Condemn the Wanton and Hitlerite Destruction in Ramallah – The Palestinian People Will Prevail

Workers' Daily Internet Edition : Article Index :

Condemn the Wanton and Hitlerite Destruction in Ramallah – The Palestinian People Will Prevail
Israeli Army Continues to Kill Palestinian Civilians
Palestinians Take to the Streets, Vow to Protect Arafat - Four Killed, 40 Wounded
Statement by Jack Straw on the Siege of President Arafat's Headquarters

Workers & Politics:
Ford to Cut 400 Jaguar Jobs

Successful Day of Protest in Colombia:
"A Share in Our Victory"

The Israeli military has launched a wanton and flagrant onslaught on Yasser Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah, which has been continuing since Thursday evening, shelling and machine-gunning the area, and following up with bulldozers. This onslaught is aimed at wiping out the legitimate Palestinian authority and smashing the resistance of the Palestinian people to oppression and occupation. But rather it has aroused the condemnation of the world, and the ire of the Palestinian nation, as the anniversary of the start of the second Intifada draws close and as the anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre is marked.

Israel’s Deputy Defence Minister, Weizman Shiri, said on Sunday that Yasser Arafat could leave the country but would not be allowed to return. "If he decides he wants to get out we’ll give him a lift. We’ll give him a one-way ticket in a dignified way," Shiri told Israeli army radio.

The latest attacks on President Arafat have brought thousands of Palestinians onto the streets of Ramallah and other cities, breaking curfews to support President Arafat and fighting tanks with rocks and stones. Six demonstrators have been killed and many wounded.

The UN Security Council adjourned its meeting on Friday in order to turn a blind eye to the Hitlerite acts of the Sharon government.

"The council will carry responsibility if Israel commits another criminal act" over the weekend, the Palestinian observer to the UN, Nasser Al-Kidwa told reporters, responding to the Security Council delaying tactic. Al-Kidwa had earlier circulated a draft resolution demanding that Israel immediately end its siege of Arafat’s compound in Ramallah.

Al-Kidwa had asked the council in a letter "to take immediate measures to bring an end to the extremely dangerous situation in and around the headquarters compound". He pointed out that Israel was acting "in defiance of international law, international humanitarian law and Security Council resolutions".

The draft resolution also demanded that Israeli forces withdraw to positions they held prior to September 2000, which marked the start of the second Intifada.

President Arafat heroically declared on Sunday: "I hope God will grant me the honour of martyrdom. No one will be handed over to Israel. We are ready for peace but not for capitulation, and we will not give up Jerusalem or a grain of our soil which are guaranteed to us by international law."

These heinous acts of Israeli Zionism have the backing of US imperialism, which also manipulates the UN Security Council for its own ends. While George W Bush attempts to turn the spotlight on Iraq, the aggression of Israel is being stepped up against the Palestinian people. This aggression, part of the genocide which US-backed Israeli Zionism is organising against the Palestinian people, is a further crime against Palestine, its people and all humanity. The Palestinian people, with the world’s insurgent peoples standing shoulder to shoulder with them, will prevail. This is our firm conviction. Raise all voices against the crimes of US imperialism and the Israeli government! Demonstrate on September 28 to halt an attack on Iraq and to support the Palestinian people!

Report from The Palestine Monitor, Saturday, September 21

The Ramallah headquarters of the Palestinian Authority continued to come under sustained Israeli attack overnight and this morning. The destruction wrought upon the compound is so complete that according to eyewitnesses, only one or two buildings remain standing, and the fear currently is that these buildings have been severely damaged structurally, and may collapse.

However, this assault is just one of many that the Israeli army has perpetrated overnight.

Three houses were demolished – two in Qalqiliya and one in Qabatiya near Jenin. According to the mayor of Qabatiya, Qasem Al-Awneh, nine tanks, a bulldozer and several jeeps entered the town at 3AM, gave the family in the house 15 minutes to evacuate and then proceeded to tear it down.

The story was repeated in Qalqiliya when several tanks, jeeps and APCs entered the city, and pulled down two houses. One of the houses destroyed was only rented by the family of a Palestinian the Israelis claim is wanted.

In Gaza a 17-year-old, Haitham Said Nattat was killed instantly when shrapnel severed his head from his body, shrapnel which was the result of the indiscriminate Israeli tank fired at the houses of the Rafah refugee camp. 15 people were injured, seven of those children.

Also in Rafah, Abdullah Al-Aghalbly, 14 years old, was killed while walking outside – shot with live ammunition in his chest.

