23개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
The Soundtrack of the Revolution:
"Zenga Zenga Song"
by DJ "The Butcher" aka Gaddafi
Related story:
☞ Zenga Zenga: From Tel Aviv to Tripoli (Yedioth Ahronoth, 2.27)
Impressions from last Wednesday's General Strike in Greece(Athens):
Related reports you can find on LabourStart!
The revolutions/popular uprisings for human rights and civil liberties/democracy are taking place in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya... And soon in North Korea (the "Paradise of the Working Class", led by the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il, the "Sun of the 21st Century"^^)???
Yesterday morning the German (bourgeois) magazine Der Spiegel headlined: "The unrest is spreading into North Korea" (few hours later the word "allegedly" was added!!)
One day earlier AsiaNews reported: "First public protests against the Kims’ regime"
Well, here're just some related aricles:
☞ Scent of freedom in North Korea (Asia Times, 2.25)
☞ Are Egypt-inspired upheavals possible in N. Korea? (Yonhap, 2.25)
☞ Hundreds of N. Koreans against the police, dead and wounded (AsiaNews, 2.24)
☞ A DPRK for the Middle East! (DailyNK, 2.24)
Libya is drowning in blood. The confirmed death toll so far, cited by Human Rights Watch and world media, is at least 300, but in reality it is certainly higher - according to estimates by the Italian foreign minister, possibly 1,000. Witnesses cited by The New York Times on Tuesday claimed that pro-government militias were carting away bodies of protesters; the capital Tripoli was described as a "war zone", "littered with dead bodies". Gaddafi allegedly used practically all means available - including snipers, imported militias roaming the streets and firing indiscriminately, warplanes, helicopters and even naval bombardment.
But the ongoing massacres will not save the Libyan dictator. While, according to reports, he is gradually consolidating his hold on the capital and some western parts of the country, his overall situation is grave. He has lost control over practically the entire eastern half of Libya, where the greater part of the oil wealth is concentrated. While some sources even are claiming that "90 percent of the country are liberated", Saadi al-Gaddafi (one of the dictator's seven sons) said today: "85 percent of Libya are very quiet and complete secure"(^^)...
Latest news:
After Obama says 'suffering and bloodshed is outrageous, unacceptable,' European official tells al-Quds al-Arabi "NATO, US warplanes stationed in Italy may be ordered to take down Libyan planes". Wall Street Journal: "Washington fears Gaddafi may use mustard gas against protestors"...
At the same time AP reports: "NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says the Western military alliance will not intervene in the Libyan conflict".
Last but not least:
Also Gaza's current rulers are "supporting" the Libyan uprising, but their "solidarity" is just f*cking bizarre!
"He who threatens to fight his people till the last man or woman standing is a criminal. Gaddafi will be toppled just lke Ben Ali was toppled in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt,” said Hamas spokesman Hammad al-Raqab speaking at demonstrations staged by the Islamic University's Islamic bloc in Gaza. "We hoped [Gaddafi] would have struck Tel Aviv and Israel with these planes,” he added. (Palestinian Information Center, 2.23)
Related articles:
☞ Gadhafi's vow: Will fight to 'last drop of blood' (AP, 2.24)
☞ The Gaddafi disgrace (Yedioth Ahronoth, 2.24)
☞ Scars show as Libya drowns in blood (Asia Times, 2.24)
☞ Gaddafi: The West's Pet Dictator (Berliner Zeitung, 2.23)
For more updated info please check out:
☞ Libya Uprising (al-Jazeera's special coverage section)
Kim Yeong-hoon's(KCTU president) "One Person Rally" near Seoul's Gwanghwamun
For more info please check out MTU's facebook site!!
Armed forces, incl. many foreign mercenaries, loyal to Muammar Gaddafi are waging a bloody operation - i.e. a COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY MASSACRE - to keep his clan's dictatorship in power, with residents reporting gunfire in parts of the capital Tripoli and other cities, while other citizens, including the country's former ambassador to India, are saying that warplanes were used to "bomb" protesters.
