The Dominion - 35

Readers respond to Yugoslavia series

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 19:58:25 +0000

From the bottom of my heart, I wish to thank Dru Oja Jay for his courage to write a compelling and truthful attempt to set the record straight on what really happened (and is happening) to Yugoslavia (five part series). It will take literally decades for honest and serious historians and other true scholars to unravel the massive web of lies and deceptions that were the modus operandi of Western media coverage of the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia. The massive level of highly sophisticated propaganda indicates that the Western-supported destruction of the former Yugoslavia, once a peaceful, beautiful, and multiethnic nation, was supported at the highest levels of Western governments. A natural question for the open-minded public might be "why destroy Yugoslavia?" I would like to complement Dru's excellent pieces by answering this question:

1. Have an excuse to continue NATO's continued senseless existence (since the fall of the Soviet Union) by illegally occupying and fighting a country which never attacked the West, thereby violating NATO's Charter.

2. Divide and conquer the region for Western economic exploitation. Before NATO's illegal and vicious destruction of Yugoslavia in 1999, George Soros met with various American officials and demanded the Trepca Mining Complex in Kosovo. One of the first targets of NATO during the bombing was the "Div" cigarette factory in Vranje, one of the largest in Europe which competed with Western cigarette companies. Phillip Morris has since constructed a new factory in Serbia. In every former Yugoslav republic, the vast majority of people are much worse off than they were when they lived in the former Yugoslavia.

3. Germany and the Vatican were the first national entities to illegally and prematurely recognize the Slovenia and Croatia before any issues of their treatment of minorities could be addressed. Both Germany and Vatican were responsible for much of the genocide of Serbian Orthodox Christians during WWII which has yet to be acknowledged and compensated for by either entity. Thus, historical anti-Serbian attitudes from both Germany and the Vatican have been largely responsible for the West's anti-Serbian perspectives. Remember that Germany's illegal recognition of Slovenia and Croatia was the first major foreign policy action by a newly-unified Germany.

4. Bases for US troops. As Germany has not renewed leases on US bases in Germany, the US needed a place to station troops. Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo is the largest base for US troops outside of the US.

5. Divide and conquer the entire region to have an excuse for open-ended troops that will protect a massive trans-Balkan oil-pipeline from Burgas, Bulgaria down to Vlore, Albania. The pipeline will carry oil from the Caspian Sea region to the Adriatic Sea which will then supply Europe with oil.

I could give many more reasons, but these are the most relevant. It is important to bear in mind that with the massive "success" that the corporate-controlled, Western mainstream media had in brainwashing citizens of the West, the precedent has now been established and as we predictably see, Iraq was similarly illegally and viciously attacked and the media drumbeats of imperialist intervention are now beginning their Goebbel-esque efforts to further bankrupt and bleed America dry by fighting Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela.

In a true democracy, debate is free and open-ended. Western citizens never had the chance to properly debate the merits of intervention in Yugoslavia's civil wars because the media mostly censored any Serbian points of view. The media has forever shamed itself over the distorted reporting of Yugoslavia's civil wars and the ever-declining readership of corporate-controlled mainstream media is I think a symptom not of the internet by itself but that open-minded people are realizing (with the help of the internet and other "renegade" media) just how much propaganda is created and spewed forth by these self-serving institutions.

Best regards and best of luck in your very noble endeavours to challenge the omnipotent corporate media!

Michael Pravica, Ph.D.
Henderson, Nevada

Thank you for the five-part series on the former Yugoslavia.

I have family on nearly all sides of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia --
both civilian and military. This position has forced me and others like me to
recognize the complexities of the situation which you so eloquently articulated
in your writing.

I still have much to learn and will be checking your sources for more
understanding. I appreciated your thorough research and consequent honesty
which has been so lacking in most Western media.

Also, the systematic parallels that can be drawn to media coverage in places
like Haiti, Venezuela, Iraq and Afghanistan make your articles all the more
relevant in even the most broad of contexts.

Simon A. Dougherty
Scarborough, Ontario

Dru Oja Jay is one, of only a handful of world journalists, that is printing the TRUTH about former Yugoslavia, and the malicious, and wrongful demonization of Serbia, and Serbs in particular. It should serve as a testimonial, and a course of study for journalism schools around the world, with the title: "How to fabricate a war and malign a sovereign nation, fighting future terrorism in the Balkans and Europe". Mr. Jay should get a "Journalistic Oscar" for his great series on former Yugoslavia. Just wonderful. Thank you.

Vojislav Spasic
Cleveland, Ohio

The Dominion welcomes discussion, criticism, and commentary from readers. Letters can be sent to the Dominion by post or email. Letters may be edited for style, clarity and length; if there is a dispute, we will link to an unaltered version of the published letter.

A little story about direct action against the third largest corporation in Canada

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:38:14 +0000

In May of 2003, Stewart Steinhauer informed the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) that he was stopping his payments on $150,000 of loans. By "playing the credit game just right" and "looking white," Steinhauer had acquired unsecured credit "unheard of on reserve in Canada." Why did Steinhauer decide to give up the line of credit he had gained through years of work?

Steinhauer writes that "After 'discovering' genocide in Canada, I searched for the villains, and my search led from my reserve, here at Saddle Lake, to the top of the international financial community." As the primary beneficiaries of genocide and the expropriation of indigenous land that continues to drive it, Canada's financial institutions had to be held accountable.

"Unable to ignore, or deny, the incredible suffering being visited upon my family, friends, and all of the rest of the peoples who make up indigenous nations within the boundaries of Canada," wrote Steinhauer, "I began to look for something that I could actually do to affect the situation."

In the exchange of letters that follows, Steinhauer lays out his case for withholding payment, and the CIBC responds to his demands. The conclusion to the saga? "The power guys," Steinhauer later wrote, "like to bluff." But as it turns out, the same power guys are quite aware of international law as it relates to them.

The letters, with Steinhauer's original introduction, can be found on Steinhauer's website, www.indigenius.biz.

Stewart Steinhauer Stone Sculpture
Onicikskwapowinihk, Saddle Lake Cree Nation
May 21st, 2003

John Hunkin, CEO CIBC
Toronto, Ontario

Dear John,

I regret to inform you that today I am asking my local accounts manager to freeze activity on all my CIBC accounts. This seems to me to be an extreme action, given the fact that I owe your corporation $150,000. It's also extreme given my personal history; you can look up the record of my performance while a client of the corporation that you manage, a record spanning the period 1980-2003.

Like my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather, I have worked hard all my life, tried to make a meaningful contribution to society, done as little harm as possible, have no criminal record, and have tried, in my own small way, to build social bridges between Euro-Canadian society, and indigenous society.

However, like my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-greatgrandfather, I have lived my whole life under the colonial rule of the nation of Canada, and, in 2003, am still dominated by Canada's "Indian Act". This is a piece of colonial legislation coined during a period of open genocide, intended to oversee the "extinguishment" of my people, a piece of legislation which the U.N. calls "atrocious".

I live and work on reserve, and I see what goes on here every day, and in my opinion, the genocide continues. In the 1990's, Canada officially apologized to indigenous peoples for having committed a long list of atrocities, and commissioned a 58 million dollar study, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP). The leading recommendation from the study was the immediate repeal of the Indian Act, and the beginning of a new relationship between Canada, and indigenous Peoples.

In 1998, the U.N. released the findings of a 25 year study, "Treaties, Agreements, and Constructive Arrangements Between Indigenous Peoples and States", affirming, for the first time, at the international level, that some minimum requirements of democratic process must be met in order for nations, for instance Canada, to be able to legally claim title to lands and resources, and sovereignty over such territories. In other words, fully informed indigenous nations must freely give consent to such, before it can become legally binding. No such action has yet occurred.

In 2000, Canada's leading indigenous legal scholar, John Borrows, published a paper on the Law Commission of Canada's B.C. Treaty Forum, titled "Questioning Canada's Title To Land: The Rule of Law, Aboriginal Peoples, and Colonialism". In this paper, which, by the way, has not been refuted, Borrows argues that the Indian Act, and Canada's entire relationship with indigenous peoples, violates the international rule of law, and both the 1867, and 1982 Canadian Constitutions.

In 2003, directly contrary to RCAP recommendations, the U.N. position, the virtually unanimous opinion of indigenous peoples trapped inside Canada, and the principled view of the rule of law, Canada is forcing legislative amendments to the Indian Act, (First Nations Governance Act, and up to eight other pieces of legislation), without consultation with, or consent of the group of people who will be affected by this legislation. A 10.3 million dollar smokescreen has been floated by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada to persuade the Canadian public that this action is in the best interests of grassroots indigenous peoples.

However, as one little "grassroot", with 28 years experience of being self-employed, on-reserve, I see this action as Canada's ignoble attempt to ease itself out the backdoor of the Indian Act. This legislative train contains the mechanisms to bring to completion what John Chretien started to do in 1969, with his infamous "White Paper". He now seems determined to push through with it, and has instructed his General, Robert Nault to "wage war on Indians".

Canada could be a great nation. Canada could be an international leader. The question is how can democracy take root on stolen land, where genocide has taken place, and where shattered nations of peoples are held prisoner, in torturous conditions.

I feel that there is a huge crisis of democracy in the world today, directly attributable to the distorted view of democracy held by Ancient Greece, and passed on down to Western Civilization. A privileged, propertied group of males of a certain age and skin colour hold political power, and use this power to fulfill their desires, at the expense of the overwhelming majority of humanity.

My indigenous ancestors had real council democracy, an economy based on sharing, and a spiritual relationship with the universe for guidance. That the colonial forces out of Western Europe, now in the form of modern nation states, for instance Canada, still hold us prisoners in our own lands, in direct violation of their own laws, and the "rule of law", while preaching to the world about the values of democracy, is the height of hypocrisy.

