Cheney Meets Blair to Discuss the "War on Terrorism"

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Cheney Meets Blair to Discuss the "War on Terrorism"

Editorial
Six Months after September 11: Building the Workers’ Opposition and Planting the Alternative

International Women's Day:
International Women's Day Celebrated In Cuba
International Women's Day Observed in the DPRK
International Women's Day Marked in Vietnam
On International Women's Day by V.I. Lenin

International News:
International Campaign Launched To Free Turkish Journalist
100,000 Demonstrate in Italy for Palestine's Self-Determination and against Israeli Occupation
Seoul Power Workers Protest at Temple
Venezuela Backs New State Oil Leaders

US Vice President Dick Cheney will meet with Prime Minister Tony Blair today, March 11, to discuss the US "war on terrorism" six months to the day since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the twin towers.

The two meet in London amid new questions on whether US forces might use nuclear weapons against Iraq and other states, and criticisms of Tony Blair, even within the Labour Party, over his complicity in the hard US line against Iraq President Saddam Hussein.

Dick Cheney, who arrived late on Sunday, is on the first leg of a 10-day, 12-country tour to seek support for extending the war launched in response to the attacks on New York and Washington. His talks with Blair are to help lay the groundwork for his subsequent visit to the Middle East, including to Gulf states whose support is considered crucial to any US action against Saddam Hussein.

Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise said Cheney and Blair would talk about "the progress of the coalition" formed in the wake of September 11. "Britain is our strongest ally in the coalition," she said.

Cheney and Blair are likely to face questions at a news conference about the revelation of a classified Pentagon report outlining contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against Iraq as well as China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Sunday that the effort was simply "sound, military conceptual, planning" and not a precursor to any imminent US action. "(Cheney) will put it in context and in perspective," he said.

Tony Blair echoed this Anglo-US policy on Iraq in a newspaper column last week. "(Saddam Hussein) should not underestimate the determination of the international community to prevent him developing and using weapons of mass destruction," he wrote.

The Prime Minister may also face questions about a report in the Observer that the United States had asked Britain to provide 25,000 troops for a possible effort to overthrow Saddam. His office flatly denied the report on Sunday.

Meanwhile, a document published by the government expresses the concern of the "international coalition" concerning the terrorist methods or presence of extremist networks in many countries. The 35-page document, to be released today to coincide with the six-month anniversary of September 11, also expressed concerns about countries looking to acquire "weapons of mass destruction". The document is evidently aimed to attempt to neutralise the growing opposition to and splits within the "international coalition".

"There are many countries where adoption of terrorist methods or the presence of terrorist or extremist networks causes us grave concern," said the report, released by the Prime Minister's office. "We will take action we deem necessary in support of this aim, including military action, if absolutely necessary. Coalition countries are co-operating closely to forestall future attacks from international terrorism," it added, without elaborating.

Apart from detailing its campaign success in Afghanistan, the report did not single out a particular country of concern, but said there were "regimes believed to be seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction".

The report said the coalition's remaining objectives were:

· To do everything possible to eliminate the threat posed by international terrorism;

· To deter states from supporting, harbouring or acting complicitly with international terror groups.

"The War has just begun, there will be many tough fights ahead, but the coalition remains steadfast in its objectives to defeat international terrorism and protect the lives of its people," it said.

Six months after September 11, US Vice President Dick Cheney is flying into Britain to talk war with Tony Blair.

Tony Blair came to power in 1997 having openly put behind the Labour Party any vestiges or veneer of socialism, but just as importantly claiming to represent everyone bar the extreme right-wing. It could be said that New Labour set out to create the maximum confusion about the class interests of the workers and how these are intimately and inseparably connected with the general interests of society. The new danger represented by the election of a Labour government lay in the people being fooled into believing Tony Blair’s propaganda that the interests of the nations of Britain could be identified with the programme of the Labour Party on the one hand, and on the other convincing the workers’ movement that, despite Tony Blair’s repeated emphasis that he would grant the organised workers no favours, the Labour government still represented the lesser of two evils. Although disillusion rapidly set in, these twin aims still represented dangerous traps to the workers’ and people’s movements.

