Workers Daily Internet Edition Year 2003 No. 101

Year 2003 No. 101, October 16, 2003	ARCHIVE	HOME	JBBOOKS	SUBSCRIBE

Daily On Line Newspaper of the
Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
170, Wandsworth Road, London, SW8 2LA.
Phone: (Local Rate from outside London 0845 644 1979) 020 7627 0599
Web Site: http://www.rcpbml.org.uk
e-mail: office@rcpbml.org.uk
Subscription Rates (Cheques made payable to RCPB(ML)):
Workers' Weekly Printed Edition:
70p per issue, £2.70 for 4 issues, £17 for 26 issues, £32 for 52 issues (including postage)
Workers' Daily Internet Edition sent by e-mail daily (Text e-mail):
1 issue free, 6 months £5, Yearly £10

Bush Announces Hardening of Aggressive Policy towards Cuba

Facing Washington's Increasing Hostility and Arrogance, Cuba Shows Dignity and Strength

Dignity and Steadfastness in the Face of Imperialism’s Growing Hostility and Arrogance

Statement from the Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in response to Bush's Friday speech

Since he arrived at the White House, the US president, George W Bush, has given unequivocal signs of his commitment to an extravagant and aggressive policy toward Cuba, with the aim of satisfying the criminal demands of the terrorist Miami mafia. In this way the White House is paying for that mafia’s fraud and scandalous trickery in the 2000 presidential elections, which denied the vote to tens of thousands of African-Americans and managed to stop a recount in two counties of the state of Florida.

Through certain anti-Cuban decisions, the Bush administration has inflicted a grave deterioration in bilateral links between the two countries, already seriously affected by 44 years of hostility and aggression. These include:

* An intensification of the criminal economic, financial and commercial blockade of Cuba; increased subversive activity in the US Interests Section in Havana; and renewed support for counterrevolutionary groups, including the assignation of more than $30 million approved by USAID to these ends;

* The arbitrary and unjust placing of Cuba on all US black lists, including the grossest and most lying, with which the empire is trying to slander, judge and interfere in the internal affairs of the rest of the world;

* The irresponsible expulsion of Cuban diplomats and new limitations on our missions in Washington and New York, and the flagrant violation of the migratory agreements, with the persistence of the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act and the "wet-foot, dry-foot policy";

* The use of radio-electronic aggression against our country has been increased, not excluding the use of satellites and military aircraft.

That brutal anti-Cuban escalation has been compounded by repressive action against the US population itself, such as the elimination of licenses to universities and academic centres that have organised visits to our country, the increased restrictions on travel to Cuba and the demonstrable increase of persons who have been fined and sanctioned for the unheard-of "crime" of exercising their right to freely travel to our country.

As if this were not enough, on October 10, the US president, faithful to the opportunism that has characterised his policy toward Cuba, announced new punitive measures against our country in the framework of a speech notable for its cynical anti-Cuban rhetoric.

The more outrageous measures announced by president Bush in his speech are:

The creation of a so-called Presidential Committee for Aid to a Free Cuba. Headed by the US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Mr Melquíades Martínez, a loyal representative of the Miami mafia in the Bush administration, its basic task will be to advise the US president in his attempts to fortify the blockade, subversion and a policy of aggression, with the primordial objective of overthrowing the Cuban Revolution.

An increase in the illegal transmissions of Radio and Television Martí and subversive action against Cuba.

Increased pressure at international level in an attempt to isolate our country.

Intensified repressive measures against US citizens attempting to travel to Cuba.

As was to be expected, the US president made special emphasis in his diatribe to reiterating his total commitment to the criminal policy of blockading Cuba.

He also announced his intention to strengthen procedures in favour of legal emigration from Cuba to the United States. Of course, he never mentioned eliminating the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act, nor the irrational "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, the main incitements to illegal emigration, or the use of violence in attempts to emigrate from our country to the United States.

