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SILENT
BUT DEADLY
“As a Native American, every time I see the American flag
I feel the same way I imagine Jewish people must feel when looking
at the Nazi flag. The American flag is a flag of oppression and
genocide. Because that’s what America is built on — from
the very beginning when the first European settlers landed in North
America, it has been a country built on blood.” Rod Coronado,
Native American activist, speaking in Brighton last week.
“It’s really not a number I’m terribly interested
in.” General Colin Powell, when asked about the number
of Iraqi people who were killed by Americans in the 1991 Desert
Storm campaign (200,000 people, incidentally)
September 11th is an anniversary. And if you’ve watched too
much telly or read too many newspapers this week, you may have been
fooled into believing that September 11th is only the anniversary
of one tragedy, in one nation. But it’s not. On the same day
in 1973, Salvador Allende, the socialist President of Chile, was
killed in a violent, American-sponsored coup, led by General Augusto
Pinochet. Pinochet’s rise to power, dreamt-up and orchestrated
by a Red-paranoid CIA and Mr. Henry Kissinger, began nearly twenty
years of military dictatorship that led to thousands of deaths and
countless incidences of oppression and torture. 30,000 people were
massacred in the weeks following this other September 11th, as Pinochet
tried to wipe out an entire layer of society who had identified
with the left. Even in exile, many who had associated with the Allende
government (or were vaguely perceived as some sort of communist
threat) were assassinated by Pinochet’s secret service. And
all of this sponsored in the name of Freedom and Democracy.
So when we’re having a minute of silence for the people who
died in the Twin Towers, why not a minute of silence for those who
died at the hands of Pinochet’s CIA-sponsored death squads?
Or while we’re at it, we could have a minute of silence for
the people of the Congo, also subjected to a military dictatorship
thanks to the CIA assassination of evil lefty Patrice Lumumba. Or
how about Cambodia, which deserves at least two minutes of silence
when one considers that America (and Britain) backed Khmer Rouge
leader Pol Pot to the tune of $85 million in his genocidal rampage
which killed nearly 2 million Cambodians. Or what about a few minutes
of silence for Nicaragua, where in 1936, the American National Guard
helped Anastasio Somoza to establish and maintain a family dynasty
which would rule over Nicaragua for the next 43 years. While the
National Guardsmen, consistently maintained by the US, passed their
time with rape, torture, murder of the opposition, and massacres
of peasants, as well as less violent pursuits such as robbery, extortion,
contraband, running brothels and other government functions, the
Somoza clan laid claim to the lion’s share of Nicaragua’s
land and businesses. Love that Freedom & Democracy, don’t
ya?
The problem with this list is that it could go on and on —
Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador, Uruguay, the Dominican
Republic, Cuba, Haiti, Iraq, Iran, Laos, East Timor, Grenada, Greece...
All of these and more are countries who have suffered from oppression,
torture, starvation, and death at the hands of American “intervention,”
whether it takes the form of bombs, sanctions, or our personal favourite,
CIA sponsored military regimes. As ex-State Department employee
and author William Blum writes, “An American holocaust has
taken place…So great and deep is the denial of the American
holocaust that the deniers are not even aware that the claimers
or their claims exist. Yet, a few million people have died in the
American holocaust and many more millions have been condemned to
lives of misery and torture as a result of US interventions extending
from China and Greece in the 1940s to Afghanistan and Iraq in the
1990s.”
“I will never apologise for the United States of America -
I don’t care what the facts are,” said President George
Bush Sr. in 1988, when the U.S. Navy warship Vincennes shot down
an Iranian commercial airliner. The plane was on a routine flight
in a commercial corridor in Iranian airspace. All 290 civilians
on board the aircraft were killed.
So while George Bush Jr. demands that the world observe a minute
of silence for the dead and injured civilians of September 11th,
the 290 dead Iranian civilians of 1988 didn’t even get an apology.
Neither did the nearly 8,000 Afghani civilians who have died in
the last year as a result of U.S. led air strikes in Afghanistan,
a campaign appropriately titled “Enduring Freedom.”
And while we’re on the subject of bombs, it might be interesting
to note that since the Second World War, the US government has bombed
21 countries: China in 1945-46 and again in 1950-53, Korea
in 1950-53, Guatemala in 1954, 1960, and 1967-69, Indonesia
in 1958, Vietnam in 1961-73, Congo in 1964, Laos
in 1964-73, Peru in 1965, Cambodia in 1969-70, El
Salvador throughout the 1980s, Nicaragua throughout the
1980s, Lebanon in 1983-84, Grenada in 1983, Bosnia
in 1985, Libya in 1986, Panama in 1989, Iraq in
1991-20??, Sudan in 1998, Former Yugoslavia in 1999,
and Afghanistan in 1998 and 2002.
