PV Vancouver Bureau

STEPHEN HARPER APPOINTED an array of hard right neo-conservatives to his new cabinet on Feb. 6, winning a warm response from the Bush administration but slapping Canadian voters in the face.

     The federal election results made it clear that with only 36% of the vote, Harper has no strong mandate to push the country sharply to the right. But his Cabinet signals that the Conservatives are determined to move quickly in that direction, adopting the same strategy as the Harris Tories in Ontario and Gordon Campbell's right-wing Liberal government in B.C.

     The new cabinet is also proof that the Conservative rhetoric about "trust" was a pack of lies. Foreign Affairs minister Peter MacKay, for example, tore up his signed guarantee not to merge the Progressive Conservatives with the Canadian Alliance. The new International Trade minister, ex-forest company executive David Emerson, jumped from the Liberals two weeks after voters in Vancouver Kingsway gave just 18% of their votes to his Conservative opponent.

     Even more ominously, the Harper cabinet is stacked with veterans of Mike Harris' hated Tory government, which inflicted heavy blows against workers' rights, democracy, and social programs.

     Health Minister Tony Clement held four Ontario cabinet posts and was a senior political aide to Mike Harris. Totally discredited after the Harris/Eves regimes, he was defeated in Brampton in both the provincial election of 2003 and the 2004 federal campaign. Switching ridings, he won his seat on Jan. 23 by a mere 29 votes. His new post indicates that right-wing provincial governments will have a much freer hand to push private health care, unless the labour and people's movements can mount a powerful campaign to defend universal Medicare.

     Jim Flaherty, was the "law-and-order" cabinet minister in Ontario responsible for building private "super-jails" and boot camps for young offenders. As treasurer under Mike Harris, he instituted major tax cuts for the corporations and the wealthy. More such breaks for the rich can be expected under Flaherty, who is now Harper's Finance Minister.

     Treasury Board minister John Baird served as minister of community and social services under Harris, after serving as an assistant to a member of the Mulroney cabinet.

     Several MPs who entered political life as members of the far-right Reform Party are in the new cabinet. They include Stockwell Day as minister of Public Safety, where he will ironically push for an end to gun control regulations ciovil rights, mil in cities. Day was prominent as the most ultra-right member of the Ralph Klein Conservative government in Alberta, before leading the Reform Party to a disastrous defeat in the 1997 federal election.

     Agriculture minister Chuck Strahl, another long time Reform/Canadian Alliance MP, is from BC's Fraser Valley, a noted stronghold of religious fundamentalism. Strahl will speak for the agri-business corporations which have driven tens of thousands of Canadian farm families off the land.

     Vic Toews, a former Tory provincial justice minister in Manitoba, now has the same federal post. Toews has been one of the most vocal "law and order" Tories, and is also known for his reactionary positions on social equality issues.

     Defence minister Gordon O'Connor was the Opposition critic for Defence in the last Parliament, pressing for increased military spending and closer cooperation with the Bush regime's global agenda. He served in the military for 33 years, retiring at the rank of Brigadier General. 

     Jean‑Pierre Blackburn's name is familiar as a prominent Quebec member of the anti-labour Mulroney government. Blackburn is now the Labour and Housing minister, indicating that workers and social housing advocates both face tough battles in the months ahead.

     Overall, the Harper cabinet is overwhelmingly male and white, almost entirely consisting of politicians with close links to big business and anti-equality forces.

     Reacting to the new cabinet, Communist Party leader Miguel Figueroa warned, "Although the Tories are still thirty seats short of a majority, nobody should expect that Prime Minister Harper will tread water until an election a year or two down the road. This cabinet is built to drive through a far-right agenda of anti-labour and anti-democratic measures, brokering deals as necessary with the various opposition parties to push through legislation.

     "There is no room for a complacent attitude that the Tory minority will be unable to act on this agenda. Massive popular pressure will be decisive to block the Harper Tories, and to compel the opposition parties not to simply retreat and cut deals. The time for labour and democratic movements - and especially the Canadian Labour Congress - to start mobilizing is now, not later. The CLC should immediately take the initiative to convene a broad fightback meeting of people's movements."

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(The following article is from the February 15-28, 2006 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.)

Special to PV

THE TIDE OF massive layoffs in Canada's manufacturing sector kept rising on Feb. 2 when the French transnational Michelin SA said it will close its BFGoodrich factory in Kitchener next July, wiping out 1,100 jobs.

     A report in the Globe and Mail called the shutdown "the latest victim of a combination of economic forces that has battered segments of the manufacturing sector ranging from forest products to furniture. The soaring value of the Canadian dollar, surging energy prices and competition from lower‑cost countries around the world are playing havoc with the sector."

     The Kitchener plant makes replacement tires, a market that has slumped in recent years. The jobs will be shifted to BFGoodrich plants in Alabama and Indiana. The closing of the 44‑year‑old plant comes 18 months after a three‑month strike. The company had tried to impose cuts of 20 per cent across the board in wages and benefits. The United Steelworkers local at the plant finally won a pension increase, no cuts in benefits and a cost-of-living pay raise, only to see the plant shut down to protect profits.

