Philippines: New People’s Army carries out military operation in self-defense during ceasefire

During the ceasefire, the Philippine Army is continuing its counter-insurgency operations against the New People's Army and its strong base of political and military support among the people

Posted on Maoist Revolution, December 17, 2010

Press Release: Information Bureau, Communist Party of the Philippines

No treachery, truce violation in NPA ambush of operating Philippine Army troops in Samar

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today declared that “there was neither treachery nor a violation of the 19-day ceasefire declared by the CPP and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP),” when the New People’s Army (NPA) successfully carried out on December 14 an ambush against the operating troops of the Philippine Army’s 803rd Brigade in Las Navas, Northern Samar.

According to initial reports, the Red fighters were able to seize at least 10 high-powered firearms from the defeated Philippine Army unit.

“The CPP, NPA, NDFP and all revolutionary forces fully support the peace negotiations and faithfully abide by their declarations and commitments, including their December 16 to January 3 ceasefire declaration, simultaneous with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) ceasefire.”

As far as the CPP, NPA, NDFP and revolutionary forces are concerned, the Samar ambush last Tuesday should not in any way affect the progress of the peace negotiations. It was a legitimate act of war, carried-out in self-defense in response to an active enemy offensive operation,” the CPP said.

“On the other hand, the AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines] spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mabanta’s claim of NPA treachery is hypocritical and turns on its head. In fact, it was the AFP forces that had treacherous intent in carrying out offensive operations against the NPA and the revolutionary mass base in the area just two days before the start of the simultaneous ceasefire.”

Petition to Obama: WE WANT YOU OUT! Time to listen to the people of Afghanistan!

Commander-in-Chief Obama delivering a speech aimed at "keeping hope alive" among demoralized American foot-soldiers

Global Day of Listening – “We want you out” petition

To all the leaders of our world, the leaders of the US-led coalition, the Afghan government, the ‘Taliban/Al-Qaeda’ and  regional countries:

We are intolerably angry.

All our senses are hurting.

Our women, our men and yes shame on you, our children are grieving.

Your Afghan civilian-military strategy is a murderous stench we smell, see, hear and breathe.

President Obama, and all the elite players and people of the world, why?

America’s 250-million-dollar annual communications budget just to scream propaganda on this war of perceptions, with its nauseating rhetoric mimicked by Osama and other warlords, is powerless before the silent wailing of every anaemic mother.

We will no longer be passive prey to your disrespectful systems of oligarchic, plutocratic war against the people.

Your systems feed the rich and powerful. They are glaringly un-equal, they do not listen, do not think and worst, they do not care.

We choose not to gluttonize with you. We choose not to be trained by you. We choose not to be pawned by you.

We henceforth refuse every weapon you kill us with, every dollar you bait us with and every lie you manipulate us with.

We are not beasts.

We are Afghans, Americans, Europeans, Asians and global citizens.

Sunday, December 19: Global Day of Listening to Afghans

http://www.thepeoplesjourney.org/

Inspired by the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and Afghans For Peace, this GLOBAL DAY of LISTENING will allow everyone to listen to the stories told by the Afghan People of what it is like to live now in Afghanistan.

Anyone interested in talking with those gathered in Kabul and Bamiyan may now request a time to speak during this Day of Listening.  You may listen at any time via conference call-in or Skype (see details below).

The Purpose of the day-long teleconference is for LISTENING:

1. To the PEOPLE : to ordinary Afghans, to ordinary internationals, including others from war-torn countries, and to world public opinion.

2. To the PAIN (anger, grief, disappointment) of the people :

– the world’s public whose opinion is swinging against the Afghan War

– the pro-war people who have their concerns, with the understanding that most Afghans are now anti-war.

3. To the People’s Afghanistan December Review

–The Afghan people know the expected military outcome of the Obama administration’s Afghanistan December Review.

–Afghans want those willing to LISTEN to hear the Afghan People’s Review.

CIA station chief pulled from Pakistan after lawsuit blows his cover

CIA-controlled Predator drones have killed thousands of civilians in Pakistan in over 100 attacks this year

Associated Press, December 17, 2010

WASHINGTON — The CIA has pulled its top spy out of Pakistan after terrorists threatened to kill him, current and former U.S. officials said, an unusual move for the U.S. and a complication on the front lines of the fight against al-Qaida.

The CIA station chief was in transit Thursday after a Pakistani lawsuit earlier this month accused him of killing civilians in missile strikes. The lawsuit listed a name for the station chief, but The Associated Press has learned the name is not correct. The AP is not publishing the station chief’s name because he remains undercover and his name is classified.

