The Anti-Empire Project

First, a personal note. I just published a major essay on Canadian Foreign Policy — I hope Canadian readers (and others) find it useful.

Now to Latin America issues. Some time ago, Justin Delacour prepared a good article on Venezuela’s pollsters, published for Narconews but republished on ZNet. He has revisited the issue now, with good reason — the Venezuelan referendum is coming up and polls will be important. He discusses some replies from his critics from the Venezuelan ‘opposition’ (really the Venezuelan elite), one of whom discusses how unworried he is that sites like ours are publishing such critiques:

Thankfully, the 20,000 people who read ZMag [note: the article also ran on the progressive U.S. webzine ZNet, at http://www.zmag.org/] are all equally blinded by ideology and unreasonable, and such writing is most unlikely to reach or influence people who matter, who know anything at all, or who have anything like an open mind. So I really wouldn’t worry about it.

Nice, huh? I got some hate mail myself recently that I thought I’d share as well. It speaks so eloquently for itself that I feel no comment is necessary, though I have to admit I did take some guilty pleasure in replying to this fellow in kind, attempting to ape his highly eloquent style.

Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 10:18:11 -0500
From: Sebastián Arboleda Palacios
Subject: Your little website, Sir.

Mr. Podur,

As a Colombian that actually lives in his country and studies in Canada, I must confess that your little website is not only a sack of lies and deceit, but it suffers from a chronical disease typical of first-world left-wing fools that can’t see past their noses – naivety and misinformation.

Human rights workers in this country have, time after time, shown a politicised approach to the defense of human rights. From Amnesty International to the smallest NGO, they all, in one way or another, show their political orientation in every condemning report that ingenues like yourself value so much.

Your lack of condemnation for the Chavez regime is truly remarkable. You sit idly while a madman rapes his country and hands it to his supporters while denying more and more freedoms to his people every day. The Venezuelan armed forces have shown their reluctance to act against the guerrillas, so much that there have been several reports issued by the Dept. of State regarding the use of Venezuelan territory as a safe haven for FARC narco-terrorists. Mr. Chavez is not a man to be commended but a dictator in the making, a nationalist that believes in a “greater”, “Bolivarian” Venezuela and that is more a threat to the stability of the region than the three illegal armed groups that operate in my country.

I personally applaud the U.S. for its aid to my country and myself, like 75% of the Colombian electorate, approve of Mr. Uribe’s effort to restore security to the Nation. As a Canadian that lives a very comfortable and tranquil life, you are in no position to understand what it is to live in fear of being robbed, kidnapped, blackmailed or blown up when going to the mall or the supermarket. I strongly suggest that you read the (independent and unbiased, unlike your darling NGOs) polls before you pretend to be the voice of the Colombian people when clearly you are not.

I do suggest that you dedicate yourself to your country’s politics before writing a misleading and ridiculously biased website about other people’s affairs. It’s not like you’re void of corruption, single-party politics and rampant misuse of taxpayer funds. And by the way, you should try to read something other than ‘Adbusters’. Anti-american and left-wing may be chic these days, but that doesn’t make it right.

Most sincerely,

-Sebastian Arboleda Palacios

You know something is up when even Rahul Mahajan is asking his readers whether he should spend some time on vision and strategy:

So here’s a question, especially for readers who have been with me for a while. Do any of you feel as if further analysis of the occupation is beating a dead horse and that you want and need something different? Do you want to see more about vision for how to change the world, instead of an exclusive focus on what’s wrong with it? Thoughtful, reasoned answers are welcome; so are straightforward votes. Drop me a line.

I guess readers who have been with me for a while know that I named this blog after an essay by Michael Albert, called ‘Stop the Killing Train’. In his work, he emphasizes the stopping part. Readers who follow this blog know that I seem to be emphasizing the killing train part. I’m a lot more tentative in what I offer in the way of strategy or vision, probably just because I’m just not as sure about things as he is, though I do try to offer experiences that are positive, like the Northern Cauca process or even local things like OCAP.

But I have been feeling some of what Rahul describes — a sameness to the news. A sameness to the non-news, which is what I report here. We report these things out of a sense of duty, sometimes.

Fernando Garavito is a Colombian journalist in exile, who lost his job with a major Colombian newspaper for doing it too well, and fled under threat from paramilitaries. He does an internet column called ‘the Lord of the Flies’ (I translated just one of his articles). About a month ago, Garavito wrote what he announced as his last column. The world was on fire, going insane all around him, and there was just no point in putting these silly writings out over email. It’s the proportion problem I described a couple of days ago.