     "The decision to close the Kitchener plant was very difficult," according to Guy Pekle, president of Michelin North America (Canada), who will of course keep his job. "The competitive nature of today's tire industry requires the company to invest and maintain production in the plants that can compete successfully in an increasingly difficult global market."

     The Michelin announcement came one day after Bridgestone Firestone said it will close its tire distribution centres in Langley, B.C., and Mississauga, Ont. Ford Motor has just eliminated 1,200 jobs at an assembly plant in St. Thomas, Ont., and 3,900 jobs were cut by General Motors in Oshawa last November.

     In other announcements, John Deere Ltd. will soon shut its operations in Woodstock, Ont., putting 325 people out of work, and in December, La‑Z‑Boy Inc. closed its manufacturing plant in Waterloo, Ont.

     Domtar Inc. has closed its mill in Cornwall, with more closings or slowdowns expected, and the latest closing in northwestern Ontario is at Abitibi‑Consolidated newsprint mill in Kenora.

     Overall, the manufacturing sector has lost more than 100,000 jobs over the past year, two‑thirds of these in Ontario.

     According to corporate economists, the rising Canadian dollar is to blame, going up by about 35 percent since 2002, a fourteen-year high. The same Globe and Mail article which reported the Michelin closure said that "analysts have been optimistic that manufacturers would be able to muddle through by trimming costs, cutting prices and boosting productivity. But with the dollar trading at 14‑year highs against the U.S. currency, there is a sense that a second round of adjustment has begun and that this round will be much rougher than the first."

     The Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters predicts that another 100,000 jobs in manufacturing will be lost again this year, mainly in Ontario, as the higher dollar takes its toll. But Ontario has a "diverse economy" and can "withstand turmoil in a few sectors," claims Carl Gomez, an economist with Toronto-Dominion Bank. "You're certainly not going to see some kind of big recession or anything like that."

     However, declining growth in the US will have a wider impact on Canada, and the pattern of layoffs is wider than "a few sectors." For example, Bell Canada just announced that it will reduce its workforce by between 3,000 and 4,000 positions this year, about half from attrition.

     Just as significant, what's "good for business" is usually bad for workers. The much-ballyhooed drive for "productivity increases" may boost shareholder profits, but almost always at the expense of jobs. Productivity increased in 2005 largely due to the loss of thousands of relatively stable, high-paying manufacturing jobs. This trend means that Canada is relying more heavily on the export of volatile natural resources as its economic base.

     Jim Stanford, economist with the Canadian Auto Workers, told the media recently that "the real story (of the economy) is bubbling under the surface. We're back to being hewers of wood ‑ and drawers of oil."

     Stanford predicts that another 100,000 more manufacturing jobs could be lost in the coming year as companies struggle to cope with rising energy costs, overseas competition and the soaring dollar.    "There's a major structural change developing in the Canadian economy ... we're taking capital and labour out of manufacturing and moving it into the oilpatch."

     During the recent election, Communist Party candidate Sam Hammond ran in Sudbury, where the workforce in local mining and smelting operations has been repeatedly downsized.

     In an election news release, Hammond said, "In the past two decades the Liberals and Tories have pushed the neo‑liberal corporate agenda and brought Canada to the brink of disaster and ruin. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the giveaway of the Auto Pact, privatization of key resources and transportation, the loss of key industries to foreign ownership, and massive plant closures have created more than 1.5 million unemployed."

     The Communist Party, said Hammond, "calls for a made‑in‑Canada industrial strategy to reverse de‑industrialization, recapture control of energy, fossil fuels, transportation and put these resources to work for the Canadian people. We need a strategy to develop secondary manufacturing close to the points of extraction, a massive low‑cost public housing program, an east‑west power grid and the development of fair trade mutually beneficial to all participants. We call for broad based movements, including labour and social justice organizations, to push for a strategy to recapture Canadian sovereignty, get out of NAFTA, and create jobs for our youth that will ensure quality of life and equity."

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No justice, no pizza!

(The following article is from the February 15-28, 2006 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 Shona Bracken

TORONTO - Saturday, January 28, marked the latest of a series of pickets against a criminal boss at Amato Pizza. But the boss can be warned - unless workers demands are met, pickets will continue! Ex‑Amato workers and supporters have been picketing the restaurant since their boss began breaking the labour code by giving bounced cheques to workers instead of real wages, and not paying them overtime. These claims are becoming increasingly common in the five chains of the franchise now owned by two sons and a friend of the original owner.

     The battle began last June when a young woman came to Parkdale Community Legal Services claiming that $8000 of her wages went unpaid. The result was a slew of solidarity pickets - an attempt to force the owner to pay up by disturbing his business at peak hours. Fourteen pickets later, the worker won her pay in September.

     But the struggle became more drawn out in December, when seven more workers filed complaints, totalling another $82,000 of unpaid wages. The employer also scheduled workers for as many as 92 hours a week and paid them no overtime. "This is an employer who has a bit of a history of not paying workers what they're owed," says Mary Gellatly of Parkdale Community Legal Services.