Three months after being elected for a second term, when disillusion was evident for all to see, September 11 represented a time when it became clear that New Labour did not represent some variety of social democracy, even of the worst kind -- that is, of conciliation with the right-wing agenda -- but that it stood for reaction all along the line. This conclusion could be easily reached by anyone summing up events in an unprejudiced manner. Yet when it was underlined by Tony Blair’s statements and responses to the September 11 events how essential it is to build the workers’ opposition to the "Third Way" programme and to plant the alternative to the domination of society and global politics by the agenda of the financial oligarchy and the "New World Order", it is still being suggested that the major task of both the workers’ and people’s movements is to put pressure on Labour to put pressure on Bush to end the war.

Will this still be suggested even after Dick Cheney talks war with Blair, and the agenda of Anglo-US imperialism is taken a step forward?

The warranted conclusion is that the stand in opposition to this agenda must be identified with the alternative. When George W. Bush declared that "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists", he was declaring that no alternative exists or must be allowed to exist. When Tony Blair declared that the "main evil of our times is mass terrorism", he was declaring the same thing, that the status quo must be defended and no solution to society’s problems can be elaborated.

Anyone who is not intent on being doctrinaire can support and work for the realisation of the slogan, "A different world is possible!" This can and must be done. While Cheney and Blair talk war, the working class and people can seriously discuss how to implement building the workers’ opposition and planting the alternative to crisis, war and state terrorism.

In Cuba, celebrations and parties were held in workplaces and schools across the island to highlight the role of women in society.

During a solemn ceremony on Friday evening at Havana's Karl Marx Theatre, the wives and mothers of Cuba's five political prisoners held in the United States were awarded special honours for their extraordinary courage and dignity.

In a message issued on the occasion of International Women's Day, Vilma Espin – president of the Federation of Cuban Women – said that the situation of women in Latin America has worsened dramatically over the past year. She noted that women are deeply affected by economic recession, emphasising that the feminisation of poverty is a growing reality throughout the Third World, as well as industrialised countries.

The president of the Federation of Cuban Women stated that the situation in Cuba is quite different – with women holding important and decisive positions in production, education, medicine, scientific research, sports and culture. Vilma Espin stressed that while Cuba has achieved a great deal in the area of women's equality, there is still much work to be done.

Rodong Sinmun, newspaper of the Workers’ Party of Korea, carried an editorial dedicated to International Women's Day on March 8.

The editorial says that the Korean women are guaranteed the most worthy life as social beings and to exalt their dignity and honour to the maximum. They are fully demonstrating their revolutionary stamina in the worthwhile drive to build a powerful nation.

The Korean women have devotedly defended Kim Jong Il and absolutely held him in high esteem despite ordeals unprecedented in history, the editorial continues. They are performing a big role in all fields and at all posts of the revolution and construction where a gigantic struggle is underway for the building of a powerful nation. Among them are many unassuming patriots who have devoted themselves to education, scientists who have broken a new ground in modern science, women of merit and labour innovators.

The editorial calls upon the Korean women to devote their wisdom and energies to the general onward march to effect a new surge in building a powerful nation, cherishing the high honour and pride of living and making revolution in an era of gigantic creation and change led by Kim Jong Il.

Many cultural activities were held in localities nationwide to mark International Women's Day, March 8.

The Command of the Military Zone 1 held a meeting to mark the Day and 1,962 years of the Hai Ba Trung Uprising (March 8, 40 - March 8, 2002) and presented the medal "For the Advancement of Women" to several officers of the command.

The Hanoi Women's Union held a cultural festival entitled "For the Advancement of Hanoi's Women" with the participation of over 1,000 women from domestic and foreign agencies and organisations located in the city. The festival included a number of cultural activities and contests such as singing about women, cooking and flower arranging, sports and display of handicraft products.

Other localities including Nam Dinh, Hung Yen, Haiphong, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City also celebrated the day concerning exchanges on the contributions of women to the society, mobilising women to further promote efforts in fighting poverty and assisting others in difficulties.

