Scottish Socialist Voice
Issue 296
16 th February 2007
—front page—
Back to the brink of nuclear war
This weekend,
peace marchers are gathering in
“I think this is a key moment in the opposition movement, ahead
of next month’s vote in parliament,” says Alan Mackinnon, chair
of Scottish CND.
“And the opposition has never been stronger, including most political
parties, three church denominations, the trade unions, and a whole
range of individuals.”
Labour politicians’ sole defence of Trident, now that we have no
‘official enemies’, is on the grounds that 11,000 jobs would be
lost if we scrapped it.
“It’s nonsense!” says Alan, “CND, in conjunction with the STUC,
is about to publish research showing that in fact a total of 1360
jobs would be lost, and not for at least 15 years.
“And if even some of the money dedicated to Trident was redeployed
in industries like renewable energy, many more jobs would result.”
Replacing Trident could cost in excess of £76billion. If these missiles
were ever actually fired, the costs would be infinite and eternal.
Ever since the atom was split, nuclear apologists have insisted
that nuclear war could never happen. But nuclear scientists, from
J Robert Oppenheimer to members of the current Bureau of Atomic
Scientists (BAS), are not so complacent. They have warned, and warned,
and warned that we stand but a hair’s breadth from annihilation
thanks to these terrible weapons.
The BAS has a Domesday Clock which tells us, not the time, but how
close we stand to Mutually Assured Destruction. Today, we stand
at five minutes to midnight; the nearest we have been to all-out
catastrophe since the end of the Cold War.
Back in 1953, the hands inched towards midnight as the
But the hands inched back thanks to arms treaties, and we breathed
again.
Not only that, we marched, to Aldermaston, on Trafalgar Square,
and to the Holy Loch, and the CND symbol became the international
logo for peace, and sanity.
Then came Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, whose crude foreign
policies cranked up the war machine to the point that, in 1984,
as arms talks deadlocked, we were again creeping towards nuclear
disaster. Somehow, we stepped back from the precipice and in 1989,
following the collapse of the Berlin Wall,
the Cold War came to an end.
But just when it should have been cooling down, nuclear proliferation
actually started hotting up.
A year after Cruise missiles were being rolled out of Greenham Common,
Trident was being rolled into the river
In the 1990s,
In 2002, Geoff Hoon, our then defence secretary, told the House
of Commons Select Committee on Defence that the
The
Three months later,
We are on the brink again, and the aggressor, again, is the
And we in
We must, for the sake of peace, and the future, rid ourselves of
these destroyers of worlds, before there is nothing left to march
for, and no-one to march.
—page two—
Crichton in fight for life
by Mary Hollern
A noisy
and diverse crowd gathered in the hallowed cloisters
of
The crowd, whose cries echoed round the ancient
walls, included young students, self-confessed “middle-aged
women students” - the kind the funding authority
has deemed there are too many of! - and trade unionists,
including university non-teaching staff, facing
cuts as part of the general shrinkage of education
within Glasgow University, which has essentially
become a corporate body.
Committed
The occasion was the meeting of the
This followed a meeting on Monday morning, at which
representatives of Crichton Campus met with Peter
Bulmer, the Corporate Director of Planning and Environment
Services, for
These latter were concerned about the viability
of Crichton if assistance could not be assured from
either the Scottish Funding Council or Glasgow University,
and asked Mr Bulmer if the Council would bring pressure
to bear on both of these bodies, in a bid to break
the deadlock.
Benefits
Much of the rest of the discussion centred
upon the ongoing benefits the Campus could bring
to the region as a whole, and the potentially catastrophic
repercussions if these facilities were lost.
Mr Bulmer agreed that, should
At present the
Should that happen, a general exodus from the area
of students, employers and employees would be inevitable
and Dumfries and Galloway would become a wasteland
for the elderly, making the present projected figure,
of the loss of 5000 employees by 2015, seem like
small beer.
A meeting held on Monday afternoon, between the
Scottish Funding Council and
But as yet, no decisions have been forwarded to
either the staff or students at Crichton, even though
they are the ones who will be directly affected.
Reading the Nithsdale Local Plan for 2006, which
testifies to the area’s reliance upon the expansion
of both
Vision
It has been suggested locally that perhaps
it would have been better if
SSP councillor faces six month suspension
West
Dunbartonshire Council has taken the outrageous
decision to suspend SSP Councillor for Renton Jim
Bollan for six months, after he stood up for an
elderly constituent.
Annie Cardiff is one of two elderly residents of
Leven Cottage, the only council-run care home in
the whole of
Jim Bollan joined Annie and Robert for the entire
six months, sleeping on the floor of the home. Jim
was appointed as 86 year old Annie’s advocate by
her next of kin.
He explained the circumstances surrounding his suspension:
“Annie is a very loving and trusting woman. She
approached me one morning in Leven Cottage a bit
upset and told me the manager and another woman
had come into her bedroom and got her to sign a
document without me being present to represent her.
“I discovered this document cut Annie’s care package
from 24 hours per day to four hours per day.
“I approached the manager about this behaviour,
which I consider to be bullying and neglect, and
a heated argument ensued.
Subsequent to this, the CEO of West Dunbartonshire
Council reported me to the Standards Commission
(SC), who found me guilty of breaching the councillors'
code of conduct and banned me from council meetings
for six months.
“The real reason I was dragged in front of the SC
is that I am a Scottish Socialist Party councillor
who had the cheek to show solidarity with two elderly
constituents in their struggle to stop the eviction
from their home by a Labour Council.
“This action, which had widespread support and was
sustained for six months, terrified the CEO - hence
his attempt to try and discredit me and the SSP.
I have no regrets.
“I would do exactly the same tomorrow if faced with
the same circumstances.
“SSP branch members were immense in their support
for Annie and Robert Toole during the sit-in.
“As a Socialist councillor I will defend anybody
who is being bullied, intimidated or neglected by
an uncaring Labour Council who know the price of
everything but the value of nothing.
“The anger at my suspension and the support from
local people has been overwhelming.
“The important lesson to be learnt is that solidarity
in action works! It was that working class solidarity
that terrified the CEO and the New Labour Council
and also won a historic battle to stop two elderly
constituents being evicted from their home.
“The SSP has demonstrated to local people, by taking
direct action, that if you unite and fight when
the system attacks your community, you can win.”
The decision will prevent Jim from attending council
meetings, but it will not stop him representing
his constituents and his surgeries continue as normal
(see page 8 for details).
In fact, he’s once again battling the Labour-run
administration, this time against their decision
to sell off
n Read more or send Jim solidarity messages at www.jimbollan.blogspot.com
Craig
Murray, the
A wide cross-section of student societies, including
the Socialist Student Society, People and Planet
and CND, as well as numerous individuals, supported
Murray’s candidature, and he in turn supported them,
coming up to the university for a full fortnight
to campaign and meet students.
Andy Nicol, former
Students were delighted by
Lorraine Kelly was last year’s rector. Yep, nuff
said.