In the context of the lies and repugnant accusations made by the US president in the framework of this electoral exercise, his fallacious references to the alleged illicit sexual trade flourishing in our country and encouraged by the Cuban government, according to Mr Bush, merits special mention.

Evidently the US president is unaware that, like few nations in the world, Cuba has demonstrated an exemplary defence of and protection for its children, young people and women, an issue that has been widely acknowledged by the United Nations. Mr Bush surely does not know that for Cuba, the protection of childhood and youth is a moral imperative and a matter of principle, and that acts propitiating or encouraging the exploitation, trafficking or sexual abuse of our children and young people are not and will never be tolerated.

The US president would be better occupied taking care of the serious problems of drug addiction, violence, poverty and the lack of social assistance that are negatively affecting youth and children in the United States, rather than lying about Cuba.

President Bush’s "celebrations" on May 20 already constitute an unequivocal sign of his total ignorance of Cuban history and the significance that dignity and decorum have for Cubans. However, more than ignorance, having selected October 10 to make these announcements, evidences the enormous disdain of the US government and President Bush in person for our people.

Beyond the usual rhetoric and the unconcealed whiff of his objective, these new anti-Cuba measures clearly demonstrate the US government’s unlimited commitment to the ultra-right Cuban American sectors and their obsession to destroy the example represented by the Cuban Revolution.

These actions are also a vain attempt to neutralise the growing isolation and international condemnation of US policy on Cuba, and a broad-based questioning of US governmental hostility towards our country in the United States itself.

It would be difficult to surpass the anti-Cuba record of the current US. administration. Any inventory of the aggressive actions undertaken against Cuba demonstrates the extent of the hardening of US policy and the degree of entrenchment of a political tendency openly advocating confrontation without any concern as to the means or methods utilised to that end, or the possible consequences for the Cuban and US peoples.

This escalation of aggression and provocation is in strong contrast to the position of the Cuba, which has demonstrated in many contexts its disposition and will to work towards improving bilateral relations and to promote relations between the Cuban and US peoples.

Cuba is once again exposing to the world these new provocations and aggressive actions on the part of the neo-fascist US government which, as confirmed in Bush’s own words, are part of a plan to defeat the Cuban Revolution.

Cuba constitutes a moral and political point of reference that the US government and the terrorist groups located in the south of Florida cannot abide. Obsessed with putting an end to the example of dignity and social justice embodied by the Cuban Revolution, they are taking courses of action that are steadily more dangerous and provocative.

Faced with the failure of more than 40 years of economic and political warfare, the application of a blockade unequalled in history, the sanctions and draconian measures that have brought tremendous suffering to the Cuban people, the US government is now lending itself to taking even stronger measures against Cuba.

The terrorist Miami mafia’s thirst for vengeance and its hatred are infinite and we are certain that it will pursue its electoral blackmail by demanding further action against Cuba. It would not surprise us if new aggressions will occur as we approach November 2004. Given that possibility, our only alternative is to have more confidence in our principles, in the strength of the Revolution, in socialism and in Fidel.

With the arrogance that characterises him, President Bush noted in his speech that Cuba will not change by itself, but that Cuba has to change. The President of the United States should know that his words do not frighten anybody in this country. We decided 44 years ago to embark on the hard but also worthy road of sovereignty and independence and we are not going to renounce it.

The transition dreamed of by Bush and his Miami mafia acolytes will never occur in Cuba. Our country is in transition, yes, but in a transition towards more Revolution, towards a more just society, towards a society where men and women can attain the full development only offered by socialism.

Nobody should be mistaken, neither our enemies abroad nor their discredited domestic mercenaries. As it has done to date, Cuba has the total capacity and disposition to confront and overcome with intelligence, maturity, firmness and courage this or any other extravagancies and aggressive escalations on any terrain. Mr Bush should know that, as always, any aggression against our country will founder against the dignity, steadfastness and integrity of the people of Cuba.