Garavito was convinced to keep writing, in part at least by another Colombian friend who wrote him a very moving note, which I got to read as well. That friend wrote: “I have been speaking in empty and full rooms all over the place over these past years and all of it only does a tiny bit to release the voices in my head that cry out to be heard, the voices of people who have taught me and people who have died.” That’s a sense of responsibility that I feel on me as well. That’s why I keep repeating things like “Israel killed 17 Palestinians last week” despite the “sameness” of it to the week before — those 17 people deserve better.

But the question, of course, is what we can do to see that they get the justice we owe them.

In his ‘Stop the Killing Train’ essay, Michael asks, and answers (as he is wont to do) my problem about proportion too:

“At first, becoming attuned to our country’s responsibility for the corpses stacked behind transparent cattle-car walls makes handing out leaflets, or arguing for peace with a co-worker, or urging a relative to think twice about paying taxes, or going to a demonstration, or sitting in, or even doing civil disobedience or building the movements to do all these things collectively seem insignificant. But the fact is, these are the acts that the hypothetical God, tired of our behavior, would be calling for if she were to actually parade the “free world’s” corpses down our main streets in killing trains. These are the acts that can accumulate into a firestorm of informed protest that then raises the cost of profiteering and dominating so high that the institutions breeding such behavior start to buckle.”

So, readers, whether I was influenced by Rahul’s note or whether I am responding to the same wider phenomena, I’ll meet you over in the vision blog, for a couple of posts I could have done months ago.

Israelis murdered a Palestinian child in Gaza today. The kid was apparently playing soccer. The Israeli army is doing a lot of shooting, shelling, and destruction in Gaza, wounding children in Rafah, families in Gaza city, destroying homes and shelling in Beit Hanoun, assassinating residents in refugee camps in special forces raids — and all this saying nothing about ongoing killings and ‘operations’ in the West Bank, particularly in Jenin and Nablus. See the IMEMC news section for more…

The farce of negotiation between the Colombian paramilitaries and the state is underway in force. Another irony, I suppose, that it’s happening at around the same time as the trial of Saddam Hussein gets underway. One mass murderer gets a theatrical trial for crimes against humanity. Another group of mass murderers get to present their government with a platform for negotiation. The paramilitary demands are even more farcical.

They want 1) human rights (try not to die laughing) 2) implementation of Uribe’s ‘democratic security’ (but of course there’s no connection) 3) their own zones of control (making their control official) 4) eradication of ‘illicit cultivation’ in their areas (making the Americans happy) and 5) guarantees of reincorporation into civilian life.

For readers who don’t know, the paramilitaries are the state-backed, narco-trafficker funded, army-trained and backed, mass killers who do the dirty work of the state in killing campesinos, indigenous people, unionists, and anyone who opposes the social or political goals or project of the regime. The ‘negotiations’ are being presented as if they were rebels against the government, when in fact this is the state negotiating with itself.

The negotiation itself can only strengthen the insurgency, since joining the guerrillas is one of the only ways people can think of to try to protect themselves or fight back against the paramilitaries.

The US ambassador has declared American support for the negotiations. An indigenous senator in Colombia has asked that the demand that the paramilitaries stop massacring indigenous people be raised at the negotiations.

It’s definitely a time of low expectations.

About a year ago I was meeting with a very very exemplary local organizer. There had been some international day of action against the Apartheid Wall in Occupied Palestine and he had pulled together a little information picket at a Starbucks, whose CEO is a major supporter of Israel.

Our meeting had finished, and we were heading our separate ways. He cracked a joke at my expense, about how writing articles for the internet wasn’t going to lead to social change. I came right back with my own crack about how I guessed that meant what we all needed to do was picket coffee shops. I guess at root we were both lamenting our inability to respond to the problems of the world with anything approaching proportion. They bomb: we talk to our neighbours. They cause starvation: we pass out leaflets. They engage in coups: we march on the street. The disproportionality is glaring and can lead one down very dangerous roads.

Yesterday there was a march in my city, Toronto, protesting the sham ‘handover of sovereignty’ on June 30th. Accepting the disproportionality as a given, I thought the march was a very good one and a success. Here is a description of the event.

