Friday, August 30, 2013

Colombia: protests and clashes reach the capital Bogotá

The National Strike initiated by farmers and miners in Colombia has finally reached that islet of relative calm that is the capital Bogotá, as well as Cali and Medellín. 



Thousands marched through the streets peacefully yesterday... until hell broke loose. Clashes left many injured, police shot live fire.

The reaction of President Santos has been to militarize the city. Curfews are already active in several towns but this really looks like a Turkish uprising more and more, particularly as the government has very little legitimacy in a country shattered by decades of civil war and when it is clearly guilty of massacring protesters and not respecting the most basic human rights. 

The seriousness of the popular uprising can be gauged by the fact that Santos had to acknowledge for the first time that the farm sector has been abandoned.  

However he and his ministers appealed to the ghost of the guerrilla, whom they call "terrorists", in order to demonize and divide the protesters. 



But the real issue, the real terrorism is the brutal reality of Capitalist accumulation:
"My purchase power is zero, it's only enough to survive," said Orlando Pamo, 50, an indigenous father of six from central Tolima province who earns less than the minimum wage farming citrus and other fruits. "The government wants us off the land so it can be given to big business. We don't get the benefits companies get."




Sources: Reuters, NBC (photo gallery), Euronews (video), BBC, Webguerrillero[es] (photo gallery and video). 


Update: nice synthetic and musicalized video of the protests (comments in Spanish only but mostly images from the demos and some of the repression):

Former NSA analyst: the intelligence services rule the USA, "this is a police state"

This is a most interesting video interview with former NSA analyst Russel Tice (military, conservative but still outraged).



Some key points:
  • The whole political, business classes and even the Supreme Court is being spied on. Even Barack Obama and Gral. Petraeus used to be.
  • In his time it was VP Richard Cheney who was directing this shadowy business (of course).
  • The upper echelon of the "intelligence community" rules the USA in practical terms.
  • Direct comparison with Orwell's totalitarian dystopia: everything is being watched, everyone. 

The direct source for me of this video is an article by Gaius Publius at Naked Capitalism. He pinpoints Gral. Keith Brian Alexander, Director General of the NSA, as a key person of megalomaniac character. He's probably not the only one with a say but these seem limited to a very few top-tier spies and billionaires. As Publius puts it:
Do we send every cop in an Occupy city to join the spook state in a national one-day takedown? With a Yes from every full-blown billionaire and each junior-mint Keith Alexander, Obama couldn’t stop it if he wanted to.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Italy: two immigrants shot in Naples in Nazi terrorist spate

Two African immigrants, one from Senegal and the other from Nigeria, were shot by car-riding snippers in Naples. The attackers remain at large.

Unlike the media are styling this is not any "game" and there is absolutely no "justification" in unemployment or whatever: it is Nazism and it is the work of a serial murderer or murderers with racist motivation. 

Nigerian Henry Kwasu was injured and recovers at hospital, while Senegalese S. B. C. managed to escape his attackers.

In 2005 and 2008 the local mafia murdered several immigrants with the self-declared pretext of "warning" colored drug-dealers. However the victims all seem to have been innocent workers. 

Source: Repubblica[it].


Basque Country: Nazi French hooligans attack us

Nazi followers of the Lyon football team made attacks in Donostia (San Sebastian) prior to the match with the local team Real Sociedad. Notably they attempted to cause harm at Urka Mendi tavern and broke some city infrastructure. Police then appeared in great numbers and escorted them to the field (instead of arresting and charging them, as would be logical, punishing them at least without football). 

Some of the French Nazis

Instead, in a fight at the Londres Hotel, in which a French citizen was injured, the aggressors (presumably locals) were arrested.

Sources: Berria[eu] (incl. video; also: photo gallery), Noticias de Navarra[es].

USA: nonviolent resistance against immigrant deportations

Hundreds of activists of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition and United We Dream surrounded deportation facilities in the state capital Phoenix. Six activists sat before the deportation bus for hours until the expulsion was halted. 


The authorities arrested two, paperless Mexican-American José Patiño and UWD leader Ray José. After a long night of uninterrupted phone calls from the citizenry they were both released.

Patiño stated upon his liberation:
I am doing this because I am so fed up with people playing games with our lives," said Ray Jose. "My mom and my dad are getting tired. My dad cannot do physical labor any more. It is for the sake of my family, who sacrificed so much for me, that I am ready to do this".
Hours earlier four other DREAM activists were arrested after chaining themselves to the ICE complex. They are Yadira García, Francisco Luna, María Castro and Alejandra Sánchez. 

The essential content of these protests is anti-apartheid:
We cannot accept any legislative proposal that would amplify the pain our communities have been subjected to for decades while blocking our families from a path to citizenship," said Cristina Jiménez, Managing Director of United We Dream. "Terrorizing our communities or creating a permanent underclass is un-American and unacceptable".

The civil disobedience organizations describe themselves as follows:
The Arizona Dream Act Coalition is the largest immigrant youth led organization in the state of Arizona. Our mission is to have a nation full of educated and integrated immigrant youth. We are an affiliate of the United We Dream Network.

United We Dream is the first and largest immigrant youth-led network in the nation with 51 affiliate organizations in 25 states that organize and advocate for the dignity and fair treatment of immigrant youth and families, regardless of immigration status. UWD's current priority is to win citizenship for the entire undocumented community and end senseless abuses and deportations.

Source: Kasama.

Argentina: anti-fracking protests in Neuquén

Thousands protested before the Neuquén Parliament against fracking concessions to Chevron. As usual police attacked the citizens in defense of capitalist interests. Several were injured. 


Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

USA: Bush administration on trial for crimes against humankind

Well, they may be: it depends on the guts of the tribunal. From Global Research:
Plaintiff Sundus Shaker Saleh, an Iraqi single mother and refugee now living in Jordan, filed a complaint in March 2013 in San Francisco federal court alleging that the planning and waging of the war constituted a “crime of aggression” against Iraq, a legal theory that was used by the Nuremberg Tribunal to convict Nazi war criminals after World War II.
(...)
In her lawsuit, Saleh alleges that:
– Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz began planning the Iraq War in 1998 through their involvement with the “Project for the New American Century,” a Washington DC non-profit that advocated for the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
– Once they came to power, Saleh alleges that Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz convinced other Bush officials to invade Iraq by using 9/11 as an excuse to mislead and scare the American public into supporting a war.
– Finally, she claims that the United States failed to obtain United Nations approval prior to the invasion, rendering the invasion illegal and an act of impermissible aggression.
The US Government has asked for immunity for the accused (George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz) on the grounds that the war falls within the legal scope of their jobs.