A
“It’s really important to have someone like Craig
Murray as our rector at a time when there are so
many cuts being made at the university. We need
someone to actually do the job.”
The rector’s is the third most powerful position
at the university and Murray has said he will take
the job seriously, promising to attend the university
ten to 12 times a year, for two to three days at
a time.
In his absence, he has appointed Dundee Trades Councillor
Mike Arnott to act as his assessor, which means
he will provide continuity, doing
For the students and staff facing the financial
squeeze, it’s a real beacon of hope.
Following his win,
He commented: “I have been studying the figures
and we do not need job losses, and certainly not
in courses where the university interacts with the
community, such as modern languages.”
Regarding the cuts, a well attended, lively demonstration
was held at the university on Monday, timed to coincide
with a
One of those who voted in favour is the current
president of the Dundee Students’ Association.
Many students feel betrayed, and a Special General
Meeting of the Students’ Association has been called
for next Wednesday, with a view to mandating all
student representatives to fight the cuts.
Elections for all student reps are due on 23 March.
—page three—
Blair visits colonial outpost
by Wullie McGartland
Tony
Blair paid a visit to our little colonial outpost
last week, arriving in
Blair was in
After the obligatory visit to Easterhouse - what
on earth have the poor inhabitants of Easterhouse
done to be patronised by every party leader from
Well so we’re told, as he decided to skulk in through
the stage door rather than be greeted by those waiting
at the front door - including a delegation from
the SSP - who had a few questions of their own to
ask him.
Mainly questions about his blood-soaked adventures
in the
The meeting at the City Halls was a gathering of
Labour activists - plenty of empty chairs then -
and was also attended by First Minister Jack McConnell
and arch-crimefighting Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson
- who did at least go in by the front door.
That night, at the Hilton Hotel, rich business types
and Labour hacks were given the chance to dine with
Tony at a fund-raising dinner, where they ploughed
£250,000 into Labour’s coffers.
The following day, Blair went on to address a meeting
of careerists and future war-mongers, otherwise
known as Labour Youth and Students.
He took this opportunity to explain how well we’re
all doing under the 300 year old Union with England,
and warned against any attempt by the people of
Scotland to govern themselves as it’s better left
to the grown-ups in London.
He stopped short of the scare-mongering of his Home
Secretary and attack dog John Reid - who warned
that an independent Scotland would be overrun by
terrorists and Cold War-type border crossings would
be set up as Berwick became the new Brandenburg
Gate.
Instead, Blair told us:
“I don’t want people to vote out of fear of separation
- though of course its negative impact on living
standards and economic investment is all too clear.”
He doesn’t want to scare us, but we’re all doomed.
What next? A US-style Cuban embargo for
Despite the constant cries of dread from Blair
and Co, the support for independence is growing,
as more and more Scots realise the potential of
an independent
Here’s hoping Blair’s visit is the last visit of
a British Prime Minister to
On that same note, last Saturday saw the founding
of the Strathclyde branch of Independence First
(IF).
The branch backed the call of its parent organisation
for a referendum on independence, to allow the people
of
The branch includes members of the SSP, Communist
Party of Scotland, SNP, SRSM and individual members
of other parties and of none.
Strathclyde IF pledged to put young people at the
head of their campaign and to organise events to
gather support for their cause across the West of
Scotland.
n
IF will be holding a demonstration in support of
the referendum call in
Voyage in the dark
Trident
is clearly on everyone’s mind these days.
As Scotland geared up for the Bin the Bomb demonstration
on Saturday, the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise
was cruising our coastline, in a bid to raise awareness
of the fact that, despite 75 per cent of Scots opposing
the commissioning of a Trident replacement, many
of our MPs in Westminster voted in favour of it.
The ship, a former seal-hunting vessel, called in
at
Rosie was struck by how this ship, when Greenpeace
bought it, “literally had blood coursing its decks.
This ship, that once pursued death, now pursues
peace.”
It was, she said, a cold and wet journey to Faslane,
and all along the way the ship was flanked by police
and MoD speedboats, while a helicopter droned overhead.
“The crew of around 20, also activists, were very
hard-working, and were very kind and hospitable
towards us. But they still managed to find time
to get out in their speedboats and buzz the MoD
boats!”
Approaching Faslane, Rosie recalls.
“I’m not used to seeing it from the sea. I’m usually
at the gates. And we were allowed to go fairly close
- close enough to see two huge submarines. And they
are huge. They’re like prehistoric monsters lying
in the water.
“The last time I saw one of these subs was from
the
“It was a bright, sunny day, and we had bright banners
and there was a kind of carnival atmosphere.
“But then the submarine came - this dreadful machine
sailing through this tiny peninsula - and we were
so shocked at the sight of it, that the carnival
atmosphere dropped dead.
“There was nothing human about this thing, and you
couldn’t help but think, my god, what if that was
coming after you?
“Standing on the deck of Arctic Sunrise on Monday
brought it all back.”
While they were at Faslane, two Church of Scotland
ministers were taken out on one of the boats, to
lay a wreath on the water ‘to all who died in war,
are dying in war, and will die in war.’
“It was a sobering moment,” says Rosie, “given the
current state of the world.”
The ship then took them to Coulport, where the nuclear
missiles are loaded onto the submarines.
“It’s an outstandingly beautiful place, yet this
dark shadow is cast across it by these ugly and
terrifying weapons.”
They were then returned to
“I thought about that ship again,” says Rosie, “and
about how they had cleaned the blood off it, and
turned it into something useful, something that
benefits the world. And I thought about how we can
do that again, to Faslane. Turn something awful
into something good. That is what we seek.”
Scottish Exec drops class sizes pledge
The
Scottish Executive has ditched its pledge to cut
secondary school class sizes.
It vowed four years ago to cut first and second
year maths and English classes to a maximum of 20
in a drive to improve numeracy and literacy levels.
Councils have now been instructed to allow class
sizes of up to 29, provided the average across each
school year is 20.
The class size commitment formed part of Labour’s
coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats after
the last Holyrood election
Pamela Page, a secondary school teacher and the
SSP’s West of Scotland candidate, told the Voice:
“The executive is disguising this back-sliding by
calling it ‘flexibility’ but the flexibility that
students and teachers need comes from a reasonable
student/teacher ratio and the resources to deliver
a decent level of numeracy and literacy.
“The executive has reneged on a key pledge which
would have allowed teachers to have more classroom
time with students in these vital maths and English
classes.
“An average of 20 is not the same as a maximum of
20, perhaps the Scottish Executive could do with
a bit of extra help with their maths.”
—page four—
by Roz Paterson
Over here,
sprouting up where once were matted lawns and soggy drives, are spanking
new patios, apparently made of slabs of distinctive blue-grey
Five thousand miles away, children as young as six hammer away at
rocks in
We save a fortune -
As you would expect in a working environment so poorly regulated that
tiny children are allowed to work long days for around 82 pence a
day, there is no health and safety in the illegal quarries of Rajasthan,
no hard hats or dust masks, no statutory breaks or subsidised meals,
no rights, no work records, no first aid.
