Communists win  final Election Act victory, nominate 34 candidates (The following article is from the June 1-15/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) The Communist Party of Canada has won a final and complete victory in its 11-year legal battle over undemocratic sections of the Elections Act originally passed by Parliament by the Mulroney Tories in 1993. The end of this struggle came in mid-May, when the Governor General gave royal assent to legislation which lowers the "threshold" level for political parties from 50 to one. The new regulations have been implemented more quickly by Elections Canada than expected, allowing parties to nominate a minimum of one candidate in the June 28 election to obtain full registered status. While the CPC had been prepared to run over 50 candidates if necessary, this change allows it to scale back to 34 active campaigns. This includes 6 in Quebec, 10 in Ontario, 8 in Manitoba, 2 in Alberta, and 8 in British Columbia. About one-third of the candidates are current or former trade union activists, reflecting the CPC's working class base. Ten of the nominees are "youth candidates," active in the newly reorganized Young Communist League or other youth movements and issues. Eleven are women, and four are of aboriginal origin. Two candidates in particular will be active in the large South Asian communities in their ridings - Gurdev Singh Mattu in Brampton Springdale (Ontario), and Nazir Rizvi in Newton-North Delta (B.C.). QUEBEC Andre Parizeau - PAPINEAU Nilda Vargas - SAINT-LAURENT - CARTIERVILLE Kenneth Higham - ROSEMONT - LA PETITE-PATRIE Dominique Theberge - LOUIS-SAINT-LAURENT Christophe Vaillancourt - LEVIS-BELLECHASSE Pierre Bibeau - HOCHELAGA ONTARIO Miguel Figueroa - BEACHES-EAST YORK Dorothy Sauras - SCARBOROUGH CENTRE Chris Black - DON VALLEY EAST Dan Goldstick - TORONTO CENTRE Johan Boyden - DAVENPORT Shirley Hawley - YORK SOUTH-WESTON Elizabeth Rowley - SCARBOROUGH SOUTHWEST Stuart Ryan - OTTAWA CENTRE Gurdev Singh Mattu - BRAMPTON-SPRINGDALE Bob Mann - HAMILTON EAST-STONEY CREEK MANITOBA Beatriz Alas - KILDONAN-ST. PAUL Anna-Celestrya Carr - WINNIPEG CENTRE Allister Cucksey - PORTAGE-LISGAR Andrew Dalgliesh - WINNIPEG SOUTH CENTRE Lisa Gallagher - BRANDON-SOURIS Gérard Guay - SAINT BONIFACE Darrell Rankin - WINNIPEG NORTH Paul Sidon - ELMWOOD-TRANSCONA ALBERTA Jason Devine - CALGARY EAST Naomi Rankin - WINNIPEG NORTH Paul Sidon - ELMWOOD-TRANSCONA BRITISH COLUMBIA Kimball Cariou - VANCOUVER CENTRE George Gidora - PORT MOODY- WESTWOOD-PORT COQUITLAM Hanne Gidora - BURNABY-DOUGLAS Joyce Holmes - SURREY NORTH Peter Horvath - BURNABY-NEW WESTMINSTER Jason Mann - VANCOUVER KINGSWAY Nazir Rizvi - NEWTON-NORTH DELTA Stephen Von Sychowski - VANCOUVER KINGSWAY (Back) (Home) CLC blasts "insulting"  EI  changes (The following article is from the June 1-15/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) The changes to Employment Insurance announced last month are "insulting and inadequate," according to the Canadian Labour Congress, " because they do not solve anything for the tens of thousands of workers who paid premiums and yet do not qualify for benefits when they are unemployed." "The timing and the narrow focus of the announced changes aim to hide the fundamental issue: the unfairness of the rules to qualify for benefits," said CLC Executive Vice-President Barbara Byers. "The problem with the EI program is that less than 40% of the country's unemployed workers receive benefits," continued Byers, pointing out that the latest changes "don't address this at all. They don't help the majority of women who work because they have families to feed but pay EI premiums without a hope of ever working enough hours to qualify for assistance." Hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers will continue to be shut out of the Employment Insurance program they have paid into, since the rules that disqualify most part-time workersa remain in effect. Coverage rates are 25% and lower in the country's largest cities. "The people who benefit from this quick fix certainly aren't the majority of unemployed workers," said economist Kevin Hayes. "All they do is shift a bunch of money into certain parts of the country by extending the benefits people currently receive. It's hardly innovative and certainly inadequate." The CLC wants to see the EI program modernized to reflect the kind of work that people do and offers the kind of benefits they need in today's economy. Information about the labour movement's campaign on this issue is available from the web site http://www.unemployed.ca. The Communist Party of Canada, which has sharply criticized moves to undercut unemployment coverage and benefits since the Mulroney Tory government during the 1980s, is calling for a wide range of measures to protect the rights of workers. The CPC's 2004 election platform includes the following: "Guarantee benefits for part-time, home-based and contract workers. Raise the federal minimum wage to $12/hour. Stop the theft of the Employment Insurance fund, and set benefits at 90% of previous earnings to cover all unemployed for the duration of unemployment." (Back) (Home) Choices for Canada (The following