If so, it seems formally critical to prove that they had planned the war long before being appointed as such public officers.

Of course, We The People know that they are guilty, no matter what tribunals may say.

Japan: Governmente takes over Fukushima Daiichi disaster (mis-)management

As soon as they arrived they blamed "human errors" for the systemic problem of massive radioactive water seeping into the Pacific Ocean. It does not seem on first sight like they are going to do any better. 

The attitude of the Japanese Government so far has been disastrous, rejecting to evacuate the most contaminated areas (particularly most of Fukushima Prefecture, whose radiation levels are extremely hight, but in general all North Honsu) and campaigning in favor of absurd new myths like "radiation is good" and in general the attitude of pretend and extend. 

This may be just another step in their overall strategy of not facing the facts. Even in the best case they are already more than two years late.

Sources: Ex-SKF, Simply Info.

Honduras: three Tolupans murdered by miner mafias

Three persons of the Tolupa nation were murdered by hitmen at the service of illegal miners, foresters and constructors on August 25th at Locomapa (Yoro).

Ricardo Soto Fúnez, María Enriqueta Matute y Armando Fúnez Medina took part in a road blockade in defense of their ancestral territory.

Already in June the Tolupas denounced forester industrial Kenton Landa Úcles for the introduction of heavy machinery in the Tolupa forest.

In a similar incident, considering the total subservience of the state institutions to capitalist expoliation, soldiers murdered the member of the Lenca nation Tomas García on July 15th. 

Source: LINyM[es].


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Colombia: video-compilation of police brutality (national farmer strike)

Beatings, shootings, invasion of private homes, destruction of property and documents... not Attila but the Colombian riot police.



Many testimonies require understanding some Spanish but many other images are self-explainatory.

Syria: Lavrov warns of imminent NATO attack

Dismissing the claims of Damascus using chemical weapons as unfounded and extremely unlikely (because Assad does not need them to win a war that is almost over), Russia Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov warned that it looks like the USA and allies (France, UK, etc.) are already determined to intervene in Syria with whatever pretext. 

Source: Bloomberg.

Colombia: police kills another farmer

Juan Camilo Acosta Acosta was killed by a gas canister thrown directly against his chest by the Colombian riot police (ESMAD) in the village of Fusagasugá (Boyacá department). 

When his comrades attempted to collect the body, the police impeded it, charging again with more tear gas and stunning bombs. The citizenry then concentrated in the local park but they were almost enclosed by the police. A massacre is feared. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Paraguay: special powers to use the army cause social alarm

Paraguay is in imminent danger of return to outright fascism, as the newly elect President, Horacio Cartes, managed to pass a law that allows him to use the Army arbitrarily, even against the civilian population, which is now held perpetually suspect as "alleged terrorists". This law is similar to the one that granted fascist dictator Alfredo Stroessner absolute power, but even Stroessner did not act so fast in his consolidation as totalitarian ruler. 

Source: LINyM[es].

Spain: major retailer corporation El Corte Inglés lead again by a Fascist

El Corte Inglés is a very large and particularly infamous Spanish corporation that, shamelessly and with total impunity, practices extreme anti-worker policies and persecutes all kind of union activity among its employees. It was of course one of the companies who imported clothes from the Bangladesh factory that collapsed earlier this year. Pretty much like the local version of Wal Mart but even worse if that is possible. 

In order not to be singled out in the media, El Corte Inglés regularly contracts LOTS of publicity, making the media heavily dependent on this brand and effectively unwilling to criticize the mafioso corporation. 

Their sees are usually a central battle in all general strikes, as pickets attempt to force the corporation to guarantee their workers the right to strike, while police serves the interests of the capitalists.

It was founded under Fascism by a client of the Franco dictatorship, Isidoro Álvarez, and it seems it continues under openly fascist control. The new Director General of the all-powerful corporation, Dimas Rodrigo Gimeno Álvarez, has been in the lists of Falange (the classical Fascist party in Spain) in at least three occasions: 1996 and 2000 at state level and also in 1999 in Catalonia. 

While he denies to be affiliated to Falange, his father and brother are. His father, Miguel Ángel Gimeno married the daughter of the El Corte Inglés' magnate, being therefore grandson of Isidoro Álvarez. Álvarez was of course a prominent member of Falange in the dark age of Francoism. 

So essentially: El Corte Inglés = Fascism... today as yesterday. Boycott El Corte Inglés. 

Source: El Diario[es].

Monday, August 26, 2013

Philippines: massive demo in Manila against corruption

At least 50,000 Filipinos marched through Manila against government corruption. 



Recently it was found that several politicians pocketed a good deal of the public money destined to regional development by means of fictitious projects.

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Colombia: major protest in Tunja against repression

A pot-banging demonstration took the city of Tunja (Boyacá, Central Colombia) in protest for the disdain and brutal repression that President Santos is adopting against the General Strike, already a week long. 

They demand a comprehensive agrarian policy that takes in account the small farmers, as well as a stop to repression. 


Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Palestine struggle this week

As per Ilan Against the Wall:


Palestine-Israel, The History wheels turn faster and scream as the blood is not oiling enough the axes*


The turmoil in our region express the melting of the world history as we knew it. It accelerate before it reach its end as the axes of the old order can not hold it any more. The Zionist settler colonialist bridge head of the developed imperial countries in the cradle of human culture at the east of the Mediterranean sea is eroded by the resistance of the indigenous inhabitants which recruit supporters all over the world. The cracks in the neoliberal global capitalism which seemed to reach the ultimate victory just few years ago when the end of history was declared... point to the real end of the history of the egoistic and alienated class society. In the day to day struggle here, it is still hard to discern the cracks in the structure of the system, but you can already smell it in the clouds of tear gas of weekly demos and feel the ground tremor under your feet.