     The Ontario Ministry of Labour received several complaints against Amato regarding unpaid wages, and workers demanded that the Ministry of Labour do an investigation on the workplace. But when the ministry finally got around to it, they only interviewed the boss, not the workers, and only investigated the records on paper, which the boss had been tampering with. The ministry has not yet reached a conclusion.

     But although the $82,000 of unpaid wages has not materialized, the workers are putting up a good fight. Many Torontonians now know about the case, and passerby on the picket line have been quite supportive.

     There is a myth that bosses will be prosecuted if something like this happens. "They think the law will protect us," says John No, who has been working on the case as a part of Parkdale Legal Services since June. But more and more workers are realizing that the law isn't on our side. Support has been mounting for a case many ex‑Amato workers and other workers alike can relate to.

     The campaign has also been successful in the media. One article in the Toronto Star, though ultimately siding with the boss, shows a photo of the boss overtaking a young, harmless picketer, a typical portrait of the boss' character. He likes to egg on the picketers hoping that they will start a fight with him, but when that fails, he just starts them himself. He also has a track record of being ruthlessly racist and sexist, which makes it no coincidence why the six workers whose cheques bounced were all from Sri Lanka. The owner even went to the extreme of putting a sign in his window that read, "Amato doesn't deal with terrorists from the same country," to illustrate the true capitalist he is.

     But for Amato workers and supporters, this is just another sign that the owner is becoming more and more desperate. The boss can be assured that the workers will not stop picketing until workers wages are paid in full.

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(The following article is from the February 15-28, 2006 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

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which recently passed a resolution condemning the Communist Parties, is a Cold War-era institution not connected with the European Union.

     The inspiration for PACE came from British Conservative leader Winston Churchill. In March 1946 Churchill gave his infamous "iron curtain" address in Fulton, Missouri where he declared that "communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and threat to Christian civilisation." He called on the "free peoples" of Europe to form a "United States of Europe" in Zurich later in that year.

     The "parliament" is essentially a debating society composed of parliamentarians drawn from its membership. Its major purpose has been to elevate "human rights" as a weapon in the struggle between imperialism and socialism.

     In 1960 it condemned the collectivisation of land in the German Democratic Republic which it called the "Soviet zone of Germany" and in 1962, the year the Algerian people won their independence from France in a struggle that cost the lives of over a million people, PACE saw fit to pass a resolution condemning "communist colonialism in central and eastern Europe".

     From its inception PACE was an instrument of Cold War politics. Membership was restricted to European countries that conformed to the bourgeois definitions of "freedom", "human rights" and "the rule of law" to exclude the Soviet Union and the people's democracies of eastern and central Europe. The counter-revolutionary regimes in Russia and eastern Europe were made welcome after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990.

     Since then PACE has been used as a sounding board to justify attempts to outlaw communist parties in the former socialist countries. Now it seeks to launch an anti‑communist drive throughout the continent. The assembly has adopted a resolution on "the need for international condemnation of crimes of totalitarian communist regimes," drafted by a rabid anti‑communist Swedish conservative who believes that the French Revolution and the Paris Commune were also grave mistakes in the development of European history.

     Communism is equated with fascism in this resolution that notes with some regret that "Communist parties are legal and active in some countries, even if in some cases they have not distanced themselves from the crimes committed by totalitarian communist regimes in the past", and communist parties are encouraged "to reassess the history of communism and their own past".

     It then calls on all European members to establish a memorial day for "victims" of "totalitarian communist regimes" and establish museums to document the "crimes" of communism and launch a "public awareness campaign" that includes the revision of school text books and encourage local authorities to erect memorials to these supposed "victims" of communism. In fact it's a call for an anti‑communist witch‑hunt throughout Europe.

     Though the Council of Europe has nothing to say about Anglo-American imperialism's invasion and occupation of Iraq or the US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, it would like to pose as an international human rights tribunal. This resolution will be used by Anglo‑American imperialism and the reactionary forces within the European Union to attack the organised working class and communist and workers' parties across the continent.

     The attack on the communists in Europe demonstrates not only that the movement is reviving and growing amongst the working class, but that the ruling class continue to fear and loathe it.

     (With files from The New Worker, Britain)

"Shame", says Theodorakis From a recent statement by the famous Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis: The Council of Europe is announcing in advance the future persecution of European Communists that have not yet made a recantation, such as those demanded in the past by the henchmen of Gestapo and the torturers at the camp of Makronisos. Perhaps tomorrow they shall decide to outlaw the Communist Parties, half-opening this way the door for the ghosts of Hitler and Himmler to pass, who, as it is well known, began their career by outlawing the Communist Parties and by locking up the Communists in death camps.... In the name of my dead Communist comrades, those who have gone through the Gestapo, the death camps and the execution sites in order to defeat Nazism and celebrate liberty, I have but one word to address to those "gentlemen": SHAME!

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  (The following article is from the February 15-28, 2006 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 Johan Boyden, Toronto

THE YOUTH WING of the third‑largest political party in the Czech Republic is about to be made illegal, according to an recent government letter sent to the Czech Communist Youth Association (KSM).