article is from the June 1-15/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) After months of speculation, Paul Martin has finally set June 28 for his rendezvous with the history books. Not since 1988 - when four voters out of every seven were opposed to the Free Trade Agreement, only to get trumped by the minority - has a federal election been in such doubt. As the campaign begins, Martin's Liberals are sinking into minority territory in the polls, dragged down by the Liberal premiers of the three largest provinces. Gordon Campbell and Jean Charest are detested by working people in BC and Quebec for their brutal attacks against social programs and labour rights. And now the Liberal "brand" has become further tainted in Ontario by Dalton McGuinty's budget, ditching election promises still fresh in the minds of voters. If the PM had an exit strategy from this election, maybe he would have used it. But at this point, postponing the campaign would have done the Liberals even more harm. Instead, Martin has decided to campaign boldly against the Americanization of Canada. The irony is almost unbelievable. Since 1993 - with Martin playing a leading role - the Liberals have done more to integrate Canada into the US empire than any previous federal government, despite increasing resistance from millions of Canadians. Yes, Stephen Harper and his gang of RATs (Reform/Alliance/Tory) would probably have sold out Canadian sovereignty even faster, with even more attacks against workers, minority groups and equality rights. But Liberals must not be allowed to pose as "centrists," given their record as one of the most right-wing governments since the days of R.B. "Iron Heel" Bennett during the Great Depression. Even as the Liberals claim to defend social programs, the Conservatives call themselves the party of "change." Both are liars, and both should be utterly rejected  by working class voters. Despite cosmetic changes to election finance rules, both old-line parties remain creatures of the big corporations - U.S. and Canadian - which have dominated Canada for decades. Fortunately, there are other alternatives. Our next issue will examine the platforms of the NDP, the Greens and the Bloc Québecois. Generally speaking, we urge all progressive-minded voters to support candidates who have a proven record of working with the labour and democratic movements to advance the interests of the working class. The possibilities of achieving a better Canada will be improved if more such candidates are elected to the next Parliament. But we also urge working people to give careful consideration to the candidates of the Communist Party of Canada. A higher vote for the CPC on June 28 will be an important step forward. During the 1940s and '50s, when Communists were elected to parliament and to the Ontario and Manitoba legislatures, major social gains were achieved by the working class. When that happens again, politics in this country will undergo a dynamic transformation. Electing Communists as part of a progressive bloc in Parliament would give a voice to those with the most far-sighted vision of a new Canada, one in which working people, not big business, will control our destiny. Your vote for a Communist candidate is not "wasted" - it's the strongest possible vote for your future! (Back) (Home) Torture in Iraq: The buck stops with Bush (The following article is from the June 1-15/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) By Tim Wheeler, People's Weekly World Newspaper George W. Bush and his minions are toiling to contain world-wide outrage over the torture of hundreds of Iraqi detainees by U.S. occupation soldiers at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Slip-sliding to shift blame to a few low ranking soldiers, Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld swear they learned of the repellent photos of U.S. military police torturing naked Iraqi prisoners only when they saw them on television. But this is like one of those raging California wildfires, out of control and spreading. Rumsfeld himself told the Senate Armed Service Committee the "worst is yet to come" with even more photographs and videos of depraved and criminal abuse of Iraqi detainees. In his 53-page classified report on the war crimes, U.S. Army Major General Antonio Taguba charged that U.S. soldiers and commanders at Abu Ghraib committed "egregious acts and grave breaches of international law - sadistic, blatant and criminal abuses." He reports, "The various detention facilities operated by the 800th Military Police Brigade have routinely held persons brought to them by Other Government Agencies (OGAs) without accounting for them, knowing their identities, or even the reason for their detention." The Mps called them "ghost detainees," who were moved around within the facility to hide them from a visiting International Committee of the Red Cross survey team. This manoeuvre was "deceptive, contrary to Army Doctrine, and in violation of international law," Taguba charged. Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick, one of the Mps facing court martial, told Taguba one inmate died during interrogation. "They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away," Frederick said. "They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately 24 hours in the shower - the next day the medics came in and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away." Frederick said the prisoner had not been recorded in the prison system "and therefore never had a number." But the ghoulish prison guards snapped photos of a smiling soldier kneeling beside the bruised and beaten corpse. Was this one of the "ghost detainees" of the CIA, FBI, Defense Intelligence Agency, private contractors and profit-seeking mercenaries like CACI and Titan? Taguba told the senate Armed Services Committee, May 11, that the Mps deferred to these private contractors as the "competent authority" during interrogations. Investigators are looking into the death of at least 25 Iraqi and Afghani prisoners who died in U.S. custody. Former Rep. Mary Rose Oakar (D-Ohio), president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, charged at a May 7 National Press Club news conference that the racist abuse flows from the "demonizing and dehumanizing of Arabs and Muslims in general." She cited scurrilous anti-Muslim statements by Gen. William Boykin, chief of U.S. Military Intelligence, and Attorney General John Ashcroft that fanned the flames of bigotry. "Nothing short of the dignity and honour of our country is at stake here," she said. The media is now reminding readers that prison inmates here at home are victims of racist abuse. The torture of Abner Louima by New York police officers comes to mind when one reads that an Iraqi inmate was "sodomized with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick" in an effort to "soften him ujp" for interrogation. The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross revealed May 10 that they had visited Abu Ghraib prison last October and discovered that methods forbidden under the Geneva Conventions were being used. The U.S. officer in command of the prison told the Red Cross team the abuse is "part of the process." The Red Cross report was delivered to the Bush administration in February documenting the humiliation and abuse of prisoners, also charging that several inmates were murdered. "The nine men were made to kneel, face and hands against the ground as if in prayer position," the report states. "The soldiers stamped on the back of the neck of those raising their head." One corpse had a broken nose, broken ribs and facial wounds indicating a beating. "He was heard screaming for help before he died." At the coalition's Camp Bucca jail, Red Cross monitors "observed burns on the buttocks of a 61-year-old detainee who told them he had been tied, hooded and forced to sit on a hot surface that he believed to be the engine of a vehicle, causing him to lose consciousness." In another case, the Red Cross charged, a prisoner "required several skin grafts and had a finger amputated after receiving burns to the face, abdomen, foot and hand when he was forced to lie on a hot surface." Between 70 and 90 percent of the detainees were arrested "by mistake," military intelligence officers told the Red Cross. The Bush-Cheney administration brushed this report aside. Critics charge these crimes flow from the Bush administration doctrine of preemptive, unilateral war policies and reflect the arrogance of a conquering imperialist power. The tactics of humiliation recall the strategy of "shock and awe" aimed at instilling fear and forcing the masses to surrender to U.S. occupation. Gen. Taguba charges that the Pentagon sent Major General Geoffrey Miller, then in charge of interrogations at the U.S. detention centre at the Guantanamo Navy Base in Cuba, to Iraq in August 2003 to shake up the prison system because so little "actionable intelligence" was being squeezed from the 8,000 inmates. Taguba reports, "Gen. Miller's assessment was that Coalition Joint Task Force 7 did not have procedures in place to affect a unified strategy to detain, interrogate and report information from detainees/internees in Iraq." Gen. Miller argued that, "Detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation." The occupation army must "dedicate and train a detention guard force to facilitate successful interrogation." Taguba charged that Gen. Miller's call for "consolidation and coordination" of Military Police and Military Intelligence was contrary to U.S. Army Regulations, that the duty of the Mps is to insure order and the safety of the detainees. The New York Times, in an editorial calling for removal of Rumsfeld, points out that it was after Gen. Miller's trip to Iraq that the worst abuse of Iraqi detainees began. Miller bragged to the media, "We used the models we had made at Guantanamo...to assist in the success of interrogations (in Iraq)." Guantanamo detainees have been denied the protections of the Geneva Convention by Bush, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft. Now the evidence proves the coercive methods used in Guantanamo were used on Iraqi detainees in flagrant violations of the Geneva Convention. The photo of a naked Iraqi detainee on a leash held by a female soldier or one of a hooded man standing on a box with electric wires