Weekly Non-Violent Protests in #Palestine, August 23, 2013
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.580131042033718.1073741871.251098394936986

"Bil'in, West Bank, Palestine

In the wake of the recent massive wave of arrests of Palestinian activists, it is vital that we continue to resist against the Israeli occupation. Last 17th February had marked the eighth anniversary of the weekly non-violent protests against the construction of the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in.

Bil’in has become a symbol of the power of non-violent grassroots movements in building local and international resistance to Occupation [started 10 years ago in the joint camp of Mas'ha**]. After six years of continuous resistance, Bil’in succeeded in regaining a part of its seized land. But the struggle is not over as long as Palestinians have not recovered all their legitimate rights.
The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee and the Bil'in Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements will hold the 8th International Conference for Popular Struggle from Wednesday 2nd to Friday 4th October 2013.

We kindly invite you to participate in our conference on grassroots popular resistance.

The aims of the conference are:

To show internationals real life examples of the struggles and suffering of Palestinians;

To extend the popular non-violent struggle;

To strengthen the relationship with the international solidarity movements and to find new ways to support and empower the popular struggle

More details and program will be communicated soon.

Follow us: https://www.facebook.com/PopularStruggle"

Friday

Four injured and a field of olive trees burnt by Israeli Forces’ munitions
Three Palestinians and a foreign journalist were wounded alongside with dozens suffering of severe suffocation after the Israeli forces attacked the weekly march against settlement and the apartheid wall in Bil’in.

The march began after Friday prayers from the center of the village towards the Apartheid wall. We were about dozen Israelis with the anarchists against the wall, about two dozen internationals, and dozens of Bil'iners. Participants raised Palestinian flags and chanted slogans calling for national unity against the occupation and the release of all Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli soldiers immediately fired sound bombs, rubber bullets and tear gas at participants when they arrived on the liberated land near the wall. Rubber bullets injured Ashraf al-Khatib (33) in his stomach, Kefah Mansour (32) in his thigh, Mohammed Hamad (22) in his right hand, and a Chinese journalist in his leg. In addition, dozens of peace activists suffocated from inhaling tear gas.
Soldiers opened the gate to chase and assaulted demonstrators in the olive groves. Due to the massive use of tear gas and sound bombs a fire broke out and burnt a large field of olive trees.

The Popular Committee against the Wall and settlements in Bil'in invited all Palestinians and political parties to participate in the march next Friday, the 30th August, in the village in solidarity with prisoners in Israeli jails.

the photo of Rani in the weekly demonstration in Bil'in ...it will tell the whole story of Bil'in struggle 23.08.2013
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=604451819599517

Fires as a result of heavy firing gas in Bil'in weekly demonstration
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=604448632933169


Nabi Saleh

As today's demonstration marched to the spring, Israeli Occupation Forces opened fire with teargas, rubber coated steel bullets and skunk. Several people suffocated from teargas and at least one person has been injured from rubber steel bullet in the arm. IOF have also detained and beaten a Palestinian photojournalist.

Israel Puterman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWmsrPOZxWg
David Reeb http://youtu.be/UqsS9Oj78o4

Qadum

"Dear friends

Even the mosques aren’t safe from the tear gas bombs

Today it was very strong and hard march nearly 50 soldiers attack kufr Qadum at 11am shooting many tear gas and sound bombs.

Tow were shoot directly by bombs one in his hand caused cut wound and the other in his back.

The most important and dangers case that the soldiers who were on the mountain shot bombs targeted the mosque which we pray before the march causing many suffocated cases between prayers of course you know that a lot of old men and children were in the mosque.

After braying we gathered ourselves again and go for the usual march but the army suppress us and shot nearly 300 hundred tear gas and sound bombs.

The wounded are:

Mashhoor jomaa 42 in his hand

Mohammad shtaiwi 24 in his back"

Report: Israeli army firing tear gas into the mosque during prayer time, before the demonstration
Full report and pictures at"http://palsolidarity.org/2013/08/photo-report-israeli-forces-shoot-teargas-into-mosque-suffocating-hundreds-before-start-of-kafr-qaddum-demonstration
https://www.facebook.com/younes.arar/media_set?set=a.10152147040505760.1073741928.531065759

Yotam https://www.facebook.com/alona.cohen.1238/media_set?set=a.689896394358477.1073741857.100000143680183
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1pBvnjQXQI

---------------------------------------

Don’t say we didn’t know #375

Yet again, the “Judea and Samaria” police have confiscated water tankers belonging to Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills region.

On Wednesday, 14th August, 2013 one lorry was confiscated, and on Friday night another one. In total, ten water tankers have been confiscated in recent weeks. In addition, the Civil Administration, IDF and police have demanded that filling water from reservoirs can only take place between 09:00 and 15:00; they have threatened that tankers will be impounded and the filling points closed down. Until now, water operations have been carried out 24 hours a day, to satisfy the demand. The new orders raise concern that tens of thousands of residents will suffer from thirst. Each confiscation entails payment of thousands of shekels in fines, posting of a deposit before trial, as well as payment for removal and storage of the lorry.

At the entrance of Kiryat Arba industrial zone, a tap is operated by settlers selling water to Palestinian carriers at almost three times the normal price. No restrictions there…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

On Wednesday, 14th August, 2013, government representatives, escorted by police forces, arrived in Bedouin localities in the Negev to demolish homes. In the township of Kseifeh, three homes and a commercial premises were demolished, in Umm Batin a home was destroyed. The following day they demolished two homes in Abu Qrinat, then they went on to demolish El’Araqib once again.


Questions & queries: amosg@shefayim.org.il

========================================================

* From my blog at: http://ilanisagainstwalls.blogspot.com
See at the blog previous reports about the joint struggles the Anarchists Against the Wall take part in. See also: http://ilan.shalif.com/anarchy/glimpses/glimpses.html http://awalls.org

** The Idea of the joint Israeli Palestinian camp was initiated half year before at a workshop on the struggle in our region in the Leiden 2002 conference of the European People Global Action - in which participated 15 Israeli anarchists and radical activists, with activists of the region and supporters.