Between 300 and 500 people are reported to have been killed in continuing anti-democratic terror campaign across the north African country as demonstrations enter their second week.
Today's Asia Times(HK) has a very impressive piece, written by P. Escobar:
'Brother' Gaddafi, you're going down
You know the fat lady is about to sing when a dictator unleashes hell from above over his own unarmed, civilian compatriots, and bombs parts of his capital city. That's a bridge too far even by the unspeakable standards of Western-backed dictators in the Arab world.
You know the (ghastly) show may be over when Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, one of the most popular Sunni authorities in the world, not least because of his weekly show on al-Jazeera, issues a fatwa - "I am issuing a fatwa now to kill [Muammar] Gaddafi. To any soldier, to any man who can pull the trigger and kill this man to do so" - and then prays live, on al-Jazeera, for the end of the Libyan dictator ("O Lord save the Libyans from this pharaoh." When he finishes, the al-Jazeera anchor says "Amen").
You know the bells are ringing when your "Abu Omar Brigade", responsible for your protection, is still on a rampage; but your ambassadors around the world defect en masse; your own deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Omar al-Dabashi, says your government is carrying out genocide; your fighter pilots refuse to bomb your cities; your military officers, in a statement, ask all members of the army to head to Tripoli and depose you; a coalition of Islamic leaders tells all Muslims it is their duty to rebel against you because of your "bloody crimes against humanity"; and to top it off, people are calling for a "million man march" following the Egyptian model.
And what about the Maltese Falcons? In a day of volcanic activity, it's hard to beat the spectacular defection of two colonels of the Libyan Air Force, who flew their Mirages to Malta. They had refused to bomb protesters in Benghazi, telling Maltese authorities they had come so close to carrying out their mission that they could see the crowds on the ground. They also passed "classified" information about what the Libyan military has been up to.
And all this in just one day - Monday.
It was not enough to deploy "black African" mercenaries in a shoot-to-kill rampage in Benghazi. Already on Sunday, Sheikh Faraj al-Zuway, leader of the crucial al-Zuwayya tribe in eastern Libya, had threatened to cut oil exports to the West within 24 hours unless what he called the "oppression of protesters" in Benghazi was stopped.
Akram Al-Warfalli, a leader of the al-Warfalla tribe, one of Libya's biggest, in the south of Tripoli, had told al-Jazeera Gaddafi is "no longer a brother, we tell you to leave the country". The 500,000-strong Berber, Tuaregs from the southern desert, are also against him. When you have four of your key tribes - the spine of your system - marching on Tripoli to get rid of you, you better watch out.
History may eventually register how Gaddafi's appalling 41-year rule in Libya (he was already in power when "Tricky Dicky" Richard Nixon was the United States president) virtually collapsed in only 24 hours. There will be blood - a lot of blood; but "brother" is about to go down...
'Rivers of blood will run through Libya'
The beginning of the end was classic Arab dictator stuff; Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, looking like an upscale bouncer in suit and tie, went on Libyan state TV on Sunday night instead of his father to deliver a threatening/repellent/pathetic speech that only infuriated the Libyan masses even more, after six days of protests in the historic Cyrenaica region.
After threatening to "eradicate the pockets of sedition" (echoes of Iran's leadership eradicating protests last week) Gaddafi's "modernizing" son said Libyans risked igniting a civil war in which Libya's oil wealth "will be burned".
In 2009, Said received a PhD from the London School of Economics (LSE) with a thesis titled "The Role of Civil Society in the Democratization of Global Governance Institutions: From 'Soft Power' to Collective Decision-Making". Last year he delivered a lecture about it at the LSE (listen to it here.)
Isn't wonderful that the ghastliest dictators in the world may send their offspring to the best schools in the world where they can appease the West's false consciousness while back at home they openly threaten their own people and go for sniper fire, automatic weapons and heavy artillery against their unarmed compatriots?