Vietnamese women took this opportunity to express their commitment to further contributing to the national development in the coming period.

Capitalism combines formal equality with economic and, consequently, social inequality. This is one of the principal distinguishing features of capitalism, one that is mendaciously screened by the supporters of the bourgeoisie, the liberals, and that is not understood by the petty-bourgeois democrats. Out of this distinguishing feature of capitalism, by the way, the necessity arises, while fighting resolutely for economic equality, openly to recognise capitalist inequality and, under certain conditions, even to include this open recognition of inequality as a basis for the proletarian state organisation (the Soviet Constitution).

But capitalism cannot be consistent even with regard to formal equality (equality before the law, "equality" between the well-fed and the hungry, between the property-owner and the property-less). And one of the most flagrant manifestations of this inconsistency is the inferior position of woman compared with man. Not a single bourgeois state, not even the most progressive, republican democratic state, has brought about complete equality of rights.

But the Soviet Republic of Russia promptly wiped out, without any exception, every trace of inequality in the legal status of women, and secured her complete equality in its laws.

It is said that the level of culture is best characterised by the legal status of woman. There is a grain of profound truth in this saying. From this point of view, only the dictatorship of the proletariat, only the socialist state, could achieve and did achieve a higher level of culture.

Therefore, the foundation (and consolidation) of the first Soviet Republic – and alongside and in connection with this, the Communist International – inevitably lends a new, unparalleled, powerful impetus to the working women's movement.

For, when we speak of those who, under capitalism, were directly or indirectly, wholly or partially oppressed, it is precisely the Soviet system, and the Soviet system only, that secures democracy. This is clearly demonstrated by the position of the working class and the poor peasants. It is clearly demonstrated by the position of women.

But the Soviet system represents the final decisive conflict for the abolition of classes, for economic and social equality. For us, democracy, even democracy for those who were oppressed under capitalism, including democracy for the oppressed sex, is inadequate.

The working women's movement has for its objective the fight for the economic and social, and not merely formal, equality of woman. The main task is to draw the women into socially productive labour, extricate them from "domestic slavery", free them of their stultifying and humiliating resignation to the perpetual and exclusive atmosphere of the kitchen and nursery.

It is a long struggle, requiring a radical remaking both of social technique and of customs. But this struggle will end with the complete triumph of communism.

An international campaign has been launched calling for the release of Memik Horuz, the managing editor of the Turkish newspaper Ozgur Gelecek (Free Future). His is one of the worst cases of victimisation of a journalist in Turkey where the government is currently using the country's Penal Code and Anti-terrorist law to conduct a massive clampdown on media freedoms.

Memik Horuz, held in Sincan prison in Ankara, has been detained since June 18, 2001. He was arrested in Cemberlitas, Istanbul, by the Turkish state security forces and charged with interviewing a guerrilla leader. This charge was subsequently dropped but he is now charged with belonging to a banned organisation. His case will now come before the courts on March 18. He has been subjected to sleep deprivation and is kept blindfold much of the time.

Memik Horuz is married, the father of two children. He has worked for Ozgur Gelecek since 1993 and is one of many progressive journalists in Turkey to suffer frequent harassment and intimidation. He spent several years in prison in the1980s. On April 2 last year, before his latest arrest, he was detained, strip-searched and interrogated at the Istanbul security headquarters when he went to apply for a passport.

The world-wide campaign for the release of Memik Horuz is being mounted jointly by the International League of People's Struggle (ILPS), the international organisation of which he is deputy chairperson, Peoples Right Watch-Belgium (PRW) and the International Association of Peoples Lawyers (IAPL). It is co-ordinated from Brussels.

The campaign has organised a special delegation of foreign observers to attend the court hearing on March 18. Supporters meetings are being held in Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, France, Britain, India, the Philippines, the US and other countries. Petitions demanding the release of Memik Horuz are being sent to the Turkish Interior Ministry and Justice Ministry.

A spokesperson for the campaign said: "The throwing out of the charges against Noam Chomsky's Turkish publisher last month shows that the Turkish government is sensitive to international attention. We want to make sure that it does not get away with persecuting Memik Horuz or any other journalist in Turkey trying to do their job."