I've studied Western Civilization, out of the sheer necessity to survive, and I've discovered that, indeed, there is a privileged group of propertied males who wield political power, and who have devised a malignantly clever system for "manufacturing consent" amongst populations in so-called "liberal democracies". This elite group also specializes in manufacturing war, and requires war as a means to drive their economic structure.

Now we wind around to the relationship between what I'm doing today, at the local level, and the "big picture". Watching the events on the global stage, I can't help but notice the similarities between, say, the recent events in Iraq, and the events in what is now western Canada, 127 years ago. Starvation and war, forced subjugation of a peoples, stripping of resource, colonial rule, all under the guise of bringing civilization to a "lesser" people. Who benefits? I can see only one group of people who can possibly benefit, and then only in the short term. This group is the people you work for, John, a group whom I'll call the investor class. I don't mean the mass of small or institutional investors, like the ones ripped off in the Enron scandal; I mean the 100 million dollar plus net worth investors, but really concentrating in the billionaire league. So I raise my concerns to you, using the only thing you are obligated to care about, money. By Canadian law, I owe your corporation about $150,000.00. I'm formally refusing to repay that debt, and I draw your attention to the relationship between the Indian Act and Canadian banking. That debt is fully unsecured.

Doug Reynor, at CIBC risk management in Toronto, pointed this out to my local accounts manager, Lorie Hartley, St.Paul, Alberta CIBC, in a tone and manner which can only be described as humiliating, both for Ms. Hartley, and for myself. To her credit, Lorie Hartley has chosen to see me as a human being, caught in an unjust situation, and has done exactly as all my previous account managers have done for the past 23 years; found ingenious ways to bend, not break, unjust regulations. I've legitimately qualified for all the credit that CIBC has extended to me, and, over the years, have probably paid more in interest to your corporation than the principle amount I currently owe.

If I was to assess what CIBC has "earned" out of the Canadian economy, and assess my legitimate share, as one of 600,000 "registered Indians" who still legally hold title, I'm sure it would be much more than $150,00.00. If I was to assess what Canada has drawn, illegally, from my land, at the cost of much death and suffering to my people, this sum would be staggering. This wealth is accumulating in the hands of the investor class, the group you are obligated to serve.

As the Noble-prize winning economist, Milton Friedman, says, CEO's have one obligation only, and that is to their shareholders. Shareholders, in turn, want one thing, only, and that is "profits". The "invisible hand" of the market place is supposed to magically turn the grossest form of personal greed into a greater good for all humanity. Somehow, market economists like Milton Friedman forget to mention the accompanying "invisible boot" that holds us "grassroots peoples" down by our necks. It's the heel of the conqueror.

I may be absolutely powerless in your world, the world of "real people", but I still have my one little voice. I'm asking you, in the most humble way possible, to bring my message to your "large" shareholders. Genocide is an unacceptable "market externality". Wholesale destruction of the planet's ecosystems is an unacceptable "market externality". If Margaret Thatcher's famous TINA acronym, about capitalism, (There Is No Alternative) is true, then it's not cause for rejoicing amongst wealthy elites, and their "hired guns"; they should be weeping with the rest of us because it spells suicide for the human species.

I, for one, do not for a moment believe that the current economic structure is the only possibility. We humans need to overcome our institutions of racism, gender oppression, class division, and "human-centricism", in order to survive on into the future. We already have everything we need to build "share" economies, true democracies, and other features of sustainable living systems. Everything is at hand, in abundance. We just need to shift our perspective. I invite you, John, to join myself, and many others, in reenvisioning a world which humans are part of, not dominant over.

I will be delighted to repay my debt to your corporation in full, when these structural issues briefly mentioned here are addressed in full, and to my complete satisfaction. Please help me stop the genocide of my people. I can no longer continue to live as a tactic collaborator in that genocide. Can you, and the shareholders you represent, continue to "profit" from our death and destruction?

In friendship,

Stewart Steinhauer

c.c.: Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Honourable Robert D. Nault, Future Prime Minister Paul Martin, David Dodge, Bank of Canada, Gordon M. Nixon, Royal Bank of Canada, W. Edmund Clark, Toronto Dominion Bank, Peter C. Godsoe, Scotia Bank, Tony Comper, Bank of Montreal, Globe and Mail, CBC, Amnesty International, Special Rapporteur For Indigenous Rights Rodolfo Stavenhagen, Permanent Forum On Indigenous Issues, U.N.

The CIBC responded:

Steinhauer's second letter:

Stewart Steinhauer Stone Sculpture
Onicikskwapowinihk
June 9 th, 2003

Clarence Layne
Senior Manager
Director's Office, Customer Care

Dear Clarence,

The empathy which your corporation has for my plight ignores the fact that your corporation is a third party to an international agreement between Canada as the second party, and my nation, the Cree nation, as the first party. That agreement is known in Canada as Treaty 6, and both Canada, and the U.N. have recently acknowledged that this international agreement is valid, and currently binding on all parties.

Any contract which I have signed with your corporation hinges on your corporation, and the country of Canada, abiding by the spirit and intent of Treaty 6. As the country of Canada (second party) is seriously in breach of its' obligations under international treaty, all third parties are automatically so. Unfortunately for your corporation, and your shareholders, you do not have legal title to any of the Canadian-based assets which you claim to have title to. I should think this would be of real concern to your major shareholders.

Perhaps inside your "world" of "rational wealth maximizers", you see my actions as an attempt to "maximize" my own profits; I realize that what I am motivated by is completely obscure to you, and I'm not trying to blame you, or anybody else, for this state of affairs. It is a truly unfortunate situation which has been allowed to arise. The question is: Who will have the courage to make the changes needed to "rationalize" human existence, here on our beautiful Mother Earth?

Although I am a Cree man, that doesn't make me "child-like in perpetuity". At the time of Treaty 6 signing, my ancestors recognized the absolutely essential need for learning "the cunning of the white man". We had 100 years of residential school.....imagine having your children forcibly removed from your home by the RCMP, placed in institutions where they were subjected to every possible form of abuse, where annual mortality rates ranged from 30% to 60 %, and, when they were returned to you at age 16, they were permanently traumatized, spoke a foreign language which you didn't understand, and they hated you, and everything about your way of life. 100 years, Clarence. When I say Canada is in breach of Treaty 6, I mean genocide. Genocide is not a "slight" breach, and I think your major shareholders should be very concerned about that, too.

I'm going to stop beating around the bush, now, and get to my point. You can jail me, you can kill me; if it was good enough for Big Bear, it's good enough for me. Canada is not a democracy. Canada is a plutocracy run by people like the major shareholders in your corporation. They also run the U.S., U.K., and all other so-called liberal democracies. I realize that you aren't allowed to agree with me, but I also realize that you know I'm telling the truth.

Yes, my concerns are political, and that's why I am trying to bring them to the attention of the real rulers of the world. Ask John Hunkin to tell his bosses that they are endangering their own future existence by their current actions. It's not too late. My people have survived 510 years of genocide, and we can't be killed off. In signing Treaty 6, my ancestors agreed to share the richness of our lands with your ancestors, the Europeans. In spite of all that your nation has done to us, we still agree to share. We await your decision to join us on the next evolutionary level.

In friendship,

Stewart Steinhauer

c.c. Paul Martin, future Prime Minister of Canada, David Dodge, Governor of Bank of Canada, Gordon M. Nixon, RBC, W. Edmund Clark, TD, Peter C. Godsoe, Scotia Bank, Tony Comper, BMO, Rudolpho Stavenhagan, Special Rapporteur to the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the U.N.

The CIBC responded:

Dear Mr. Steinhauer,

I refer to your email to Clarence Layne August 21, 2003 regarding collection of your CIBC debt. I have been asked to respond in his absence.

CIBC has contacted the bailiff service and the collection agency that is acting on CIBC's behalf, to ensure that they are aware of Section 89 of the Federal Indian Act and to notify them that, in your case, your loan does not fall within the parameters of the act. Therefore, CIBC has requested that they close their file and CIBC's National Recovery Area will send your file to lawyers, to pursue legally.

Mr. Steinhauer, CIBC does not accept your offer to repay the principal of your debt only upon the establishment of a Cree Business Development Bank but will continue to pursue the debts owed to it, as allowed by law.

Thank you for making us aware of your concerns.

Yours truly,

Joanne MacLeod
Senior Manager, Director's Office, Customer Care

Steinhauer's account of what happened next:

Then the bailiff called. I warned him over the phone that he had no legal right to enter my reserve. A week later he drove into my yard, accompanied by a tow truck. I wrote up this report immediately after he left:

Report on attempted seizure of personal property, August 22, 2003

At about 6:00 P.M., a small grey car approached my home, somewhat hesitantly, stopped, backed up, drove forward, and finally pulled up behind my pick-up truck. A man, who subsequently introduced himself as Dick White, from Serv-It Bailiff Services Inc., headquartered at 9844-106 St. Edmonton, AB T5K 1B8, was writing on a piece of paper as I approached him.

As we talked, he walked to my pickup, and placed the paper under the windshield wiper on the driver's side. I began our discussion by informing him that he was trespassing, and could be charged; he seemed nonchalant about my statement, and described what he was about to do. Then a tow truck pulled up along side my pickup, awaiting Dick's orders.

A long discussion followed during which I made my position as clear as possible; finally Dick White phoned his superior at head office, and after a long conversation with him, asked me to talk to his boss. The phone man introduced himself as Martin, and we engaged in a long discussion of my purposes for refusing to make current payments. I referenced genocide, and gave examples of what sort of conditions we face, here on reserve.