hooked to his fingers, toes, and penis, was taken after Gen. Miller's visit. Incredibly, Bush and Rumsfeld have sent Miller back to "clean up" the mess despite evidence that he was a ringleader in the atrocities. As Rumsfeld sweated in the witness chair May 7, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va,) said, "I see arrogance and a disdain for Congress. Given the catastrophic impact that this scandal has had on the world community, how can the United States ever repair its credibility? How are we supposed to convince not only the Iraqi people but also the rest of the world that America is, indeed, a liberator and not a conqueror, not an arrogant power?" (Back) (Home) Campaign 2004 -  Jobs & the economy: issue #1 for workers (The following article is from the June 1-15/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) PV Commentary It's no exaggeration to say that the Communist Party of Canada's election platform is in tune with the demands and alternatives raised by a wide range of labour and people's movements - and with the needs of workers. The CPC platform leads off with crucial economic issues. For the vast majority of working class Canadians, the defining reality of our time is the assault by corporations and governments on jobs and the social safety net. Cities and towns from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island are being devastated by plant closures, de- industrialization, and "structural adjustment." In Hamilton, steelworkers at Stelco are the latest targets in a long list of shutdowns and closures of major manufacturing operations tearing the guts out of their city. Other examples include autoworkers at GM in Ste. Therese, Quebec, woodworkers across British Columbia, fish plant workers on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. In every case, when capitalist crisis hits an industry, the interests of shareholders are protected, while the rights of workers and our families and communities come dead last. Think about it: over a decade after the supposed "triumph of capitalism," almost two million Canadians are out of work or have given up looking at any given time. Unemployment remains a permanent feature of our system, despite rapid advances in technology which could improve working conditions and shorten hours for everyone. Instead, high-tech has become a nightmare device to speed up production, increase the profits generated by workers, and to ravage the environment. And it gets worse. In the pursuit of maximum profits, the same capitalists are pushing privatisation, contracting out, and other schemes to destroy public assets and social programs. There is a desperate need in Canada for more teachers, more healthcare and childcare workers, more social housing, and yet all these vital areas are starved of funding by governments intent on handing out tax breaks to millionaires. In this campaign, the Communists propose a fundamental economic alternative to these policies, including: * Reverse the "deep integration" of Canada into "Fortress America" by abrogating NAFTA. * Build the industrial cornerstones of Canada's wealth-producing economic base. * Increase the "value-added" component of resource exports to secure jobs and investment. * Stop capital flight and "runaway plants." * Legislate a 32-hour work week with no loss in take-home pay and no loss in services. * Stop the theft of the Employment Insurance fund, and set benefits at 90% of previous earnings for all unemployed. * Reverse the privatization of Air Canada, PetroCanada and CN Rail. * Stop privatization and contracting-out of public services. * Put electricity, banking, and the insurance system under public ownership and democratic control. * Expand and improve social services, Medicare and pensions. * Increase taxes on the corporations, and eliminate taxes on incomes under $35,000/yr. If you think these policies are worth your vote, the CPC also needs your help in this election. Call 416-469-2446 for information on how to volunteer for the Communist campaign! (Back) (Home) Election 2004: Nature  before profits! (The following article is from the June 1-15/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) From the Communist Party of Canada election website By now, everyone is familiar with the ominous signs of world-wide environmental crisis. In our world today, both labour and the natural environment are greedily exploited for the objective of capitalist private profit. Examples in Canada include the collapse of fish stocks, clear-cutting of our rainforest and old-growth forests, pollution of the Great Lake watershed, the worsening urban environment in many cities. On a planetary scale, we are witnessing an unparalleled destruction and extinction of ecological systems and species. Whole regions are blanketed in air pollution. Lake and river systems are made toxic, ocean waters and shores despoiled, and soils degraded. The earth's last major forests are under serious threat. Urban sprawl, traffic, and garbage problems are worsening Nuclear wastes are building up, water tables are falling, and animal habitat loss continues. The transnational corporations ship much of their waste to Third World