CIA airstrikes from unmanned aircraft have killed terrorist leaders but have led to accusations in Pakistan that the strikes kill innocent people. The U.S. does not acknowledge the missile strikes, but there have been more than 100 such attacks this year — more than double the amount in 2009.

The lawsuit blew the American spy’s cover, leading to threats against him and forcing the U.S. to call him home, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

India: Women’s groups denounce official coverup of rapes and murders of two young women

Sent to Frontlines by Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS), Delhi

WOMEN’S GROUPS FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, GIFT THE CBI MORE SHEETS FOR THEIR NEXT COVER-UPS!

DEMAND: IMMEDIATE RE-OPENING OF CASE OF DOUBLE RAPE AND MURDER IN SHOPIAN, JUSTICE AGAINST CBI COVER-UP!

13 December 2010 marks one year of the report filed by the CBI [Central Bureau of Investigation] on the double rape and murder of two young women, Asiya and Neelofar in Shopian. A report that blatantly covers-up the crime, acquits responsible officials and indicts those who dared to speak out against the injustice.

Tired of trying to seek justice against through the usual channels, about 100 women and men from women’s groups, students’ groups, and democratic rights groups as well as concerned individuals gathered near the CBI Headquarters in Delhi today to gift the CBI some more bedsheets for their next cover-ups.

Peppered with signatures and messages like GIFT FOR YOUR NEXT COVER-UP!  CBI INVESTIGATE YOURSELF!  JUSTICE FOR ASIYA AND NEELOFAR!  COVER-UP BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION NOT CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION!, each sheet was a reminder that from Delhi to Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu to Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh that the voices demanding justice in Shopian are still rising.

Father of Neelofar - Sayed Abdul Hai participates in the Protest

Also in the gathering was the father of Neelofar – Sayed Abdul Hai, her husband – Shakeel Ahmed and her three year old son – Suzain who had come all the way from Shopian to express their anger and frustration with the ‘findings’ of the CBI.

The delegation met with the Director of the CBI, Mr Singh, and gifted him scores of bedsheets with hundreds of endorsements from all over the country demanding a fresh investigation into the case!  The Director, while accepting our sheets, the memorandum, critiques and the report of the Independent Women’s Initiative for Justice, said he would look into the matter but refused to give a timeframe in which he would do so.

The Women against Sexual Violence and State repression (WSS), is committed to following up the case and is demanding a reply from the CBI within a month.

Puerto Rico: Student strike intensifies, public education and civil rights at stake

Scene from UPR student strike in spring 2010

by Maritza Stanchich, Ph.D, Associate Professor of English, University of Puerto Rico

Coincident with massive, at times explosive, student protests in Rome and London, University of Puerto Rico has again become a flashpoint with a student strike beginning Tuesday that turned the main campus into a militarized zone of police, riot squads, and SWAT teams, complete with low-flying helicopters and snipers. What began as a conflict over a steep student fee hike is now seen as a larger struggle to preserve public education against privatization.

Resistance to the imposed $800 student fee has triggered repressive state measures: police have occupied the main campus for the first time in 31 years and Monday the local Supreme Court, recently stacked by the pro-Statehood political party in power, outlawed student strikes and campus protests. More than 500 students defied the ruling by demonstrating on campus Tuesday, brandishing the slogan “They fear us because we don’t fear them” (“Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo”).

This current strike revisits accords to negotiate the $800 fee, which in June ended a two-month shut down of 10 of 11 UPR campuses, as UPR faces a $240 million budget shortfall precipitated by the state not honoring its own debt to the institution.

Civil rights groups have declared a state of high alert in the wake of disturbances last week and statements by leading public officials seen as creating a hostile climate that inhibits free speech rights. In response, about 15,000 UPR supporters marched on Sunday from San Juan’s Capitol building to La Fortaleza governor’s mansion, under a balmy bright blue tropical sky in this U.S. Territory of about four million U.S citizens, though little known to most Americans beyond being a tourist destination.

