Police-State
Repression From Seattle to D.C.
Fight
for Socialist Revolution to Sweep Away Imperialism!
Not
Nationalist Protectionism vs. "Globalization"
Mass protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle late
last year and against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in
Washington, D.C. in mid-April were met by massive police force and mass
arrests. While fighting the police-state repression, Trotskyists warn
that
behind the "progressive" rhetoric of the demonstration organizers is a
program of chauvinist national protectionism. The "AFL-CIA" labor
lieutenants
of U.S. imperialism and the Democratic (Party) Socialists of America
play
a key role in tying protesters to capitalism, even allying with
fascistic
"America firsters" like Pat Buchanan. Police-State
Repression from Seattle to D.C. (June 2000)
Puerto
Rican Labor: Shut Down All U.S. Bases!
Navy
Get the Hell Out of Vieques Now!
Independence
for Puerto Rico!
In a pre-dawn raid on May 4, federal agents arrested more than 200
resisters occupying the United States Navy’s bombing range on the
island
of Vieques, off Puerto Rico. This brought to the boiling point the
massive
discontent over the American military’s high-handed contempt for the
population
of this Caribbean island colony. Trotskyists call for working-class
mobilization
to demand all U.S. bases out, independence for Puerto Rico, defense of
Cuba against imperialism and counterrevolution and a voluntary
socialist
federation of the Caribbean. U.S.
Navy Get the Hell Out of Vieques Now! (5 May 2000)
LQB
Spokesman Cerezo Fired for Leading Resistance
Brazilian
Steel Company Assault on Six-Hour Day
On April 14 Brazilian bosses dealt a blow to the working class, ramming
through a vote to end the six-hour day at CSN, Latin America’s largest
steel plant. The six-hour day was won in the 1988 steel strike, when
the
workers of Volta Redonda refused to back down in the face of the army’s
occupation of the plant and murder of three strikers. Barely an hour
after
the polls closed, as vote counting was underway, CSN bosses
peremptorily
fired our comrade Cerezo from the plant for his leading role in the
fight
to defend the six-hour day. Brazil
Steel Company Assault on 6-Hour Day (23 April 2000)
Military
Scandal Reveals
Army
Death List Targeted Brazilian Worker Militants
Revelations in the Brazilian press have brought to light that in the
1990 strike at Volta Redonda's CSN steel plant, the army had prepared a
list of seven workers, “individuals who stand out for their
radical
positions,” who were slated for “capture and neutralization.” This was
a death list. The year before, the same officers ordered
and carried out the bombing of the memorial to the three workers killed
in the 1988 strike. Prominent among the strike leaders to be
“immediately
neutralized” was Cerezo, spokesman of the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista
do Brasil. Fired as a result of the 1990 strike, he won his job back
recently
after a ten-year fight, only to be fired again for leading resistance
to
elimination of the six-hour day. In an interview with The
Internationalist,
Cerezo recounts the lessons of the 1990 strike and the central fight
against
the capitalist state. Army
Death List Targeted Worker Militants (23 April 2000)
Brazilian
Workers Mobilize for Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Over the last month Brazilian workers have undertaken a series of
strikes
and demonstrations that have begun to translate calls for freedom for
death
row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal into labor action. A November 10
work stoppage by the CUT labor federation of the state of Rio de
Janeiro
made freedom for the renowned U.S. black journalist one of its demands.
On November 22, a labor-centered march in Rio for the "Day of Black
Conscioiusness"
also raised the call to free Mumia as one of its key demands, as did a
strike by bank workers two days later. On December 7, Rio teachers
struck
for half a day, including among their demands freedom for Jamal. This
shows
the potential to mobilize powerful working-class action to free Mumia
and
block the capitalist state murder machinery. Brazilian
Workers Mobilize for Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal (9 December
1999)
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