countries, but no country is immune. Perhaps most obscene, the push to control oil and other natural resources is a major factor in US imperialism's war against Iraq and its world-wide military build-up. Never has the connection between war, exploitation, and environmental catastrophe been so clear. This threat to our future should be a key issue in the federal election. Yet the mainstream media and the big corporate parties treat the environment as a side issue, even while scientists warn that damage to the ecology may soon become irreversible. Canada has a huge resource base, on a vast territory originally stolen from Aboriginal peoples by European colonialism. But corporate environmental abuse - and government inaction - threaten our lands, rivers and coastlines, the air we breathe, our flora and fauna, and the health of the Canadian people. Capitalism by its nature is incapable of dealing with this crisis. Even temporary limits on resource extraction or consumerist advertising are met with stubborn corporate resistance. The hunt for ever-increasing profits is usually disguised as a concern for jobs. But labour's struggle for safety, health, and job security in the work environment is part of the struggle to protect and restore the whole environment, and for a fundamental shift in thinking and economic relations. Environmental concerns are now inescapably linked to working-class living conditions. Instead of pitting nature vs. jobs, we must recognize that protection of the environment is in the long-term interests of sustainable employment. Working people and our communities must unite against our common enemy, monopoly capitalism. In this election, we urge voters to support candidates who put nature before profits. Candidates of the Communist Party of Canada are campaigning for a series of key environmental reforms: - Enforce stronger penalties on polluters. - Make Canada a world leader in reduction of ozone-depleting gases and hydrocarbons. - Phase out nuclear power, and reduce reliance on fossil fuel consumption; meet Kyoto targets as a first step. - Reduce environmental impact and loss of economic sovereignty caused by reliance on north-south hydro grids; expand shared power flows among provinces, moving toward an East-West power grid. - Increase funding for alternative power research, expand energy conservation and use of alternative power sources. - Promote and fund public transportation and mass transit. - Ban destructive forestry practices, such as clear-cutting and raw log exports. - Require labelling of all genetically-modified food products. - Ban ocean-based fish farming. - Create jobs through protection and cleanup of the environment. Without such changes, the likelihood of environmental collapse will grow rapidly. Such reforms must be a top priority for all countries in the immediate future, if humanity and other species are to survive the next few decades. But the Communist Party also believes that reforms alone cannot stop the trend towards the degradation of nature. Many of the protections achieved in recent decades are being weakened or destroyed by deregulation and cutbacks. Capital never fully accepts infringements on private ownership and its "right" to exploit. Neither the transnational corporations, nor individual capitalists, are capable of solving the environmental crisis. The magnitude of accumulating environmental problems is so large, and the urgency of implementing solutions is so great, that the working class and its allies must use their political power to end capitalism and create a socialist economy which puts the environment ahead of profit. Only socialism will offer us an opportunity to address the far- reaching social and environmental effects of our impact on nature, and to do away with capitalism's unplanned, anarchic destruction of the natural environment. Humanity's knowledge and energy must be used to safeguard the earth for future generations, not to destroy our world for the benefit of a tiny minority of the ultra-rich. We urge you to vote Communist on June 28, in support of our wide- ranging proposals to save the environment. Even more important, we hope that you will consider joining the Communist Party of Canada, the party that puts people and nature before corporate profit. We have a world to win, and your participation can help make the difference!  (Back) (Home) CEOs average $7.2 million per year (The following article is from the June 1-15/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) The real "special interests" in Canada are the largest companies and their CEOs. In 2002, the average compensation received by the chief executives of the top 68 publicly-traded companies, including salary, benefits and stock options, was $7.2 million, or $3,450 per hour. For many, their salaries are smaller than income from bonuses or stock option awards. For example, Gordon Nixon of the Royal Bank received a salary of $900,000 but his stock options were calculated to be worth $12.8 million. Overall, CEOs' salaries and bonuses increased in 2002 at a time when corporate profitability was stagnant and workers were receiving small pay increases or minimum wages that have been below poverty