Nepal: More background on intense inner-party struggle over the way forward for Nepal’s revolution

[This article refers to the principal leaders of the UCPN(Maoist) and its most important meetings since 2005. For the benefit of non-S0uth Asian readers: Pushpa Kemal Dahal “Prachanda” is the Chairman of the UCPN(Maoist), and Mohan Baidya “Kiran”  is a vice-chairman. Baburam Bhattarai has occupied several different positions in recent years. The Palungar Meeting of 7,000 party leaders was concluded on November 28. The Chunwang Meeting was held in 2005, which laid the basis for the 12 Point Understanding between 7 parliamentary parties and the UCPN(Maoist) in early 2006. They cooperated during the mass uprisings in the spring of 2006 that toppled the monarchy. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended the people’s war and gave legal status to the UCPN(M) was signed in November 2007. The Karipati Meeting was held in 2009.–Frontlines ed]

Palungtar is just the beginning

by Dr. Rishi Raj Baral, Chief Editor of Samaybadda

The sixth plenum of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has formally concluded but the ideological debate continues. In fact, it has just started. There were many questions to be resolved at the plenum and this meeting has raised some new questions as well.

Debates and discussions are not new things. There used to be sharp debates even when the ‘People’s War’ was on after the Second National Conference of Party of 2002, the issue of debate was ´Prachanda Path´ and ´Democracy in the 21st Century´.

The article by Baburam Bhattarai, “The Question of Building a New Type of State” – originally published in The Worker, a Maoist mouthpiece, in February 2004 – was the subject of heavy criticism. It was necessary to criticize the article because it was pleading for a revisionist line.

The party decision taken during the Chunwang Meeting gave birth to many confusions and illusions. Reevaluation of Mao’s and Lenin´s views on state and revolution and imperialism was the main issue of debate. Besides this, the ´12-Point Understanding´ was also an issue of debate as it raised many questions about the People’s War and the continuation of revolution.

Cops who beat Martin Cotton to death to face family members in Oakland, California courtroom

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/12/09/18666183.php    12/14/10

by Redwood Curtain CopWatch

Martin Cotton and his daughter Siehna

Martin Cotton II was living houseless and unarmed on August 9th, 2007, when he was severely abused by police, and brought to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility. At the jail, he was further attacked by guards, and left to die on the floor of a cell.

Eureka police brutally beat Martin in front of many people, mostly men staying at the Eureka Rescue Mission. The last part of the fatal beating occurred behind locked doors in the jail, with some of it caught on video.

On Monday, January 10th, a federal civil rights trial, brought on behalf of Martin Cotton’s baby daughter, Siehna Cotton, and by Martin’s father, Marty Cotton, will begin in Oakland: Siehna Cotton et al. v. Eureka Police Dept. and Humboldt County Sheriff’s Dept.

Members of Redwood Curtain CopWatch say, “While we can have little to no faith in the court system to be an arbiter of justice, we want to fill the courtroom throughout the trial. The presence of people opposed to state violence and murder is important for a jury to see, is critical support for the Cotton family and vulnerable witnesses, and in many ways can teach us more about the system we are up against.”

The US Left and Obama-Trauma

The Left and Obama-Trauma

 

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

Now that self-proclaimed progressives have passed the point of disenchantment with Barack Obama and entered the stage of active anger at their once-imagined ally, they should quickly take the next step and acknowledge that he is what we at Black Agenda Report have been saying for six years: a right-wing Democrat who has long been aligned with the corporate Democratic Leadership Conference, and whose mission is to expand U.S. empire and put the American state at the service of Wall Street. He has been remarkably successful in both endeavors.

Of necessity, these strategic goals require Obama to wage war against the left hemisphere of his own Party, the main obstacle, in the absence of effective grassroots progressive movements, to forging a grand coalition with Republicans. The president, whom deluded Progressives for Obama hallucinated might become the kind of “transformative” leader that would galvanize Left constituencies into a ready-mix, shake-and-bake “movement,” also sees himself as a transformative figure, but of the opposite kind.

He presented his candidacy as the antidote to what he described during the Nevada presidential primary as the “excesses” of the Sixties and Seventies. His reverence for Ronald Reagan is genuine. Indeed, if Obama were not Black, and if his supporters had not been busy getting drunk in a wishing-well, he would have been widely recognized as a stylistically updated Reagan Democrat.

As soon as Obama’s candidacy was pronounced “viable” by the high priests of corporate media he became a figure of historical significance, a walking, talking racial “breakthrough.” African Americans saw the possibility of a brand new day – and so did Obama, although his vision was much closer to that of those whites who have tired of – or, more likely, always resented – Black demands for redress of grievances, past and present.