The workforce is mostly migrant labourers, up to a fifth of whom are
children (under 14 in Indian law), who pick over the vast slag heaps,
or dart down the dangerous, illegal mines with chisel and hammer,
to work out the rock at a rate of 100 gitti (slabs) a day
Babies and infants sit by while their parents and older siblings work.
Many are bonded labourers, who paid to secure a job, or whose parents
were given a loan in exchange for their child’s labour.
These sums are not huge - often as little as 1000 rupees (around £10)
- but the astronomical interest charged on them by employers, combined
with wages that would make you weep, mean that they are never paid.
The debt lives on and endlessly on, passed down to younger siblings,
back to parents, sometimes even onto the child labourer’s own children.
The cycle of life is harsh, and brief.
Children who begin lives of hard labour at four and five, grow up
- if such a term can be applied here - to be undernourished, chronically
sick adults. Many don’t make it past 40.
Laws exist, a whole host of laws, dating back to the 1933 Child (Pledging
of Labour) Act, but are rarely enforced and even when they are, and
employers are convicted and charged, they receive only fines, and
not particularly heavy ones.
According to Indian Census figures for the late 1990s, there were
12.05million children in child labour in
NGOs and other agencies say the figure is probably nearer 60 million,
making
These youngsters work in factories, restaurants, the home. Some 12
million are believed to be domestic servants, children employed -
or rather, sold into bondage - to cook and wash and clean and even
nanny their employer’s children, doing everything from nappy-changing
to carrying their schoolbooks to the bus for them.
Child labourers get no education, have no freedom, no contact with
their families, and barely enough food to live on.
Being effectively invisible, they have no rights, and are frequently
abused, mentally, physically, and sexually.
In 1996, the case of Arshad received international attention, thanks
to the National Human Rights Commission taking up his case.
He was burnt on a stove and then branded with a hot iron by his master
for drinking some leftover milk that his master’s son had left in
a cup.
His master was a government employee, adding to the scandal.
Yet it took ten years for domestic labour to be included in the laws
prohibiting the employment of children. And it continues.
Kailash Satyarthi, chair of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), says neither
local nor national governments are bothered enough about child labour
to do anything about it
BBA is a grassroots organisation, founded in 1980, comprising over
780 NGOs, trade unions and human rights organisations, seeking to
end child labour.
They don’t just campaign, they organise and execute daring raids to
physically release children from bondage and into rehabilitation programmes
that enable them to learn vocational skills in an environment that
nurtures rather than numbs them.
In 1999, they established a four-step strategy to ensure all children
went to school, called the
Step one of BMG is the withdrawal of all children from child labour
to allow them step two, to enrol in school.
Achieving step one is no easy matter, not least because employers
can be very aggressive when threatened with the loss of cheap labour
But the conditions exposed by these raids make it clear why such work
is necessary.
On 6 June 2005, in the congested district of Raghunagar, Dabri in
The children, aged 7-12, were mostly trafficked from their home villages,
their desperate parents having been conned into believing they would
be educated and well-treated.
They weren’t. Rather, they worked a typical 9am - 3.30am day, six
days a week, were kept locked up night and day, for 40 rupees (around
50 pence) a month.
Many had developed rashes and allergies as a result of chronic overcrowding
They were malnourished, and their vision was strained through endless
close embroidery work. If they made mistakes, they were horribly thrashed.
Child labour is often justified as part of the natural way of things.
A justification only if you accept that abject poverty, so that other
people can live lives of privilege and luxury, is also part of the
natural way of things.
Child labourers, say the apologists, are suited to certain jobs, thanks
to their ‘nimble fingers’ - a justification once used in the dark,
satanic mills of
In fact, the really skilled work, for instance in carpet-weaving,
is done by master weavers. Children are just cheap, and helpless.
BBA, when it releases children, provides them places in rehabilitation
centres where they regain some sense of what it is to be a child,
coupled with training in the work-skills that should enable them to
live economically secure lives as adults.
The organisation works to create space for children to be heard in
communities and families.
Step three of the BMG is the formation of a children’s parliament,
or panchayet, and step four, systems to ensure children’s voices are
heard in adult panchayets.
They are mindful of the gender gap.
Two thirds of
There are also BBA campaigns for better schools, which see local villagers
donating money and building materials to build the schoolhouses and
provide the resources, including staff.
One such campaign in Ramchandranagar, 50km from
And every July and August, there is a campaign to encourage children
to go to school.
In 2003, some 20,000 children across seven states took part, and 9000
children, released child labourers, were enrolled in primary schools.
Government should provide, but doesn’t. Until its hand is forced,
organisations like BBA must do the work, so that
—page five—
letters
Hold
the condemnation
In Morag Balfourís column last week she painted
a pretty gruesome picture of some awful parenting,
as shown in the documentary Aged 12 and Looking After
the Family, about disabled parents and their children
who care for them.
I have to admit to not having seen the programme she
describes, and the parents she takes issue with, Paul
and Amanda, sound appalling.
Morag condemns their neglectful parenting and asks:
“why are they so pathetic and useless?”
I don’t know why, I’m not them. And I also don’t think
I could base any opinion on a prime time telly documentary,
which often rely, at best on stereotypes, and at worst
on distortion for the shock value.
I think the column could have done a better job of
making it clear that any awfulness on these two parents’
part was down to their personalities, and not their
disability.
I don’t think any of us have the right to say someone
else shouldn’t be a parent, it’s down to society to
make sure support is provided wherever needed - even
if parenting problems come, as Morag disparages this
couple, because they are “dim-witted”.
The idea that some people shouldn’t be allowed to
be parents, which the column did not say but I feel
treaded dangerously close to at times, represents
a level of authoritarianism which socialists should
not be pushing.
Heading in that direction, we’re just one step away
from compulsory sterilisation.
Angela MacEwan, Troon
Welsh
killing factory
The St Athan complex is effectively a university of
the three armed forces, the American multinational
nuclear arms giant Raytheon, and other companies involved
in arms procurement and missile testing.
What the government is not telling people is the connection
between the Trident nuclear missile programme and
St Athan.
Many of the jobs at Metrix at St Athan will merely
involve the re-employment of aerospace engineers,
nuclear engineers and other highly skilled workers
made redundant by the closure of military establishments
in the coming rationalisation. The new jobs for
Amidst all the media-led euphoria about new jobs for
“Over the next 30 years the
If £14billion is available for this new killing factory
from this bottomless pot of defence spending, why
are schools and hospitals throughout
The only ones who will benefit from the money to be
spent on developments at St Athan and on Trident will
be the fat cats in the MoD who take their orders from
the American White House.