level rates for several years. Canadian workers were paid an average of $17 an hour in 2002. You would have to work 203 years to earn what these CEOs made in just one year (the average worker made $35,417 a year). Minimum wage workers would have to work 510 years to earn as much (they only made $14,102 a year on average). (Back) (Home) Salvadoran unionists begin hunger strike (The following article is from the June 1-15/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) On May 18, Ricardo Monge, Secretary General of the STISSS health care workers union, Javier Ayala, Secretary of Organization of the STISSS, and three other union members began a hunger strike to protest the Salvadoran government's continued illegal detainment of Monge and Ayala. At a news conference, the union also demanded an end to government firings of union members, the creation of a dialogue commission to resolve the health care crisis, and an end of the privatization of public health care. Monge and Ayala were arrested during the peaceful occupation of the San Salvador Cathedral on April 28. Although the two leaders did not take part in the occupation, and had already been detained by the time riot police provoked a rash of violence in the downtown area, Attorney General Belisario Artiga charged both with "acts of terrorism," and accused Monge of being the "intellectual author" of violence. On May 5, a judge exonerated Monge, Ayala and 35 others of all but a minor charge. But Artiga appealed the case and the government refused to release the leaders, despite tireless work by their legal team and daily protests by the union and its supporters. The right-wing ARENA party is also creating a new "anti- disturbances" law that would criminalize street protests and make it easier to prosecute those arrested during anti-government actions. The law would expand on draconian "Patriot Act" style legislation that ARENA has sought to implement since the successful health care strike by workers and doctors in 2003. Monge and Ayala remain in the Isidro Menendez Judicial Center, while their supporters and other hunger strikers continue to rally outside. Solidarity activists are urged to press Attorney General Belisario Artiga to drop all charges and release Monge and Ayala. Attorney General Artiga can be contacted by fax at 011-503-249- 8607, or by email: belisario_artiga@hotmail.com. (Back) (Home) Terrorist infiltrators captured in Venezuela (The following article is from the June 1-15/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Granma International The capture of a terrorist command infiltrated into Venezuelan territory from Colombia and made up of paramilitaries from that country was announced on May 9 by President Hugo Chavez as further evidence of how the internal and external enemies of  "the Bolivarian Revolution are still preparing violent action in order to destroy it." The incident was circulated on radio and television to once again demonstrate to the world the accuracy of (the) president's alert on the existence of groups funded from the outside and supported by the opposition media with the intention of overthrowing the legitimate government of that country. One of the captured terrorists - whose identity was not revealed - admitted to having received money in Colombia to engage in acts of terrorism on Venezuelan soil. "We are ready for anything," the subject stated during an interview, adding that he and the rest of the group (more than 100) had received instructions not to give away any information or members of their families would be murdered. When the president announced the news, 88 members of the terrorist command had been captured and an operation was underway to locate and neutralize approximately 50 more who managed to escape, while investigations continue to uncover those responsible inside Venezuela for this new manoeuvre. Food supplies and other equipment has been seized in the area of Baruta and Chacao, whose mayoralties have displayed "remarkable complacency" in the face of the disturbances and other subversive actions organized from there against the Bolivarian government. In his Sunday address, the Venezuelan leader qualified as "incredible, but a fact" that the five major reactionary media (Globovision, VeneVision, Radio Caracas Television, El Nacional and El Universal) had ignored this extremely serious incident, thus de facto denying the people their right to information. (Back) (Home) Big defeat for BJP in the Indian election (The following article is from the June 1-15/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) By B. Prasant, PV correspondent in India The 14th elections to the lower house of the Indian parliament, the Lok Sabha, held in five phases over the last week of April and the first week of May, saw the right-wing BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) routed. Of the 539 seats where voters went to the polls (out of a total of 543 seats), the BJP managed to win just 137 seats, and its vote- share went down by just under five percent compared to the 1999 election. The seats won by the NDA totalled 185. After a break of five years, the Congress party came back to office, at the head of