After my long phone conversation with Martin, Dick sent the tow truck driver away; I reiterated the illegality of his presence on my reserve several times. He chose to ignore my comments about trespass, but eventually began to ask for help with formulating a response to give to CIBC. I asked him to write up a request to meet with the regional director general of Indian Affairs, whoever the bank wanted to send, and my legal counsel. He refused to write that request down, but instead tried to get me to name a time of repayment. I stated several times that I intend to repay in full whatever I owe CIBC, when I am satisfied with Canada's actions in relation to Indigenous peoples, specifically the immediate repeal of the Indian Act, and the honouring of Treaty Six, including back payments, royalties, up-dated annuities, and whatever may be necessary to reverse the genocide.

At about 7:00 P.M., Dick White left my residence, to return to the city. He seemed tired. He did at one point have a short private conversation with the tow truck driver, and I did feel that they where planning something for later. Later when? At one point, early in the confrontation, I dialed 911, and reported a trespass; the operator asked if I felt that my life was threatened, and when I said "No" she asked me to phone the RCMP complaint line for non-life threatening events. I was searching for the local RCMP number when Dick invited me to talk to his boss.

I'm not sure what caused them to change their minds about repossessing the truck right there and then. In part, it must be because I look white, in part it must be that, even though they aren't sure of my position, they may be concerned, for themselves, that I'm right.

The whole event felt very confrontational, although Dick's manner was "professional" at all times.

End of report. A week later, I visited the local CIBC (St. Paul), on a separate matter, and, in conversation with the local bank manager, heard confirmation that the bank does indeed, know all about how Canadian law relates to Indian reserve lands. Bluff. I'm not interested in stealing money from the CIBC, I'm interested in stopping Corporate Canada from "making a killing" off of indigenous lands, and indigenous resources.

And that's my little story.

Letters exchanged between Stewart Steinhauer and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

April Books

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 17:28:15 +0000

Liar: A Poem
Lynn Crosbie
Anansi: Toronto, 2006.

This book-length poem catalogues the circumstances surrounding the end of the speaker's seven-year relationship, with its attendant welter of emotions. Unfortunately, Liar has neither the poetic attentiveness nor the narrative arc required to sustain a reader's interest for 149 pages. Crosbie's diction tends to be flat: "The Beanie Babies are still boxed at my parent's (sic) house:/ limpid animals, with birth-date tags and names like Cheezer, Blessed, and Schnitzel./ She began collecting them and it soon became an obsession." Where lines do reach for the poetic, they often overshoot the mark, so that images are unearned or unexplored; there's a bit about love being like the "dangerous brinkmanship" of watching a grilled cheese sandwich burn, which somehow gets summed up by the phrase, "Like broken vessels, an astronomy of refusal." These kinds of abstractions, paired with overly mundane details of the lovers' life together, serve to obscure rather than to illuminate the character of the beloved, and without this sense of intimacy it's difficult for the reader to enter the narrative. What do gleam through, surprisingly, are the thumbnail portraits of other people: the neighbour who used to work "in the Maritimes on a fishing boat, dressed like Elton John", the woman whose foot the speaker steps on while wearing stiletto heels. Occasional turns of phrase also burn bright: "the short movements of a newborn squirrel, who,/ in falling from its nest,/ cried with grief as wasps entered its mouth." Closer attention to craft and avoidance of repetition would have made this a more rewarding read.
--Linda Besner

Seal up the Thunder
Erin Noteboom
Wolsak and Wynn: Toronto, 2005

Erin Noteboom's poetry consistently exceeds expectations and stretches beyond its own limitations in this awe-inspiring collection. The poetry featured here is not religious per se, but is inspired by the Bible and focussed on the language and stories of Christian scripture. Traditional metaphors and tropes come into play here: stones on tongues, milk and honey, salt, wounds, blood. Yet Noteboom also employs a fresh, contemporary set of images: "grey and greased dishwater," "Queen of morphine drips," "the light that loves the bowl of spoons," "My God of the ragbag/ with the needle in your mouth." Some individual poems are simply superb: "Delilah, on contradictions," "O Wisdom, this world," "The sparrow child," and "How even the holy cover their faces." This last poem fuses the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac with the real life story of Deanna Laney, a woman who killed her sons with stones because she believed God commanded it. The poem's rhythm, understatement, and repetition are masterful: "How she woke near midnight/ and took the oldest first onto the lawn/ how the sprinklers came on, how they ran/ to the rock garden./ How she had decided on stones." Seal up the Thunder is more than the sum of its parts. It is more than prophecy, more than devotion, more than reclaiming or retelling, more than praise. It is a heartfelt and wise meditation on the disparity between the quotidian and the eternal, the past and the present, and the infinite gaping maw between the human and the divine.
--Matthew J. Trafford

Besner and Trafford review new works by Crosbie and Noteboom

April

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 20:38:49 +0000

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Canadian Dis-Content

Mon, 03 Apr 2006 18:06:47 +0000

Examining CANCON's role in our film industry

Why aren't Canadian films being shown in Canadian theatres? photo: Rob Maguire

CANCON: a strange and mysterious compound highlighting the cultural, the Canadiana, and even some elements that may be at odds with economic globalization. An abbreviation for Canadian Content, CANCON is a bold protectionist policy featuring a quota system that is applied to various areas of Canadian cultural creation to ensure that a minimum of cultural product in Canada is homegrown.

This policy has done wonders for the Canadian music scene. With a mandatory minimum airtime for our artists on radio airwaves, singers and songwriters alike have enjoyed a guaranteed audience in this country.

So Canadians have a system for protecting their music, but what about their movies?

Try to name five Canadian films you have seen in the last year. Most of us cannot name five Canadian films we have seen in the last decade. Is it because Canada does not tell its own stories through film? Is it because audiences are simply not interested in those stories when presented with the options available to them at the megaplexes? Or are all the Canadian films being made actually American productions that trim their budgets by coming up north?

When one considers that less than two per cent of all films screened in English-Canada last year were truly Canadian, these questions become quite pressing.

Canadians do make films, and damn good ones at that. This country is the birthplace of the documentary, and the National Film Board is a respected institution modeled by several countries around the world. At any given time, there are dozens of Canadian film productions being planned, produced, distributed and even exhibited. So why isn't anyone seeing them?

Film distributors and exhibitors repeatedly state that until Canadians start producing Hollywood-type blockbusters, their films won't be in demand for paying audiences in this country. This is particularly the argument of the three largest film exhibitors – Cineplex Entertainment (which owns Famous Players), Empire Theatres, and the American owned and operated by AMC Loews.

These exhibitors control roughly three-quarters of Canadian movie screens. With their connections to American multinational media corporations and Hollywood studios, these cultural powerhouses have vested interests in marketing, promoting and screening mainstream American films in their Canadian theatres.

Canadians went to the movies 60 million times in 2004 – that's a veritable river of money going back to shareholders in Hollywood and the US in general. There is a good chance shareholders do not even know where that money is coming from, as Canada is considered part of the domestic American market for box-office sales.

So Hollywood studios make Hollywood films, distribute them with Hollywood-owned and connected companies, and screen them in Canadian theatres owned by or connected to Hollywood. Could this rather incestuous, self-serving system have anything to do with why we're not seeing any Canadian films on Canadian screens? Mainstream industry pundits posit a resounding "no" – Canadian films just aren't good enough.

This argument misses a factor, which is now bringing international recognition to Canada: diversity. In Quebec, nearly one third of films seen at all cinema houses are homegrown products, and Canadians from coast to coast to coast came out in droves to see domestic productions Atanarujat (The Fast Runner), The Corporation and Where the Truth Lies. Clearly, when a Canadian film makes it into the theatres and people find out about it, audiences show up and pay to see it.

Since the exhibition companies in Canada seem to answer more to Hollywood and their American shareholders than they do to the average Canadian moviegoer, maybe it is time to level the playing field a little. Perhaps a little CANCON-like intervention needs to happen in this multi-billion dollar industry.

As cultural products, how can Canadian films even begin to find a foothold in a terrain that is mapped out entirely by multinationals outside our own borders? As we have seen, Quebec is an exception, partly because Hollywood doesn't speak French, but also because of protective policies penned by the provincial government. In English-Canada, filmmakers are not given many choices when considering markets for their films. It is either straight to video or one of the three principle television broadcasters.

Getting Canadian film on the big screen should not be a lone battle against Hollywood. The forces of convergence and concentration of ownership in the film industry are coming up against grassroots and alternative methods - like community film screenings - but eventually theatres in this country will need to support our own filmmakers. When that time comes, it will be up to audiences to decide whether Canadians make good films or not. At this point in time, there's no way of knowing, if there's no way of showing.

Ezra Winton is a graduate student in Media Studies at Concordia University.
He can be reached at ezra@uberculture.org.

Ezra Winton examines CANCON's role in our film industry and asks why Canadian films are not being shown in Canadian theatres.

Throwing Tomatoes

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 23:06:00 +0000

Field workers in Florida target McDonalds buying policies

Field workers are paid pennies a pound for tomatoes picked. photo: CIW

After winning a four year long boycott against Taco Bell for better wages and an enforceable code of conduct, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a community of tomato pickers in Immokalee, Florida, is now targeting McDonald's.

The CIW and its allies are campaigning for McDonald's to negotiate socially responsible working conditions directly with them-- the people who are directly affected by the McDonald's buying policies-- as Taco Bell agreed to do.

The deal made with Taco Bell requires the company pay one cent more per pound for the tomatoes bought from Florida growers. This increases the workers' wage by almost double, to about 2.3 cents per pound. The agreement also includes a tracking and enforcement process, along with consequences for growers who do not comply with the new policy.