To the best of our knowledge, none of the victims of bombings in
these countries have ever received any apologies, memorial funds,
or commemorative minutes of silence. Yes, it is a tragedy when 3,000
people lose their lives on a single day as the result of madmen.
But it is also a tragedy that takes place in many countries around
the world on a daily basis, often times as a result of the madmen
in Washington. And when this fact is not acknowledged, anniversary
observances of September 11th sound hollow at best, and grossly
hypocritical and offensive at worst. As one American activist told
Schnews, “If we had to observe a moment of silence for all
of the victims of American foreign policy, we’d be silent for
the rest of our lives.” www.geocities.com/americanterrorism/
www.users.bigpond.com/nlevine/thearchive.html
| “What might be the effect upon the American psyche if
the true-believers were compelled to witness the consequences
of the past half-century of US foreign policy close up? What
if all the nice, clean-cut, wholesome American boys who dropped
an infinite tonnage of bombs, on a dozen different countries,
on people they knew nothing about - characters in a video game
- had to come down to earth and look upon and smell the burning
flesh?” From the book “Killing Hope: U.S. Military
and CIA Interventions Since World War II” by William Blum…
For more info on Blum’s books: www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/KillingHope_page.html
or http://members.aol.com/bblum6/American_holocaust.htm |
 
Crap
Arrest of the Week
For ‘wanting to blow up the Olympics’... Yep that’s
right, that’s one of the things 19-year-old Sherman Austin,
the creator of ‘Raise the Fist’ an anarchist/independent
media website, is being accused of. This “imaginative”
accusation came after his arrest while trying to “carry out
his plot of mass destruction against the World Economic Forum”,
i.e. attend a demo outside of the WEF summit. Finding no real evidence
to back up these claims, the desperate feds are charging him with
two lesser felonies and he’ll be sent away for 4 years if found
guilty. http://raisethefist.com
Organ
Play
Next Saturday (21) people will be marching to the Home Office to
protest against xenotransplantation - the transplanting of animal
organs into humans. Two years ago the High Court, following legal
action by research company Imutran, put a stop to a report written
by Uncaged entitled ‘Diaries of Despair’. The report exposed
the negligent and cruel research methods used by Imutran, a subsidiary
of the biotechnology giant Novartis. Research mostly involved the
transplantation of hearts and kidneys from genetically-engineered
pigs into macaque monkeys and baboons caught in the wild. In some
of the most horrific experiments, Imutran researchers implanted
hearts from transgenic piglets into the necks of baboons. One of
these primates was observed holding the transplant, which was ‘swollen
red’ and ‘seeping yellow fluid’, for most of the
last days of its life. Animals are often ‘sacrificed’-
jargon for being killed - both as a direct result of the experiments
and due to sloppy lab practice. A baboon quickly got the chop when
scientists discovered, mid operation, that the pig’s heart
it was supposed to receive was still in the freezer.
Imutran, who have used thousands of pigs, monkeys and baboons in
their five years of research, claim to be on the verge of conquering
the problem of ‘organ rejection’- where the immune system
sees the ‘new’ heart or liver as a foreign object, and
attacks it. But the documents tell a different story. In one experiment,
two baboons, who suffered ‘hyperacute’ organ rejection
and quickly died, were left out of the published results which had
claimed success. In another, the animals were pumped full of immuno-suppressant
drugs to make sure their bodies didn’t reject the ‘new’
parts.
Many scientists are worried about the safety of xenotransplantation
itself. They believe there is a danger that putting bits from one
species into another could easily trigger new and unheard of diseases.
While scientists routinely screen transplant organs for viruses,
they can only screen for those they know the existence of. And there
may be many viruses which lie harmless and undetected in pigs but
which could kill humans. Pigs are known to contain certain viruses
closely related to human ones that cause blood leukemia.
An obvious alternative to cross-species transplants would be a decent
diet and improved living standards for everyone. It would also make
more sense if everyone just used ‘Opt Out’ donor cards
instead of what we have at the moment. People would have to carry
an ‘opt out’ card to show that in the event of their death
they didn’t want certain or all of their organs to be used,
as is the case in some other European countries.