Bill Hyde, Caerphilly
Fast
stopped
On 22 January, the lawyer Behic Asci temporarily
ended his hunger strike in
Behic started his hunger strike last April in protest
at the solitary confinement his political prisoner
clients have been subjected to since the year 2000.
Along with Behic, Gulcan Goruroglu and a woman prisoner
named Sevgi Saymaz halted their strike. They all had
taken vitamins to lengthen the period they could be
on hunger strike without dying.
The Turkish Justice Ministry had issued a circular
saying it would make association among political prisoners
possible, representing the first real concession the
government has made on the issue.
Behic, Gulcan and Sevgi are only temporarily ending
their fasts, since it remains to be seen whether the
government will actually abide by its promises.
In 1996, for example, the government backed down from
introducing prison isolation after 12 prisoners died
on hunger strike.
But a couple of months later, it murdered ten Kurdish
nationalist prisoners uninvolved in the prison protest,
and a few years afterwards it put prison isolation
on the table again.
However, with all these caveats, the HOC (Front for
Rights and Freedoms) has issued a statement saying
“the resistance has won”.
Steve Kaczynski, Edinburgh
Cooking
with conscience
The article in last week’s Voice on the plight
of factory farmed chickens, and the resultant poor
quality cheap meat which ends up on our plates, made
for very disturbing reading.
I thought it would be a good idea to feature cheap,
but healthy, vegetarian recipes in the Voice to show
that there is an affordable alternative to buying
processed, cruelly produced meat.
Here are a couple of meals which I make regularly
- they can be made in big quantities and frozen in
batches, which gives you a healthy home-made ready
meal!
The vegetable ingredients can be changed depending
on what’s in season in the supermarket, and you can
also get the reduced veg at the end of the day to
save more cash.
Tinned chickpeas are already quite cheap but it’s
even cheaper to buy a big bag of dried ones. This
requires a slight amount of forward planning as they
need soaked overnight and boiled for about an hour
and a half.
After this they can be frozen in smaller amounts for
use in recipes.
Come on Voice readers, send in your veggie recipes
and we could make this a regular healthy lifestyle
feature!
Barbara Scott, Edinburgh
Chick Pea and Vegetable Curry
1
Tin Chickpeas (or equivalent weight in dried, cooked
ones)
1 onion
1 clove garlic
1 courgette
1 carrot
(substitute or add whatever other veg you fancy)
1 or 2 dessert spoons of korma paste
1 tin chopped tomatoes
Half a tin of coconut milk
Chop
all the veg up and parboil any hard ones - like carrots
- for about five or ten minutes.
Fry the onion, garlic and other veg in vegetable oil
and add the parboiled stuff and the chickpeas.
Stir in the korma paste and the chopped tomatoes.
Simmer for a while and then add the coconut milk and
cook for a bit longer. Serve with some boiled rice.
Lentil Stew
A
couple of handfuls of lentils (green ones are best
but any kind should work)
Various veg including onion, garlic, peppers and anything
else you fancy, green beans are good if they are on
offer, spinach also works well in this, or sweet potatoes.
1 tin of chopped tomatoe
About half a pint of vegetable stock
Herbs and/or spices - again this can be varied depending
on what you have but cumin is good in this as well
as parsley.
Boil
the lentils in salted water for about 20 minutes or
until they are quite soft. Chop all the veg up and
parboil any hard ones - like carrots - for about five
or ten minutes.
Fry the onion, garlic and other veg in vegetable oil
and add the parboiled stuff. Drain the lentils and
add them too. Stir in the tomatoes and the stock,
and the herbs and spices, and simmer for about 20
minutes. Serve with pitta bread.
GIE’S
PEACE
Morag Balfour
Morag is a long term activist in the peace movement and is the SSP’s peace and disarmament spokesperson
Youth offended
Those
of strong constitutions may have watched a two-part
documentary about Polmont Young Offenders Institute
(YOI) that aired recently on BBC2 Scotland.
Polmont YOI is reputed to
Was I being worthy or just a bit of a voyeur, I hear
you ask? Well neither actually. I wanted to see for
myself whether the programme accurately matched my
experience of the place.
I spent a day in Polmont YOI in early January in the
company of many friends from the Iona Community. The
more traditional place to meet up with your buddies
armed with a passport is an airport. Polmont YOI is
a fairly grim holiday destination and I wouldn’t recommend
it.
What is interesting though, is the number of young
people who also end up there with their mates. The
majority of Polmont YOI’s occupants are drawn from
12 postcodes.
Our group spent much of the day with one of the chaplains,
Donald, a fantastic geezer. There’s a man with a handle
on the limitations of an institution. Someone asked
him if there was anything good about Polmont YOI and
he sat quiet for a bit looking ponderous.
A moment or two later he said he was unable to think
of anything good about the place, not a thing. He
did say that some of the young men are of the belief
that if they weren’t locked up they’d be dead by now.
That, my friends, was Donald’s only positive.
The place is miserable, even the recently constructed
parts. The atmosphere is depressive too and the documentary
showed this clearly. It followed the lives of several
young offenders over the course of six months. The
stories were often tragic. Folk find themselves in
there for a variety of reasons.
As I am a total bleeding heart I think many youngsters
find themselves there because society has let them
slip through the net. Imagine this is your own life;
Your father leaves when you are tiny and heads for
Australia; your mother is unfit to look after you
and you are brought up by your Granny; your Granny
dies when you are 15 and you land up in what we have
the cheek to call “care”.
Within a very short time your behaviour becomes criminal.
That’s the kind of kid I’d choose to foster. If you
have a big heart and a spare room please consider
fostering teenagers, before they land up in that Godforsaken
hole.
But what of those currently serving sentences in Polmont
YOI? What is to be done to intervene and break that
almost inevitable cycle of revolving-door criminality?
We at the Iona Community have been handed the keys
to a project that might just help some ex-offenders.
It’s called the Jacob Project and it harnesses some
Government money.
We match a youngster to a work placement, throw in
some training, bucket loads of emotional and physical
support, and hey presto, fingers crossed, some of
them make it. The Iona Community has historical links
with Polmont and the Borstal it evolved from. Staff
at Camas, our outdoor centre on
I’m glad we’ve kept a link with Polmont YOI. We can’t
afford to forget those who find themselves in there.
In time, it’s hoped we’ll extend the same project
to Cornton Vale Women’s prison too. I find this kind
of meddling extremely cathartic.
—centre pages—
Facts behind bird flu
Why the government would rather protect
questionable practices in food industry than the nation’s health
Since the discovery of H5N1, or ‘bird flu’, at a Bernard Matthews food
plant in Suffolk earlier this month, the government has been falling
over itself to counteract the flow of information on this potentially
deadly disease.
But, writes Roz Paterson, for a massive amount of people trapped in
poverty there’s no option but to keep on buying the only food we can
afford, as ministers cross their fingers and hope for the best, while
protecting the junk food industry from us, the consumers, and try to
lay the blame on organic and free-range farmers.
Their lives are short, only 41 days, and spent in truly shocking conditions.