McDonald's refuses to negotiate with the CIW, however, and instead, has signed onto Socially Accountable Farm Employers (SAFE).

SAFE is a grower lead certification body made up of the member growers of the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association and the Redlands Christian Migrants Association, the latter a childcare and education provider for migrant families. Growers that are SAFE-certified are required to abide by general labour standards. These standards are basically the standards already required by law.

SAFE is a very new organization that was created soon after the Taco Bell boycott ended. It did not include the CIW or any other labour organization when it formulated its standards.

"As it stands today, we believe SAFE cannot sincerely be said to hold any real promise for the expansion and protection of workers' rights," states the CIW. Rather, the CIW expresses concern that "SAFE stands as the primary barrier today to hopes for the continued expansion and protection of workers' rights created by the settlement of the Taco Bell boycott."

SAFE did not come from a concern for labour conditions on the field. According to Ray Gilmer, spokesperson for SAFE, it came from a concern for the reputation of Florida growers. "There was a realization that corporate grower responsibility was extending all the way down to the farm and companies like McDonald's would be asking for an assurance that workplace conditions are meeting certain standards."

Consumer awareness of the working conditions of tomato pickers has increased as a result of the CIW campaign, but the reputation of many Florida growers had been tarnished before the campaign.

Ag-Mart, a tomato operation with fields in Immokalee, is one such grower. According to Source Watch, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy, Ag-Mart was ordered by the Florida Department of Agriculture to pay $111,200 in fines in October for pesticide misuse.

These fines were the result of an investigation initiated by the Environmental Protection Agency in connection with the deformities of three children of Immokalee tomato workers. One baby was born with a cleft palate and facial abnormalities, another was born so disfigured that her sex couldn't be determined and died soon after birth, and a baby boy was born in December with no arms and legs. All three of the mothers worked for Ag-Mart during their pregnancies.

Ag-Mart has also hired Yolanda Cuello, wife of convicted slaver Abel Cuello Jr., as a labour contractor. Cuello was convicted of involuntary servitude in October 1999 for enslaving migrants. Workers at Ag-Mart say Cuello is the supervisor they see. Ag-Mart was contacted and directed the Dominion to their lawyer, who did not respond to requests for an interview. Ag-Mart supplies grape tomatoes to McDonald's.

The CIW's campaign for better wages and greater control of their livelihoods began by targeting the tomato growers themselves. With hunger strikes, marches, tours and intensive coalition building, the CIW fought for the improvement of their livelihoods. Despite these efforts, conditions did not change. "The growers are very protected from pressure from traditional labour organizing because farm workers are excluded from the National Labour Relations Act," explains Greg Asbed of the CIW. "Growers don't sell to the public. They were able to ignore us because consumer awareness has no impact on them."

The CIW realized that to change working conditions in the fields, they would have to target the buyers. The result was the Taco Bell consumer boycott, which resulted in increased wages for tomato pickers. This, in the face of extreme poverty, as noted by a United Nations special envoy to the community, is a small but important gain for the Immokalee workers.

Bridrigo Oregon, who left fieldwork for construction in 2002, describes the conditions he worked under. "You work in the sun, you run all day, 12 hours... I look at my people working hard. I tried to find a good job. I can't find a good job. I need vacation, I need benefits, but the company says 'no.' It's a big problem," he says. "One bucket of tomatoes is 40 cents. That's $45 all day! It don't make no sense to work for $45 a day."

Growers are concerned that these penny-per-pound deals, like the one made with Taco Bell, will scare away other large buyers like McDonald's, explains Gilmer. "We're worried [that] if enough of these penny-a-pound deals are crafted, then large corporate buyers will look at the extra money they're paying and see Florida as the higher cost provider. If this is not applied to the entire industry, including Mexico, a corporate accountant can say we need to buy somewhere else, not Florida."

The context for this concern is the North American Free Trade Agreement. Gilmer explains, "Just after NAFTA was signed, the Mexican government devalued the peso. It made it incredibly attractive to buy [in Mexico] and it hammered the industry [in Florida]."

A 2001 USDA report stated that labour costs in Mexico are markedly lower than in the United States. As of 2000, the daily wage rate of a farm worker in Mexico was $3.60 US compared to $66.32 US, earned by the farm worker in the United States.

In 2005, McDonald's revenues reached a record high of over $20 billion.

Carole Ferrari talks to the people at the bottom of McDonald's food chain and investigates a new campaign targeting the fast food giant.

Living In Our Land

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:48:48 +0000

The Tshikapisk Foundation aims to promote Innu culture and safeguard Innu land

Tshikapisk Foundation provides experiential, cultural and spiritual learning programs for Innu youth. photo: Etienne Pastiwet

"We want to become independent, be normal, have our own culture and preserve who we are," Napes Ashini says simply. Ashini has hunted for over 30 years in Nitassinan (Our Land). He is now a spokesman for hunters and ordinary Innu.

Living in harmony with the land is the foundation of Innu culture, says Ashini, and hence, it also holds the key to the recovery of Innu society. The Innu are in the midst of a struggle to regain the land that was usurped from them by Canadian colonizers, despite the fact that no treaty ceding land was every signed.

Of the land claims negotiation process, Ashini says bluntly: "It was designed to rip off [the Innu]."

Ordinary Innu have been left without a voice, says Ashini, since the Canadian government recognizes only elected "leaders." This imposed system conflicts with traditional Innu culture, which is based on an egalitarian nation without chiefs.

Ashini describes how Innu consultants and the federal and provincial governments kept the Innu in the dark about land claim negotiation developments. "All our legal advisors or non-legal consultants were pressuring us to cede our land to the governments.

"They want us to extinguish our rights and our lands altogether, so that in the future our descendents won't be able to sue or have lawsuits against the governments." According to Ashini, the majority of Innu will never accept this.

Ashini believes the whole process is a deliberate government ploy to trap the Innu into settlements, a situation that has imperiled their culture.

Approximately 90 per cent of people living in the settlements are unemployed, says Ashini. This has led to "rampant" problems of substance abuse and a high rate of youth suicide, issues unheard of in the past.

The federal government, he says, has "thrown money" at the problems in the settlements, promoting sweat lodges and other "bogus" treatments. Ashini has also seen many mega-projects come to Nitassinan, promising "development" but bringing only more hardship for most Innu.

The key to revitalizing Innu society is getting back to its cultural roots, believes Ashini. "In the past we had our own culture, our own identity, our own history."

"We want to start our own ways to find a long-term solution," he says. Ashini is a co-founder of the non-profit Tshikapisk Foundation. The foundation aims to promote Innu culture and safeguard Innu land by providing experiential cultural and spiritual learning programs for Innu youth.

"In order to retain our own culture we must go back in the country and teach our young people about their identity, about Innu culture, Innu values, Innu history," says Ashini. "We have a history that dates back close to 10,000 years." This history and rich culture is not taught in Newfoundland schools, says Ashini.

Considering its importance in preserving the Innu way of life, Ashini believes the Tshikapisk Foundation is not getting the support and attention it deserves. He estimates that the foundation needs at least $1 million to complete an Innu Cultural Centre, money that has not been forthcoming from the government.

Ashini finds this ironic considering the federal government was hoping to put $500 million into a NATO Tactical Fighter Weapons Training Centre in Nitassinan in the 1980s. The proposed project, which was hugely controversial and met with strenuous objections from the Innu, was eventually stopped.

The Innu seek to end dependency and re-establish their culture and society, says Ashini. To achieve this, the Innu need an economy that corresponds to Innu needs and aspirations. The Tshikapisk Foundation hopes to help build a self-supporting rural economy, emphasizing traditional Innu knowledge and skills.

Kim Petersen speaks to Innu hunter Napes Ashini about his work to promote Innu culture and safeguard the Innu land, Nitassinan.

Against the Grain

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 00:48:01 +0000

Speerville's bioregional ethic supports local economies

A thousand acres of organic grain is now grown in the Maritimes, for the Maritimes Manitoba Government

"We feel that more people in Atlantic Canada should be eating more food that's produced in Atlantic Canada," explains Todd Grant, manager of Speerville Flour Mill.

"Eat local," is the oft repeated mantra of grassroots agriculture, environmental and food security organizations, but businesses that embody that ethic are few and far between.

The organic grains and cereals produced by Speerville Flour Mill in Speerville New Brunswick are not available outside the Maritimes. Although having more people in British Columbia or Ontario eating food produced in Atlantic Canada might increase Speerville's profit margin, Grant does not see it a choice the Mill can justify.

The average meal travels 1500 miles from field to table. Almost one third of transport trucks on Canada's highways are carrying food. Less than one per cent of the Atlantic region's available cereals and flour are actually produced in the region.

This system degrades the environment, explains Grant, and is devastating to local economies. "If you drive through Atlantic Canada, the farms are disappearing left, right and centre." Grant understands the depth of that loss more than the average city slicker: "I grew up on a farm. It's a way of life I believe in and want to see available for young people to experience." Speerville has made a significant effort to ensure that this will be the case in the Maritimes.

When the mill was founded over 20 years ago, almost no organic grain was being grown in the Maritime region. Today, with harvests destined for Speerville Mill, small farmers in the region grow almost 1000 acres of organic grain..

At the mill the grain is stone ground, a milling process that uses the entire kernel. The result is a high fibre, nutritious, delicious tasting whole grain flour, says Grant. "It's the old fashioned way of doing it."

It's obvious when talking to Grant that he believes 'the old fashioned way' has more to teach modern industrial agriculture than most would care to admit. Heavy pesticide use has resulted in land so depleted and chemicalized that "it's not able to produce healthy food any more," says Grant. But to his dismay, 'organic' no longer means healthy or natural either: "Do you know that they have organic white cake mix?!"