Anyone that listened to Obama’s actual words (rather than the voices in their own heads) would have quickly realized that he is ideologically opposed to all manifestations of independent Black politics, much less notions of Black self-determination. The Black Agenda Report team understood instantly, halfway through Obama’s coming-out speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, that the words “there is no Black America…there is only the United States of America” meant that Obama was the Anti-Black whose ascent would bring about the worst political crisis in Black America since at least the days of Booker T. Washington.

Obama and Clinton, the Evil Twins

Posted on Black Agenda Report, 12/14/2010

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

The two corporate political twins, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, held forth at a joint White House press conference – so tightly matched that no light could be seen to shine between them. Obama soon ceded the room to his comrade in collaboration with Republicans, the senior triangulator.

Although competitors, Obama and Clinton “emerged from the same political system, and fed at the trough of the same wealthy individuals and corporate campaign check bundlers.”

It is rare for the corruption of the American political system to be revealed openly and clearly, but that is exactly what took place at a White House press briefing last week. The sight of the current president ceding the spotlight to a former president and one time rival was indeed unique, but its significance was not mere theater.

The 2008 election, which pitted Barack Obama against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, was despite the sound and fury, a fight amongst political twins. The Clinton/Obama press conference proved that beyond a doubt.

When Obama made common cause with Republicans and renewed tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country, he made it clear where his sympathies lie, and they are not with the plight of working people. The tax capitulation was blatant and the president made his situation worse by openly insulting any Democrats who dared to question him.

Barack Obama’s ability to get unqualified support from Democratic progressives is officially toast, and his dependence on Bill Clinton to get him out of the doghouse is proof. His high handed and dismissive behavior of Democratic critics was the last straw for many people who had previously been his defenders.

Georgia prison inmate strike enters new phase: Prisoners demand human rights, education, wages for work

Black Agenda Report, 12/15/2010  (http://blackagendareport.com)

By Bruce A. Dixon

In Georgia, like every other state in the U.S., you’re never far from a prison facility. (See map at BAR Site)

The historic strike of Georgia prisoners, demanding wages for their labor, educational opportunities, adequate health care and nutrition, and better conditions is entering a new phase.

Strikers remain firm in their demands for full human rights, though after several days many have emerged from their cells, if only to take hot showers and hot food. Many of these, however, are still refusing their involuntary and unpaid work assignments.

A group that includes relatives, friends and a broad range of supporters of the prisoners on the outside has emerged. They are seeking to sit down with Georgia correctional officials this week to discuss how some of the just demands of inmates can begin to be implemented.

Initially, Georgia-based representatives of this coalition supporting the prisoner demands included the Georgia NAACP, the Nation of Islam, the National Association for Radical Prison Reform, the Green Party of Georgia, and the Ordinary Peoples Society among others. Civil rights attorneys, ministers, community organizations and other prisoner advocates are also joining the group which calls itself the Concerned Coalition to Protect Prisoner Rights.

Prisoners have stood up for themselves, and the communities they came from are lining up to support them. Today, at a ground breaking for a private prison 300 miles southeast of Atlanta in Millen GA, residents of that local community opposed to the private prison are greeting the governor and corrections brass with a protest.

They will be joined by dozens more coming in from Atlanta who will respectfully urge state authorities to talk to the prisoners. We understand that one person there has been arrested. Black Agenda Report will have photos and footage of that event on Thursday.

Greece: Strikes halt public transport, more to follow as unions rail against labor shake-ups

Public and private sector workers on strike in November.

The Associated Press, December 14, 2010

ATHENS, Greece – Escalating strikes halted public transport and caused traffic jams in Athens on Tuesday, as lawmakers prepared to vote on far-reaching labor reforms demanded as part of Greece’s euro 110 billion ($146 billion) rescue loan package.

Commuters carpooled and used taxis to get to work as the 24-hour strike stopped all state-run urban transport services. The action also came before a general strike Wednesday that will probably close schools, disrupt services, and ground all flights.

The labor reforms includes fresh pay cuts, salary caps and involuntary staff transfers at state companies. They will also reduce unions’ collective bargaining powers in the private sector, where employers will be able to substantially reduce salaries. Unions and opposition parties oppose the reforms, which left-wing parties claim will take labor relations “back to the Middle Ages.”

But the governing Socialists cite the need to turn around loss-making public corporations while saving private sector jobs by allowing struggling businesses to cut costs. “Right now, there is just chaos and anarchy in labor relations,” Prime Minister George Papandreou said. “There is no kind of protection.” “We want to keep firms afloat and prevent layoffs,” he said.

Finance Minister George Papanconstantinou said the measures were timed to meet negotiating deadlines with European countries and the International Monetary Fund, which are providing the bailout loans. “These are indeed historic moments,” he told parliament.

