Anti-May Day Propaganda Seeking to Demonise the Protesting Youth

More than 100 stories have appeared in the monopoly-controlled press in April so far on the subject of the forthcoming May Day protest. The tone and aim of these stories has been to demonise the youth, criminalise their dissent and further prepare the ground for banning political protest.

A briefing on April 24 from the London mayor, Ken Livingstone, and the chief commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Sir John Stevens, threatened "zero tolerance" on those intent on committing criminal damage It is the latest in a long line of police briefings which many journalists have reported in line with this reactionary state campaign.

The Special Branch briefings serve to discredit and demonise the movement against neo-liberal globalisation, and to attempt to prepare public opinion for a violent police crackdown. In line with this aim, the media have reported a foreign influx of anarchists, May Day rioters training at US camps, bomb threats, plans to loot shops and fears of rioting and terrorism. It has been reported that armed guards will be on patrol to disarm demonstrators carrying samurai swords.

The youth are joining with youth, workers, women and the broad masses of the people world-wide in taking action against the neo-liberal agenda of globalisation that serves the international financial oligarchy. In doing so, they are gaining a world-outlook of their own through their struggle.

According to agency reports, US president George W Bush has announced that the US would come to the aid of Taiwan if the island, which China regards as an integral part of its territory, were forcibly re-occupied. He is reported to have said that the use of military force was "certainly an option" in such circumstances. Bush’s comments come in the same week in which it has already been announced that the US government is to step up its provocative actions towards the People’s Republic of China by selling arms and other military equipment, including naval destroyers, submarines and submarine hunting-aircraft worth millions of dollars, to Taiwan. These latest provocations follow in the wake of recent Taiwanese military manoeuvres openly directed against China, the mid-air collision between a US EP-3 spy plane and a Chinese jet fighter over the South China Seas on April 1, and the announcement by US Defence Secretary that the Pacific Ocean was the most likely theatre of major US military operations in the future

Taiwan has been forcibly separated from the People's Republic of China since 1949 and maintained as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" by US imperialism ever since. In recent months its leading politicians, with US support, have been attempting to re-assert Taiwanese claims to complete independence from China and to create hostility between the peoples of Taiwan and mainland China. For its part the government of the People’s Republic of China, which in recent years has been able to restore both Hong Kong and Macao to Chinese sovereignty, has continually re-affirmed the long-cherished aim of the Chinese people to reunite China and Taiwan. It has suggested that reunification could take place on the basis of the "one country, two systems" formula and called on the leasers of Taiwan not to delay talks indefinitely.

The government of the People’s Republic of China vigorously condemned the arms sales to Taiwan. It has called on the US government to revoke its decision, which China’s Vice-Foreign Minister referred to as constituting a flagrant violation of previous agreements between the US and China, especially the Sino-US joint communiqué of 1982, and an open provocation to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. He concluded his statement by stressing: "The Chinese people and the people of the world realise once again that the US government does not live up to its promises, and facts have revealed that the US does not want stability across the Taiwan Straits. We should sternly inform the US side of the firm resolution and determination of the Chinese People in safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity. No one can stop the Chinese people in their endeavour for the reunification of the motherland."

The offer by US President George W Bush of the biggest weapons sales to Taiwan in a decade included four Kidd class destroyers, eight diesel submarines and 12 P-3 "Orion" anti-submarine hunter aircraft. In the early 1990s, Taiwan bought 150 F-16 fighter jets from the US as well as 60 Mirage 2000-5 fighters and six Lafayette-class frigates from France. The US package did not include the Patriot PAC-3 missile defence system that Taiwan had requested.

Also by threatening to sell Taiwan the Aegis naval air defence system previously, which President Bush has now deferred and which could have become a platform for a US Theatre Missile Defence system aimed at Chinese ballistic missiles, analysts have surmised that Washington was masking its plan to boost Taiwan's submarine capability.

However, the US does not build diesel submarines. Military analysts said the submarines it has offered were likely to be Dutch designed, German built and equipped with US technology. But the US has yet to reveal how it would provide the submarines.

Germany has not received any request from Taiwan for submarines and would refuse to approve any such sale, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's spokesman said on Tuesday. Uwe-Karsten Heye said, "Up until now no such a request has been made. In the event that it is we will not approve the sale." One congressional Republican aide said he was wondering whether the administration had been "duplicitous".

A Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman also said that while the Netherlands delivered two submarines to Taiwan in the 1980s, it now has an agreement with China not to sell any more weapons to the island. Frank de Bruin, a Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman, said, "The Netherlands maintains a one-China policy. That means no weapons are to be sold to Taiwan or to third parties for resale to Taiwan."

Despite those statements, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that "the United States would not have indicated that they would be available to provide to Taiwan if we didn't believe that we had the means to secure their production".

On April 20, roughly 1,500 people, mostly youth and students, had converged on the steps of the Gazeta building, the financial centre of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The demonstration and march, billed by organisers as a "Carnival Against the FTAA", was called to coincide with the Summit of the Americas and Quebec City Days of Action and to stand with the peoples of the Americas saying "No to the FTAA!". Demonstrations were met with violent police attacks, with reports of at least 100 activists injured, 30 requiring hospitalisation. Among those beaten were four Brazil Independent Media activists.

The march moved out peacefully from the Gazeta building stopping to shout slogans at points along the route, including Itau bank and a gas station. Violence erupted soon after, with riot police beating a young activist with batons.

The police violence escalated rapidly as they began firing tear gas and charging the march. Many demonstrators sought to escape the charging police while others stood their ground with brightly decorated padded shields. Police beat many of the demonstrators and at least two were arrested.

The march reassembled at the Central Bank of Brazil, the march's final destination where organisers demanded an audience with the bank's president to present a giant envelope creatively expressing the opposition to the FTAA. The police charged demonstrators again, injuring an unknown number of protestors, including numerous serious injuries. With tear gas, batons and helicopters hovering above, the police succeeded in dispersing the demonstration, detaining or arresting at least 60 people.

Organisers pointed out afterward that they had communicated to city officials their plans for the demonstration and march, and so long as due notification is given, they are constitutionally guaranteed the right to gather and demonstrate without a permit. Organisers and participants vowed to step up the opposition to the FTAA and neo-liberal globalisation.

Just two hours after the police attack, the area was open to rush hour traffic again, but a giant spray-painted slogan across the bank's main sign read: "The People Don't Want the FTAA!"