Speerville's Whole Wheat Bread

Place in a bowl:
1 Tbsp Baking Yeast
3 cups Warm Water
1/4 cup Honey

Add: 3 1/2 to 4 cups of Stone Ground Whole Wheat Flour

Stir the mixture (from outside inward), folding in air.
Cover with a damp cloth and set in a warm place for about an hour.

Fold in:
2 tsp Salt
1/4 cup Oil
3 to4 cups Flour

Knead for 10 minutes using 1 to 2 cups of flour and more as needed until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Place dough in a lard oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth and set in a warm place for about one hour - or until double in size.

Punch down with your fist until air is worked out of the dough.
Cut into loaves. Let sit for 5 minutes.
Shape and place in baking dish.
Cover and let rise for 15 minutes.
Bake bread at 350° F for 50 minutes.

Makes 3 large loaves.

Hillary Bain Lindsay discovers a flour mill in rural New Brunswick that is nourishing the local economy by ensuring that Maritimers eat local.

The Life of A Clearcut

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 22:52:19 +0000

John Haney collaborates with his environment

Ice Formation in Skidder Track, November 2005. copyright John Haney

It was "an especially obscene clearcut, one which came right up to the road," remembers John Haney. "I figured that I could either get mad or deal with it somehow - and there was one way I knew [how to deal with it]. So I started making trips out to this clearcut with my camera."

John Haney, a photographer currently living in St. John's, Newfoundland, has been working on a photographic series whose process is as noteworthy as its images. The process of the project has required a give-and-take between the artist and the life and agency of the project's subject: a New Brunswick clearcut.

"I knew that there had been countless pictures made of clearcutting, but I'm pretty sure nobody else has been stupid enough to haul around a 25-pound camera to do it with." Haney's camera is an Eastman Kodak 11" x 14" view camera dating back to around 1928, complete with focusing cloth.

"My first intention was simple: to document the devastation as blatantly as possible. I wanted to show something sublime — in the original sense of the word — displaying something both gorgeous and terrifying."

Haney was inspired by images he'd seen of the devastated landscape around Mount St. Helens in Washington State after it erupted; images in which all the trees were blown down in the same direction. He quickly realized, however, that his approach would have to be different. "First of all, there weren't any trees." The objects signifying the devastation, "which I had imagined might be lying around, were probably two-by-fours being used to build houses in Mississauga. Secondly, I was immediately attracted to something far less obvious. I kept getting drawn to subtle things, to the evidence of life growing back."

Haney decided to go back to the clearcut three months later to continue to document this process. "I wanted to see if there was some sign that beauty and life were returning. I realized that if I didn't find this, the project would be one-dimensional and would fall flat."

There have been thousands of documentary-style photographs depicting clearcuts and the devastation they cause, and this familiar mode of depiction was Haney's original intention. But the landscape began to show him something else.

Birch Suckers, November 2005. copyright John Haney

"Returning to the clearcut in November was interesting. Many of the leaves of the living trees had yellowed and fallen off, the ferns were brown and dying, and there was ice on the water that filled the skidder tracks. I felt that the place had changed — it was coming back slowly. So if there's an underlying motive to the work, it is to show how fortunate this is. Also humbling. It points to the poignant fact that all the environmental/ecological issues that we are concerned about in regards to the earth ultimately point to us.

"The truth of the matter is that we will only kill ourselves off, and take a handful of species with us. In time, this place is going to keep on going — and, in fact, it will come tothrive — without us. As I thought about this I realized that my original intent had actually been turned on its head. That my pictures weren't an epitaph for a forest, but rather for humans – for us."

It wasn't that Haney's images had become less political – Jacqueline Rose, a feminist film critic, states that all images are political. These images of a clearcut landscape go beyond the already familiar political images of outrage that have no relation to its opposite: the equally ubiquitous and romanticized painterly landscapes of rebirth and salvation. Haney's interaction with this place and an audience's interaction with the images push careful observation into a more nuanced political-geographical-cultural-natural space. This space has an integrity — not borrowed from moralizing "nature," but from a narrative of observation. This space is more complex but also more simple in its decay, growth, re-growth, shift and pull. The space is hybridized by the passage of machines, not destroyed by them or triumphant over them. The space is a collaboration of events that have taken place within it, including Haney's photographing of it. This multiple collaboration is the subject of Haney's work.

Ice Formation in Skidder Track, November 2005. copyright John Haney

"I made a photograph of a skidder track [a skidder is huge, log-hauling machine], whose tires had made a pair of deep trenches in the ground. It was one of the first pictures I made that looks, in some way, like a completely natural landscape. There's even a slight degree of abstraction in the way the ground is divided by a wedge of sky reflected in the water of the trench. " The image achieves a sense of dichotomy that Haney was aiming for. " It looks like a natural landscape, and it doesn't seem to bear any traces of humanity, except for the fact that, in actuality, the whole landscape is a human landscape; it was made that way by machines, and is now left to its own devices. There is no obvious evidence that one is looking at a ruined landscape, except that the entire subject of the picture is a product of that ruining."

Haney hopes these photos will provide a space for studied inspection of a place that usually doesn't get a second look. " I don't necessarily expect people looking at the pictures to go through the same stages of thought that I did, which is to say, to begin with anger, then come to wonder, then arrive at epiphany. However, I do hope that viewers will be able to get a sense of the slow and considered approach of photographing the clearcut with a view camera, and that they will afford the pictures the same consideration, paying attention to the small and interesting details in a huge, chaotic mess of a landscape. I think that there is a quality about the pictures that speaks of process — both the processes of method and thought, and the slow process of renewal."

The first public showing of the work, currently with the working title Clearcut, will be at the Emerson Gallery in Berlin from July 12 to 22, 2006. Images are currently available at www.johnhaney.ca/clearcut.

Max Liboiron speaks to photographer John Haney about the process of art. Slow down and take a second look.

Non-Status Quo

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 19:58:38 +0000

Years after being brutally arrested, ten non-status Algerians and two supporters are found not guilty

Protesters were Tasered and beaten during arrests almost three years ago. photo CMAQ

"This is a coup," said defense lawyer Yavar Hameed after the non-guilty verdict of 10 non-status Algerians and two supporters was announced in an Ottawa courtroom on February 24th. The group was brutally arrested in May 2003 for occupying the immigration minister's office.

Besides being an obvious right in a free and democratic society -- the judgment -- says Hameed proves that it is not a crime to peacefully wait for a public official in his waiting room. The subtext of the Crown's position was that the broader activities of the Action Committee on Non-Status Algerians in Canada are disruptive and unlawful, says Hameed. The court's decision puts these suggestions to rest. Because all of the accused were acquitted, Hameed continues, the excessively violent and abusive arrests will now become a matter of even greater public concern and scrutiny. In cases like these, the polices' broad powers of arrest lose credibility in the eyes of the public and the courts, he says.

On May 29th, 2003, a delegation of non-status Algerians and their supporters from Montreal were waiting in the lobby of the immigration office in Ottawa. The group was delivering a letter outlining the plight of non-status Algerians in Canada and requesting a personal appointment with the minister and a just solution to those facing deportation to Algeria , a country still marked by extrajudicial killings and civil strife. Because Denis Coderre, then Minister of Immigration, had personally intervened in the past to address the situation of non-status Algerians in Canada, the accused were hopeful that they could secure an appointment with the Minister. They had been there 10 hours when the Ottawa Police Services tactical unit moved in.

A police video shows the police leaping over cubicles, choking protesters, twisting arms, using Taser guns, and insulting the non-status Algerians and their supporters. The police punched out one man's tooth and scarred several others with Taser burns and gashes from beatings. Most of the accused were French-speaking, yet the police shouted profanities and instructions in English. Those arrested were charged with "mischief under $5000" and released from jail the next day.

Crown attorney David El Hadad attempted to prove that by waiting in the lobby, the group was distracting government workers and thereby preventing them from doing work. This, argued the Crown, constituted mischief. After three years of adjudication the judge ruled that it did not.

The trial "stopped my immigration case," says Tarik Abderrahim, one of the accused. "Over the last three years, there has been so much stress." As a non-status Algerian, Abderrahim has faced many barriers to establishing himself in Canada. "Two years ago, I wanted to go to school to study to be a machinist," he explains, "but I can't because I have no papers." Working, studying or receiving social support is almost impossible for anyone in Canada who is not recognized by the government as having status.

"I hope and pray [achieving permanent status] will be faster now," says Abderrahim. If found guilty, Abderrahim would likely have been deported to Algeria.

Human Rights Watch estimates that over 100,000 people have been killed and over 7,000 disappeared in Algeria over the last decade. Several thousand Algerians fleeing state torture and execution have come to Canada seeking asylum.

Canada put a moratorium on deportations to Algeria in March 1997, recognizing that Algeria was not a safe country for people to be deported to. The moratorium was lifted in April 2002 on the heels of then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's trip to Algeria where he was seeking business contracts. Groups like the Action Committee For Non-Status Algerians argue that the moratorium was not lifted because Algeria had become a safer place, but to benefit Canadian corporations. In April 2002, for example, just after the moratorium ended, SNC-Lavalin, a Montreal-based engineering firm and arms manufacturer was awarded a $150 million contract by the Algerian ministry of water resources.

The Action Committee For Non-Status Algerians has been organizing out of Montreal for several years. After the moratorium on deportations to Algeria was lifted, they launched a hugely successful campaign that resulted in Immigration Canada introducing a special program through which 89 per cent of non-status Algerian applicants were granted status in Canada. Their efforts continue and the group demands a speedy regularization of all non-status Algerians, an end to deportations and a return of the moratorium.