     The letter, entitled "Warning and Precept," has received condemnation from youth and student organizations internationally, including the Young Communist League of Canada who are planning a protest on February 14th at the Czech embassy in Ottawa and Czech consulates across the country.

     "This attack against the KSM is an attack against the whole communist movement in the Czech Republic," said Radim Gonda, vice-president of the KSM responsible for international relations in a statement. "It is a part of a large anticommunist campaign in our country and in Europe."

     In late January, the Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed a reactionary resolution entitled "Need for international condemnation of crimes of totalitarian communist regimes." Protest campaigns prevented approval of the repressive enforcement measures, however.

     A flood of letters, petitions and protests from around the world also helped the European Union announce in early February that it would reject calls for a proposed Europe‑wide ban on Nazi symbols to be extended to Communist Party symbols.

     The Czech Communist Party is the third largest political party in the Czech Chamber of Deputies. Its autonomous youth contingent, the KSM, works actively in fights like those against rising college fees, and public transit ticket prices. It stands for peace, jobs and higher wages.

     "The KSM does not promote hate, racism, homophobia or anti-Semitism." said Stephen Von Sychowski, a leading member of the YCL of Canada. Sychowski met and discussed various political concerns with several members of the KSM at the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students in Venezuela last summer. "A vital part of their activities are actually in the anti‑ racism, anti‑war anti‑fascist and anti‑imperialist movements. Yet this association is about to be banned."

     Officially, the Czech Home Office sites two reasons to ban the KSM. First, they claim the KSM's goals interfere with those of political parties. "However, the KSM does not differ from other youth political organizations like the Young Conservatives, Young Social Democrats, Young Christian Democrats, etc. So this attack is clearly political," Gonda noted in the KSM statement.

     "The other ground used by the Home Office for its attack was openly ideological," Gonda adds. The ministry demands the KSM to renounce its political program, goals, and theory because it supports socialist revolution.

     "To show you how ridiculous the attack against the KSM is I will quote from the letter," Gonda explains. It says: "In terms of quotations from works of Marx, Engels and Lenin (see the banner MARXISM directly on the main internet page of the KSM), from whose teaching the KSM stems, there is no way but to state, that the approach of the KSM to Marxist‑Leninist ideology is not neutral, that the KSM is concerned not only to inform the public about Marxism‑Leninism or to publish historical documents, but to promote it consciously, in the context of the aims expressed in the Political Programme of KSM."

     "What can the KSM reply?" Gonda continues. "Yes, we are for socialism, yes, we want to overcome capitalism, yes, we want to achieve it by the masses of the working people. Yes, we offer for free the texts of classics of Marxism on our web page."

     Thus, the ban is really a ban on an alternative to the current situation in the Czech republic, a country where unemployment is at 20% in some regions. In the 2002 elections, the Czech Communist party won 20% of the vote. In 2004, the European elections the party won second place, taking six seats. "They're a threat to the ruling elite, not to democracy," said Sychowski.

     The attack against the KSM is just the latest in an expanding anti-communist campaign. Both the hammer and sickle and the red star are illegal in Hungary, for example.

     Another attempt in the Czech Republic was a petition by two far‑right senators. "Let's abolish the communists" the petition was entitled, demanding a law criminalizing communist ideas, movements and the very word "communist," placing them in the same category as fascism.

     In recent days the House of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic has also passed a new Penal Code according which it is a criminal act to approve of and/or deny Nazi and so‑called "communist crimes."

     This legislation re‑writes history, for it was the Communists together with other progressives who overcame fascism in Eastern Europe and Russia. As Albert Einstein said when the unbeaten Nazi machine was stopped in Stalingrad: "Without Russia, those blood dogs [...] would have obtained their goal, or in any case, would have been close to it."

     To find out more about the February 14th protest and subsequent solidarity actions, email: ycl_ljc@ycl‑ljc.ca.

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US complicit in drug trade

(The following article is from the February 15-28, 2006 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 Pelzer

A LEAKED CONFIDENTIAL internal Justice Department memo reveals that the US Drug Enforcement (DEA) office in Bogota, Colombia, is helping drug traffickers and was involved in the murder of DEA informants. According to Justice Department attorney Thomas M. Kent, who wrote the memo on December 19, 2004 for his section chief, government watchdog bodies that are supposed to investigate corruption protected the Bogota DEA agents.

     The memo, entitled "Operation Snowplow ‑ dissemination of information on corruption within the DEA and the mishandling of related investigations by OPR to the integrity section," states that informants told Florida based DEA agents that agents in the DEA's Bogota office were assisting drug traffickers. At that time, the Florida DEA group was investigating a Columbian drug supply chain.

     "Specifically, they allege that the [DEA] agents passed on information about investigations and other law enforcement activities in Columbia," writes Kent. "The targets were able to provide the target DEA group in Florida with confidential reports that they obtained from the [DEA] agents in Bogota." (These documents were turned over to OPR, the Office of Professional Responsibility ‑ the DEA's internal affairs department, and OIG, the Justice Department's Inspector General.)