Philippines: US-backed Aquino government continues repression and fascism of previous regime

[Explanations in brackets have been added for the benefit of non-Filipino readers.]

http://www.philippinerevolution.net, 10/12/2010

 

Kuligligs are motorized pedicabs that have become increasingly popular in the big cities. Kuligig operators in Manila fought the government’s recent order to ban kuligigs from much of the city streets. On the morning of December 1, 2010, 700 kuligligs and 2000 drivers took to Lawton Plaza in Manila to take a stand for themselves. In an effort to disperse the thousands in protest, police sprayed them with fire hoses and then violently assaulted the drivers.

The Aquino government continues the fascist legacy of the US-Arroyo regime

Jorge “Ka Oris” Madlos, Spokesperson National Democratic Front of the Philippines-Mindanao

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines in Mindanao (NDFP-Mindanao) unites with the entire Filipino nation in commemorating International Human Rights Day and remembering all activists and masses — martyrs and heroes of our time — who have fallen victims to the gravest abuses against human rights perpetrated by fascist agents and running dogs of previous and current reactionary regimes. We also join the whole Filipino people and the international community in voicing our strongest condemnation, and demand for justice to all the victims.

As we mark this day with indignation and protests, the NDFP -Mindanao, together with all revolutionary forces, strives to intensify people’s struggle to put an end to social inequity and repression that spawn grave violations against civil and political rights. The people’s struggle for basic human rights also include the right to basic necessities, such as decent food, shelter and clothing; freedom from fear; and the right to enjoy an atmosphere of peace.

Even UN Raporteur on Human Rights Philip Alston said that the reactionary bourgeois state, through its mercenary AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines], PNP [Philippine National Police], paramilitary forces and the so-called private armies, is the biggest human rights violator in the Philippines.

The Israeli state’s war on children: 1,500 arrested in a year

East Jerusalem: Palestinian youths throw stones at Israeli occupation forces for third day in September 2010. 18 stone throwers were arrested for commiting “acts of violence.”

Counterpunch, December 13, 2010

by Jonathan Cook

Israeli police have been criticised over their treatment of hundreds of Palestinian children, some as young as seven, arrested and interrogated on suspicion of stone-throwing in East Jerusalem.

In the past year, criminal investigations have been opened against more than 1,200 Palestinian minors in Jerusalem on stone-throwing charges, according to police statistics gathered by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).

That was nearly twice the number of children arrested last year in the much larger Palestinian territory of the West Bank.

Most of the arrests have occurred in the Silwan district, close to Jerusalem’s Old City, where 350 extremist Jewish settlers have set up several heavily guarded illegal enclaves among 50,000 Palestinian residents.

Late last month, in a sign of growing anger at the arrests, a large crowd in Silwan was reported to have prevented police from arresting Adam Rishek, a seven-year-old accused of stone-throwing. His parents later filed a complaint claiming he had been beaten by the officers.

Women’s movement in Haiti is building and creating community

From the SF Bay View–National Black Newspaper, December 14, 2010   http://www.sfbayview.org

by Sokari Ekine

Rea Dol, director and founder of SOPUDEP, receives an impromtu hug from a passing student. – Photo: Lucas Oleniuk, Toronto Star

Thousands of words have been written about Haiti in the past 12 months covering everything from the NGOization of the country, the politics of humanitarian aid, endless questions and discussion on what happened to the millions of dollars donated by individuals and countries, the horrendous conditions in the camps, where some 1.2 million internally displaced people are forced to live and, particularly for women and children, hundreds of whom have been raped, trafficked to the Dominican Republic and forced into prostitution to survive.

In addition to the earthquake, Haitians have had to live through another devastating hurricane and now cholera, which as of today has affected 30,000 people.

And to add to the frustration and anger, an election, which by all independent accounts was fraudulent and farcical. There have been continuous protests since the elections on Nov. 28 and if one is to judge from the many radio phone-ins, people are angry and concerned that the much hated Preval will announce his preferred candidate, Jude Celestine, as the new leader. This despite the fact that so far the majority votes appear to be for Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly and Madame Mirlande Manigat – but all of this can change in a moment.

Nonetheless, for women activists and the masses of poor women who struggle on so many fronts, feeding and educating their children, eking out a living wherever possible, protecting themselves from cholera and searching for clean water, the elections are a distraction. From the women I spoke with, there was no single candidate they felt would in reality make a difference to their lives.