The ever-growing surplus value

I'm borrowing here a graph appeared at Naked Capitalism (data for the USA but it could be anywhere):

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Worker-Productivity-Annual-Wage-Compensation.png 

The implications are obvious: capitalists have been taking an ever growing share of the produced wealth since c. 1972. Previously, in what some have described as the period of "generous capitalism" (caused by the Cold War and fear of socialist revolutions) surplus value (the share of production appropriated by capitalists as manager class of the economy) was more or less stable, but since the 1970s it has grown steadily up to more than double, while real wages have remained stable. 

Wages are the share of production kept by producers, workers. But beware: salaries have remained stable but the share of wealth retained by producers has declined very sharply. 

This is how Capitalism works normally in fact. Marx explained it in Das Kapital with the example of the pin factory, in which vast improvements in technology and organization of production (~ productivity) led only to loss of jobs, not any improvement to the conditions of workers but exactly the opposite. 

Only radical and global class struggle caused a parenthesis in this natural tendency of Capitalism: the post-war decades of relatively shared affluence, which marked a generation that is now dying out.

But for all other generations of workers this is just the normal. And that is why Communism is extremely necessary and urgent.

Syria: reasons to think that the chemical attack is a false flag attack

Translated and synthesized from Webguerrillero[es]:
  • The videos of the purported attacks were online 24 hrs. before these allegedly happened.
  • Many of the images used are from Iraq or the clashes in Egypt.
  • Some of the bodies recorded are seen in various places, possibly to make the number appear greater.
  • The children affected do not show symptoms of asphyxia nor convulsions and nobody takes care of them. It's very likely that they are Kurdish children kidnapped days earlier by the Islamists.
  • The Islamist acknowledged in social media to have chemical weapons.
  • Those pretending to be medics do not use masks, what would be a serious risk for their lives if actual chemical weapons were involved.
  • Turkey, Iran and Syria have shown repeated evidence of the Islamist having chemical weapons. They have also displayed all kind of contempt for life, including murdering children and even cannibalism.
  • The Syrian Army has found Saudi chemical weapons' containers in the outskirts of Damascus.
  • It is very suspicious that the alleged attack happened precisely when a UN observer team was about to arrive.
  • The area where the alleged attack took place has been depopulated of civilians since months ago.

Egypt: did Morsi lose the support of the Army for his plans to attack Syria and Ethiopia?

That's what Press TV and some other media say, echoing an analysis issued first by the Washington Post.
The combination of Morsi’s aggressive designs against Syria, together with some trial balloons from presidential circles about a possible conflict with Ethiopia, plus the massive anti-Morsi demonstrations organized by the National Salvation Front and the Tamarod movement, convinced military leaders that the incompetent and erratic Morsi, who had destroyed his own popularity by selling out to the demands of the International Monetary Fund last November, represented an intolerable risk for Egypt.

According to the Washington Post, the dissatisfaction of the Egyptian military with Morsi “peaked in June, when Morsi stood by twice as officials around him called for Egyptian aggression against Ethiopia and Syria, threatening to suck Egypt into conflicts that it could ill afford, former military officials said.” 

Regarding Ethiopia:
In the spring of this year, tensions rose between Egypt and Ethiopia when the government in Addis Ababa announced its intention to build a dam on the Blue Nile, prompting concerns by some in Egypt about future water supplies downstream. On June 2, with Morsi in attendance, Islamist politicians recklessly discussed how to sabotage the dam by funding Ethiopian rebel groups, followed by an attack by the Egyptian air force. Unknown to the participants, this incendiary discussion was broadcast on live television. Many were long to see that Morsi did not repudiate these proposals for naked aggression, but instead later commented that “all options are open.” 

Of course these would be at most just elements of a more complex scenario in which the disgraced President threw himself, his movement and all Egypt by repeatedly bowing to Washington, Tel Aviv and the IMF.

Bolivia: prisoners riot: "crime is not punished, poverty is"

In another example of the very limited progress achieved by the Bolivarian governments of Latin America, whose model is in essence developist socialdemocracy, Bolivian prisoners have risen up against a regime that punishes the poor and is getting worse by means of punishments that disperse the inmates the system wants to punish (not necessarily those deserving punishment). 


Bolivian prisons rise up

 

“When a prison riot starts, even those who accept the rules of society are roused by the noble temptation of freedom; when the ceilings of the prisons are pulled off by fire or rebels, we throw their hands off our shoulders and identify the enemy.”

Editor’s note: In their zeal, these words have no intention of victimizing the prisoners of the Bolivian State, but rather simply describing events that took place in the jails here. The echoes of our anarchist will reach those living confined in the State’s cold slave pens.

Mass riots in Bolivian jails began a year ago, calling for the resignation of Ramiro Llanos, the director of the penal system; demanding an end to delays of justice, “humane” treatment, and transportation to hearings. Foreign prisoners demanded to be sent to their countries of origin, and everyone demands an increase to the daily expenses that feed each individual [prediario]. Added to the protests is the unfulfilled agreement signed in February 2013 between the prisoners in San Pedro (La Paz) and the penal system, which brought a recess and a suspension of the riots, giving a period of three months for compliance with all of the agreed-upon points. Ramiro Llanos denied knowledge of this document, and to this day the prisoners’ demands have not been met.

The State plans to apply new rules on the penal system that fix harsher conditions for prisoners as well as visitors. They are ordering the systematic transfer of prisoners from San Pedro to other panopticon-style prisons far from the city of La Paz. They plan on not receiving new prisoners beginning on July 17th, and have announced the closure of this prison as a repressive measure against the constant protests that have arisen in the La Paz penitentiary. The riots are frequent, and the State intents to break them up through the transfer of prisoners to more distant jails. The transfer of the San Pedro inmates [that oftentimes live with their families on the inside] will cause more isolation due to the distance of the prisons where they are to be sent; this will mean that their families will have even more difficulty visiting them, since 80% of the prisoners and their families are poor.

Summary of the 2013 riots

On January 17th Llanos (director of the penal system) was taken hostage by the prisoners in San Pedro as a response to the constant threats to move them to other prisons if they mobilize or make demands. The repressive forces confronted the prisoners to rescue him. Llanos saved himself thanks to a few prisoner delegates, who prevented him from being strung up. Protests were unleashed as prisoners resisted the plan for 39 minors from the Calahuma Center for Youth Rehabilitation to be transferred to San Pedro in La Paz. After that day, Llanos no longer had the guts to reenter that combative prison. During the whole month, the prison was in a state of mutiny and riot, with all nine sections taking over all of the jail buildings. Flames were seen on the roofs and yards.