On February 24th, over 70 people crammed into a small Ottawa courtroom for the verdict; people perched on laps and supporters poured out the back doors. The court finally decided to move the verdict announcement upstairs into a larger room--one that required the police to search everyone with metal detectors. The crowd was evenly split between carloads of Montrealers and Ottawa supporters--all of whom stood up and cheered when the verdict was announced. Chanting, applause, embraces and flower offerrings followed the verdict.

Hameed says the victory is significant because it reveals that despite the fact that the group was being peaceful and lawful, it was met with an excessive police response. That leaves the door open to the conclusion that the accused suffered cruel and unusual punishment at the hands of police," says Hameed. The cases implications will "give good direction for the future."

Nourdine Belhadj certainly hopes so. He is one of the acquitted and has been waiting to receive his status for eight years. "It will make everything easier now," he hopes. "Now they don't have any reason to say 'no.'"

After ten non-status Alergians and two supporters are found not guilty, Gordie Warnoff questions the reasons for the brutal arrests.

Charest, Harper Meet with Unelected Haitian PM

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 00:01:51 +0000

Top: demonstrators carry signs depicting Latortue with the words "wanted for crimes against humanity". Above: Charest with Latortue. photo: Aaron Lakoff [View all photos]

Gerard Latortue, the unelected Prime Minister of Haiti, visited Jean Charest in a private meeting on Saturday, March 11. Spokesperson for Charest said that "The premier wanted to thank him for what he did for Haiti and get an update on the situation there."

Amnesty International is one of many organizations who have accused Latortue of crimes against human rights, including the authorization of police to fire on demonstrators in Haiti, approving the jailing of hundreds of political opponents, and supporting the violent and repressive Haitian National Police in their crackdowns on poor neighborhoods and sporting events. The Haitian National Police are also widely believed to perpetrate ongoing attacks on the leadership and support base of the widely-popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas.

Serge Bouchereau, of the group Resistance Haitienne au Quebec, said that "By agreeing to meet with Mr. Latortue -- a criminal against humanity -- we believe that Mr. Jean Charest has become silently complicit... The people of Haiti want nothing to do with Mr. Latortue, who is an imposed prime minister who was parachuted into Haiti by Washington, Canada and France."

Outside of the meeting, a group of about 70 protesters chanted "Latortue, assassin! Charest, accomplice!" and handed out pictures of Haitian victims of police violence laying on the streets of Cite Soleil, Haiti.

Yves Engler, of the group Haiti Action Montreal, expressed concern that Latortue's visit was an attempt to secure certain agreements between Canada and Haiti before the newly elected Rene Preval takes office.

The Haitian community in Quebec is the largest in Canada, holding some 75,000 Haitians. The province has spent just under $5 million in "aid" for Haiti since 1997.

Francesca Manning

» Hard Beat News: Latortue Greeted By Protests During 'Secret' Canada Visit

» Canadian Press: Charest meets with interim Haitian leader in Montreal amid vocal protests

» Montreal Gazette: Protest decries Charest meeting Haitian leader

Peace from Above

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 05:02:11 +0000

The final article in a five-part series on the former Yugoslavia

[ Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four | Part five ]

An oil refinery destroyed by NATO bombs.

A crater left by a NATO bomb near a school.

A mother and child killed in the bombing.

A refugee killed en route by NATO bombs.

Houses destroyed by NATO bombs.

Belgrade burning after a night bombing raid.

In 1999, NATO planes dropped twenty thousand tonnes of bombs on targets in the former Yugoslavia, killing upwards of 3,000 human beings and injuring thousands more. Targets included power plants, hospitals, industrial infrastructure, schools, churches, historic sites, water and sewage facilities, apartment buildings, temporary housing for refugees, traveling refugees, the state television station, bridges, and socially-owned, worker-run factories. Michael Parenti, Jeremey Scahill and others have noted that buildings owned by multinational corporations remained curiously unscathed, though the Chinese Embassy was levelled by NATO bombs. One and a half tonnes of depleted uranium munitions were used in attacks. Cluster bombs were used. Bombing also resulted in the incineration of 80,000 tonnes of crude oil in a heavily populated area, and the contamination of the Danube river with hundreds of tonnes of toxic chemicals.

NATO planes, it was reported, often waited fifteen minutes after bombing a target before hitting it again, killing rescue workers.

Canada participated in the bombing, though neither the public nor parliament were consulted in the decision.

NATO's bombing campaign continues to be dubbed a "humanitarian intervention" against Serbian forces, allegedly bent on the wholesale slaughter of innocent Muslims and Croats.

"This is America at its best. We seek no territorial gain. We seek no political advantage," President Clinton told television viewers.

The stated reason for the bombing was to force Serbian leaders to sign the Rambouillet agreement, which called for the unconditional NATO occupation of the whole of Yugoslavia. The "agreement," which most observers say was simply an ultimatum, would have empowered a NATO-designated official to "issue binding directives" to the governments of Yugoslavia and Kosovo. According to a source quoted by George Kenney, US State Department officials bragged that the US had "deliberately set the bar higher than the Serbs would accept." While the Rambouillet document nominally sought autonomy for ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, the Americans seemed to make several assumptions about what the Albanians would do with their autonomy. Among other things, the agreement called for a "free-market economy" in Kosovo and the privatization of all government-owned assets.

Writing in the Guardian, Neil Clark notes that "NATO only destroyed 14 tanks, but 372 industrial facilities were hit--including the Zastava car plant [known for its production of the 'Yugo'] at Kragujevac, leaving hundreds of thousands jobless. Not one foreign or privately owned factory was bombed."

In other news, Clark reports that Kosovo's Trepca mine complex--estimated to be worth $5 billion, and called "war's glittering prize" by the New York Times--was seized by 2,900 NATO troops, who used tear gas and rubber bullets to take it over. Now held "in trust" by the UN, the mine has largely been sold off to foreign investors and firms.

Reporting of this kind lends a degree of credibility to an account like that of Michael Parenti, who maintains that Yugoslavia was dismantled and attacked because it refused to submit to western interests and privatize its industry in the manner imposed on the rest of post-communist eastern Europe. (Parenti is hardly unique in holding this view, however. Former State Department official George Kenney and retired US Air Force Colonel Allan Parrington have both come to a very similar conclusion independently.) That the standard of living in such countries has declined significantly, while unemployment, crime and inequality have risen across the board seems to be little more than a footnote to official accounts.

What political agenda is the media serving by demonizing Serbs and Milosevic in particular? Is it because, as a diverse set of observers suggest, that the Serbs were demonized and bombed for having put up the toughest resistance to the imposition of a privatized free-market economy?

If and when there is a real debate in Canada about the Yugoslavian civil war, perhaps an explanation will emerge that accounts for the facts that are now available to everyone. Until then, the evidence is more favourable to the case made by people like Parenti than it is to remarkably unequivocal view that blame for the entire conflict rests on one man.

The explanation of NATO's role as "humanitarian intervention," however appealing, has the additional burden of contradicting almost every precedent of US foreign policy in the last three decades, in addition to requiring the commentator to ignore the verified facts on the ground.

The bombing itself was a serious war crime by most definitions of the term. Bill Clinton and Jean Chrétien, however, are unlikely to appear in front of a war crimes tribunal any time soon, as the tribunal itself is funded and controlled by the United States and other NATO members.

In November of 1999, Canadian lawyers David Jacobs and York University law professor Michael Mandel presented a formal request that the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), where Milosevic was until recently on trial, investigate sixty-seven NATO leaders (including Bill Clinton and Jean Chrétien) in the deaths of thousands of civilians. They presented three volumes of evidence to substantiate their request. Continued failure to act, they said, was a violation of the court's mandate.

Two months later, ICTY prosecutor Carla Del Ponte made it clear that NATO leaders would not be investigated. Mandel wrote that he and his colleagues could not "understand the failure of the Tribunal to act on these and the many other complaints against the NATO leaders. The law is clear. The evidence is overwhelming."

Responding to a reporter's question about why the International Court of Justice did not have jurisdiction over NATO countries, NATO spokesperson Jamie Shea was quite plain:

The charge by Yugoslavia was brought under the genocide convention. That does not apply to NATO countries. As to whom it does apply, I think we know the answer there.

Needless to say, the press does not share Shea's refreshing honesty when it comes to NATO exceptionalism and the selective application of international law.

Further reading:

» NATO: Press Conference given by NATO Spokesman, Jamie Shea

» Michael Mandel: Meeting with Carla del Ponte on NATO's Crimes of War

» Alan Parrington: Clinton Had A Chance To Avoid Kosovo Bombing

» Noam Chomsky: Another Way For Kosovo?

» George Monbiot: Nato's Dirty War

» George Monbiot: As we knew from bombing Serbia: refineries are the key

» George Monbiot: A Discreet Deal in the Pipeline: Nato Mocked Those Who Claimed There was a Plan for Caspian Oil

» Independent Commission of Inquiry to Investigate U.S./NATO War Crimes Against the People of Yugoslavia: Selected Research Findings

» Institute for Economic Democracy: It was Yugoslavia's Turn to be destabilized

» Associated Press: Serbian town will be polluted for years following NATO strikes

» Jeremy Scahill: Rest Easy, Bill Clinton: Slobo Can't Talk Any More

» Michael Mandel, David Jacobs et alia: Notice Of The Existence Of Information Concerning Serious Violations Of International Humanitarian Law Within The Jurisdiction Of The Tribunal

» Human Rights Watch: Cluster Bombs

» Documentation of NATO bomb attacks

» More photos of NATO attack

Dru Oja Jay looks at where NATO dropped 20,000 tonnes of bombs in 1999 in the final part of the former Yugoslavia series

The Good Guys

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 01:34:01 +0000

Part four in a five-part series on the former Yugoslavia

[ Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four | Part five ]

Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic meeting with officials at NATO headquarters in 1998. While demonizing Milosevic, media coverage has avoided discussing the NATO-supported leaders of the breakaway republics. photo: NATO

While a Milosevic-led Yugoslavia (consisting of Serbia, Montenegro and Vojvodina) was under sanctions that rendered it unable to hire its own western Public Relations firm, the former Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Bosnia and the Kosovo Liberation Army were receiving diplomatic, financial and military backing from the US and European powers. While Milosevic continues to receive thousands of column-inches of coverage that manage to avoid engaging with publicly available facts, his counterparts have received very little coverage, factual or otherwise.

