File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2001/anarchy-list.0109, message 14


Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 19:33:35 -0400
From: Paul Kneisel <tallpaul-AT-nyct.net>
Subject: The Internet Anti-Fascist: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 -- 5:67 1/2 (#589)


__________________________________________________________________________

              The Internet Anti-Fascist: Friday, 24 August 2001
                        Vol. 5, Number 67 1/2 (#589)
__________________________________________________________________________

Action Alerts:
ISWoR, "Help Russians Kick Racists/right-wingers out of the anti-
    globalisation movement!" 21 Aug 01
Announcements:
    Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) et al, "Memorandum to US
       Government Concerning the World Conference on Racism Xenophobia and
       Related Intolerances," 16 Aug 01
Web Sites of Interest:
    International Solidarity with Workers in Russia

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ACTION ALERTS:

Help Russians Kick Racists/right-wingers out of the anti-globalisation
    movement!
International Solidarity with Workers in Russia (ISWoR)
21 Aug 01

Dear activists of the anti-globalisation, labor, antiracist and progressive
movements,

In July the Genoa protests saw the first ever participation of an organised
Russian delegation in the international protest movement. Now, despite the
offer of the Putin government to use massive police brutality, live
firearms,  etc to make the country the "safest" place for future assemblies
of the  G-8,  WTO, IMF, etc, there is a growing determination to build the
movement in  Russia and the Ukraine.

But there is a great danger! As many of you know, Russia and other
countries  of the ex-USSR have suffered the collapse of their industry and
the  near-total impoverishment of their people since the market economy was
re-introduced. Diseases such as TB are now epidemic in Russia, and the
average male life expectancy is down to 56. Russians have every reason to
be  angry at the world's capitalist leaders, the neo-liberal monsters,
coming to  Moscow as Putin requests.

But into all this misery have stepped the venomous forces of racism,
fascism,  bigotry -  who try to divert the just anger of  Russian people
away from  those responsible and onto traditional scapegoats - Chechens,
Muslims, Black  people, Jews, the gay community, etc..

In July the international association ATTAC (via its French and Belgian
sections) largely financed the trip of the joint Russian-Ukrainian
delegation  to Genoa. Alexander Gelenin, a Russian left activist known for
his uncompromising stand against racism, nationalism and collaboration with
neo-liberals, has exposed the participation in the delegation of racists
(the  so-called "red-browns") as well as a former Yeltsin money-launderer
(see link  to The Gelenin Letter, below). In Genoa, and then back in
Russia, these  right-wingers succeeded in taking almost all the credit for
the delegation in  the mass media.

Two participants of the delegation, Nicolaev and Vedernikova, are leading
members of the RKRP, an extremely racist and homophobic party whose members
worship the murderous dictator Stalin. Many of the youth closest to the
party  are admirers of the butcher Pol Pot. The party recently published
material  urging Russians to struggle against rap music (!), on the grounds
that  Russians and Black people can never agree. In 1997 the party approved
an  official statement blaming the economic crisis in Russia on Jews, and
they  have also published material urging that gay men be locked up in
prison.

On their return from the trip, Nicolaev appeared prominently in the Russian
mass-media, where he was quoted by Interfax urging indiscriminate smashing
of  windows, property, etc., reminiscent of the provocateurs who
infiltrated the  Black Bloc in Genoa.

Another delegation participant, Sergey Khramov, head of the union Sotsprof,
was in 1996 involved in the laundering of millions of dollars for the
Yeltsin  election campaign. In Genoa he made statements in favour of Putin
on national  TV. (N.B., Khramov, it seems, had alternative funding for his
journey,  nevertheless he was a leading voice of the delegation in Genoa).

Additionally, Evgeny Kozlov was present. This man is responsible for
bringing  the nazi National-Bolshevik Party, who call for imprisonment of
Black people  in labour camps, into the leadership of the Leningrad branch
of the mass  Labour Code campaign. In the outcry afterwards, he publicly
defended his  actions.