On this latest 10th of June, prisoners in the territory began new uprisings and protests, condemning the fact that only four of every hundred preliminary injunction hearings take place, while the rest are suspended. The principal slogan was a call for the resignation of Llanos. The State’s intention is to close the San Pedro prison, sending the convicts to the “Chonchoro” maximum security prison, and those less than 25 years of age to the Calahuma Center for Youth Rehabilitation, and the preventive prisoners to jails in Patacamaya and Sica Sica, hundreds of kilometers from the city of La Paz, as a reprisal and punishment for the fact that this prison has been in a state of emergency since 2012, demanding the director’s resignation.

Beginning on June 24th, simultaneous protests were initiated in the jails of El Abra in the city of Cochabamba and San Pedro in the city of Oruro. They demanded that their water and electrical services not be cut, as the State had not paid the bills.

On June 26th, the reaction in the Chonchocoro maximum security prison did not wait long after the announcement that prisoners from San Pedro would be transferred there.

On July 2nd, the Chonchocoro and Calahuma prisons protested and announced that they would be in a state of alert, facing the possible transfer of inmates from another prison, which would cause overcrowding in both facilities.
We hope for unity and solidarity among prisoners in Bolivian territory, and that they don’t let the State divide them by “sectional negotiations” (turning one group against the other), as it has frequently done to end riots.

Poverty is punished with prison 

“Crime is not punished, but poverty is.” (Words of an elder in the San Pedro prison)

In the prisons here, the majority of the population is poor. Nevertheless, the wealthier can live more comfortably, because cash rules. The poor have to survive miserable conditions, sickness, and destitution. For example, in the jail of San Pedro in La Paz the maintenance of cells, infrastructure, recreational space, the kitchen, cleaning materials, medications, and other goods are self-directed by the prisoners themselves. The State has knowledge of this context, but in its insensitivity and contempt toward the poor, it forces them to pay for their stint in prison with their own resources.

It is the poor who feel the harsh impact of prison society, both those in the hands of a judge who will determine whether or not they go to jail, and the preventive prisoners who must show that they have an established family, a home, personal guarantors, or an economic guarantee or job. All of these factors diminish one’s ability to move to house arrest. Thus, the question is: Are all prisoners in an economic position to benefit from this? The permanence of a poor majority in prisons is continually perpetuated, and for them the penal system is even harsher, with scarce opportunities to get out. The maximum period of preventive detention is 36 months. In Bolivian prisons, there are preventive detainees who have been in for more than three years without being sentenced (in some cases five or eight years). This cruel setting causes intentional overcrowding in prisons, and ensures that they are filled with the poor. The State is going to implement one more condition for release into house arrest: If a prisoner wants to get out, they must buy an anklet with a GPS chip at a cost of $4,000. This will only benefit those who have the ability to pay the cost. For those without means, there is only the hope that one day they will be able to get out. There are many older prisoners, and many with medical conditions, who request a move to house arrest; with the pardon law passed on December 24th, 2012, very few walked free. There is no adequate medical care or efficient method for medical leave, even in cases of emergency treatment. While bureaucratic paperwork slows everything down, the result of this inefficiency is that individuals’ health continues to deteriorate, and in many cases prisoners die from lack of medication or medical attention. Additionally, after being imprisoned it is difficult to find a job with a prior criminal record. This is all permitted by the State’s indifference.

In the maximum security prison of Chonchocoro, located in Viacha, there is no potable water; they have only one well to provide their water, which is still not potable.

Life in prisons in Bolivia is determined by one’s economic status. The majority have to work at whatever they can to survive and pay for their housing, bed, blanket, medication, and other goods. Among prisoners, food and clothing is bought and sold, and everything is a commodity. Prison makes visible the misery of an authoritarian society that chooses who to protect and who to leave in the dungeon.

 

The complicity of Press and Power

The role of yellow, sensationalist journalism is to adjust “information” to state versions, causing prisoners to be seen with disdain, and causing a broader “societal” rejection for them.

To this day, the penal establishment has diverted attention in other directions thanks to collaborationist coverage from the Press. As well, they have claimed that there was a supposed child rape in San Pedro, and that there is a drug lab inside the La Paz prison; these facts were made up by Llanos, but were refuted by the prisoners.

The State has succeeded in minimizing and smearing the prison riots through yellow journalists, as well as the frequent threats to send the prisoner representatives to other prisons, as they have them identified. The servile role of the disinformation media packages all of this to create an unfavorable situation for the prisoners. In San Pedro, they agreed voluntarily to the removal of children older than 11, and on July 8th they met again with state representatives and agreed to include all children older than 6 years of age.

Repudiation of rapists

In the Palma Sola jail, in the city of Santa Cruz de La Sierra, it came out that minors had been sexually abused. These deeds are detestable, and we repudiate them. Lamentably, this happens not only in Bolivian prisons where children live, but also in schools, churches, shelters, and orphanages, while these same spaces are also prisons by other names. Ramiro Llanos, director of the penal system, used these detestable acts to generalize about all prisoners, and take advantage of “public opinion.” Among the San Pedro prisoners, a collective agreement to prohibit the entrance of inmates who had committed rape emerged as another means of struggle. From the posters that remain on the walls and door of the prison, they do not simply call for Llanos to resign, but call for the prison population to reject rapists.

The State’s well known repressive strategy is the division, infiltration, intimidation, and punishment to make an example of individuals; thus the government is able to weaken, divide, and break up movements through negotiations per prison section. The increase in conditions of control and surveillance in the penal system are part of the maintenance of bourgeois society. It is thought that prison is the solution for “citizen security” or to reduce “delinquency.” Through this paradigm the State’s only real intention is to protect privileges and maintain the interests of the rich. This background undeniably shows us, for example, that some steal to eat, while others infringe on the law in order to avoid complicity with the impositions of this decadent society. Prisons in Bolivia, as in the world as a whole, reflect this society on a small scale; they are small cities wherein the imperfections of the system we live in are made visible: There are the privileged, the poor, those who serve as snitches for the police or administrators of “justice.” There are drugs and alcohol in prisons because the same administrators and police want these small worlds to rot with vice and sicknesses. Thus, as Power secures the privileges of the State/Capital, it shows its disdain for the poor and those who struggle against it.