The march next Saturday starts 12 noon in Temple Place, Central
London. 0114 272 2220 www.xenodiaries.org
Taking
the Peace
The Brighton Peace and Environment Centre, North Laines’ own
radical book and re-usable nappy shop, is closing this weekend due
to rising rents. BPEC will be moving to temporary office space,
from which it hopes to attract new volunteers and funding by dropping
the bit about peace cos it just doesn’t sell. If you can help
in the search for new premises, or want a say in BPEC’s future,
e-mail them at info@bpec.org
With the Peace and Environment Centre closing, pick up your copies
of SchNEWS from Infinity Foods in North Street.
SchNEWS
in brief
- Radio 4A, Brighton’s Premier pirate station is back
on the airwaves this weekend 107.8 FM across Brighton and worldwide
on www.piratetv.net
- There’s a noise demo outside HMP Frankland, Brasside,
Durham this Saturday (14) 2-4pm in support of four prisoners
who are on a ‘dirty protest’, and are ‘down the
block’ (in segregation/solitary confinement) at Frankland.
07944522001 nicki.rensten@prisonersadvice.demon.co.uk
- John Pilger’s new documentary, ‘Palestine is still
the Issue’, is on ITV next Monday (16) 11pm
- From sinking Icelandic whaling ships to burning down fur industry
buildings, Native American Rod Coronado has engaged in
militant and uncompromising direct action which eventually led
to prison. Listen to his engaging stories in Sheffield next Monday
(16) at the Showroom Cinema, Pater Noster Road; Manchester (17)
at Briton’s Protection Pub, Great Bridgewater Street, 8pm;
Leeds (19) Woodhouse Community Centre, Woodhouse Street 7pm
- People are urgently needed at the Lappersfort protest camp
in Brugge, Belgium which has just been given its eviction
notice. Protestors are trying to prevent the destruction of a
green oasis in the city by a new motorway bypass and industrial
zone. For directions call 0032 494 59 14 67 lappersfort@ziplip.com
- Volunteers are needed to help with the Reclaim The Future
event happening the weekend 20-22 September, everything from cooking
to building work to help on the Saturday. Call 07931 560 569 rtsparty2002@yahoo.co.uk.
They are also looking for old Reclaim The Streets/direct action
exhibition materials e-mail maxsvoboda@hotmail.com
if you’ve got any stashed under your bed
- No Sweat, the anti sweatshop group, are asking people
to get their kit off during the Nike Fun Run in Richmond
Park on Sunday 22 September. Meet at Barnes train station 9am.
07979 046 219 Email yesgaryjarvis@hotmail.com
www.nosweat.org.uk
- A massive campaign has been launched to stop Redditch Borough
Council giving the go ahead to an animal carcass incinerator
in the village of Astwood Bank. The incinerator would be
next to the village school, with the chimney 100 yards from the
kids’ playing field! The incinerator would burn up to 1 tonne
of animal carcasses per hour, 24 hours a day. www.abai.org.uk
- Villagers in Kingskerswell, Devon are fighting a dual
carriageway proposal and 600 new homes www.kingskerswellalliance.org.uk
- A McDonalds in Linkoping, Sweden was recently completely
burnt down by animal rights activists
- An anti-fascist phone tree is being set up in Brighton
in response to the lack of opposition to anti-Islamic fascist
demonstrations which took place in London on Wednesday the 11th.
Call 01273 540717
- Battersea and Wandsworth TUC are holding a demo outside
Balfour Beatty Offices at 130 Wilton Road, Victoria next
Monday (16) 9am to coincide with the launch of their report ‘Corporate
Killers in Wandsworth’. The report, which focuses on the
deaths caused by casualisation, is being launched at the Bread
and Roses in Clapham at 7pm the same evening. Speakers include
Bob Crow and Mark Thomas 020 8682 4224
- After development plans were stopped by local protests 4 years
ago (SchNEWS 203), Bromley Council has again fenced off part of
Crystal Palace Park with unsightly 2.4m high wooden hoardings
and are preparing to sell it off. Local opposition is organising
and a candle-lit vigil is being held on the 21st Sept from 7.30
- 8.30pm near Crystal Palace Parade beside the fence (you can’t
miss it!). savecrystalpalacepark@yahoo.co.uk
- “Battle For Chile” video showing, Sept 15,
Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London, 2pm, £5.