Israeli soldiers also killed Palestinians on Thursday evening, when the drama in the Ramallah headquarters was unfolding. Ahmed Lubad, a 36-year-old mentally disabled man from the At-Tufah neighbourhood in Gaza city was shot walking in the area. He died instantly when bullets hit his chest and face. Samira Ad-Dehdar, 25, was cowering in her bedroom of her house also in At-Tuffah neighbourhood when a bullet, one of the hundreds of Israeli bullets fired randomly in the civilian area, hit her in the neck.

Furthermore, the paralysing curfew that was in place before the events of Thursday remains in place. In Nablus the curfew has been imposed for 91 days, lifted for a mere 89 hours. In Jenin the 91 days 24 hour curfew has been lifted for 434 hours; since the school term began three weeks ago children in Jenin and Nablus have been unable to attend school.

Report by Palestine Chronicle Correspondent, Saturday, September 21

Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in solidarity with the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Arafat, along with 250 officers and officials are besieged in the only building in the Presidential headquarters that is still standing. The Israeli army’s call on Arafat and his men to surrender or they’ll be blown up, sent waves of shock and panic among Palestinians, mainly in the town of Ramallah.

Thousands of men and women took to the streets vowing to protect their president, Qatar-based Al Jazeera television reported. More people, led by scores of fighters also took to the streets of the Gaza Strip.

News reports from various parts of the West Bank and Gaza indicate that the marches which turned violent once confronted by Israeli army tanks and armoured vehicles, chanted for Arafat, freedom and national unity.

"We’ll fight for our freedom, we’ll fight for our freedom," a Palestinian elder chanted in a march in the town of Rafah. "Arafat is my brother," he said, "Sheik Ahmed Yassin (the spiritual leader of Hamas) is my brother and Abu Jihad (a PLO leader assassinated by Israeli death squads in Tunisia) is my brother. I will fight for them. I will fight for my freedom," he exclaimed in a broken voice to journalists who rushed to report on the march.

Israeli troops scrambled to halt the marches, especially in areas neighbouring Arafat’s headquarters.

Israeli army troops opened fire at protesters in various parts of the West Bank, killing two in Ramallah, one in the refugee camp of Balata and a fourth in Qabatia, news reports and medical sources said.

According to medical sources in the West Bank, over 40 Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire, some seriously.

Israeli forces are reportedly calling on the President and Palestinians inside the building to leave, otherwise the building will be blown up with them inside.

The Israeli radio reported that the Israeli army has in fact destroyed the Governors building adjacent to the Palestinian President office in the Ramallah compound.

The Israeli army attacked and besieged Arafat’s headquarters following a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed six. The Israeli army and government claim that 20 "wanted" Palestinians are held along with Arafat in the building. The Jerusalem Post increased the number of those "wanted" to 50.

Journalists around the building say that Israeli army snipers were positioned very close to Arafat’s office. The building, which some say could collapse at any moment, is reportedly booby trapped.

Arafat, who called on Palestinians to halt their attacks inside Israel, has refused to surrender to the Israeli army, according to Israeli radio.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on September 22:

"I am deeply concerned by the continuing deployment of Israeli troops in Ramallah and have today instructed our ambassador to raise my concerns directly with the Israeli Government.

"This blockade and the damage to President Arafat's compound is not justified. I urge an early end to this action.

"We all understand Israel's paramount need for security and to protect itself from terrorist attack. But it is hard to see how the action in Ramallah will solve the problem of Palestinian violence."

The US car monopoly Ford is attempting to cover up an underlying crisis in the luxury car market by announcing job cuts at its Jaguar operations.

The overproduction crisis in car production world-wide has been biting for some time, affecting all car producers. The luxury car sector has not been able to buck this trend and monopolies such as Ford are still striving to maximise their profits.

Jaguar plans to aim its job cuts, at this time, at the white collar section of workers. The decision has been made by senior management to cut 400 jobs in Britain, of which 150 are being cut from the Liverpool plant at Halewood and 250 from Birmingham and Coventry.

The company spokesman, Colin Cook, said the cuts would come through voluntary redundancies and early retirement.

Jaguar is, in effect, blaming workers for having the wrong kind of skills. Management policy has always traditionally meant a programme of passing the problems of profitability squarely onto the workers’ backs by sacking them and then closing down plant.

Usually the plan has involved starting with "volunteer redundancy" (under duress) and then "early retirement". The company has frequently raided the workers' pension funds to pay for the exercise.

The present situation has also to be seen in the context of the abandonment of many companies' pension funds in order to boost income.

The way that worldwide problems of overproduction are continuing to be exacerbated at present by oil prices, trade restrictions between power blocs like the EU and talk of war with Iraq, can only mean that the present job cuts are the thin end of the wedge and the sign of bigger things to come.

The prospects for Jaguar workers again raises the question of an alternative way of running factories as one solution, so that security of livelihood, balanced with properly planned production, can end the constantly returning cycle of overproduction, which affects so many. It is only the workers who, in the end, can lead the way out of the crisis, and this must mean bringing to end the relations of exploitation which exist between the workers and the capitalists.