For further information:
Dr. Anne Van Mackelenbergh (Campaign Co-ordinator),
People's Rights Watch Belgium,
Broederminstraat 42, 2018 Antwerp, Belgium
Email: prwatch@hotmail.com
Tel: 0032-486-219017

International Campaign to Free Memik Horuz
c/o ILPS, Postbus 1452, 3500 BL Utrecht, The Netherlands
Email: memik@ilps2001.com
http://ilps2001.com/edp/memik

Despite rain and a boycott by the big mass media, 100,000 people demonstrated on Saturday, March 9, in Rome in solidarity with the Palestinian Intifada. It was the biggest demonstration in support of the Palestinian cause ever in Italy.

The idea to hold the demonstration was launched in October last year by the Forum for Palestine. The call for this demonstration included five points:

· Withdrawal of the Israeli army from the occupied territories;
· Dismantlement of all Zionist colonial settlements;
· Right to return for the Palestinian refugees;
· Foundation of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital;
· International observation against Israeli violence.

Under the slogan "Life, land, liberty for the Palestinian people", the demonstrators, largely youth, marched through the Italian capital. Shouts of " yes for Intifada, no for the occupation" went up from the marchers, with at least a hundred Palestinians among them. About a dozen marchers carried a banner saying "Jews against the occupation" of Palestinian areas, as Palestinian flags as well as Italian communist party banners dotted the crowd. The marchers made their way through miles of streets in the heart of Rome. The march began near Rome's main train station and ended up in Piazza Navona, a popular tourist spot, where the marchers posted a large puppet made in the likeness of Israeli leader Ariel Sharon and dressed in a butcher's apron.

About 100 striking state power workers camped inside a Buddhist temple in central Seoul on Sunday to protest against a government privatisation plan.

The protest was in support of about two dozen union leaders who have been occupying a Roman Catholic church in the city centre as a sanctuary since thousands of power workers went on strike two weeks ago. About 500 riot police surrounded Chogye Temple after the 100 workers moved into the precinct.

Earlier on Sunday, about 2,000 striking power workers and supporters peacefully marched down Seoul streets after a rally, shouting: "No privatisation!"

About 5,000 state thermal power workers have said that they will fight until the government withdraws its privatisation plan, which they say will lead to mass layoffs. The government outlawed the strike. By law, private-sector workers cannot strike in South Korea.

Privatising the power utility and other inefficient state firms is one of President Kim Dae-jung's economic priorities. The change is part of a "reform" programme in the wake of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

The Venezuelan government has reiterated its refusal to reconsider political appointments at the state-owned oil company, shoring up its stance against top managers who last week staged a half-day strike to demand the new leadership's resignations.

The government "has no intention of replacing" the president and board of directors of Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, said Interior Minister Rodriguez Chacin late on Saturday, after an eight-hour Cabinet meeting. He warned that protesting workers might be fired.

The company produces 80 percent of Venezuela's export revenue, has numerous subsidiaries such as Citgo Corp. in the United States, and traditionally has resisted political interference.

PDVSA executives claim that politics, not merit, motivated President Hugo Chavez's February 25 appointment of economist Gaston Parra as company president, as well as five loyalists to the seven-member board of directors.

Upset managers have said they will continue protesting until the five new board members resign, but they reluctantly accepted to work with Parra. On Sunday, protesting personnel were to meet to decide how to continue the protests.

The dispute began on February 23 when Chavez sacked General Guaicaipuro Lameda as company president and appointed Parra as his replacement. Lameda said he was let go because he resisted state oil policy, especially Venezuela's role as a price hawk in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and a new oil law that forces PDVSA to shoulder a minimum 51 percent stake in joint ventures involving production and exploration. Adhering to reduced production quotas forced the company to abandon production capacity and raised storage costs, he said.

Oil Minister Alvaro Silva Calderon said last week that complying with OPEC quotas helped raise the average price for Venezuelan oil from $16 a barrel to $19.

Venezuela, with the largest oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere, earns $1 billion for each $1 increase in oil prices.