Up to 50,000 of them may be crammed into dark, airless sheds at one
time, their bodies rendered grotesquely obese through an intense, high-protein
diet, their skin blistered and ulcerated by the ammonia from the faeces
they sit in, day in, day out, their leg bones disintegrating due to
bacterial infection, their hearts failing, their immune systems at rock
bottom.
Does this sound like a safe environment for food production to you?
The UK government, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN Food
and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) may continue to insist that the catastrophic
conditions in which poultry is reared in factory farms are not linked
to the mutation and spread of H5N1, the deadly form of bird flu that
last week reared its head on a Bernard Matthews turkey farm in Norfolk,
but the accumulating evidence now suggests otherwise.
H5N1 can certainly occur in wild birds, initially pegged by government
ministers as the root cause of bird flu transmission, but research indicates
that the ideal breeding ground for this deadly and highly contagious
disease is in the intensive conditions described above, where birds,
bred for increased meat and egg production, have almost no natural immunity
to disease and succumb in their tens of thousands, not least because
they cannot help but breathe one another’s air.
And its spread is facilitated by a globalised poultry market that sees
eggs, birds, feed and meat cuts zig-zag hundreds of thousands of miles
across the planet, from Thailand and China and Indonesia, to India and
Nigeria and Holland, to the UK and the US and France and Sweden
At the Bernard Matthews farm for instance, no less than 160,000 birds
were gassed once the outbreak was confirmed, and investigations now
reveal a trail that extends to
Bird flu broke out recently in
An important caveat here is that wild birds, though they can transmit
H5N1, usually die quite quickly from the disease, so intercontinental
carriage is virtually impossible.
Tracking down animal disease has now become an international game of
detection, involving dozens of stopping off points, and thousands of
contamination possibilities.
The implications for human consumers, who may be as susceptible to it
as we have proved to be to BSE, are spine-chilling. Already, books are
being written describing how, as individuals, we can deal with a worldwide
flu epidemic when the healthcare system breaks down under the weight
of it.
This could prove to be the wildest scaremongering, but the potential
for wildfire infection is there, thanks to the international trade in
intensively farmed poultry.
So why is our government so wedded to the myth that bird flu is spread
on the wing by wild ducks? That free-range hens are asking for it? That
the only safe food is the kind bred indoors, with as little natural
input as possible?
Could it be for the same reason that, rather than tell us simply to
stop eating junk food, and forcibly removing it from state school canteens,
they prefer to blizzard us with baffling info about salt, RDAs and fruit
portions while churning out the old mantra about consumer choice?
In truth, our government is so in cahoots with the processed food industry,
the industrial giants that force-feed us - and their livestock - chemical
gloop disguised as foodstuffs, that it will swear black is white rather
than regulate it.
And to hell with the consequences for human health and animal welfare.
Frankly, we’re way down the list of their priorities.
The increasingly loosened regulation of our food industry, or rather,
the fact that it has become so divorced from its origins and is passed
through so many pairs of hands during processing, enormously multiplying
the potential spread of germs, before it even reaches us, is allowing
all kinds of diseases and conditions to flourish, from common or garden
food poisoning to such exotica as bird flu.
Bird flu has actually been about for over 100 years, and comes in 144
different strains, either low pathogenic or high pathogenic.
Low pathogenic strains, like H5 or H7, can mutate into lethal strains
such as H5N1, but likely wouldn’t, according to vegan organisation Viva!,
if it wasn’t for factory farming
Compassion in World Farming, who campaign against factory farming, say
it’s a no-brainer: factory farming is to blame, adding that they “factor
in the flow of goods within and between countries. The potential for
disease spread is high.”
The industry is already notorious for its contribution to the spread
of salmonella, E.coli, campylobacter and
Factory farming of poultry has been a massive growth industry in Southeast
Asia in the last 30 years, and is the source of much of the 200 million
cheap chickens we import to the
Perhaps not surprisingly,
In one instance, in
Tragically, we eat an awful lot of cheap chicken, partly because, more
than any other nation in
That we put this stuff in our mouths without realising the potential
consequences is surely related to our increasing alienation from food
production. The fact that we even tolerate Bernard Matthews calling
itself ‘
Further, we have been so inundated with food scares that we now no longer
flinch at being told no-one is quite sure whether those contaminated
off-cuts in Norfolk entered the human food chain or not. There may be
a recall of processed turkey products in the coming days, but there
may not, as such a move would do terrible damage to an industry that
thrives in junk food
A few years ago, a reporter asking people in
The government, of course, is supposed to protect us from things like
this, but be assured, it is keeping its fingers crossed rather than
taking any real action on this, just as it did over BSE, when a now
infamous government minister pushed a beefburger on his trusting young
daughter.
Or rather, it is protecting the industry from us, not the other way
round.
The government’s attitude may be even more callous than at first it
appears.
Not only is it keeping schtum on the relation between factory farming
and bird flu, it would seem that it is happy to be complicit in a conspiracy
that links the disease with organic and free-range farming, thus paving
the way for ‘regulation’ of this precious strand of agriculture.
Regulation, in this case, meaning herding the birds indoors, and rearing
them in conditions not a million miles removed from those of factory
farms, thereby blurring the distinction between factory and free-range.
Labour minister Ben Bradshaw, laughably entitled Animal Welfare Minister,
when overwhelming evidence forced him to stop blaming wild birds for
the Bernard Matthews massacre, went on to say that bird flu was associated
with “developing nations where poultry is kept in small numbers in open
farms.”
As if keeping fewer chickens could in any way facilitate more disease!
This is disingenuous to the nth degree, given the rise of factory farming
in these self-same nations, and the fact that backyard outbreaks, as
bird flu in small flocks are called, always seem to be related in some
way to factory farms.
While the government, and its industry pals, try to skew the bird flu
debate in such a way that we run screaming from free-range eggs, Robin
Maynard, campaigns director at the Soil Association, notes that in fact
there is “interesting evidence” to suggest that organically reared birds
may have stronger immune systems than their counterparts in factory
farms, and thus a higher resistance to bird flu. This kind of thing
doesn’t deter the likes of Margaret Say, Southeast Asian director for
the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council, who said:
“We cannot control migratory birds but we can surely work hard to close
down as many backyard farms as possible.”
She doesn’t just mean family chicken coops in
It gets worse. Bird flu could also be utilised as a gateway for genetically
engineered chickens.
According to Laurence Tiley, professor of Molecular Virology at
He continues, unabashed:
“Once we have regulatory approval, we believe it will take between four
and five years to breed enough transgenic chickens to replace the entire
world population.”
A nightmare visited
Just how is cheap meat produced?
Factory farms are a pressure cooker for disease. One glance at conditions
makes it clear why.
To be certified organic, a poultry farmer must ensure there is at least
one acre of space per 400 birds.
By contrast, factory farmed birds have on average only space equivalent
to an A4 sheet of paper each, giving them no room to stand up and move
around.