an alliance which was able to secure 217 seats, emerging as the largest single party in the new Lok Sabha. The Left was able to win 60 seats, including 44 for the CPI(M) and 10 for the CPI. In the states of Bengal, Kerala, and Tripura, where the left is strongest, the BJP drew a blank. This is the largest number of seats won by the Left since India gained political independence in 1947. Over the past half-decade, the anti-people misrule of the BJP had left the nation impoverished and stricken with religious fundamentalism. The poor had become poorer as communal riots almost ripped apart the traditional secular fabric of the country. A policy of inchoate liberalisation and privatisation had opened the portals of the nation's economy to corporate capital, both foreign and domestic. The regime was also dogged by a series of frauds and various other financial and political scandals. In conducting foreign relations, the BJP had played the role of a willing (albeit junior) partner to the US imperialists, acquiescing to every significant decision of the Bush administration affecting international relations. This included the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Lately, the Indian government had sent "private" security guards to serve the interests of the US occupation forces in Iraq. Over the couple of months preceding the polls, the BJP had spent millions of dollars on an "India Shining" advertising blitz, here in India and abroad, seeking to portray the Indians as "feeling good." The Indian electorate chose to ignore this message. That the corporate world had financed the BJP's election campaign became apparent with the short-term crash of stock markets across the country after the Congress took office, supported by the Left and other secular parties. The Central Committee of the CPI(M), meeting in New Delhi after the campaign, has announced the following demands on the newly formed Congress government. * Revival of the secular character of the Indian state. * Initiation of an independent foreign policy based on the traditions of non-alignment. * An economic policy that looks to the interests of the common people. * A revival of the public distribution system withdrawn by the BJP government. *Provision of adequate fiscal and financial resources to the provinces within the framework of centre-state relationship. The takeover by the Congress saw a last-moment drama when the leader of the party, Sonia Gandhi, refused to take on the mantle of Prime Minister, passing on that responsibility to the IMF-trained and reformist economist, Manmohan Singh. It is widely believed that the campaign threatened by the BJP on the "foreign origins" of Gandhi made her take the crucial decision. However, she retains her position as leader of the Congress parliamentary group, feeding speculations about the emergence of a parallel centre of power. (Back) (Home) Fidel reminds Bush of "a few home truths" (The following article is from the June 1-15/2004 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Cubans responded to the latest attacks by the Bush administration with a massive protest march past the US Interests Section in Havana on May 14. Over a million Cubans were packed along the Malecon seafront in a march that began with a short address by President Fidel Castro, who accused Bush of a policy of overt fascism across the planet and promised that he would be in the frontline to repel any invasion. Recent measures taken by Washington have forced the Cuban government to restrict the dollar's spending power, affecting the living conditions of the Island's population. Some protesters carried banners with images of Iraqi prisoners in US jails, with the words "This Would Never Happen in Cuba!" underneath. Another banner with the dollar sign next to a crossed-out swastika read "The New Symbol of Fascism". President Castro's challenging speech to George W. Bush included the following: The million Cubans who are gathered here today to march past your Interests Section is just a small part of a valiant and heroic people who would be here with us if it were physically possible.... A statesman, or whoever claims to be one, should know that throughout history really humane ideas of justice have been shown to be much more powerful than force; force leaves in its wake only dusty, contemptible ruins; humane ideas leave a glowing trail that no one will ever be able to extinguish. Every era has had its own ideas, both good and bad... But the worst, most sinister and ambiguous ideas belong in this era in which we live - a barbarous, uncivilized, globalized world... Everything that is written about human rights in your world, and in the world of your allies who share in the plundering of the planet, is an enormous lie. Billions of human beings live without enough food, medicine, clothes, shoes or shelter and without even a minimum amount of knowledge or enough information to understand their tragedy and that of the world in which they live. Surely nobody has told you about the tens of millions of children, adolescents, youth, mothers, middle-aged or elderly people who die every year who could have been saved in this "idyllic Eden of dreams" which is