In the afternoon, there were pickets at the Canadian Commercial Corporation and Interhealth, both Canadian companies that are profiting from the occupation of Iraq: CCC by arranging arms deals to the US, Interhealth by trying to get into private health care markets in West Asia. Next, a high school student group called ‘Stir It Up’ made an attempt to take a major intersection of the city, but there were around a hundred young people at that point and the City Police was taking the whole thing rather badly, and had at least 100 riot police of their own. So there was a kind of rally on the street corner, followed by a march to the US consulate and another rally.

Outside the US consulate, something strange was happening. All of the events of the day were conceived and planned by the “June 30th Coalition”, a coalition that includes the high school student group, members of OCAP, and many others. The more ‘mainstream’ ‘Stop the War Coalition’ (which, for US readers, is somewhere between United for Peace with Justice and ANSWER) planned an event for the same day and a rally at the same place. After the rally ended (at 6pm) the J30 Coalition had planned a march into Toronto’s financial district to confront other war profiteers. Stop the War Coalition had decided to march half a block in the opposite direction and disperse. Stop the War had obtained a permit for this half-a-block march and police clearly saw them as the ‘legitimate’ protesters and the J30 Coalition as the dangerous radicals who were trying to cause mischief.

Things got strange just before 6pm. Stop the War being the better-funded coalition, they made sure they had a large sound system for their speakers, while J30 had only typical megaphones. J30 had hoped that there would be a moment when organizers could explain to the crowd, giving them the option of marching south (into the financial district) or marching north (half a block to dispersal). But as 6 o clock approached, the Stop the War speaker on their podium announced the march north and then would not pause for one second to allow the J30 organizers to announce the march south. Indeed, the Stop the War was clearly attempting to filibuster the whole thing, preventing the J30 people from talking at all. Two frustrated J30 organizers stepped up (one onto a post box, the other on to a ledge) and yelled at the top of their lungs, quite hopelessly against the sound system, what the plan was. One of them pointed out that we had been limited to protests outside the US consulate for the past 3 years, while Canadian corporations and US corporations with offices in Toronto were not even being exposed. J30 people went to Stop the War’s podium and pointed out the impropriety of trying to filibuster a potentially good march, to which the speaker replied: “Oh come on, you have your own megaphones…”

The J30 people started chanting, “south, south, south”, and marching, and in the end nearly the whole crowd, which had grown to several hundred (under 1000 to my eyes, though it’s hard to know), joined the J30 march. The police tried to contain it at various points, but it became a ‘snake march’ and kept turning off in different directions. There was a real energy, and the march visited such illustrious sites as General Electric (a major weapons manufacturer and owner of MSNBC), and GlobeRisk (a company that trains the kinds of ‘private contractors’ we’ve seen in Iraq). I saw the educational effect myself: both marchers and passersby were intrigued to learn about the Canadian role in war and plunder. There was no trashing, and the police seemed largely to refrain from provocation or attacks on the protesters.

It was a good street protest, a good feeling to be on the streets, and something that has the possibility to grow.

Coming to an electronics store near you: high-voltage stun guns. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. Wall Street-darling Taser International, maker of “nonlethal weapons” (that have been shown on at least 40 occasions to contribute to death), said recently it is in talks with electronics chain Sharper Image, among other retailers, to sell “consumer-friendly” stun guns in the U.S. and Canada. For those of us not near a Sharper Image, Taser also plans to sell a “consumer-friendly” version of its 50,000-volt weapon on its Web site — just a shock and click away.

This very frightening bit of news thrilled Wall Street investors, who sent the stock’s value soaring 19 percent the day the deal was announced, June 25. The value of Taser’s stock has tripled in one year and the company expects its revenue to jump 150 percent from $24.5 million as orders for its weapons come flooding in. Just this past week, Taser received a $436,000 contract from the Dayton, Ohio police department and a $1.8 million from the U.S. military.

The increasing popularity of these very dangerous “nonlethal weapons,” is making it easier (if it wasn’t easy enough) for law enforcement throughout the U.S. and Canada to use excessive force in unjustified circumstances. The company has continually used the twisted logic so dear to corporate America that its product is actually helping save lives and cause less injury. But, Amnesty International has shown that police officers throughout the country have been trigger happy with the Taser gun even after they have a person in custody, simply because of the gun’s “nonlethal” categorization. Taser’s guns send 50,000 volts of electricity through a person’s central nervous system, causing them to instantly fall into a heap. But, since these guns aren’t marketed as killing machines, law enforcement officials seem encouraged to use them handily. Also, the after-effects of these guns hasn’t been studied, according to Amnesty, which has since February 2003 called for a ban on the guns.