Positive
SchNEWS
Having successfully fought off government plans to build an airport
on their land, farmers in the Mexican town of San Salvador Atenco
have now declared the town the first ‘autonomous municipality’
outside of Chiapas, electing a people’s council and seizing
all government vehicles trying to enter the area. This is the latest
episode in an uprising that began on July 11, when the government
tried to violently suppress a protest organised by farmers against
the airport proposals. The residents of Atenco responded to police
clubs, tear gas, and bullets by burning police vehicles, barricading
the national highway, and taking 13 government and police officials
hostage. The result was a five-day stand off between residents and
the authorities, which ended in the government releasing all prisoners
they had taken during the protests and abandoning their plans for
the new airport (see Schnews 367).
Since their victory, residents have made the town a no-go area for
police and federal authorities. Their declaration of autonomy is
the most recent expression of a new unwillingness on their part
to allow the Mexican government to dictate the organisation of their
community. The ‘people’s council’, described by the
town’s former mayor as ‘frankly illegal’, is seen
by residents not as an attempt to withdraw from Mexico, but as an
effort to decide for themselves how to meet their communities needs.
“They try to scare people off with the word ‘autonomous’
”, said one resident, “but what it means is that the people’s
will is respected. It doesn’t mean we want to close ourselves
off. The people are just going to decide how to police the town”.
Lode
of Crap
Rio Tinto, one of the world’s biggest mining corporations,
has pulled out of plans for the Jabiluka uranium mine in the Northern
Territory, Australia. The mine is in the ancestral homeland of the
Aboriginal Mirrar people and would have contaminated huge parts
of their land which is also part of Kakadu National Park, a listed
World Heritage Site.
Since uranium was first found there in the early seventies, the
Mirrar have been fighting to stop mining on their land. The struggle
escalated in 1998 after the government reversed long-standing environmental
policies permitting new uranium mines to be built. A protest camp
then sprang up, blockading the site for several months and resulting
in hundreds of arrests. This, along with constant acts of sabotage
on site and pressure on the government from UNESCO (UN environment
quango) and the World Heritage Organisation, forced Rio Tinto to
pull out of Jabiluka. www.jag.org.au/
...and
finally...
We at SchNEWS Towers are facing meltdown! We’re staring at
ground zero as all our support staff leave us for better jobs in
the City, sun themselves in tropical climates, or leg it from the
bailiffs, leaving the remainder of us drowning in deadlines, emails
and uneaten biscuits.
So we are looking for new volunteers to pen some articles, help
with our mail-out and do a bit of desk top publishing. Rates of
pay are crap but the fringe benefits make up for it (honest). To
make sure you don’t miss this opportunity of a lifetime call
our hotline now -- 01273 685913.
Disclaimer
SchNEWS warns all readers about the world’s most lethal
weapon of mass destruction – our greed. Honest.
SchNEWS Annuals
SchNEWS Round
issues 51 - 100 £4.00 inc. postage. - Nearly sold out...
SchNEWS Annual issues 101 - 150 £4.00 inc. postage.
SchNEWS Survival Guide issues 151 - 200 and a whole lot more £4.00
inc. postage
The SchQUALL book at only £7 + £1.50 p&p. (US Postage
£4.00 for individual books, £13 for all four).
SchNEWS and SQUALL’s YEARBOOK 2001. 300 pages of adventures
from the direct action frontline. £7 + £1.50 p&p.
You can order the book from a bookshop or your library, quote the
ISBN 09529748 4 3.
In the UK you can get 2, 3, 4 & 5 for £20 inc. postage.
SchNEWS Of The World issues 301 - 350. 300
more pages of adventures from the direct action frontline. £7
+ £1.50 p&p. You can order the book from a bookshop or
your library, quote the ISBN 09529748 6X
If you can help distribute the new book by taking a few boxes from
Brighton or East London round the country, call the office and ask
for John, Thanks.
In addition
to 50 issues of SchNEWS, each book contains articles, photos, cartoons,
subverts, a “yellow pages” list of contacts, comedy etc.
All the above books are available from the Brighton Peace Centre,
saving postage yer tight gits.
Subscribe
to SchNEWS: Send 1st Class stamps (e.g. 10 for next 9 issues)
or donations (payable to Justice?). Or £15 for a year's subscription,
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if you plan to copy and distribute. SchNEWS is post-free to prisoners.
You can also pick SchNEWS up at the Brighton Peace and Environment
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