Public Relations flak James Harff noted that mobilizing Jewish support for someone like Croatian president Franjo Tudjman was an impressive feat (see part 3). It also added a touch of irony to claims that Serbian forces were perpetrating a "new Nazism".

While those accusations were made, providing justification for a massive bombing campaign, Tudjman was busy perpetrating the old Nazism. In his 1989 book, Wasteland of Historical Truth, Tudjman wrote that "the establishment of Hitler's new European order can be justified by the need to be rid of the Jews."

"Genocide is not only permitted," Tudjman wrote, "it is recommended, even commanded by the word of the Almighty, whenever it is useful for the survival or the restoration of the kingdom of the chosen nation, or for the preservation and spreading of its one and only correct faith." Tudjman counted Pope John Paul II among supporters of Croatian secession under his party.

During WWII, Croatian forces slaughtered over 700,000 Serbs, 45,000 Jews and at least 26,000 Roma at the Jasenovac death camp. With few exceptions, Croatian war criminals were never brought to justice; thousands of Nazi collaborators, including 500 members of the Roman Catholic clergy, fled to Austria and Italy at the end of WWII. Tudjman hailed these as independence fighters, and appointed several former Nazi collaborators to government posts.

Upon Croatia's separation in 1991, the Serbian minority in the Croatian region of Krajina itself declared independence from Croatia. In a referendum, 99.7 per cent of the 500,000 Krajina Serbs voted to re-join Yugoslavia. During four years of fighting, tens of thousands of Muslims and Croats either left or were driven out of Serbian majority areas by Serbian paramilitary groups. (A chief accusation of Milosevic's Serbia is that they supported these expulsions and the attendant atrocities, including murder and torture.) In 1995, a revitalized, US-backed Croatian army went on the counterattack. "Operation Storm," carried out with US, German and French support and training, took over all of Serbian Krajina, displacing almost the entire Serbian population, and sending over 200,000 Serbian refugees fleeing into Bosnia. Though it was the largest such displacement of the conflict, this "ethnic cleansing" went largely unreported. None of the Croatian leaders or officers responsible have been charged with war crimes.

Meanwhile, non-Croats in Croatia--especially Serbs--were subject to a range of punitive measures and systematic discrimination. In To Kill a Nation, Michael Parenti provides an overview of the Croatian situation, including restrictions on media and "confiscatory property taxes," denial "of employment" and "any effective police protection." After the conflict, Croatian Serbs were denied aid to rebuild their homes and businesses. Discrimination against Croatia's Serbian minority continues today, and only a third of Croatia's estimated 300,000 Serbs have returned.

Another lesser-known recipient of western backing was Alija Izetbegovic, who spent part of his youth as a member of the Young Muslims, a fundamentalist group that recruited Muslim units for the Nazi SS during WWII. In his book, Muslim Declaration, he wrote:

There can be no peace or coexistence between Islamic faith and non-Islamic faith and institutions. The Islamic movement must and can take power as soon as it is morally and numerically strong enough, not only to destroy the non-Islamic power, but to build up a new Islamic one.

According to the New York Times, a senior CIA official told Congress in a secret deposition that "There is no question that the policy of getting arms into Bosnia was of great assistance in allowing the Iranians to dig in and create good relations with the Bosnian government." The official was referring to a plan that, according to sources quoted by the Los Angeles Times, Clinton signed off on that allowed Iran to provide Izetbegovic with arms.

Izetbegovic placed second in Bosnia's 1990 Presidential election, but took power through political maneuvering. Though Bosnia's constitution stipulates a rotating presidency, Izetbegovic refused to step down. Fikret Abdic, who had the most votes in the election and remained quite popular in Bosnia, was ousted from government by Izetbegovic and demonized in the state-run media.

In his book on the Dayton peace negotiations, American diplomat Richard Holbrooke expressed his dubious opinion of Izetbegovic. "Even if Milosevic makes more concessions," Holbrooke wrote, "the Bosnians will simply raise the ante." Nonetheless, the US continued to support Izetbegovic. George Kenney wrote that Izetbegovic's "intention seemed to be to pretend to go along with negotiations while continuing the war." During the war, Izetbegovic invaded areas of Bosnia inhabited primarily by Serbs, creating, Holbrooke admitted, over one hundred thousand refugees. Nonetheless, Izetbegovic remains outside the scope of media coverage of war crimes during the war.

Bosnia and its federated Serbian counterpart, Republika Srpska, are to this day under the authority of a UN "high representative", which has the authority to remove democratically elected officials or overturn laws. There has been considerable pressure placed on the governments to implement programs of privatization and to conform to IMF policy proscriptions. Elected President Nikola Poplasen of Republika Srpska was removed by the high representative after being elected in spite of a high level of foreign financial and material support for the incumbent president, who came into office after NATO ousted Karadzic, the previous elected president. Poplasen said that he had been pressured to "break off relations" with Yugoslavia, but refused.

In Kosovo, Western governments bypassed moderate separatists like the Kosovo Democratic League and non-separatist ethnic Albanian organizations to throw support behind the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Publicly, US officials were calling the KLA a "terrorist organization" as late as 1998. It appears, however, that the KLA were receiving US assistance long before. KLA members stand accused of assassinating moderate Albanians, drug dealing, collaborating with al-Qaeda, murderous attacks on Serbian villages intended to provoke retaliation, historical ties to Nazi collaborators.

Retired Canadian General Lewis MacKenzie wrote in the National Post in 2004 that "Those of us who warned that the West was being sucked in on the side of an extremist, militant, Kosovo-Albanian independence movement were dismissed as appeasers." The former peacekeeper noted that the KLA was "universally designated a terrorist organization and known to be receiving support from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda."

MacKenzie also commented on Canadian media coverage.

The recent dearth of news in the North American media regarding the increase in violence in Kosovo compared to the comprehensive coverage in the European press strongly suggests that we Canadians don't like to admit it when we are wrong. On the contrary, selected news clips on this side of the ocean continue to reinforce the popular spin that those dastardly Serbs are at it again.

Ironically, Slobodan Milosevic, who is frequently compared to Hitler, was among the few leaders in the war that did not have Nazi ties. Surely the media are sitting on damning evidence against him, given the monikers that have graced headlines announcing his death ("Butcher of the Balkans" is a favourite). Casual observers will have to wait until journalists decide it is time to show why Milosevic and the Serbs are guilty when NATO and the other leaders are not.

One hopes that such future explanations, though entirely hypothetical, will be forced to contend with the body of facts, including the fact that Western-funded opposition newspapers continued to operate in Belgrade while Milosevic was in office, and numerous demonstrations against him went unsuppressed. It is not accurate to say that Milosevic's government did not engage in political repression, as fighting against military forces and guerilla insurgencies is by definition a kind of political repression, a variety that countries like Canada proudly participate in today.

That said, available evidence indicates that freedom of speech was practiced by Serbian citizens of all nationalities, at least in cities like Belgrade. One Washington Post reporter found the democratically-elected Milosevic's tolerance of public criticism to be evidence of his cunning, writing that it helps "let off steam and mitigate threats to [Milosevic's] government."

In occupied Republika Srpska, by contrast, popular demonstrations against occupying NATO troops seizing radio stations were met with armed vehicles, tear gas, and warning shots. We "will not hesitate to take the necessary measures including the use of force against media inciting attacks on [NATO forces] or other international organizations," a NATO representative said. The meaning of "inciting attacks" was made clear when the television channel Kanal S was told to "immediately cease broadcasting" after playing a message from Sarajevo University students which invited viewers to "join a peaceful protest" against NATO's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia.

To this day, US officials insist that the bombing of the National TV studios in Belgrade was justified. Their reasoning? It was a "ministry of lies."

No one can doubt that serious atrocities were committed by Serb forces during the war. That said, one does not need to be a supporter of Mr. Milosevic to wonder why coverage of Western-supported republics did not reach the level of scrutiny and wild speculation to which Serb actions were subject. Why are large swaths of the public record ignored, and why do the media not account for their circulation of what no one can deny were massively inflated figures and claims of mass graves with tens or hundreds of thousands of bodies? While it is possible that these exist, it is also true that they have yet to be found after a massive search.

The responsibility to provide minimal evidence for oft-repeated claims has not been met. News coverage citing the opinions of NATO leaders and their allies cannot substitute for evidence in the long term. Nonetheless, claims from government sources with an interest in the outcome of coverage are repeated, even after they are contradicted by evidence gathered by NATO or UN teams. (Evidence provided by the Yugoslavian government of NATO atrocities is, naturally, subject to the media's a priori dismissal.)

"Anyone that tries to describe what was going on [in Bosnia] in a rational manner is deemed to be some sort of pro-Serb, rather than pro-truth," says the former general MacKenzie. MacKenzie was defending former BC provincial NDP candidate Rollie Keith, who stepped down after his claim that he saw no evidence of genocide while serving as a UN observer in Kosovo received negative media attention.