The controversy surrounding this company has been discussed in the business press only as an afterthought to its enormous profitability. But ongoing news about Taser is available and I encourage readers to keep an eye out. Taser should be added to the “usual suspects” list of companies anti-corporate activists target – a list that includes dangerous and disempowering companies such as Wal-Mart, Exxon, Monsanto and Caterpillar. By July or August, we may be seeing these guns in stores – shocking thought.

An interesting piece from a few days back. Argentines are supposed to be sending 600 troops to Haiti as part of the multilateral occupation/coup protection force. Some Argentines, like the Chileans I blogged about earlier, are displeased with the idea. An EFE story from June 25 describes it (I’ve pasted it below).

In other Haiti news, a delegation of the coup makers of Group 184, including sweatshop owner Andre Apaid, is making the rounds in Miami, and according to the Miami Herald, getting an underwhelming response with their ‘social contract’ that will overcome the deep class divisions and polarization in Haiti (by killing all the activists and thus convincing the poor that starving and lacking water is their inevitable fate — the best way to combat polarization and division). One Haitian in Florida said it quite eloquently: ”We are talking about a small group of families that have run Haiti and today they are talking about a new social contract? With whom and for what?”

I got an interesting story from the mainstream media via Dru Jay of the Dominion. A profile of a Canadian sniper who ‘worked’ in Haiti, the story quotes Master Corporal Scott Richardson saying: “It’s a lot of fun. Miserable and fun,” he said. “We’re the cool guys. We’re the ones who fly around in the helicopters, drop into the
mountains looking for the baddies … It’s a cool job.”

Good to know everyone from the public to the military is treating this murderous slaughter with the seriousness it deserves.

Meanwhile, as Justin Felux reports, the coup continues its filthy work, with the arrest of Haiti’s deposed Prime Minister Yvon Neptune.

Below, the story on the Argentine demonstration.

June 25, 2004

Argentines burn U.S. flag to protest sending troops to Haiti

EFE NEWS SERVICE: Leftist activists on Thursday set fire to the flags of the United States and the United Nations on the terrace of the Argentine Defense Ministry here as a protest against the deployment of troops to Haiti.

The demonstrators burned tires and threw firecrackers at the door of the building, which also houses Argentine army headquarters.

“If an army is national, it can’t be an invading army,” said Fernando Esteche, leader of the leftist organization Quebracho, at the protest, which was otherwise peaceful.

Some 600 Argentine troops are set to travel to Haiti in mid-July to join the U.N. peacekeeping mission on the Caribbean island.

Argentina plans to send a transport ship, two helicopters and health care units, including a mobile hospital, according to a decree published on Tuesday.

The Argentine troops, which will join those sent by Brazil, Chile and Uruguay, are slated to be stationed in the Haitian cities of Gonaives and Saint-Marc.

Last week, Argentine lawmakers passed a resolution deploying the contingent to support “the constitutional process” in Haiti and contribute to “a peaceful and lasting solution to the current crisis.”

The measure passed by a close margin, after the governing Justicialista (Peronist) Party used its majority in the legislature to overcome the opposition Radical Civic Union and leftist parties. .end (paragraph)
< SERVICE

It’s just a headline at VHeadline.com and you have to register to see more. But this is very good news as well. As readers know, the tanks were of serious concern to Venezuela. Again, you have to admire the Venezuelan regime for handling the thing this way: once they had the ‘smoking gun’ and Colombia’s plans were leaked, they could have announced their own buildup at the border and escalated the arms race. Instead, they used politics and diplomacy and got the Spanish to kill the deal themselves.

Now, it isn’t as if Colombia can’t get a tank battalion from the US, who provides probably billions in military hardware (incidentally, in case people think the money for these comes from US taxpayers, some of it does — but most of it comes from Colombian taxpayers) every year. But this was a major deal and it will take time, and I increasingly believe time is on the side of Venezuela’s ‘proceso’. Above all, if Venezuelans can have time to consolidate their movements, to build a leadership and a political culture that goes well beyond Chavez, and demonstrate what such a process can actually achieve, it will become increasingly difficult for the US and the local oligarchy to stop them.