Consequently, they cannot move out of their own excreta, and suffer
horrendous skin conditions, including open, weeping wounds, as a result.
Laying hens are often stored in stacked cages, allowing their faeces
to drop down onto other birds, thus facilitating the spread of any kind
of contamination.
Factory farmed birds are reared in quantities as great as 50,000. The
floor is generally invisible, but be assured - it’s coated in shit -
and the air is thick with dust, encouraging the development of respiratory
diseases which are not only ghastly for the bird, but impair their already
weak immune systems, further enabling the spread of any disease that
penetrates the flock.
They live an incredibly unnatural life.
Force-feeding
During the 1960s, when intensive farming was in its infancy,
it took 84 days for a newly hatched chicken to reach its optimum broiler
weight.
Now, thanks to force-feeding and high-protein diets, chickens can be
fattened to the required 2-2.5kg in just 41 days.
For their bodies, this has terrible consequences.
Many are lame because their legs simply do no develop enough to support
their engorged bodies.
Many never reach the slaughterhouse, having dropped dead of acute heart
failure before they even reach 41 days.
An RSPCA advert highlighting the horrors of a broiler chicken’s life
was banned in 2001 from television broadcast because it was ‘too political’.
It is acceptable in the
Thus we live in ignorance of how our most popular meat is actually produced.
—page eight—
Young socialists at core of election effort
Last
week Scottish Socialist Youth (SSY) organiser Jack Ferguson
took part in a workshop where a group of 17 and 18 year old
school leavers discussed the political issues that affect
their lives. Here he explains why the day was an endorsement
of the SSP’s radical manifesto for young people in
The students at the workshop in Paisley’s
Two main issues were highlighted by the discussion that the
students felt were most important.
They were especially annoyed at the regular police harassment
they face while real violence and danger on the streets goes
unchecked. They also pointed out that their access to the
town centre is limited because the public transport system
is crap.
Although they didn’t consider themselves political or activists,
at the end of the workshop the students all wrote angry letters
demanding action from their local politicians - a big step
towards action to improve their communities.
In the 2007 elections the SSP is putting forward a raft of
ideas that would make a huge difference to the lives of young
people, like these students, all over
The demands we’re making which particularly affect young people
include:
n A totally free, integrated public transport system
n Democratically elected police boards to make the police fully accountable to the communities they serve
n Youth facilities for all communities, run democratically by young people themselves so that they offer what they want rather than ‘what’s good for them’
n Funding for 5,000 new apprenticeships.
The
SSPs fully independent and vibrant youth wing, Scottish Socialist
Youth, means we’re ahead of the game when it comes to action
on youth rights.
In SSY, young socialists organise their own political discussion,
decide their own priorities and take action on what’s most
important to them.
In the last year we’ve distributed thousands of ‘worker’s
rights cards’ giving young workers the information they need
to fight back against rip-off bosses.
We’ve also organised two successful conferences and a great
summer camp that helped sharpen the ideas of a big group of
independent-minded socialists.
The joint campaigning of the SSY and the SSP has had an impact
in
From
Young people are consistently ignored, demonised and scapegoated
by the mainstream parties because they don’t register to vote
and aren’t represented politically.
That’s why SSY is planning a major programme to encourage
young voters to get registered and vote for the young socialist
MSPs and councillors who will fight for their rights.
SSY has brought a breath of fresh air to the election campaign
with new ideas like targetting the opening of the new Bank
of Scotland branch in Glasgow to highlight that corporation’s
exploitation of its workers and customers (see last week’s
Voice, issue 296) and hitting bus and train stations with
information about our demand for free public transport.
Joanne Kelly is part of the SSP’s Executive Committee and
an SSY member. She is also a candidate on the SSP’s
“It’s great the SSP takes seriously the issues that affect
young people. That’s because we’ve successfully built an organisation
where young people feel welcome, their opinions are valued
and they are encouraged to develop their own ideas and put
them into action.
“SSY is one of the best achievements of the SSP, shown by
the number of SSY members who are candidates for the SSP,
who have been directly involved in shaping our radical policies
and who are doing the hard graft of getting out on the streets
to spread the socialist message.”
n www.ssy.org.uk
Health Message on a bottle
by Carolyn Leckie
We
get the message but do we understand it? There’s no shortage
of advice from government and health professionals about the
‘safe’ levels of consumption of alcoholic units. But what
is a unit and how many are in your favourite tipple?
The truth is it varies enormously from one kind of lager,
wine or spirit to the next. To know exactly you need to tap
into your underused arithmetical skills - not the easiest
thing to do when you’re under the influence!
And then recommended levels are different for men and women.
Given a bottle of wine can be anything between six and nine
units depending on alcoholic volume, how did couples divvy
it up if they were out for Valentine’s last week? Was there
a romantic moment when the guy whispered, “You’ve had your
units, the rest of that bottle’s mine.”
A pint of lager is most likely two units, but large cans and
alcohol volume over 4 per cent will be more. It’s easy to
consume way over daily and weekly recommended limits in blissful
ignorance.
For a woman half a bottle of wine is more than the daily allowance.
It’s frightening because for me, like many others, half a
bottle of wine feels quite innocent. In
But it’s a serious health problem and will take a serious
culture change to turn it around. Alcohol consumption is increasing.
It’s cheaper in comparison to income than it ever was.
Alcohol is costing the NHS over £100million a year and well
over a billion pounds to the economy as a whole.
The costs are rising all the time. So the ad campaigns and
glossy leaflets in the health centres aren’t working. Preaching
to people and asking them to get their calculator out with
every glass only succeeds in making it look like the government
is doing something.
Some experts have called for clearer labelling. Maybe if every
glass, bottle or container in the pub or the off-sales was
required by law to spell out exactly how many units they contained,
along with the recommended safe levels, it wouldn’t be so
easy to kid ourselves about our alcohol intake.
I’d go further. Obesity is another growing problem, and it
can be a sobering experience to add up the number of calories
you’ve just consumed in a night out at the pub, or at home
with a bottle of wine.
How many folk know there’s around 500 calories in a bottle
of wine? That’s the equivalent of a small Easter egg. Or that
there’s about 230 in a pint of lager, or 200 in an alcopop?
Four alcopops in a night is the equivalent of four bags of
McDonalds’ fat-soaked fries. And alcohol has even less nutritional
value than those!
Maybe displaying the calories on drinks labels won’t drive
us to mineral water. But information is power. Who could disagree
with such a simple, easily enforceable change?
I suspect the drinks companies might. The more we drink, the
more profits for them. Take Diageo who make about £128million
a year in profits just in
Diageo are forever sponsoring events at the Scottish Parliament.
World leaders dined at their tables in Gleneagles when the
G8 came in 2005.
If companies like Diageo come out in opposition to clear labelling
of alcohol units and calories, then the case in favour will
be proven!