It's doubtful the LSE taught Saif how to ignite a flash civil war with just a rant. But that's what he accomplished.
Libyan writer Faouzi Abdelhamid - comparing the name Saif al-Islam ("sword of Islam") with Saif al-I'dam ("sword of execution") came out all guns blazing, calling the whole Gaddafi clan criminals and thieves; "You don't even have the right of living among us as ordinary citizens, because you're guilty of high treason".
By the time Saif was delivering his threats, the eastern city of Benghazi had already fallen to the protesters. Tripoli was next, on Monday. With the regime blocking all phone lines, all day Monday occasional, frantic tweets relayed all sorts of terrifying rumors and facts - inevitably clouded by the ominous sound of live ammunition. Helicopters raining bullets down on people in the streets below. Fighter jets launching strikes. Snipers firing from building tops.
Schools, government offices and most stores in Tripoli were closed, with armed "Revolutionary Committees", ie regime thugs, patrolling the streets hunting for protesters in Tripoli's old city. According to Salem Gnan, a London-based spokesman for the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, 80 people may have died when protesters surrounded Gaddafi's residence and were shot at from inside the compound.
As the People's Hall - where the parliament meets when it is in session in Tripoli - was set on fire and all cities south of Tripoli were progressively being "liberated", al-Jazeera managed to trace the source of jamming of its Arabsat satellite frequency to a Libyan intelligence building south of the capital.
Ahmed Elgazir, a human-rights researcher with the Libyan News Center (LNC) in Geneva, later told al-Jazeera he got a call for help from a woman witnessing a massacre in progress on a satellite phone. Eyewitnesses reported to Agence France-Presse another "massacre" in the Fashloum and Tajoura districts of Tripoli. By late Monday night, the (unconfirmed) death toll in Tripoli alone had reached at least 250.
Among Libyans, virtually all information all around the country was and remains word of mouth. But tweets that reached al-Jazeera or the BBC also emphasized a profound disgust with the deafening silence of the "international community" ("Are we only worth mentioning when it has to do with oil and terrorism?")
Round up the oily condemnations
Said "international community" indeed started noticing when the Libyan Quryna newspaper reported protests had broken out in the northern city of Ras Lanuf, whose oil refinery processes 220,000 barrels a day.
Yes, apart from Gaddafi's antics, Libya registers in the West because it exports 1.7 million barrels of oil a day. Its gross domestic product is US$77 billion - number 62 in world rankings; that theoretically implies a per capita income of over $12,000 a year, more, for instance, than BRIC member Brazil. But profound inequality is the norm; roughly 35% of Libyans live below the poverty line, and unemployment is running at an unbearable 30%. The oil wealth stays in Tripolitania. Eastern Libya - Cyrenaica - where the anti-Gaddafi revolution started, is dirt poor.
In the high-stakes front, the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) - also owner of a London-based hedge fund - has invested more than $70 billion around the world. It's a major shareholder, for instance, in the Financial Times, Fiat and one of Italy's top soccer clubs, Juventus. LIA invests - and plans to invest - billions in Britain.
Cue to the European Union (EU) foreign ministers issuing the usual, bland, bureaucratic condemnation. At least Italian Prime Minister, "bunga bunga" idol and close Gaddafi pal Silvio Berlusconi, who had said earlier he didn't want to "disturb" his friend, had to qualify the massacre of civilians as "unacceptable" and profess he was "alarmed". To see Berlusconi literally kissing Gaddafi's hands, go here No less than 32% of Libya's oil exports go to Italy.
Then there's another classic - Washington's deafening silence. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued the standard bland condemnation. Libyan-American scientist and activist Naeem Gheriany told the Institute for Public Accuracy the Barack Obama administration "says it's 'concerned' about the situation - there's no real condemnation in spite of the dire situation. People are being massacred in the hundreds, Gaddafi is reportedly using anti-aircraft guns to shoot people. In a few days, more people in Libya have apparently been killed than in weeks in Iran, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen and even Egypt (which has a much larger population) ... Even the oil cannot justify this silence."