A strike of state workers and campesino organisations was staged in Colombia on September 16. The Central Trade Union Federation of Colombia (CUT) announced that its success was due to the participation of the workers involved in the strike, as well as the massive participation of workers from other sectors in the huge marches which took place in all the major centres of the country. Special mention must be made of the students, the unemployed, street sellers, estacionarios and community mothers, CUT said.

The demands of the national strike were: Against the labour, pension and tax reforms; standing against the destruction of labour rights and successes; no to the layoffs of workers; for peace and a negotiated political solution to the conflict; for the rights of the campesinos, and the small and mediums owners.

According to the media, the demonstration held in Bogota in which 150,000 people participated surprised everyone. This massive demonstration shows the enormous dissatisfaction of the Colombian people with the economic, social and labour policies of the current government.

All are united in standing against the new government’s war drive. The workers and campesinos on strike were conscious of the destructive nature of US intervention in Colombia and its support for the Uribe regime. The strikers were opposed to any intervention by the US, including Plan Colombia (and the Andean Regional Initiative) and FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas).

The success declared by the trade union movement is a result of the peaceful and civilised nature of the state workers and campesino strike, the statement of CUT said. There was not, on the part of the workers, a single act of violence to justify the repression of the public forces in some regions of the country. In Bogota, 45 students were detained, a number of them brutally beaten. In Cauca department an indigenous march was prevented by means of violence.

In departments such as Sucre, Tolima and Cesar they detained representatives of some international NGOs who had been invited to come to the country by the campesino movement in order to act as observers of the agricultural strike. The government announced that they would be expelled from the country under the rules of Decree 2002 and the "state of national emergency".

In response to the active participation of workers from the legal and aeronautical professions, the government declared the strikes illegal as a warning. Faced with the government's refusal to listen or negotiate, a National Trade Union, Social and Popular forum took place on September 20 with the aim of issuing a list of demands to be presented to the government, as well as the possibility of realising a national strike. Taking into account the authoritarian and despotic nature of the government, as well as the imperative for the trade union movement to continue the struggle in the immediate future, CUT called on all democratic people and the international trade union movement to keep a close eye on Colombia in order to prevent the abuse of Colombian workers by the government of Alvaro Uribe.

Since he was inaugurated, Uribe has moved to repress the movements of the Colombian workers and people. One of these actions has been to call the state of national emergency, which allows the government to restrict civil liberties and impose an immediate war tax on those with assets over $64,000. The state of national emergency allows Uribe to bypass Congress. Youth, workers and campesinos have united and mobilised thousands despite this climate of repression.

Decree 2002, passed on September 10, re-establishes the provisions of the Law of Defence and National Security previously dismissed by the Constitutional Court on the grounds of procedural flaws. The decree gives free rein to the security forces to carry out raids and arrests without the need for a warrant.

The decree will create "Rehabilitation Zones" under the authority of a military commander, the aim of which is to restrict the free movement of citizens and register the population in order to limit their rights of movement and residency. The measure makes the government of the state answerable to military powers; it places governors and mayors at the service of military commanders, channels state assets into military projects and leaves judicial activities in the hands of soldiers, delegating state functions to the military.

Uribe issued threats against a youth march which began in Tunja, north of Bogota. On September 10, hundreds of students and youth from all over the country began to converge on Tunja, capital of Boyaca, where the "national mobilisation for the rights of youth and a political solution to the conflict" met.

Almost 2,000 youth arrived in Tunja on September 12 to begin the march the following day. However, the youth found themselves blockaded by massive numbers of national military soldiers and helicopters flying overhead. The march from Tunja to Bogota was to stop at different cities along the route to express concern about the political situation and solidarity with the campesino struggle. In reaction to the repression, the youth separated into different buses claiming they were going to other events, and rode to Bogota throughout the day on Saturday, September 14. Because they were unable to complete their march through different cities on the way to Bogota, the youth held a conference at the largest public university in Colombia, la Nacional, to formulate the demands of the youth movement in Colombia. On September 16, they joined with workers and campesinos in the national strike against the despotism of the Uribe government.

Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for trade unionists. CUT, which is the largest federation of workers in Colombia, has stated that since 1986 close to 4,000 trade unionists have been assassinated. State workers are one of the most besieged sections of workers in Colombia. Sixty percent of all trade unionists killed in Colombia are from the union for state workers. Since Uribe’s inauguration and the expansion of US intervention, the trade union has suffered further attacks.

The Colombian people are rejecting of Alvaro Uribe’s policy of violence against the people, which will not only increase hunger and abject poverty, but also intends to deal with the country's acute crisis by means of war.