Their profits depend on our ignorance - and upon creating
a culture of dependency on alcohol. And our NHS picks up the
tab at the rate their profits escalate. So let’s put the shocking
numbers on the labels.
—page nine—
cultural resistance
Malky in the middle
A Brighter Beat by Malcolm Middleton. CD released on 26 February.
by Kevin Williamson
Every once in a while you get so excited
by a new record that you lose your critical cool and can’t help gushing
clichéd superlatives.
Malcolm Middleton’s A Brighter Beat is one such album.
Middleton’s first two solo albums were recorded whilst he was still one
half of the now defunct, but sorely missed, Arab Strap (a band that a
dictionary of superlatives could never quite do justice to).
Which is why the transition to solo recording artist was always going
to be one of logical progression rather than a complete reinvention.
A Brighter Beat kicks in with We’re All Going To Die - where a snappy
revved-up rhythm section (reminiscent of Howard Devoto’s Magazine) softens
you up for the happy-go-lucky opening lines of “We’re all gonna die, and
what if there’s nothing? We’ll all have to face this alone.”
Before breaking into the most danceable, sing-a-long chorus of “So alone,
you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die alone.”
Why this puts a smile on my face, I don’t know. But it does. And that’s
the essence of Malcolm Middleton’s songs. They get under your skin for
reasons it’s hard to fathom at first listen.
Middleton’s songs are like listening to a good mate in a pub telling you,
matter of fact, about his worst fears, his desperate loves, his heartbreaks
and his innermost feelings, ‘Aye, it didnae work oot, like, but what can
ye do? Mine’s a lager tops...’
Beneath the surface of the jaunty brighter beats, the acerbic lyrics,
and the black humour, there’s a dark cloud of depression never too far
away - of the hard-drinking masculine Scottish sort:
“Today’s as black as the white Scottish sky, the burning grey as the clocks
struggle by, crude oil in ma veins, coal in ma lungs.”
I’m tempted to say the songwriting here is Leonard Cohen meets Jerry Sadowitz
with a dash of George Jones thrown in. But I won’t. Okay I will.
Killer track for me is the poignant love song Fuck It, I Love You with
its “three little words on a mobile phone” twists and turns.
I could slaver on about how good this song and all the others are - there
ain’t a single filler track - and still never do justice to complexities
and the pure genius that’s imprinted all over A Brighter Beat. Every track
here transcends the seemingly dark mire that seems to descend on Middleton’s
often depressed state of mind.
Which is why there’s something truly heroic and engaging about this record.
A Brighter Beat is a gorgeous slab of dazzling moody dazzlebeat rock‘n’roll.
If Arab Strap is now in the past, then, for the time being, this is the
future of bittersweet Scottish pop.
n A Brighter Beat is released on Malcolm Middleton’s own Full Time Hobby label
What’s all the fuzz about then?
Hot Fuzz (cert 15) directed by Edgar Wright. In cinemas now
by Simon Whittle
I went to see this while I was away in
I’d put off seeing Hot Fuzz, despite it being made by the Shaun Of The
Dead team, because of the enormous hype surrounding it.
For me, these saturation advertising campaigns drain any thoughts I may
have for actually going to see a particular film.
Switch on the telly any time in the past couple of weeks and there’s Simon
Pegg and Nick Frost again reeling off their interview script of, ‘Yeah,
we did this as an allusion to whatever’ - oh, get off the TV.
OK, it’s a great film. Perfect from start to finish. Plot-wise, it’s like
a comedy Wicker Man but it rehashes every action flick cliché in the book
and then throws it at you while jumping over a hedge cos it’s bound to
explode. A few times. And from all different angles.
Pegg is Nicholas Angel, a top cop in London’s Met who’s so perfect at
his job that he makes all the other police officers look bad in comparison.
So he is duly dispatched to a sleepy village in the West Country, where
there’s apparently no crime.
But Angel is no ordinary cop, and he manages to arrest half the village
before he’s even clocked in for duty.
The idyllic, sleepy little village soon awakens from its ancient slumber.
(I won’t give away the rest of the plot.)
It’s got to be the loudest film I’ve ever seen, if that makes sense. Every
scene is punctuated with a CSI-style, ear-bleeding reverb-o-thud. At a
village fete? Very funny.
Don’t expect a critique of modern policing in the
It’s bumbling British bobby meets super-cop.
Walking out of the cinema into Liverpool city centre, 11.15pm on a Saturday
night, the first thing I see is a drunk guy attempting to chin a police
horse, before he’s escorted, firm hand on shoulder, to a couple of cops
outside a kebab shop for a jolly good ticking off.
Back to reality then.
Tuned in
Keef Tomkinson
Square-eyed socialist Keef recommends next week’s TV
Sunday 25 February
A Fistful of Dynamite, Film4, 1am
Sergio Leone’s little-appreciated manifesto of cynicism brings together
peasant bandit Rod Steiger and IRA fugitive James Coburn in the Mexican
revolution. The film is a savage attack on arrogant revolutionaries, as
well as being the ultimate buddy film. The score is one of Morricone’s
best, perfectly reflecting the film’s gentle spirit, dark comedy and grace
of its violence. Hopefully this is the newly restored edit which adds
a dark twist to Coburn’s past and motives.
Monday 26 February
The CIA’s bloody adventures in 1980s
Tuesday 27 February
Natural World: Return of the Eagle Owl,
BBC2, 8pm
This one is for George McNeilage who has demanded more animal programmes.
As it says in the title, this is about the return of the Eagle Owl, a
Scandinavian beast capable of catching and eating foxes, cats and dogs.
And it’s coming here!
Wednesday 28 February
Once Upon a Time in
Not an adventure from Sergio Leone but a documentary examining how a murder
committed nearly 1,400 years ago in
Thursday 1 March
Storyville: This Film Is Not Yet Rated,
BBC4, 10.15pm
Where would I be without Storyville? Dispatches - argh!! This week it
looks at the impact on American culture of the Motion Picture Association
whose censorship and secrecy has created as much controversy as the films
it classifies.
Friday 2 March
The Wild West: Billy the Kid. BBC2, 9pm
What else you gonna watch on Friday night? Charlotte Church? I don’t think
so. There have been a million films and TV specials about William Bonney
but, given that the New Mexican state governor may consider a posthumous
retrial this doc looks at what chance Billy may have.
—page ten—
international news
Former
by Alex Miller
Mamdouh
Habib, a former
Habib was held prisoner at
Habib’s campaign manager is Raul Bassi, a member of the
Australian Socialist Alliance, which has welcomed Habib’s
candidacy.
Bassi told the 7 February edition of Green Left Weekly (GLW):
“Mamdouh is standing as an independent. He is not a socialist.
But he is raising key issues of health, education and human
rights, and demanding an end to war in
“I am supporting and helping his campaign.”
Another Australian citizen, David Hicks, has been held without
trial in
Susan Price, the Socialist Alliance’s lead candidate for
the
“We unconditionally defend Mamdouh Habib’s right to stand
in these elections at a time when Labour and Liberal politicians
are engaging in a Muslim-bashing campaign.