Anarchist solidarity is extended to those who suffer punishment, those who do not bend to norms, those who survive in any way they can while the powerful exploit and destroy the earth. This is a humble call to struggle for a different world than the one that they have imposed on us.

Fight against the State with all your strength; the constant wait for a generalized mass revolt is a truly utopian desire that only perpetuates, strengthens, and assures the enemy’s continued existence. Move to the offensive, conspire, act; there is no reason to wait for the masses to rise, or for the appropriate conditions. While we are waiting, authority, repression, surveillance, and punishment are extended ever stronger against the poor and those who have decided to take the offensive. Attack loving that which you dream and feel inside, and hating society’s penury.

We do not forget our comrades who are locked up in the hateful enemy’s dungeons. Neither do we forget those who have decided to flee, showing their rejections of state persecution in a society that is falling apart and needs prisons to keep us scared and allow itself to continue. To our comrades: our sincerest greetings, laden with anarchist complicity.

Towards a community of free association and informal organization, without prisons, State, or Capital.

Fire to the prisons, fire to authority, solidarity with the prisoners in Bolivian territory!

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Uruguay protests against the forgetfulness of Mujica

The authors of a massacre in 1994 against those supporting Basque exiles remain not just at large but with power to commit again any such massacre or worse. Hundreds demonstrated in Montevideo against such impunity, demanding justice and memory.



Roberto Facal and Fernando Morrone were the victims of a massacre executed by police in 1994 to break the resistance of some 4000 Uruguayans against the extradition of Basque exiles, who were in hunger strike at Hospital Filtro. At least 500 police officers took part in the attack, using nothing but live fire. 

Not just demonstrators were killed or injured but also nurses like Esteban Massa who was shot in the back while he aided another victim. 

The murderous repression continued mercilessly in union offices and through the neighboring streets. It was then when the two mortal victims were shot. 


It was a bourgeois elected government which assumed all responsibility with no shame nor remorse. Minister of Interior Gianola was backed by the government in full, nobody resigned, nobody was ever prosecuted. 

Every year in the anniversary of the massacre people march through Montevideo demanding justice and memory. The Frente Amplio ignores the issue and one of its leaders even said it was a massacre "to forget". 

Forget? Never! Forgive? Never! The culprits must pay or something of the like will happen again. 

Source: Borroka Garaia Da![es]

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Marx as "Anarchist"

Or almost. Maybe more like modern Autonomists.

The Commune publishes today a very interesting article by David Adams questioning in depth the notion of Marxism, or more precisely Marx' own thought, as authoritarian and statist, being in fact quite different from the Leninist model (as well as from the Socialdemocratic or Bersteinian one).

A key excerpt on the dictatorship of Proletariat as being nothing but radical grassroots democracy:
A little-known text by Marx, his 1874 “Notes on Bakunin’s Book Statehood and Anarchy,” explains the concept of proletarian dictatorship more clearly than any other. In his book Bakunin ridicules Marx’s concept of the transitional state power of the proletarian dictatorship, and Marx critically responds in his “Notes.”  Bakunin writes, “If there is a state, then there is domination and consequent slavery. A state without slavery, open or camouflaged, is inconceivable-that is why we are enemies of the state. What does it mean, ‘the proletariat raised to a governing class?’”26 Marx responds, “It means that the proletariat, instead of fighting in individual instances against the economically privileged classes, has gained sufficient strength and organisation to use general means of coercion in its struggle against them; but it can only make use of such economic means as abolish its own character as wage labourer and hence as a class; when its victory is complete, its rule too is therefore at an end, since its class character will have disappeared.”27 The claim that through revolution the proletariat will be “raised to a governing class” thus has nothing to do with creating a dictatorship of a political sect, but is rather a claim that the proletariat will use “general means of coercion” to undercut the bourgeoisie’s power (by abolishing the private ownership of the means of production, disbanding the standing army, and so forth). It is the entire proletariat that is to exercise this power.  Bakunin asks, “Will all 40 million [German workers] be members of the government?”28 Marx responds, “Certainly! For the system starts with the self-government of the communities.”29

Can there be a more Anarchist statement? Or rather we may want to describe it as genuine Communism. 

Another excerpt: Leninism as Blanquism:

Blanqui, for example, advocated an educative dictatorship of a small group of revolutionaries. Marx’s use of the word “dictatorship” in the phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat,” however, is original and deliberately distinct from Blanqui’s usage. Engels emphasizes this point in a passage on Blanqui: “From the fact that Blanqui conceives of every revolution as the coup de main of a small revolutionary minority, what follows of itself is the necessity of dictatorship after it’s success-the dictatorship, please note, not of the entire revolutionary class, the proletariat, but of the small number of those who made the coup de main and who themselves are organized beforehand under the dictatorship of one person or a few. One can see that Blanqui is a revolutionary of the previous generation.”37 It is clear that the Leninist model of a particular sect or political party exercising political power is much closer to the Blanquist conception of “dictatorship” than to Marx’s (...)

Much of the divergence between Anarchists and Marx seems merely semantic: the use of the word "state" (polity):
For Marx, this form of power can be a “state” from the perspective of its political, coercive function of uprooting the foundations of the rule of capital. It cannot be a “state” in the sense of a “parasitic excrescence” usurping power from the mass of workers.50

Again much closer to Kropotkin or Durruti than to Lenin, never mind Stalin.
Marx saw the mandated and revocable delegates of the Commune as an example of working class state power in action.

Mandated and revocable delegates? Isn't that precisely what Anarchists propose?

So what do Marx and Engels mean by "state" and "class dictatorship"? In the words of Richard N. Hunt:
The full-time army as parasite disappeared, but the part-time National Guard remained as the coercive instrument of the workers’ state. Here in sharpest focus one can perceive Marx and Engels’ double usage: the parasite state is to be smashed immediately; the state as instrument of class coercion is to remain until the need for it fades away.

A people's militia under popular command, it seems.