Havana, October 13, 2003

Oliver Stone Denounces Censorship of his Film on Fidel Castro

US filmmaker Oliver Stone stated in Los Angeles that his film "Comandante" – a portrait of Cuban President Fidel Castro, based on a 30-hour interview – was intentionally censored in the United States. The well-known film director said that he couldn't understand why Fidel Castro's words are so hard to listen to, adding that "the people have a right to hear him".

HBO Television took the feature length documentary out of circulation during the first half of this year, when an international, reactionary campaign was unleashed after 75 so-called "dissidents" were accused and convicted of working as agents of the United States.

The director of "Born on the Fourth of July" and "JFK" – among many other films – attributed the move to what he called "lobbying for censorship by the Cuban mafia", alluding to the right wing sectors of the Cuban-American community in southern Florida. Oliver Stone said that it was one of the most depressing moments of his career.

The filmmaker explained how HBO requested him to return to Cuba and, even though he thought the film was finished, he returned. The Cuban president received him again for another 30 hours, in which he had the chance to express his opinions on the censorship and analyse them.

Oliver Stone said he is accustomed to speaking his mind and said the atmosphere in the United States is "straight out of the novels of George Orwell". He added that after his films "Platoon" and "JFK", he was accused of being anti-American.

The internationally-renowned film director said his new documentary is entitled "Looking for Castro" and will be premiered early next year.

Radio Havana Cuba (RHC), October 13

Comandante was released on October 10 in the UK. It is being shown from Friday Oct 17 - Thursday Oct 23 at the Odeon Wardour Street, 10 Wardour Street, London W1D 6QF, Information: 0870 505 0007, Booking: 020 8795 6402, Fri-Tue/Thu 4.00pm, 6.20pm, 8.40pm.

Born on the Fourth of July, introduced by Ron Kovic, is being shown at the Prince Charles Cinema, London, on Sunday, November 16.

Do as We Say, but Not as We Do Is the New US Message

by Linda S Heard*

As US President Bush berated the Cuban regime for its oppressive policies and imprisonment of dissidents on Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) launched an unusually stinging criticism of the US for its open-ended incarceration of so called "war on terror" detainees.

The normally reticent ICRC cited dozens of suicide attempts and severely depressed inmates as evidence of the psychological damage inmates are suffering. This was an irony surely lost on the "Patient Man" complaining that Cuba lacked democracy while the US is doggedly occupying part of that troubled island. There was also a hollow ring to the American Viceroy L Paul Bremer’s boast, the day before, that Iraq now has a free press. This came on the heels of criticism from Reporters Without Borders slamming undertakings which journalists visiting Guantanamo are forced to sign. Representatives of the media have to promise not to ask questions about ongoing investigations or else be removed from the base. What possible use is a reporter who is gagged from asking questions, other than a peddler of propaganda?

In the Bush administrations’ eyes there are good questions and bad questions. Networks, which indulge in seeking answers to designated "bad questions" or portray events in a less than positive light, such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, are suspended from reporting in occupied Iraq. Correction: Liberated Iraq.

And should those wayward "truth-seekers" persist with their offensive quests, they risk getting a missile through the roofs of their offices, or their reporters arrested and charged with terrorism.

On the six-month anniversary of Iraq’s "liberation", a few days ago, Bush launched a public relations campaign designed to paint Iraq as a veritable success story, a country filled with happy, smiling citizens, grateful to Uncle Sam for ridding them of a wicked dictator.

Unfortunately for the president, around the time he was lauding vastly improved conditions, an Iraqi police station came under attack and US soldiers fell victim to a rocket-propelled grenade. Scenes of tens of thousands of Shiite demonstrators, beating their chests and shouting anti-American slogans, in protest at the jailing of a top cleric, didn’t help the American leader’s rosy scenario either.

There is no doubt that America is suffering from a chronic disease called "double standards". Nowhere is this sickness more evident than in the UN Security Council. In that hallowed chamber, constructed on principles of international peace and justice, Muslim countries whose nuclear ambitions may be a mere twinkle in their leaders’ eyes – if at all, are castigated – while Israel’s deadly nuclear arsenal is ignored.