     Soon after, Bogota DEA agents began meeting with the Florida DEA informants in Colombia. The first informant was killed immediately after leaving a meeting with DEA agents in Bogota. Then others started turning up dead.

     "Each murder was preceded by a request for their identity by an agent in Bogota," writes Kent, who at the time headed the wire tapping unit for the Justice department's Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Section.

     At the same time, another Florida DEA group was working with Colombian informants who revealed that narco-traffickers were infusing cocaine with acrylic and smuggling cocaine into the US and Europe in the form of clothing. When DEA chemists were unable to extract the cocaine from the clothing, the Florida DEA agents, after discussing the matter with the Bogota DEA agents, arranged to bring the Colombian informants to the US to demonstrate the chemical extraction process.

     However, upon arriving at Bogota's airport, police arrested the Columbian informants. "The agent contacted in the Bogota office by the DEA group in Florida told Columbian officials to lock them up and throw away the key," writes Kent. The Bogota DEA agents then denied having knowledge that the informants had been allowed to carry cocaine into the US. After nine months in prison, the informants were finally released once it was determined that the agents in Bogota were lying. One of the informants was kidnapped and murdered, reports Kent.

     In another case, Kent stated that the OPR and DEA shut down a drug money laundering investigation that he launched. "The same agent connected with the murder of informants described in the first allegation (above) then began to call my case agent to learn the identity of his informants," writes Kent.

     When Kent and other agents confronted OPR investigators about their lack of interest in investigating DEA wrongdoing in Bogota, Kent wrote that "the investigators at OPR treated the reporting agents as if they had a disease and did not want to have anything to do with them or the evidence they amassed." Furthermore, when the DEA agents checked the evidence that OPR passed onto to the OIG, they discovered that "certain evidence passed on to the OPR was never given to the OIG."

     In the end, Kent states that the OIG never investigated DEA involvement in drug trafficking. Instead, DEA supervisors and staff subjected the DEA agents who reported DEA corruption in Bogota to false accusations intended to discredit them.

     Furthermore, Kent reports that one Bogota DEA agent was heard over a wiretap discussing his money laundering activities for the Columbian United Self Defence Forces (AUC). According to Amnesty International and Colombian human rights groups, the AUC is a paramilitary group responsible for killing thousands of innocent Colombians. It is also heavily involved in drug trafficking. Kent writes that this agent is now "responsible for numerous narcotics and money laundering investigations."

     Reporter Bill Conroy obtained the memo while investigating DEA corruption for the online magazine Narcosphere.

     A Justice Department official, speaking on conditions of anonymity, told Associated Press that Kent's memo is authentic, and that the OIG investigated Kent's memo and was unable substantiate it. However, DEA spokesperson Garrison Courtney said that the OPR is investigating the allegations that Kent made in the memo. Kent, who now works for the Justice Department in Nashville, refused to comment on his memo.

     Other sources have corroborated allegations made in the Kent memo. Sandalio Gonzalez was chief of the South America Section in the DEA's Office of International Operations from 1995 to 1998. Then he worked as associate special agent in charge of DEA's field division in Miami, where the Bogota corruption charges outlined in the Kent memo first emerged. Gonzalez retired last year, after finishing his career as the head of DEA's El Paso, Texas, field division.

     "The information in the memo is accurate as far as what I know from my involvement in some of the cases and reflects a climate of cover‑up in the executive branch," Gonzalez told Narcosphere. When asked why a Justice Department official would tell AP that Kent's allegations were investigated and "no wrongdoing" found, Gonzalez answered: "What do you expect them (the Justice Department) to say? Do you expect them to admit they're committing felonies?"    

     (Kent's memo can be downloaded at www.narcosphere.narconews.com)

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(The following article is from the February 15-28, 2006 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.)

People's Voice Editorial, Feb. 15-28, 2006

The Canadian public is being fed a dangerous new message to justify our country's growing military presence in Afghanistan. Until now, the official line has been that Canadian troops are in Afghanistan as "peacekeepers," helping a grateful population to rebuild infrastructure and establish equality for women.

     That was always a racist lie. The Chretien government sent troops to Afghanistan to soothe a U.S. administration displeased over Ottawa's refusal to take a direct role in the illegal aggression against Iraq. This Canadian contingent helped ease some of the pressures on the over-stretched US military in Iraq.

     Since then, there has been a growing tendency to blur the lines between aid programs and military forces. The result, not surprisingly, has been that NGOs are seen as an extension of the imperialist military occupation of Afghanistan.

     Now, the "humanitarian aid" veil has been dropped. Canadian generals (and undoubtedly the new Conservative government) openly declare that our troops are at war in Afghanistan, a war which requires more and better armed troops. As the military offensive against Afghan rebel forces steps up, there are increasing attacks against foreign troops. These attacks are in turn being used to whip up jingoistic demands for an iron-fisted response.