During the trip these named individuals were able to gain effective
leadership of the contingent. On their return home, the delegation held a
press conference in which plans to build an anti-globalisation movement in
Russia were revealed. The racists were allowed to appear in the mass media
as   spokespersons for the newly-forming movement.

In the anti-globalisation movement internationally, people are becoming
more  and more aware of the threat from nationalists who advocate
protectionism and  racism as the antidote to "globalisation". As a result
people are now using  slogans such as "globalise resistance" in order to
demonstrate the need for  unity of all peoples in the fight against the
corporate giants, not for  exclusion.

We urge you to sign the e-mail petition below to help our Russian friends
kick racists, bigots, and pro-Putin forces out of the emerging
anti-globalisation movement in Russia. The events which soured the Russian
delegation to Genoa must not happen again!

   --  From the  Executive Committee
       International Solidarity with Workers in Russia - ISWoR

- - - - -

Petition/letter - please sign below

Dear ATTAC,

I am writing to express my/our extreme disappointment on learning that,
during the recent anti-G8 demonstrations in Genoa, a Russian-Ukrainian
delegation mainly funded by ATTAC included leading members of a red-brown
organisation, the Russian Communist Workers Party (RKRP), an individual
responsible for promoting the fascist National Bolshevik Party in Russian
labour campaigns, and a former Yeltsin money-launderer who, during the
demonstrations, praised Putin in front of the mass media. Further, these
individuals manoeuvred to assume political leadership of the delegation and
afterwards stole the limelight in the mass media.

We condemn the Putin government, and its western puppet masters, the IMF,
World Bank etc., for imposing the market-led impoverishment on Russian
working people.

We oppose the hardened racists, the bigots, the ultra-nationalists. We call
on you to ensure that in future the funds or the name of ATTAC are not
misused in this way again.

In general the bringing of Russian activists of the labor, civil rights,
and  women's movement to Genoa was a very positive achievement, and we
welcome the  birth in Russia of a resistance movement to global corporate
domination. We  assert our solidarity with all genuine internationalist
organisations who are  fighting Putin, the IMF and the neoliberal
privatisation which has devastated   the lives of ordinary people in
Russia..

Signed

NAME

ORGANISATION

TOWN

COUNTRY

EMAIL

Now send to following addresses:

attacfr-AT-attac.org
belgium-AT-attac.org
shein72-AT-mail.ru
ISWoR-AT-aol.com

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ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Memorandum to US Government Concerning the World Conference on Racism
     Xenophobia and Related Intolerances
Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) et al
16 Aug 01

Congress of South African Trade Unions; South African Communist Party;
South African National Civic Organisation; Joint Statement

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), South African
Communist Party (SACP) and South African National Civics Organisation
(SANCO) have today, 16 August 2001, submitted the following memorandum to
the US Ambassador, Pretoria, and US Consul, Durban:

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), South African
Communist Party (SACP) and South African National Civics Organisation
(SANCO) are angry and disgusted at the United States' threats to boycott
the World Conference on Racism Xenophobia and Related Intolerances unless
certain issues are removed from the agenda.

SACP, COSATU and SANCO are firmly behind the demand that debates must take
place on reparations for the victims of slavery and racism and on Palestine
and the Middle East. The US government is objecting to the conference
conducting a discussion of Zionist racism against Palestine and reparations
for victims of slavery and colonialism. This is not acceptable. Zionist
racism and reparations for victims of slavery and colonialism must be on
the agenda of the World Conference.

When the issue of reparations for the victims of Nazism was being debated,
the US was enthusiastically in support. Yet now that reparations for the
victims of slavery are being discussed, they want it removed from the
agenda. There is  a clear case of double-standards being applied.

The struggle against Zionist racism and effectively addressing the issue of
reparations is part of the struggle of the poor and working people across
the world against capitalist globalisation and for social progress,
freedom, justice, democracy and peace.

The difficult situation in Palestine represents 52 years  of apartheid,
occupation, Israeli state terrorism, violent subjugation and an unfair
economic blockade of Palestine by Israel. This situation has continued
unabated and worsened in the last eight months, with the complicity of the
United States of America. Even more tragic has been the insufficient
international outcry at this situation - a silence which basically amounts
to a pat on the back for the apartheid Israeli state.

