “a shameless effort”
for publicity. But in the words of one hard core, anti-soft drink activist
“There are a million and one shameless efforts we can make to publicise how
completely false Coke’s claims are.”

See: www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk and www.caja.org/coke/

** Meanwhile, in India, communities near a Coca Cola plant are facing severe
water shortages and pollution. Of course, Coke denies they’re nicking local’
s water insisting that the charges are false and that the company is the
“target of a handful of extremist protesters.” Unfortunately for Coke, all
the surrounding communities seem to have fairly large handfuls of extremist
protesters that are taking direct action in their thousands against the
blood bottlers. See: http://www.corpwatchindia.org/

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KREMINAL

This week the Kremlin’s human rights envoy, Abdul-Khakim Sultygov, accused
NGOs of  “terrorist activities…, psychological war and propaganda and moral
terror”. The crimes? Revealing the Russian military’s abuses of Chechens.
Sultygov went on to say that “pseudo-NGOs” are “misleading international
opinion…by skilfully combining truth, semi-truth and blatant lies” in an
attempt “to justify terrorist methods through certain political ideas”. Eh?
According to Anna Neistat, director of Human Rights Watch in Moscow, there
is no evidence of any links between human rights organisations and
terrorism. That may be true but that doesn’t stop NGOs being guilty of moral
terrorism in Sultygov’s eyes. These NGOs have the cheek to support Chechens
struggling for freedom against the might of the Russian army. Then these
bleeding heart NGOs have the nerve to publicise the struggle of these
Chechen ‘terrorists’ with woolly liberal political ideas such as ‘freedom’.
So, yes, the NGOs are guilty of terrorising the morals of poor Russians with
images of massacred Chechens.

Those silly liberal NGOs should try and emulate the upstanding Kremlin who
aren’t petty moral terrorists but successful state terrorists. They don’t
just terrorise people’s morals they massacre entire villages. The Kremlin
claims that the war in Chechnya is coming to an end but crime and violence
still plague the republic and Chechens say that Russian forces commit
murder, rape and other abuses. Those fluffy human rights groups continue to
speak out for Chechens but since Putin repackaged the conflict as part of
the global “war on terror” the West has stopped listening (see SchNEWS 379).

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...and finally...

Don’t drink Pepsi if you work for Coca-Cola. Rick Bronson, a driver at a
Coca-Cola bottling plant in California found this out when he dared to
attempt to consume a rival drink. He wasn’t aware that he was being watched
by his bosses. A spokesman declined to comment on Bronson’s case and wouldn’
t say whether drinking a rival company’s products was a disciplinary
offence. Despite this Rick was apparently fired for drinking Pepsi but
insists that he didn’t swallow.

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DISCLAIMER
SchNEWS fanx everyone for last night’s book launch on a flood of tears and
booze. We’re off to gather at the Big Green so no issue next week. Honest.

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NEW BOOK!!!! PEACE DE RESISTANCE IS NOW OUT. It costs £10 INC. p&p per book,
further details as below...

SchNEWS Of The World - issues 301-350 for £6!! Past books are goin' cheap...
SchNEWSround issues 51-100 - SOLD OUT; SchNEWS annual issues 101-150 - going
for £2!! Survival Handbook issues 151-200 - also at £2; SchQUALL issues
201-250 - almost sold out - £6; Yearbook 2001 issues 251-300 - bargain £3.
Add £1.70 p&p for each book, cheques to Justice? Honest!

In addition to 50 issues of SchNEWS, each book contains articles,
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etc. You can also order the books from a bookshop or library.

Subscribe to SchNEWS: Send 1st Class stamps (e.g. 10 for next 9 issues)or
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