The criticism of bourgeois "democracy" and state is persistent and merciless, and Engels charged against the USA as archetype of this separation between society and state by means of ritual and pointless elections:
Nowhere do “politicians” form a more separate and powerful section of the nation than precisely in North America. . . . It is precisely in America that we see best how there takes place this process of the state power making itself independent in relation to society, whose mere instrument it was originally intended to be. Here there exists no dynasty, no nobility, no standing army, beyond the few men keeping watch on the Indians, no bureaucracy with permanent posts or the right to pensions. And nevertheless we find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends-and the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality dominate and plunder it.

Naturally, although many have forgotten, the term Communism itself derives from commune (municipality or local government in French and other languages) and very specifically from the 1871 Paris Commune.

In this pioneering communist "state", not just the army became part of the people in full but the whole state did by suppressing the bureaucracy and getting managers to be paid common workers' salaries and be under the command of the People directly. Totally different to what happened in the Soviet Union.

Marx did not live to see the Russian Revolution but he witnessed the beginnings of the rise of what is now the Socialdemocracy, especially in France and Germany. It was then when he famously declared "I am not a Marxist myself". He was very critical of Lassalle and his socialdemocratic or proto-Keynesian ideas of building socialism from above by means of state loans and other nonsense. 

One of the key issues is democratic centralism, centralization or central planning. In this certainly Marx and Bakunin were very much at odds:
While Bakunin was a sworn enemy of all political and economic centralization, Marx had a very different perspective, but one that was in no way more “authoritarian”: “National centralization of the means of production will become the natural basis of a society composed of associations of free and equal producers, carrying on the social business on a common and rational plan.”70 Marx thought that both centralism (a common plan) and democratic control from below were necessary for building socialism.

Read the original article, "Karl Marx and the State", at The Commune.

Colombia: generalized uprising and brutal police repression

The local (much less the international) media is not reporting on the farmer strike, much less the brutal repression taking place against this uprising, every day more generalized. However the information is leaking via the Internet, including many striking videos, for example:



They do not just repress but also steal food and other produce to farmers:



Source and more videos: Webguerrillero[es].

Friday, August 23, 2013

Syria: is chemical weapon massacre totally false? - Updated

Last time that Damascus was accused by the West of using chemical weapons against civilians it ended up being the Islamist guerrillas and not the government. This time it seems it's just a total farce. Watch this video please:



Among other elements suggesting farce is this photo, which has been used several times to "document" various massacres:

IMAGE REMOVED BC OF NATO CENSORSHIP PRETENDING "VIRUSES"


It is not the first time it happens: in the past images borrowed from Iraq massacres have been used also to "document" alleged massacres in Syria. Recently I had to watch how a "corpse" (Egyptian context) suddenly "came back to life" to kick off a person who was ispecting too much and found no injury under the bandage.

Source: Webguerrillero[es].


Update: Islamist close to Al Qaeda admits that they have chemical weapons. Video that shows apparently Islamists preparing a farce massacre scene.

Webguerrillero[es] reports, citing Syrian sources, that Abdolá al-Jaledi, an Islamist guerrilla close to Al Qaeda reported in his twitter account that they do have chemical weapons indeed. He wrote at the account @abo_almonthir:
Wouldn't it be for the confidentiality of the information, I would reveal who was the warrior, who built the said chemical weapons.
Syrian press has also spread two telephone calls that apparently show the implication of Islamists in chemical warfare.

The same newsblog posts this video showing what are apparently Islamists preparing a "massacre scene" for the international media (CNN+ and Al Jazeera, they say specifically - in Arabic):



It is said that they uploaded the video online accidentally had soon it was known to all.

USA: yet another alert at Hanford nuclear site: 4 workers sent to hospital

Yet another mysterious and dangerous alert was issued today at Hanford nuclear site, where hundreds of obsolete and ill-managed tanks full of nuclear material are being... done something (nobody really knows: some sort of patching and relocation).

Four workers were hospitalized with radiation damage, parts of the site got the scary order of "take cover", 1500 mSv/hr were reported... 

Source: EneNews (citing several news outlets).

Fukushima: water reservoir under plant is much bigger, much more contaminated

From ABC (via EneNews):

Deep beneath Fukushima's crippled nuclear power station, a massive underground reservoir of contaminated water that began spilling from the plant's reactors after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami has been creeping slowly toward the Pacific.

Now, 2 1/2 years later, experts fear it is about to reach the ocean and greatly worsen what is fast becoming a new crisis at Fukushima: the inability to contain vast quantities of radioactive water.

The looming crisis is potentially far greater than the discovery earlier this week of a leak from a tank that stores contaminated water used to cool the reactor cores. That 300-ton (80,000-gallon) leak is the fifth and most serious from a tank since the March 2011 disaster, when three of the plant's reactors melted down after a huge earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant's power and cooling functions.

But experts believe the underground seepage from the reactor and turbine building area is much bigger and possibly more radioactive, confronting the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., with an invisible, chronic problem and few viable solutions. Many also believe it is another example of how TEPCO has repeatedly failed to acknowledge problems that it could almost certainly have foreseen — and taken action to mitigate before they got out of control.

(... continues).


Regardless. What is clear is that you can't put gates to the sea, or in general to the flow of water (and air) through the planet. Each time a nuclear plant is built a huge danger is created because, among other reasons, there's always water nearby (they need it in huge amounts for the plant to work) and while in inland waters this is a huge problem hard to control, at the seaside it is simply total madness because the water table is in direct contact with the sea and almost indistinct from it. 

There's no good solution for Fukushima, which is totally unmanageable and off the scale - other than evacuating all North Honsu (and probably also all the Pacific coast of North America, where the vast majority of all radiation goes to). What we can still do is to struggle to close all other nuclear plants and impede that new ones are opened.

However we face the annoying issue of nuclear weapons (the real reason behind nuclear energy) being too desirable for every power-mongerer. So we have to work even further and harder into subverting the social relations of power radically if we really expect to ever solve this suicidal process of nukes and their terrible and long term consequences.