The disease is at a stage where everyone around tries not to see it. Few batted an eyelid when the US shrank from pulling up Israel for refusing to allow a UN fact-finding group to investigate Jenin. Hardly anyone raised their eyebrows when Bush called Sharon’s apartheid wall merely "troubling"; and nobody is surprised that Bush’s America has seemingly given the green light to Israel to launch missile attacks on Syria and Gaza. We’re in danger of getting to the stage where we find this kind of thing normal, a bit like an ugly wart on the nose of one’s best friend. When Israeli mothers are killed it is always the work of those evil terrorists. When Palestinian children are blown apart, this is a result of Israel exercising its sovereign right to security.

America’s double standards were never more glaring than the way that the respective stories of Americans Jessica Lynch and Rachel Corrie were handled, both by its government and press. On the one hand, Lynch, who was injured in an automobile accident in Iraq and was subsequently well treated by the Iraqis, was hailed as a heroine. Corrie, cruelly trampled under the wheels of an Israeli bulldozer as she defended a Palestinian home, was virtually ignored.

When it comes to using vetoes, it is widely understood that the US will use its Security Council veto against any resolution which challenges Israel. Yet when France so much as hinted it might use its veto to delay the invasion of Iraq, that country was insulted and ridiculed, its produce subjected to an unofficial blacklist in the US with Congress leading the infantile charge. Freedom Fries indeed!!

Then there is the way that the Iraq Survey Group charged with unearthing Iraq’s alleged WMD has asked for, and been given, a further nine months to come up with the goods, when former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix was waved away for requesting just a few more weeks.

Things begin to look even more topsy-turvy when we realise that Bush’s "Man of Peace" is busy aggressing his neighbours, while his IDF emissaries merrily murder women and children in Gaza, demolish homes in the West Bank, destroy centuries-old olive groves and make way for another 600 Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. He even has the audacity to threaten the Palestinians there will be no Palestinian state if they don’t behave (read: Lie down and die). Naturally, according to the Bush White House, the terrorist here is not the Butcher of Beirut but Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, an ailing, frail old man who has been prevented from leaving his Ramallah compound for years, and whose security apparatus has been decimated. It’s all Arafat’s fault, they say. Without Arafat everything would be hunky dory.

And last week, yet another paradox played out when a Republican-backed muscle-bound, Hitler-admiring, self-confessed groper, won the coveted governorship of California, while it was those same Republicans who led the charge to impeach then President Bill Clinton, tut-tutting in unison over his breach of morals.

And where are all the Zionist lobbyists, the ones who rushed forward to colour Greta Duisenberg as an anti-Semite for flying a Palestinian flag from her home to name but one of many examples? Arnie, of course, was a sweet young thing in those long ago days when he clicked his heels. After all, ambitious young Austrians need their role models but now that those kindly Jewish movie moguls have helped him see the light, all is conveniently forgiven.

It’s become clear that in this New World Order there is one rule for the US and Israel with quite another for all the rest. There was a time when the US led by example but no more. There was a time when America was the leader of the free world. Now it leads a frightened and frightening world.

Perhaps the supreme irony here is that since Bush’s war on terror, the US has far less friends than ever before, anti-Americanism is rife worldwide and terrorists are mushrooming, fuelled by revenge for Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine.

The American economy is in shreds and the dollar is falling along with Bush’s approval rating. Isn’t it time that the American public took a long, hard look at the big picture? Today it may be a mere jigsaw but one day those pieces will fit together. It’s only then the neo-con nightmare will be replaced by the American dream hopefully allowing the world to indulge in peaceful slumber once more.

*Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Mideast affairs and can be contacted at heardonthegrapevine@yahoo.co.uk

Published by The Palestine Chronicle (http://www.palestinechronicle .com) on Tuesday, October 14, 2003.