Earth, nor have they told you at what rate the natural conditions for life are being destroyed and that the hydrocarbons which took the world 300 million years to create are being squandered in a century and a half, with devastating effects. You have only to ask your assistants for precise data on the tens of thousands of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, bombers, smart long-range missiles, battleships and aircraft carriers, conventional and non-conventional weapons in your arsenals - which are enough to wipe out all life on the planet. ...The purpose of these words is not to offend nor insult you: but since you have set out to intimidate, to terrorize this country and eventually to destroy its socio-economic system and independence and, if necessary, its very physical existence, I consider it my elemental duty to remind you of a few home truths. You have neither the morality nor the right - none whatsoever - to speak of freedom, democracy and human rights when you hold enough power to destroy humanity and are attempting to install a world tyranny, side-stepping and destroying the United Nations Organization, violating the human rights of any and every country, waging wars of conquest to take over world markets and resources and installing decadent and anachronistic political and social systems which are leading the human race into the abyss. There are other reasons why you cannot mention the word democracy: among these is the fact that everyone knows you became president of the United States through fraud. You cannot speak of freedom because you cannot conceive of a world other than one ruled by fear of the lethal weapons which your inexpert hands might rain down on humanity. You cannot speak of the environment because you are completely ignorant of the fact that the human race is in danger of disappearing. You label a tyranny the economic and political system that has guided the Cuban people to higher levels of literacy, knowledge and culture than those in the most developed countries in the world. The same that has reduced infant mortality to a rate lower than that of the United States and whose population is provided with all healthcare and education services and with other extremely important social and human services free of charge. Listening to you talk of human rights in Cuba has a hollow, absurd ring. This, Mr. Bush, is one of the few countries in this hemisphere where not once in 45 years has there been a single case of torture, a single death squad, a single extrajudicial execution or a single ruler who has become a millionaire through having held power. You lack the moral authority to speak of Cuba, a dignified country which has withstood 45 years of a brutal blockade, economic war and terrorist attacks which have cost thousands of lives and tens of billions of dollars in economic losses. You are attacking Cuba for petty, political reasons, trying to obtain electoral support from a shrinking group of renegades and mercenaries who have no ethical principles whatsoever. You lack the moral right to speak of terrorism because you are surrounded by a bunch of murderers who have caused the death of thousands of Cubans through terrorist methods. You do not hide your contempt for human life, because you have not hesitated to order the extrajudicial death of a secret, unknown number of people in various parts of the world. You have no right whatsoever, except for that of brute force, to intervene in Cuba's affairs and, whenever the fancy takes you, to proclaim the transition from one system to another and to take measures to make this happen. This people can be exterminated - you well know this - or wiped off the face of the earth but cannot be subjugated nor put once again into the humiliating position of a United States neo-colony. Cuba fights on the side of life in the world; you fight on the side of death. Whereas you kill countless people with your indiscriminate, pre-emptive surprise attacks, Cuba saves the lives of hundreds of thousands of children, mothers, old and sick people all over the world... Our people, educated in solidarity and internationalism, do not hate the American people nor do they want to see young white, black, Native Americans, mestizo or Latin soldiers from that country die - young people driven by unemployment to enlist in the military to be sent to any corner of the world in traitorous, pre- emptive attacks or in wars of conquest. The unbelievable torture applied to prisoners in Iraq has rendered the world speechless. I do not seek to offend you these words, as I have already said. My only hope is that in your leisure time one of your assistants will bring these truths to your notice, even though they may not be completely pleasing to you. Since you have decided that the die is cast, I have the pleasure of saying farewell to you like the Roman gladiators who were about to fight in the arena: Hail Caesar. We who are about to die salute you! My only regret is that I will not see your face because you will be thousands of miles away while I'm in the frontline ready to die fighting in defense of my homeland. (Back) (Home)

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