Note: I'm in general letting the media to speak out on Fukushima for a change. You will excuse me for partly ignoring the stream of news that is almost drowning us these days, however, except minor details, this is about the same I (and even more so specialist bloggers) have been telling since March 2011. So I'd suggest that if you're interested in the detail of the latest developments to follow now (as before) the specialized Fukushima blogs. Here the info will be (sadly) rather sparse because, you know, the World is so big and I'm so small in comparison... that I can't dedicate my time to every single piece of news.

Greece: police raids two social centers in Athens University

From Form the Greek Streets:

Police raids the historical Athens polytecnic campus in exarcheia, five detained

This morning the police raided the historical Athens polytechnic campus. The two self-organized spaces inside the campus got raided and five people were detained (among them 3 immigrants from whom 1 will be deported).  The rest of the detained were released few hours later.

Source in Greek
https://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1486866

Original entry includes a police video of the raids.

Palestinians defy ethnic cleansing with Galilee camp

From Electronic Intifada:


“This return is permanent” — refugees’ grandchildren defy Israel with Galilee camp


22 August 2013

Man picks up bar amid tents with Palestine flag and landscape in background
Iqrit village was depopulated and destroyed in 1951 but its youth vow to return.
(Ahmad Al-Bazz / ActiveStills)

Young people with family connections to Iqrit, an ethnically-cleansed village in the Galilee, assembled recently for a week-long “camp of return.”

According to organizers, more than 200 participants between eight and eighteen years old registered and attended the camp in Iqrit, which was destroyed by Israel’s military in 1951.


The village’s vibrant green hills — situated in the northern Galilee region of present-day Israel and hugging the boundary with Lebanon — are dotted with campers’ tents and the decaying rubble of demolished homes.


The “Camp of Return” has been held annually since 1996. For many years, its participants left Iqrit after only a week. Activists have, however, now decided to complement the annual camp with a constant presence in the village.

The camp was “a major success this year,” Nizar Ashkar, a 25-year-old Palestinian activist splitting his time between Jaffa and Iqrit, told The Electronic Intifada.


Over the past few years, campaigners have decided to take increasingly direct action towards realizing the right of return for Palestinian refugees and internally displaced Palestinians who were forced from their land and historic communities in present-day Israel.


In August 2012, approximately two dozen internally displaced youth from Iqrit, deciding Israel will never deliver justice on its own, took matters into their own hands and returned to their ancestral village.


According to Ashkar, “It was the first camp after the youth from the village decided to implement the right of return. It was a special camp in many ways, and so many people have learned about Iqrit in just a year.”


The camp was not limited to Iqrit’s refugees and their descendants: Palestinians from across present-day Israel, Jewish Israelis, and a handful of West Bank Palestinians who were able to obtain permits came to visit the camp throughout the week.

... continue reading at EI.

Egypt: repression against Tamarrod begins

As former dictator Hosni Mubarak was set free in spite of the many charges still standing against them, the Tamarrod movement began calling for demonstrations against such atrocity, a clear sign of the return to Mubarakism by the hand of the military junta. 

State attorneys Mahmud Badr, Mohamed Abdel Aziz and Hassan Chahin are instigating accusations against the popular movement, who have called for protests against the ridiculous acquittal and liberation of the dictator in spite of all his violations against human rights and democracy. 

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

USA: amnesty calls begin as soon as Manning is sentenced to 35 years

Whistleblower Bradley Manning was sentenced today by an opaque military court to 35 years of prison.

As soon as the sentence was known, the Bradley Manning Support Campaign began a signature collection to ask the President for a pardon. Meanwhile Amnesty International asked Obama to commute the sentence to time served. They say:
Instead of fighting tooth and nail to lock him up for several decades, the US government should turn its attention to investigating and delivering justice for the serious human rights abuses committed by its officials in the name of countering terror.

USA: Michael Hasting's strange death autopsy released

It can be read at Los Angeles Times.




It is very apparent from the data that Hastings was already dead prior to the suspiciously extreme fire, most unusual for a car, that followed the accident:
The bronchi and pulmonary arteries are intact and empty.

(...)

The carbon monoxide level was below 10 volumes percent, indicating
that the decedent did not inhale the products of combustion,
consistent with an instantaneous death.

There are a number of antemortem fractures in right limbs and chest (these deadly) that suggest that he was killed by the impact almost instantly. Of these there is one that seems a bit strange to me: fracture of the right horn of the hyoid bone. 

Per Wikipedia:
Due to its position, the hyoid bone is not susceptible to easy fracture. In a suspected case of murder, a fractured hyoid strongly indicates throttling or strangulation.

However I do not feel qualified enough to judge this injury. The fact that it is only the right horn of the bone is consistent with all the limb fractures pertaining to the right side of the body, so maybe it was caused by the frontal crash itself (hitting the wheel with the neck?) but I would like a qualified opinion anyhow.


No airbag

What the autopsy does not mention is that, obviously, the safety belt and airbag did not enter in play. While using the safety belt is obviously up to the driver, the airbag should have been activated automatically, very especially in a frontal collision as was this one. 

So for some odd reason the airbag did not work. 

The right limb fractures have been reported as consistent with impact to the sole of the right foot, what seems to mean that he was actively using that foot to either speed up or trying to activate the breaks, most likely the latter.

Obviously the car is also in need of an autopsy: no breaks and no airbag are extremely suspicious and consistent with the hypothesis of electronic hacking.

The fact that Hastings' car was traveling at roughly the legal speed of 35 mph and then suddenly sped up just before the accident (see original report by San Diego 6 News) is consistent with the hypothesis of hacking, which is clearly no fantasy, as this video illustrates. 

A hacker could disable the breaks and airbag, speed up the car from 35 mph caught in the security video to the more than 100 mph that it was estimated to have at the time of the accident and even steer the wheel to hit that palm right in time. 

It is less clear how the fire could be triggered so easily. Alcohol bottles were reported by the autopsy some 15 feet (less than five meters) north of the crash but it is not clear if they were related to it in any way. 

The autoignition temperature of gasoline is 246–280 °C and the deposit is usually far from the engine (which in this case was found many meters away from the crash - how?), in the rear of the car. The chances of a car burning by a mere crash are extremely low (unlike what happens in Hollywood's action movies), as was demonstrated by the popular Mythbuster show several times.

So sincerely, I'd ask for a car autopsy.