Not to mention that Washington and Gaddafi have been the best "war on terror" pals. Captured al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi - the object of a Central Intelligence Agency "rendition" to former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Omar "Sheikh al-Torture" Suleiman, who duly tortured him into confessing to a non-existent Saddam-al-Qaeda weapons of mass destruction connection that then-secretary of state Colin Powell used as "intelligence" at his United Nations speech in February 2003 - was later tracked in Libya by Human Rights Watch just to end up his life as an alleged "suicide".
Milan villa or The Hague?
Libyan opposition writer Ashour Shamis has remarked, "For Gaddafi it's kill or be killed". The family told Saudi paper al-Sharq al-Awsat, "We will all die on Libyan soil." That means Gaddafi and a row of hated offspring.
Son Khamis - the commander of an elite special forces unit, trained in Russia - is the mastermind of the repression in Benghazi. Son Saadi is, or was there too, alongside the head of military intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi.
Son Muatassim is Gaddafi's national security adviser and, until now, possible successor. In 2009, he tried to set up his own special forces unit to erode Khamis's power.
Son Saif, the "modernizer" with an LSE diploma, cuts no mustard with the regime's old guard and the dreaded "Revolutionary Committees".
Son Saadi is basically a thug fond of raising hell across nightclubs in Europe. Same applies to son Hannibal.
It all looks and sounds like a cheap blood-splattered gangster movie. What to make of Gaddafi's bizarre 20-second appearance on state TV early this Tuesday ("I'm in Tripoli, not in Venezuela"), clutching an umbrella, sitting inside a cream-colored microvan and sporting a winter hat with ear flaps, with no clue of what is going on? (After all he was supporting his pals, Tunisia's Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, and to Mubarak, until the very end). He defined TV channels - such as al-Jazeera - as "dogs" (in the 1980s he had already used hit squads to murder exiled "stray dogs" who challenged his revolution).
Still, Gaddafi should not be underestimated. He controls all the hardware - defense, security, foreign affairs. Plus all those "black African" mercenaries/exterminators paid in gold. Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh said Yemen was not Egypt or Tunisia. Gaddafi said Libya was not Egypt or Tunisia. Mubarak said Egypt was not Tunisia.
They were all wrong; the entire Arab world now is Tunisia. The Libyan masses hate "their" leader. Even fellow Arab dictators - with the exception of the House of Saud - hate him. He has few expat options. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez would be crazy to offer him asylum and forever destroy his "champion of the poor" credibility.
Well, there's always Berlusconi. Nice villa near Milan, great pasta, and he can pitch his Bedouin tent in the luxurious gardens. And if Berlusconi is sent to jail in his "Rubygate"-related trial in April, Gaddafi may even move up to the main residence. But, after you bombed your own citizens from the air, and hired mercenaries to shoot them, there is only one choice destination: the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB23Ak01.html
For more (updated)info, reports and analysis please check out:
☞ Uprising in Libya (al-Jazeera's special coverage section)
☞ Libya erupts as Gaddafi clings on - live updates (Guardian, 2.22)
☞ Overthrow of Libya's regime won't look like Egypt or Tunisia (Haaretz, 2.22)
[2.20] The End of the Strike at Seoul's Hongik Univ.
Cleaning workers, launched a sit-in strike in opposition to a mass layoff at Hongik University, clean up the site after they reached an agreement with a service enterprise through labor-management talks, Feb. 20. (source: Yonhap)
Yesterday's (bourgeois) Korea Times reported the following:
Hongik University workers reach tentative agreement
Cleaners, guards and other non-permanent workers at Hongik University reached a tentative agreement with their employers, ending the 49-day labor dispute that started with a sit-in protest at the school campus in Seoul.
The two labor supplying companies that fired them decided to rehire them and further negotiated with the school on their behalf, according to the unionized workers. The union of the workers is a member of the the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU).