This conference presents an opportunity for the world community to engage
in democratic debate and take united action to end all forms of
discrimination, including the legitimate struggle for Palestinian freedom
and addressing the issue of reparations for colonialism and slavery.
Governments have been invited by the United Nations on  the assumption that
they are all opposed to racism and xenophobia. If this is not true of the
Bush Administration, then their participation will not be missed. We cannot
however tolerate threats to blackmail the rest of the world to accept its
own agenda for the conference. In South Africa, institutionalised racism
has left a deep-seated legacy. While the apartheid system has been defeated
politically, its economic and social ravages are still visible. In the
rural areas the majority African population still live in poverty and fear,
while their white employers prosper as before and on some farms even use
violence to impose their power.

There is still huge racial inequality in the distribution  of wealth and
power. While Africans make up 76% of the population, their share of income
amounts to only 29%. Whites, though less than 13% of the population, take
away 58.5% of total income. The economy is still mainly owned and
controlled by a few large white-owned corporations. South Africa is a
society of two nations - one powerful, wealthy and white, the other
powerless, poor and black, while at  the same time a new gap is opening up
between the small  new black capitalists and middle class and the rest of
the African population.

Internationally too, the legacy of slavery and colonialism continues to
impact on relations between, as well as within nations. Today's wealthy
imperialist powers built their wealth on the enslavement and exploitation
of the colonialised world. Capitalist globalisation threatens to entrench
and widen this unequal distribution of resources.

But the World Conference Against Racism provides a unique opportunity to
address these historical inequities. We support the growing demand for
reparations from the former colonial and slave-owning countries to
compensate the millions of people who have suffered, and continue to
suffer, as a result of colonialism, racism and slavery.

The developed countries must be committed to an international trade regime
that benefits countries of the South, unlike the present situation that
makes the Southern economies vulnerable to collapse at every stock market
jitter in the developed countries. Essential too is the cancellation of
developing countries' accumulated debts, especially those owed to the IMF
and World Bank, which  are a serious barrier to development.

However the most effective remedies to reverse the devastating consequences
of racism, slavery and colonialism are far-reaching structural changes to
the world economy, which must extend beyond the narrow understanding of
reparations as financial compensation to individual victims or countries.

For the first time in history nations of the world can act in genuine
partnership, to build non-racialism in action, working together to ensure a
better life for all. This will only be successful, however, if all nations
and peoples, including the United States of America, are prepared to
collectively acknowledge the crimes of the past, change the present and
build a future free from racism, discrimination and xenophobia.

SANCO, the SACP and COSATU demand that the US Government join this
movement, stop trying to blackmail the world and participate fully in the
debates at the conference. We demand that your government must take the
following steps:

* Withdraw its opposition to the inclusion of the issues  of Zionism and
   reparations for victims of slavery and colonialism in the agenda of the
   World Conference Against Racism.

* Support long-standing UN resolutions on ending Israeli occupation, the
   establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its
   capital, and securing the right of Palestinian refugees to return to
   their homes in Israel.

   --  Patrick Craven and Moloto Mothapo,
       Acting COSATU Spokespersons

       <patrick-AT-cosatu.org.za>
       082-821-7456 339-4911

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WEB SITES OF INTEREST:

IWKoR
<http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/index.html>

Further information can be found at:
<http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/news/genoagel.html>
the letter by A.Gelenin exposing the reality of the Genoa delegation

<http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/isworarts/Russianleft01.html>
links to a recent article explaining the above with far more detail

<http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/isworarts/rkrp2001.html>
Lisa Taylor article on the Russian Communist Workers Party, the RKRP

<http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/discuss/cesspit.html>
article on red-brown phenomenon in Russia

                               * * * * *

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only.

__________________________________________________________________________

                                FASCISM:
    We have no ethical right to forgive, no historical right to forget.
       (No permission required for noncommercial reproduction)

                                - - - - -

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