     This option can only lead to the tragic deaths of more Afghans, Canadian soldiers and aid workers. Nor can it make Canada safer. Imperialist violence against the peoples of the Third World will inevitably generate resistance, with unpredictable consequences. Canadians must reject the push by the Bush regime and reactionaries in our own country to head deeper into the swamp of imperialist occupation. We must demand an end to the US-led occupation of Afghanistan, and a new Canadian foreign policy based on peace, disarmament, and global justice.

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End the imperialist occupation of Haiti!

(The following article is from the February 15-28, 2006 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.)

Statement from the Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada, Feb. 4, 2006

AS THE SECOND anniversary of the imperialist coup against the elected government of Haiti approaches, it is abundantly clear that democracy, human rights and social justice have been trampled under the present occupation. Far from allowing the Haitian people to recover their sovereignty and rebuild their country, the phony elections set for this month will only deepen this crisis.

     During the recent election campaign here in Canada, the Liberal government's sordid role in the overthrow of President Aristide became an important issue. Pierre Pettigrew, the Liberal foreign affairs minister, was defeated in his Montreal riding of Papineau, at least in part because of his participation in the US/Canada/France meetings which plotted the coup against Aristide.

     Shamefully, the federal government has given full support to the US‑backed interim rulers of Haiti, sending RCMP officers to "train" the Haitian police and Elections Canada officials to help prepare the "election," which has been repeatedly re‑scheduled.

     Despite our government's claims that this "assistance" has helped to improve human rights in Haiti, the truth is the opposite. Under the occupation, brutal attacks against demonstrators are commonplace, and strongholds of Aristide support are subject to severe repression. Most leading members of Aristide's Lavalas party have been killed, jailed, or exiled. Polling stations in the rural areas are so few that many peasants would have to take an entire day off work to cast their ballots. The country's main media outlets give full support to Charles Henry Baker, a wealthy sweatshop owner who helped to overthrow Aristide. Under these conditions, the "election" has been widely condemned as illegitimate by Lavalas and other democratic forces within Haiti.

     Despite all this, the Haitian elite appears reluctant to let the election proceed, since Baker may not win in the second round. Given the history of Haiti, it seems likely that the US‑backed ruling class may well unleash a new hurricane of violence to install Baker or another wealthy dictator to protect their interests.

     Once again, the Communist Party of Canada condemns the hypocritical interference in Haiti by imperialist powers, including our own government. Haiti's sovereignty must be restored! We demand the withdrawal of Canadian advisors and of all outside military forces, who constitute an occupation force under the UN banner, but acting at the behest of the United States and the corporate interests which seek to profit from Haiti's cheap labour and natural resources. We demand the release of all political prisoners, and the restoration of full political freedoms. Jean‑Bertrand Aristide, who was elected with a larger majority than any Canadian prime minister has ever received, must be restored as President. The United States, Canada, and France must provide full reparations to the Haitian people for the murders and damage inflicted by the occupation. France must be pressured to repay with interest the vast sums it extorted from Haiti during the 19th century, a monstrous historical theft which left the country mired in poverty.

     The Communist Party extends full solidarity to the heroic Haitian people at this critical time. We will do everything in our power to help achieve the restoration of Haiti's genuine sovereignty and independence, and to end all imperialist interference!

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(The following article is from the February 15-28, 2006 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.)

Interview with Eberto Diaz Montes, National President of FENSUAGRO, Colombia's union of agricultural workers, conducted by PV Editorial Board member Jim Sacouman.

Jim Sacouman: What is your role in FENSUAGRO?

Eberto Diaz Montes: To represent the Federation before different authorities and institutions - private or public, governmental or non‑governmental ‑ that are national and international in scope. To be in charge of the main work and activities based on developing our national policies as established by the congresses, national board and the executive committee.

Jim Sacouman: How has state terrorism impacted the peasants, indigenous and afro‑descendant communities?

Eberto Diaz Montes: State terrorism as a counterinsurgent strategy is used by the ruling class in Colombia to suffocate and to try and stop the struggles of the workers, peasants, indigenous and afro-descendants and of all the social and popular sectors that are demanding social justice.

     State terrorism has been used in Colombia for the last six decades, dealing heavy blows to the peasant organizations. As a consequence, in the last two decades more than three million rural dwellers have been violently displaced and around five million hectares of land has been expropriated by paramilitarism in the service of powerful cattle ranchers, drug traffickers, latifundists and transnationals.

     But the state's terrorism delivered through its paramilitaries does not just displace people; it also assassinates, disappears, tortures and jails them. It has led to the assassination of certain leaders. (In the case of FENSUAGRO, more than 300 of its directors, leaders and members have been assassinated in the last ten years.)

     In a large part of the national territory the peasants are not able to organize, let alone even talk about forming agricultural unions because the paramilitary groups and in many cases the army or state security forces, forbid it. The same thing occurs on the indigenous reserves and afro‑descendant territories where they have been losing more and more of their rights acquired through centuries of struggle.

     In this way the rural communities are subjected to large scale dispersion and disintegration, losing the ability to assemble, the right to mobilize and in particular the fundamental right to their land and territories, which are not only denied them, but what little they do possess is expropriated.