“The Socialist Alliance campaigned for his release from
“Since Habib’s release, we’ve continued to campaign against
the recurring violations of his rights by NSW police.”
n For all the latest information on the campaign to free David Hicks, visit: www.greenleft.org.au
Have a Coca Killer with a twist of pesticide and a bullet on the side
The
recipe for Coca-Cola, an industry secret for over 120 years,
must be made public or the company faces a ban in
The sub-continent’s highest court demanded that the recipe
be disclosed following the release of a study stating that
Coca-Cola products sold in
The study, compiled by the non-governmental Centre for Science
and Environment, found that 11 brands of soft drinks sold
by Coca-Cola and its rival Pepsico - also ordered to spill
its secrets - contain unacceptable levels of pesticide residue.
Coke products, the Centre found, contained 25 times the
amount of pesticides, and Pepsi products 30 times as much,
as they did in 2003, when a previous study was published,
sparking a spate of local bans in schools and workplaces
across India, as consumers turned back to fruit juice.
Kerala was the only place where a state-wide ban was imposed
and this was successfully challenged by Coke, not because
the court found that their products didn’t contain harzardous
levels of dangerous chemicals, but on a technicality.
MPs from across the political spectrum are now joining the
call for a ban on Pepsi and Coke products across all of
Colombians are also finding that Coca-Cola is bad for their
health, following a death threat issued to members of SINALTRAINEL,
the food and drinks workers’ union.
These members, who work at the Coca-Cola bottling plant
in
The letter-writers, claiming to be the paramilitary organisation
Black Eagles, said if they received no response “we declare
(the named trade unionists) military targets of the Black
Eagles, as they prefer - death, torture, cut into pieces...”
Over the last two decades, elites representing agrobusiness
and transnational capital have gained pre-eminence in
Paramilitary organisations form a mafia-like criminal network
across
Members of SINALTRAINEL have been murdered, unjustly imprisoned,
harassed, their families threatened and their livelihoods
taken away from them.
Yet the government does nothing. Or rather, it directs its
ire at the victims not the perpetrators, accusing them of
conducting “absolutely absurd campaigns against (companies
including Coca-Cola)...”
Luis Javier Correa Suarez, president of SINALTRAINEL, said
in a letter dated 10 February: “We hold the government of
Alvaro Uribe Velez and all its officials responsible for
their public accusations against trade unions and the opposition.”
He called for the government to guarantee the safety of
trade unionists in
He awaits their response.
n for more information see: www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk
—page eleven—
international news
State oppression still the name of the game in the Basque Country
Below is a
letter sent to the Spanish consul in
The letter outlines his experiences at the hands of the Spanish
authorities on a recent visit to the Basque Country with his daughter.
Dear Spanish Consul
I would like
to register a complaint regarding the way I was treated by people employed
by the Spanish government when I visited Donostia (
On 5 January I travelled with my 16 year old daughter to visit friends
in the Basque Country. I am well aware of the ongoing conflict in the
Basque Country between those who seek an independent Basque homeland
and the Spanish state. But nothing prepared me for the first hand experience
of what happened when we arrived in Donostia.
On Saturday 6 January I was travelling into Donostia by bus, with a
group of around 20 international delegates. We were travelling en route
to take part in a peace initiative that had been scheduled for five
o’clock that evening in the Velodrome Stadium in Donostia.
At around 4pm our bus was stopped at a road block by members of the
Guardia Civil, brandishing sub machine guns. They then marched onto
our bus and demanded to see our ID. Without giving any reason these
same soldiers took my passport, and the passport of my daughter, plus
the passports of everyone on the bus, then marched us off the bus at
gunpoint and made us stand up against a wall for over an hour while
they conducted a search of the bus.
At this point there was nobody on the bus except for the Guardia Civil.
The soldiers eventually emerged with a magazine in their hand. As we
stood against the wall, wondering what was going on, it was clear we
were being filmed from inside an unmarked car with blackened windows.
The soldiers then asked us to return to our seats on the bus, which
we did. One of the international delegation,
a young man from
Sebas was then taken first of all to a prison in Donostia and held ‘Incommunicado’
for two days before being taken to a prison in
When our passports were finally returned, the bus was allowed to leave,
and eventually those of us not imprisoned reached the Velodrome in the
centre of Donostia, beside the Real Sociedad football stadium.
The original event, planned as a peace initiative by the Basque Amnesty
Campaign, had been banned - in a typically fascistic manner - the previous
day by the Madrid Courts. So instead of observing a peaceful political
initiative, as hoped for, myself and my daughter found ourselves being
attacked by armed police outside the Sociedad stadium.
What happened next was like something out of a movie. Volley after volley
of rubber bullets were fired at us, in what was now a descending darkness.
These bullets - made from lead weights encased in rubber balls (so they
can bounce off walls and injure people on the rebound) narrowly missed
us.
Armed police then ran amok on the streets, lashing out indiscriminately
with batons and riot shields, whilst still firing rubber bullets into
the crowds, many of whom were en route to a football match that kicked
off at 8pm. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was chaos and barbarism
on a scale that we thankfully rarely encounter in
My own personal experiences on that day have confirmed what many Basque
friends have told me in the past. Namely this: the Basque Country is
currently under heavy military occupation and is being repressed by
what is clearly by a quasi-fascist state.
In the past I may have held that to include a certain amount of political
rhetoric but now I have seen it with my own eyes.
You will be aware that your government in
This is the biggest militarised occupation of any area in
You will also be aware that in the Basque Country during the last 40
years (up until last year) there have been 34,969 political arrests;
7,052 people have been tortured; 4,838 people have been incarcerated;
379 people have been expelled and extradited; 4,000 people have been
injured by the violence of the Spanish state; and 355 people killed
by agents of the Spanish state.
Today, in 2007, Basques must wonder if General Franco has really gone.
Even in the last nine months (since ETA declared a permanent ceasefire),
Basque political representation has still been denied; democratic political
parties are still banned; there have been 106 politically motivated
arrests; 33 cases of registered torture in Spanish prisons; restrictions
of movement of activists; blatant disregard for the human rights of
political prisoners who are still being dispersed against international
law; the banning of lawyers associations; the shutting down of the only
Basque language newspaper; closing of tavernas; and all in the context
of generalised intimidation and everyday harassment of the ordinary
people of the Basque Country who refuse to submit to such appalling
anti-democratic behaviour.
The actions of the Spanish government and its armed militias are an
affront to democracy and to civilisation. Both myself
and my daughter saw that first hand. The Guardia Civil are not a peace
keeping force but are clearly a fascistic leftover from the murderous
days of General Franco.
I would like to register an official complaint about the way we were
treated when we were supposed to be guests in an area under your government’s
jurisdiction. It was a disgrace to the very concept of hospitality.
I would also like to register an official complaint that you - as a
Consula