British and US Firms Gather in London to Divide Up the Spoils of War

Close to 100 mostly US and British firms began gathering in London on Monday, October 13, to divide up the spoils of the Iraq war as US contractors were accused of importing cheap migrant labour from Asia to Iraq despite the country's high unemployment rate. The conference – Doing Business in Iraq: Kickstarting the Private Sector – was organised by the US-Iraq Business Alliance, which was set up in June last year and has close contacts with the Pentagon.

Anti-war activists from Voices UK protested outside the conference denouncing the imposition of a neo-liberal economy with unprecedented haste and with absolutely no democratic process on an already impoverished country. They charged that instead of a reconstruction process that involves Iraqi companies, who have the necessary experience to do the job properly, foreign companies will be buying up sectors of the Iraq economy for a quick profit. Voices UK anti-war activists had also demonstrated on Wednesday, October 8, when Tony Blair visited at north London housing estate to publicise the police’s new powers to criminalise so-called "anti-social behaviour". The activists held up placards demanding an inquiry into the war on Iraq, and bearing photographs of Iraqi children killed in the bombing raids.

The London conference coincided with complaints from Iraqi business sectors that they are being overlooked by the US occupation administration as US contractors import cheap migrant labour from south Asia. US officials responded by claiming that security conditions have forced them to turn to cheap imported labour because they must protect themselves from irate Iraqis. Hakim Awad, an Iraqi construction manager who makes lines for contracts outside the Baghdad Airport every day, said US contractors are importing labour and expatriating the benefits. Last month, US occupation administrator Paul Bremer issued an order giving foreign investors unrestricted rights to establish businesses in Iraq and/or buy up Iraqi companies. The order also allows foreign investors to repatriate profits, dividends, interest and royalties immediately and in full.

US Plans to Sell off Iraqi Businesses Are Simply the Modern Equivalent of Pillage

by Brian Whitaker, Guardian Newspapers Limited, 10/13/2003

For centuries, pillage by invading armies was a normal part of warfare: a way in which to reward badly-paid or unpaid troops for risking their lives in battle.

Nowadays, at least in more civilised countries, we do not let armies rampage for booty. We leave the pillaging to men in suits, and we don't call it pillaging any more. We call it economic development.

Today, the men in suits are gathering at Olympia, in London, for a two-day conference and exhibition entitled Doing Business in Iraq. Protesters will be gathering outside.

The event, which is sponsored by the US-Iraq business council, is one of a series being held in different parts of the world over the coming 12 months (another will take place in Moscow in December), culminating in a grand spoils of war exhibition in Baghdad towards the end of next year.

According to the organisers, speakers at the London conference will include several US government officials as well as a representative from Trade Partners UK, the British government's export promotion department.

This fits in neatly with plans announced in June by Paul Bremer, the head of Iraq's provisional authority, to sell off the country's state-owned industries (excluding, for the time being, oil, gas and minerals) and turn it into a US-style capitalist wonderland.

Last month, Mr Bremer issued CPA order number 39, giving foreign investors unrestricted rights to establish businesses in Iraq and/or buy up Iraqi companies.

The order also allows foreign investors to repatriate profits, dividends, interest and royalties immediately and in full. In other words, they can make a fast buck if they want to, without putting anything back.

While few would disagree that Iraq's industry needs modernisation and restructuring, two questions arise: has Mr Bremer the legal powers to do this, and is he going about it in the right way?

He has already acknowledged that his plans will create large-scale unemployment, at least in the short term. His earlier decision to disband the Iraqi army exacerbated the country's fragile security situation by leaving several hundred thousand disgruntled ex-soldiers with nothing better to do than cause trouble.

That is now widely regarded as a major blunder, and Mr Bremer now seems intent on repeating the exercise with the civilian population. According to the UN, the current level of unemployment in Iraq is around 50-60%: the last thing the country needs is more job losses.

Mr Bremer shows little interest in drawing lessons from the problems caused by economic "shock therapy" reforms in the former Soviet Union, and in Iraq – with the added factor of military occupation – this can only fuel hostility towards the US.