     All this forms part of the national security policy aimed at combating the supposed internal enemy (counterinsurgency war) reflected inside the country today in the democratic security policy of the government of President Alvaro Uribe Velez, and that takes the concrete form of peasant soldiers, peasant forest rangers, the network of informers and Plan Patriota, today's complement to Plan Colombia, designed by the USA.

Jim Sacouman: Can you review the developments in FENSUAGRO's campaign for life, justice and liberty?

Eberto Diaz Montes: The campaign has taken off, allowing people in many parts of the world to learn about the realities of the Colombian peasantry, true situations that the oligarchy's big media never speak about.

     We have gone on a number of international tours, among them this one in Canada, which have allowed us to denounce and make the international community aware of the violation of fundamental rights suffered by those who live in the Colombian countryside as a result of the application of state terrorism through paramilitarism, its instrument of war and extermination.

     Another of our achievements is having gained the support of organizations such as Amnesty International, the ILO, the United Nations and several fraternal organizations, including trade unions, as well as human rights, political, social and popular organizations. Recently, in Guatemala, in the 5th Congress of the Latin American Coordinator of Rural Organizations‑CLOC, a Via Campesina mission was approved to travel to Colombia to verify the situation experienced by the peasant, indigenous and afro-descendant communities. Also, within the framework of FENSUAGRO's campaign we are working on charging the Colombian state with genocide against our federation, a charge we are going to lay before the Inter‑American Commission on Human Rights of the OAS.

Jim Sacouman: What work is taking place in conjunction with the Colombian trade union movement and the CUT?

Eberto Diaz Montes: Among the main things we are working together on are: a permanent mobilization against the possible signing of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA); a national campaign against the re‑election of the dictator Uribe Velez; a denunciation of the neoliberal package being passed through the Congress that includes among other things, the Forests, Water and Highlands Law and a challenge to the Justice and Peace Law, designed to pardon the paramilitary chieftains for their war crimes against the Colombian people.

     At the same time we are engaged in important projects like the proposed General Agrarian Law which has as its aim the dismantling of the country's existing feudal policy. We are carrying out these projects together through the Large Democratic Coalition, the United National Command, the National Victims' Movement, the CUT and the Peasant, Black and Indigenous Convergence of Colombia‑CNI, all of them spaces within which FENSUAGRO participates.

Jim Sacouman: What are the prospects for the class struggle in Colombia?

Eberto Diaz Montes: The fact is that we are confronting a regime of terror that is applying and deepening the neoliberal economic model, that has led the country into the worst crisis of its history, a crisis reflected in the accelerated rise in the indices of misery and greater concentration of wealth, including land. (15,000 landowners possess more than 32 million hectares of land while 1,500,000 families have none at all.) And this is accompanied by open terrorist impunity at the level of the government and state.

     Within this situation, the class struggle takes on enormous importance and it is decisive. For this reason, steps to create unity among the different political, revolutionary and democratic forces as well as the social and popular movements are essential for dealing with the attacks of the bourgeoisie and North American imperialism.

     That is how joint actions and the class struggle of the workers and people in general gain strength to be able to confront the plans the present regime has for perpetuating itself in power, surrendering our national sovereignty and trampling on the rights of the workers and peasants.  This is the context that gave rise to the Large Democratic Coalition (a grouping of social and political forces) that was able to defeat the IMF‑inspired referendum of Alvaro Uribe Velez.  This coalition is also leading the mass movement.

     Meanwhile, the idea of having a single contender to fight the presidential re‑election, in particular the candidacy of the lackey sellout, Alvaro Uribe, is gaining momentum. This proposal is being put forward by the Social and Political Front, Democratic Alternative, Independent Democratic Pole and different sectors that reject the politics of the despotic, pro‑fascist regime of Alvaro Uribe.

     In a consideration of the class struggle one cannot fail to mention the presence of the armed insurgency FARC-ELN, which arose as an option of resistance and power to confront Colombia's sordid regime that every day becomes more immoral, corrupt, exclusionary and authoritarian.

Jim Sacouman: Within the context of the class struggle, what are the most prevalent forms of solidarity with FENSUAGRO in its struggle on behalf of rural workers?

Eberto Diaz Montes: The solidarity of the peoples and fraternal organizations of the world with the struggle of the Colombian peasantry and all workers is a source of the greatest moral and political support that can be felt or experienced. That is why solidarity expressed in the form of support for the struggle of the rural communities and their organizations against latifundism, social exclusion and the physical extermination they are subjected to on a daily basis is the best tool there is in the service of our just cause. Support can also take the form of international denunciations and condemnations of the Colombian government as well as the accompaniment of communities that are living through the terror and paramilitary violence; economic partnering in productive programs targeting the small peasant economy; and training of new leaders for the purpose of organizational strengthening. Still another way is through cultural exchanges and the exchanging of experiences. We believe that as long as there is a way to express solidarity with the cause of the Colombian peasantry, it will be of great humanist and internationalist value.

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Tehran transit workers strike for rights and pay

(The following article is from the February 15-28, 2006 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.)