"I was shocked that someone who had merely described what was going on in Kosovo, which he saw with his own eyes, that some people interpreted that [sic] as an apologist for Milosevic," added MacKenzie.

Lieutenant General Satish Nambiar of India, who headed the UN mission in Yugoslavia, wrote that "Portraying the Serbs as evil and everybody else as good was not only counterproductive but also dishonest."

"According to my experience," wrote Nambiar, "all sides were guilty but only the Serbs would admit that they were no angels while the others would insist that they were."

Further reading

» Lt Gen Satish Nambiar (Retired): The Fatal Flaws Underlying NATO'S Intervention in Yugoslavia

» Rollie Keith: Failure of Diplomacy

» Lewis MacKenzie: National Post article on Kosovo

» Global Research: Clinton Administration supported the "Militant Islamic Base"

» Wikipedia: Operation Storm

» Stephen Gowans: Was the US behind the single greatest act of ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia?

» Nebojsa Malic: Review of Richard Holbrooke's To End a War

» CBC Vancouver: NDPer quits over Milosevic comments

» CBC Vancouver: Strong military support for former NDP candidate

» Amnesty International: Croatia

» BIRN: Serb Refugees Unmoved by Gotovina Trial

» Minorities at Risk: Assessment for Serbs in Croatia

» BBC: Serb struggles for Croatian home

» Human Rights Watch: Croatia Fails Serb Refugees

» Petar Makara and Jared Israel: The Croatian Ustashi

&raqo; Oliver Kamm: Examining claims between Izetbegovic and Nazi SS

Who was NATO supporting during the war? Part four of Dru Oja Jay's series on the former Yugoslavia takes a look

Shell Shocked

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 22:12:48 +0000

People of the Niger Delta fight back against violence and corruption

Shell's gas flaring in the Niger Delta has environmental, health, and economic impacts on the local community. photo: Niger Delta Women for Justice

"Nothing has changed," says Patterson Ogon, founding director of the Ijaw Council for Human Rights in the Niger Delta. "Since 1995 when Ken Saro-Wiwa was hung, [Shell's] public relations and glossy reports seem to indicate that they're doing so much in the Niger Delta. But we are still waiting to see any practical change."

Over a decade has passed since the Nigerian government killed Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists. Saro-Wiwa led a non-violent struggle against Royal Dutch Shell and other oil multinationals whose operations in the region were devastating the environment and livelihoods of local people. In a statement made to the court before his verdict, Saro-Wiwa predicted that the end of the struggle was near, but warned, "Whether the peaceful ways I have favoured will prevail depends on what the oppressor decides, what signals it sends out to the waiting public."

Ten years later, the Niger Delta is once again making international headlines. The struggle remains the same but the tactics have changed. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) is a well-armed, well-organized group of youth who aim to localize control of the Niger Delta's oil wealth and are demanding compensation for communities environmentally devastated by oil operations.

MEND is targeting the oil multinationals that export 2.5 million barrels of oil from the region each day, specifically Shell, which is responsible for nearly half of those exports. The group kidnapped four foreign oil workers on January 11th and nine more on February 18th. MEND is threatening to bring oil exports from Nigeria to a halt.

The group has already shut down nearly one fifth of the country's oil production; a significant feat considering Nigeria is the eighth largest oil exporter in the world. "Violent attacks by militants in the Niger Delta" are having an effect on oil prices, the New York Times noted on February 20th.

The "violent attacks" referred to in the article are the blowing up of oil infrastructure in the region, including pipelines and loading platforms. Not mentioned in the article are the Nigerian soldiers which have been killed during skirmishes between the military and MEND. According to MEND, they "deeply regret" the deaths. In an email sent on January 17th MEND states, "We understand and sympathize with soldiers being sent into this conflict, that they are there without choice. We do not wish to kill them unless absolutely necessary and urge them to be passive observers so they do not share the fate of their colleagues in Benisede [an attack which destroyed one oil flow station and two military house boats]."

Ten out of the thirteen hostages taken have been released unharmed and MEND has publicly stated that it has no intention of killing hostages. "The hostages are being treated as well as we possibly can," read an email statement MEND released on January 20th, "But they must live under the same conditions we have been subjected to for the last 48 years."

These conditions, argues Ogon, are a different kind of violence imposed daily on the people of the Niger Delta. The region's environment has been devastated by oil operations, "It has affected agricultural and fishing yields," he says. "When people can no longer depend on fishing and farming, when they can no longer depend on the land, when they can no longer depend on the rivers and creeks that have fed them and their fathers and grandfathers... What do you expect them to do?" he asks. "We are talking about the security of the future."

"People feel like they are pushed against a wall," explains Annie Brisibe, founding Director of Niger Delta Women for Justice. Though she does not condone the hostage-taking, MEND's tactics do not surprise her. "It's come out of frustration, anger, and complete marginalization," she says from her home in the United States where she is now living. "This has created a lot of anger in the young men and women of the Niger Delta... People are forced into doing things that they're not supposed to do because of poverty."

Despite the region's oil wealth, seventy percent of people living in the Niger Delta survive on less than $1 US a day.

There have been many attempts to non-violently address the harsh inequality in the Niger Delta. Most recently, Ijaw communities took Shell to court. "They wanted to take a judicial path," explains Ogon. Nigeria's public assembly had previously passed a resolution compelling Shell to pay 1.5 billion for ecological damage. The case went to court after Shell refused to pay.

One of MEND's central demands is that Shell pay the 1.5 billion. In an email statement released on January 20th, MEND stated, "This money is to be paid directly to the affected communities and we ask no part of it. Shell must pay this sum or in the alternative, provide a firm commitment of its desire to settle this claim immediately. "

At the end of February, the federal high court in Nigeria ordered Shell to pay the 1.5 billion to communities in the Niger Delta for damage caused to their environment by Shell's activities. Shell is appealing the decision.

Although MEND's tactics have caught international attention, neither their demands nor the government's reaction to them are anything new, says Brisibe. "Retaliation is always the same," she says. "Always with force."

Two weeks after the first four hostages taken by MEND were released, Nigerian military helicopters attacked what the government says were barges used for smuggling oil. MEND accused the military's attack, dubbed"Operation Restore Hope," of targeting civilians, however, and accused Shell of providing the airstrip as the staging post for the helicopter attack.

This does not surprise Brisibe, who notes that the Nigerian military provides Shell with security. "The government has a better relationship with the multinational corporations than it has with its own citizens," she says. "Shell provides the guns and the helicopters and the pay and the government provides the military."

Ogon reports that the government response to MEND has had a far graver impact on communities than the tactics of MEND itself. "It's worse when federal troops invade local communities and subject innocent people to all forms of harassment and extrajudicial killings. It has made it really difficult for local people who depend on fishing and farming to go about their normal business."

According to a 2005 report released by Amnesty International, this kind of government response is not unusual . "Government security forces continue to kill people in the Niger Delta with impunity. Excessive force is used to protect the oil industry and restore law and order--and the human rights of communities are regularly violated."

Effectively confronting the impacts of oil multinationals in the region is almost impossible with a corrupt government that is benefiting from the oil wealth, says Brisibe. "The international community needs to pressure the government," she says. "All we're asking for is good governance. A government that respects human rights and eradicates corruption." That said, she continues, the international community has not often been a positive force in ending corruption and oppression in Nigeria. "The truth is the international community has a double standard when it comes to Nigeria. If you put pressure on Shell it will have to conform to international standards, which will decrease their profits. Is the international community ready to do this?"

In the meantime says Ogon, Shell is doing everything it can to project a facade of corporate responsibility. A recent posting on Shell Nigeria's website says that the company "is concerned about the likely effects on the environment of the oil spills resulting from the recent attacks on its pipelines and manifolds... As soon as it is safe to do so, we will commence immediate assessment of the environmental impact of such attacks and take necessary steps to clean up the affected areas."

Ogon is confident that Shell's glossy pamphlets and tokenistic "development" projects no longer fool the people of the Niger Delta. "The level of understanding and coordination in the communities gives me hope," he says. "They are saying 'We cannot let this go on.' They're not sitting down and allowing it to go on."

Hillary Bain Lindsay discovers that people in the Niger Delta are fighting back against violence, corruption and oppression.

100,000 march for immigrant rights in Chicago

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:51:47 +0000

On Saturday, March 11, more than 100,000 people took part in a public protest against bill HR44367; a bill that is soon to be voted upon by the U.S. Senate.

The proposed legislation has controversially called for the creation of a fence along parts of the Mexican border and would also criminalize the action of assisting undocumented immigrants illegally remaining in the country.

More than 100 organizations representing Chicago-area immigrants organized the massive march just days before the,event, with delegations also coming from neighbouring states and the northeast.

Starting at noon, the marchers chanted, "Si se Puede," which translates as, "Yes, it can be done," and eventually overtook much of the busy downtown Loop business district. There, the protesters waved multi-lingual banners, as well as American, Mexican, Asian and Caribbean flags, and cheered as numerous politicians spoke, including Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

"Do not allow anyone to tell you that you're an immigrant. Everyone in America is an immigrant," the mayor said.

Governor Rod Blagojevich spoke next, and was treated like a hero when he said, in both English and Spanish, "You are not criminals. You are workers."

According to new reports in the U.S. media, the illegal immigrant population has grown from about 8.4 million people in 2000 to about 12 million.

Locally, the efforts of immigrants' groups have begun to pay off, as already both state and city government bodies have passed resolutions rejecting proposals such as HR44367. The state senate, in fact, has already requested an immigration reform that would allow undocumented people to be granted legal residency and eventual citizenship.

Salvatore Ciolfi