KCTUsaid Sunday that the workers have agreed with the companies regarding payments and working conditions during a meeting on Sunday morning with 86 workers of the 112 union members present. The settlement went through with 89.5 percent of the present voting for the settlement.
According to the agreement, the hourly wage will rise to 4,450 won for cleaners and 3,560 won for security workers on the condition of working eight hours a day, five days a week. The previous hourly wages were 4,120 won for cleaners, which was lower than the minimum legal wage of 4,320 won.
The companies also agreed to pay 50,000 won for meals and holiday bonuses respectively, along with making additional payments for overtime work.
According to the KCTU, the workers will return to work at the school starting from Monday.
The dispute among the workers, school and the labor-supply companies first emerged when some 170 janitors, cleaners and guards of the school formed a labor union Dec. 1 last year demanding higher wages and better working conditions.
The companies asked the school to reflect the demands but when it refused, they informed the workers of the termination of their contracts on Dec. 31 without notice.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/02/116_81737.html
Related articles:
☞ S.Korea: Dismissed workers fight for justice (GreenLeft, 1.30)
☞ 홍익대 청소노동자, 협상 타결...현장 복귀 (NewsCham, 2.20)
☞ 49일만에 ‘새해 첫 출근’한 홍익대 노동자들 (VoP, 2.21)
Act to Stop Repression against MTU!
-The South Korean Immigration Office has cancelled MTU President Michel Catuira’s visa and ordered him to leave the country by March 7.
-This is yet the last in a long series of acts of repression against MTU!
Please tell the South Korean government to repeal the cancellation of President Catuira’s visa and refrain from deporting him, and to stop repression against MTU and recognize its legal union status by:
-Sending letters of protest to the relevant South Korean government agencies (addresses at the end of this email)
-Organizing protests in front of a local South Korean Embassy or Consulate
All actions should take place before 7 March 2011. Please send reports of any actions and pictures if possible to migrant@jinbo.net. We will announce international actions at a protest in front of the Seoul Immigration Service building on 4 March 2011.
Please contact Wol-san Liem (82-10-5003-8419, limwolsan@gmail.com) with any questions.
Background
In 2009, Michel Catuira was elected president of the Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants Trade Union (MTU), a union established for and by migrant workers in South Korea. Since then, he has worked tirelessly to improve the working and living conditions of migrant workers in South Korean society. He has spoken out against restrictions placed on migrant workers’ freedom to change workplaces and other problems in Employment Permit System (EPS), which make migrant workers subservient to their employers. He has also fought for the repeal of the South Korean government’s policy of arrest, detention and deportation of undocumented migrant workers, which has led to countless injuries, deaths and other human rights abuses.
Because he has been a vocal critic of unjust policies, the South Korean government has made President Catuira the subject of an unfair investigation with the ultimate goal of making him deportable. The nature of the investigation, which began in July 2010, is as follows:
By law, President Catuira, a documented EPS Filipino migrant worker, must be employed in order to maintain his legal residence status. President Catuira was lawfully employed by D company in fulfillment of this requirement. In July 2010, however, the Ministry of Employment and Labor summoned him and his employer for questioning, raising suspicions about the validity of their employment relationship. Finding no legal problem, the center continued to pressure President Catuira through his employer by sending a notice to the employer telling him to file to have President Catuira transferred to a different company.
Pressure increased in the wake of MTU activities protesting the death of the Vietnamese migrant worker as the result of an immigration raid. On 23 November 2010, President Catuira received a summons from the Seoul Immigration Service telling him to appear before the Immigration Service’s investigation team to be questioned based on “suspicion of violations of the Immigration Control Law in the course of applying for a workplace transfer and with relation to actual performance of work duties at present.” Inquiry by a lawyer working with MTU revealed that the investigation team was also considering raising suspicions that President Catuira was conducting political activities in violation of the Immigration Control Law. On 2 December 2010, the Ministry of Employment and Labor sent a fax to President Catuira’s employer, notifying him that his permit to employ migrant workers had been cancelled. On 22 December 2010, President Catuira appeared before the Immigration Service investigation team, who question him for roughly 5 hours on the nature of his employment.