Special to PV

HUNDREDS OF Tehran bus workers were detained in late January as the Iranian government attempted to prevent a strike. Some were soon released, but almost a week later, many were still detained without charge or trial at Tehran's Evin Prison.

     The arrests began after the executive committee of the Syndicate of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, which represents 17,000 workers employed by the United Bus Company of Tehran (Sharekat‑e Vahed), called for a strike on Jan. 28 in support of various demands. These included the release of the union's leader, Mansour Ossanlu (detained without charge since Dec. 22, 2005), the introduction of collective bargaining, and a pay increase.

     The union was banned after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, then reactivated in 2004, although it is not legally recognized.

     According to reports, leaflets announcing the strike were distributed in Tehran on Jan. 24. One member of the union's executive, Hosseini Tabar, was detained for about four hours while taking part in this action. The next day, six other members of the union's executive committee were summoned to appear at the Public Prosecutor's Office. When they did so on Jan. 26, they were arrested after refusing to call off the strike and taken to Evin Prison.

     Interviewed by the official IRNA news agency, the Mayor of Tehran described the union as illegal. The United Bus Company's management threatened to fire workers who supported the strike.

     The authorities then carried out mass arrests of union members on Jan. 27, detaining some as they completed their shifts and others at their homes. Family members of some union activists were also arrested and beaten.

     Hundreds more union members were arrested on Jan. 28, with most of these also being taken to Evin Prison. Many were beaten with batons, punched, kicked and threatened, including by members of the volunteer Basij force who had apparently been brought in replace striking workers. Further arrests were reported on Jan. 29 and 30.

     An estimated 50 of those detained were reported to have been released within two or three days, after agreeing under duress to sign guarantees that they would not participate in strikes or other protest actions. As many as 500 others were still being held at Evin Prison without access to lawyers or family. Some went on a hunger strike to protest their detention.

     Iran has signed both the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which guarantee the right to form and join trade unions.

     Iran is also a member of the International Labour Organization and bound by its requirements, including the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association's ruling that it is not legitimate for states to restrict the right to strike during disputes concerning workers' occupational and economic interests.

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NPA attacks social housing, peace forum

(The following article is from the February 15-28, 2006 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 Kimball Cariou

AS PROGRESSIVE OBSERVERS warned last fall, the election of a right-wing NPA majority at City Hall has brought swift negative consequences.

     With massive support from the business sector and the corporate media, aided by a shady manoeuvre which led many voters to inadvertently cast their ballots for the wrong mayoralty candidate, the NPA took six out of eleven city council seats on November 19.

     One of the first decisions by the new council to drastically scale back the percentage of low-income housing in the False Creek development linked to the 2010 Olympics. At a time when thousands of people live on the streets of this "world-class city," this betrayal of the promises made by the Vancouver-Whistler Olympic bid organizers sent the shocking message that for the NPA, poor people are little more than garbage to be swept aside.

     As the Coalition of Progressive Electors warned during the campaign, the new council is also preparing to jack up property taxes on homeowners, in order to give a sweeping tax break for the business sector. When homeowners see their property tax notices next year, there will be howls of outrage, but so far the media has refused to pay more than passing attention to this move.

     Next, claiming that the city faces a huge deficit, Mayor Sam Sullivan and his five NPA councillors have launched an attack on a couple of very minor spending decisions of the last council, which had five COPE and four Vision members (the latter originally elected on the COPE slate before forming their own party). The NPA has cancelled a $50,000 grant to the International Assembly of Peace Messenger Cities (IAPMC) and the Mayors for Peace meetings scheduled to take place in June as part of the World Peace Forum hosted by the city. The IAPMC has 98 member cities, designated by the United Nations General Assembly. Vancouver joined in 1985.

     The excuse for this decision was the flimsy claim that this expenditure would balloon up to $200,000. The president of the IAPMC, Alfred Marder, said that $50,000 was "much appreciated and fully sufficient to cover our proposed program and budget". But the NPA councillors pulled the funding, on the grounds that it did not adhere to "five‑star" treatment of visiting dignitaries. In reality, the NPA has always bitterly opposed Vancouver's status as a "peace city," and is now using its majority to erase that reputation.

     COPE councillor David Cadman, who helped bring the conference to Vancouver, said the move gives the message that the city is anti-peace. "It's a fundamental error this city has made," he said. "Anything can change on the whim of [NPA] councillors, who've been in office now ... four weeks."

     This move has increased fears that the NPA may try to cut the remaining $100,000 of city funding for the World Peace Forum itself. That would be even more controversial, but the Mayor and his team seem determined to bull ahead, perhaps by eliminating grants to pay for the travel of international guests.

     The WPF Society said that it "deeply regrets this rejection of the previous resolution of support for this prestigious international event. At a time when global tensions are escalating, cities working together to promote peace constitute a new and dynamic force for peace efforts. The City Council has effectively turned its back on these courageous and forward‑looking mayors' organizations without any serious opportunity for consultation."

     The Society's Board of Directors is preparing recommendations for a general meeting of WPF members. Meanwhile, the Board is urging all peace supporters to contact the Mayor and Council to demand that the funding remain in place.