His order number 39 is also, almost certainly, illegal. The Hague regulations of 1907 spell out the obligations of an occupying power under international law.

Article 43 says that, when occupying forces take over a country, they must "ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country".

This means that Mr Bremer is not allowed to change Iraq's existing laws, including those that govern investment, unless it is "absolutely" essential to do so.

Article 55 says that an occupying power is only the "administrator and usufructuary" of state property. "It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct," it adds.

Mr Bremer, therefore, appears to have no right to sell off nationalised industries.

In the House of Lords last week, Baroness Williams of Crosby tried to ascertain the British government's view of Mr Bremer's approach. She asked whether the government "regard current policies in Iraq to be consistent with the legal advice the prime minister received from the attorney general".

She received the unilluminating reply that "it has been the practice of successive governments not to publish advice from the attorney general".

Fortunately, however, we already have a good idea of what the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, thinks about the matter. A memo that he wrote to the prime minister, Tony Blair, on March 26, a week after the invasion of Iraq began, was leaked to the press some time ago.

"My view," the attorney general wrote, "is that a further security council resolution is needed to authorise imposing reform and restructuring of Iraq and its government.

"In the absence of a further resolution, the UK (and US) would be bound by the provisions of international law governing belligerent occupation, notably the fourth Geneva convention and the 1907 Hague regulations."

He went on to note that the Hague regulations impose an obligation to respect the laws in force in the occupied territory "unless absolutely prevented".

"Thus, while some changes to the legislative and administrative structures of Iraq may be permissible if they are necessary for security or public order reasons, or in order to further humanitarian objectives," he said, "more wide-ranging reforms of governmental and administrative structures would not be lawful."

The restrictions imposed by the Hague regulations, as the attorney general suggested, can only be over-ridden by a UN security council resolution.

Interestingly, the preamble of Mr Bremer's Order No 39 claims just such backing. It states that the order is "consistent" with security council resolution 1483, approved last May, which lifted sanctions against Iraq.

But although the resolution talks vaguely (in paragraph 8e) about "promoting economic reconstruction and the conditions for sustainable development", there is nothing in it that can sensibly be construed as giving Mr Bremer permission to make sweeping changes to the investment law. Indeed, paragraph five calls upon "all concerned to comply fully" with the Hague Regulations.

The legality – or otherwise – of Mr Bremer's order is unlikely to trouble the Bush administration, although future US administrations may have to grapple with the consequences arising from it.

The prevailing view in Washington was set out with astonishing bluntness four years ago by John Bolton, now chief hawk at the state department, when he said: "It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law, even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so – because, over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the US."

Whether the British government, which tends to be more squeamish about such matters, agrees with this is still unclear, though the presence of its official from Trade Partners UK at the investment conference in London suggests that it does.

The US, however, has made no bones about its intentions, regardless of what the Hague regulations say, to make as many structural changes as possible in Iraq while it has the chance.

Its hope, of course, is that these will have gone too far to be undone once a proper Iraqi government takes over. On the other hand, the changes may go so far that a future Iraqi government feels obliged to overturn them in order to establish its popular credentials.

In that case, the invasion – with its phoney goals of removing Saddam Hussein and disarming him of weapons that he didn't possess – may be just a prelude to the real battle for Iraq yet to come.

Bush Announces Hardening of Aggressive Policy towards Cuba

Bush Announces Hardening of Aggressive Policy towards Cuba

Facing Washington's Increasing Hostility and Arrogance, Cuba Shows Dignity and Strength

Dignity and Steadfastness in the Face of Imperialism’s Growing Hostility and Arrogance

Oliver Stone Denounces Censorship of his Film on Fidel Castro

Do as We Say, but Not as We Do Is the New US Message

British and US Firms Gather in London to Divide Up the Spoils of War

US Plans to Sell off Iraqi Businesses Are Simply the Modern Equivalent of Pillage

Iraqi Orphan: The British Still Helped the Americans