On 14 February 2011, the Immigration Service informed President Catuira through his lawyer that his visa had been cancelled as of 10 February 2011 at that he was required to leave the country by 7 March 2011. The grounds given for the cancellation of the visa are as follows: that the company where President Catuira was employed did not in exist; that President Catuira was not in fact working at the factory and that, therefore, he was in violation of Article 89.1 of the Immigration Control Act. Article 89.1 states that a visa can be cancelled if it is found to have been obtained in a deceitful or other unlawful manner.
Facts of the Case
Contrary to the Immigration Service’ claims, President Catuira went through all of the necessary legal procedures before being employed at D company. As required, President Catuira received a list of companies registered to hire migrant workers from a Ministry of Employment and Labor Job Center. D company was on this list. After being hired, President Catuira against followed the correct legal procedures, registering his employment status with the Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Immigration Service.
The claim that D company does not exist is also not true. D company had little work after President Catuira was hired, and thus had to shut is door temporarily. However, this cannot be said to be President Catuira’s fault. In fact, during the original investigation in July 2010, the Ministry of Employment and Labor found no violation of the law and could respond only with a memo suggesting that President Catuira move to another workplace. Nonetheless, the Immigration Service went out of its way to find grounds for cancelling President Catuira’s visa so as to make it possible to deport him.
The Ministry of Employment and Labor and Immigration Service’s investigations of President Catuira were carried out in a manner completely outside these agencies’ normal mode of operation. If the South Korean government routinely investigated the companies where migrant workers are employed in such detail, it would find widespread violations including unpaid wages, sexual harassment, failure to submit proper documents, etc. If such investigations were made, perhaps the situation of migrant workers in South Korea would actually improve. Instead of doing this sort of work, however, these government agencies have used their time to target MTU’s president.
Another act of Labor Repression
The investigation and cancellation of Catuira’s visa are nothing more than an attempt to attack MTU and stop its rightful union activities. This attempt is similar to past acts of repression against MTU, in which the South Korean government used the vulnerable immigration status of migrant officers to prevent their union activities, in particular through arrest and deportation. Since MTU was founded in 2005, the government has arrested 6 of its officers, supposedly for violations of Immigration Control Act. Of these 6, 5 were deported. In addition, the South Korean government has refused to recognize MTU’s status as a legal union, claiming that its founders, who were undocumented, do not have the right to freedom of association granted all workers under the South Korean Constitution.
The situation is so severe, that the ILO has issued several recommendations recognizing the arrest and deportation of MTU officers as acts of labor repression and suggesting that they be stopped immediately. The ILO has also affirmed the right of all migrant workers, regardless of visa status, to freedom of association and recommended that the South Korean government recognize MTU’s legal union status.
Our Demands:
-Repeal the cancellation of Michel Catuira’s visa and guarantee his secure residence status!
-Stop repression against MTU officers and recognize MTU’s legal union status!
-Stop racist and discriminatory measures taken against migrant workers such as arrests and deportations!
A sample protest letter follows.
Protest letters can be sent to addresses below:
Chief Commissioner of the Korea Immigration Service
Seok Dong-hyeon
Korea Immigration Service
New-Core Building, 8th Floor
Byeolyang-dong
Gwacheon City
Gyeonggi Province 427-705
Republic of Korea
Fax: +82-2-500-9097
Minister of Justice
LEE Kwi-nam
Ministry of Justice
Gwacheon Government Complex, building 5
Jungang-dong 1
88 Gwanmoon-ro
Gwacheon City
Gyeonggi Province 427-720
Republic of Korea
Fax: +82-2-503-7023
webmaster@moj.go.kr
Minister of Employment and Labor
Bahk Jae-won
Ministry of Employment and Labour
Gwacheon Government Complex, building 1
88 Gwanmoon-ro
Gwacheon City
Gyeonggi Province 427-718
Republic of Korea
Fax:+82-2-3679-6581
Molab506@moel.go.kr
----Sample letter----
Dear:
We recently learned that the Seoul Immigration Service has cancelled the visa of Michel Catuira, President of the Seoul-Gyeonggi-Incheon Migrants Trade Union (MTU), and ordered him to leave South Korea by 3 March 2011. The Immigration Service gives as grounds for these measures that Catuira entered into a false employment relationship with a company that does not in fact exist. Therefore, it says, Catuira is in violation of the Immigration Control Act, which requires migrant workers to be employed by a registered company in order to maintain their residence status. Contrary to the Immigration Service’s claims, Catuira went through all of the necessary legal procedures before being hired at the company in question. There is nothing false or unlawful about his employment relationship.
The fact is that the company in question had little work after President Catuira was hired, and thus had to shut is door temporarily. However, this cannot be said to be Catuira’s fault and is not grounds for cancellation of his visa.
The investigation of President Catuira was completely contrary to the Immigration Service and Ministry of Employment and Labor’s normal mode of operation. If the South Korean government routinely investigated the companies where migrant workers are employed in such detail, it would find widespread violations such as unpaid wages and sexual harassment. If such investigations were made, perhaps the situation of migrant workers in South Korea would actually improve. Instead of doing this sort of work, however, these government agencies have used their time to target MTU’s president.
The cancellation of Catuira’s visa is nothing more than an attempt to attack MTU and stop its rightful union activities. This attempt is similar to past acts of repression against MTU, in which the South Korean government used the vulnerable immigration status of migrant officers to prevent their union activities, in particular through arrest and deportation. The situation is so severe, that the ILO has issued several recommendations recognizing the arrest and deportation of MTU officers as acts of labor repression and suggesting that they be stopped immediately. The ILO has also affirmed the right of all migrant workers, regardless of visa status, to freedom of association and recommended that the South Korean government recognize MTU’s legal union status.
We urgently make the following demands:
-Repeal the cancellation of Michel Catuira’s visa and guarantee his secure residence status!
-Stop repression against MTU officers and recognize MTU’s legal union status!
-Stop racist and discriminatory measures taken against migrant workers such as arrests and deportations!
Sincerely,
http://migrant.nodong.net/?document_srl=90152#2
For more info please check out MTU's facebook site!
Related article:
☞ Migrant union leader balks at departure order (Korea Times, 2.18)
Related articles:
☞ A Message from Crane No. 85 (Hankyoreh, 2.16)
☞ Mounting protest (Hankyoreh, 2.16)
Two days ago the S. Korean ('left-liberal') Hankyoreh published the following piece, written by George Katsiaficas(*):
The Real Egyptian Revolution Is Yet To Come
Around the world, people are enthusiastically greeting the “Egyptian Revolution”-the astonishing victory won by the historic 18-day People Power Uprising. As events move more rapidly than anyone can anticipate, not only has Mubarak been deposed, his corrupt parliament has been dismissed and new elections promised within six months. People‘s ecstasy in the aftermath of these great victories belies the fact that Mubarak’s authoritarian system remains intact-nay, strengthened-by the ascension of Suleiman and the military to supreme power in Cairo. While the world hails the Egyptian “revolution,” a more sober assessment of recent events would question the accuracy of that label, at least for now.
If we look at other countries for comparison (and there are many recent examples of People Power Uprisings suddenly ending the reign of longstanding authoritarian regimes), I am especially struck by parallels with Korea‘s 1987 June Uprising, when for 19 consecutive days, hundreds of thousands of people illegally went into the streets and battled tens of thousands of riot police to a standstill. On June 29, the military dictatorship finally capitulated to the opposition’s demands to hold direct presidential elections, thereby ending 26 years of military rule.
As in Egypt on February 11, 2011, the man who made the announcement in Seoul on June 29, 1987 was none other than the dictatorship‘s No. 2 leader. Roh Tae-woo went on to become the country’s new president after elections marked by both a bitter split between rival progressive candidates and widespread allegations of ballot tampering. People‘s high expectations and optimism after the military was forced to grant elections turned into bitter disappointment. Throughout the country, new massive mobilizations were organized, during which more than a dozen young people committed suicide to spur forward the movement for change.
Like Suleiman, Roh was a long-time US asset with ties to a list of nefarious deeds. In 1996, Roh and his predecessor Chun Doo-hwan were convicted of high crimes, sent to prison, and ultimately ordered to return hundreds of millions of dollars they had illegally garnered. (Roh eventually returned around $300 million; Chun deceitfully pleaded poverty and, although thereby dishonored, he absconded with even more than that amount of Korea’s wealth.)
Roh was never linked to any direct act of sadism, but Suleiman is known to have personally participated in the torture of CIA rendered terrorist suspects. As “the CIA‘s Man in Cairo,” he helped design and implement the American rendition program through which dozens of suspected terrorists were kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured. Suleiman took a personal hand in the torture of Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib. In his memoirs, Habib recounted one torture session of electric shocks, broken fingers and being hung from meat hooks that culminated in being slapped so hard that his blindfold flew off--revealing Suleiman as the purveyor of the violence.
While Habib was innocent, another rendered suspect, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, confessed to participation in training anti-US fighters and famously asserted under torture that ties existed between al-Queda and Saddam’s government in Iraq. That lie became one of Colin Powell‘s most significant assertions to the UN Security Council when the US convinced much of the world to attack Iraq. When al-Libi later recanted and threatened to expose his lie, he “committed suicide” in a Libyan prison-coincidentally at the same time as Suleiman made his first ever visit to Tripoli.
For his extraordinary efforts on behalf of the US, Suleiman found his fortunes rise. Thanks to WikiLeaks, we know today that almost three years ago, the US was prepared to elevate him to the top slot in Egypt. According to a US diplomatic cable of May 14, 2007, entitled “Presidential Succession in Egypt,” Suleiman was to be named vice-president (as occurred on January 29, 2011).
The chief of the Egyptian armed forces, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, like Suleiman and Mubarak, is a regime insider with long ties to the Pentagon. One U.S. Embassy cable released by WikiLeaks noted that, “Tantawi has opposed both economic and political reforms that he perceives as eroding central government power.” While Suleiman and Tantawi are clearly cut from the same cloth as Mubarek, my objection is not simply to these men but to the system they embody. For a genuine revolution to take place, Suleiman and his kind must be driven from power-even punished for their crimes-not elevated to the highest levels of government.
What the masses of Egyptians want is freedom from dictatorship and foreign domination. They want the right to participate in their own government and to do so freely, with a free press, and in a society where civil liberties are guaranteed. They want an end to the country’s poverty and to take back the mountain of wealth stolen by the super-rich.
As it seems that Korea‘s democratization might hold possible lessons for Egypt, so might the Philippines in 1986. Less than a year after the first “People Power Revolution” sent long-time dictator Ferdinand Marcos into exile, Corazon Aquino’s new government shot to death 21 landless farmers who marched in Manila to demand she keep her promises for land reform. The Philippines today is plagued by increasing hunger, and more than three million children are underweight and underheight. In 1973, students in Thailand overthrew a hated military dictatorship after 77 people were gunned down in the streets of Bangkok. After a two-year hiatus, one of the most free periods in the history of Thailand, the military bloodily reimposed dictatorship and killed dozens of students. In Nepal in 1990, fifty days of popular protests during which 62 citizens were killed won a constitutional monarchy, but within a few years, the royal family again seized absolute power. A 19-day People Power Uprising in 2006 ended the monarchy altogether, but only after 21 more unarmed civilians had been killed by the forces of order.
No one can anticipate the outcome of what has been set in motion in Egypt, but historical antecedents may provide insight into possible outcomes. Will the blood of the 300 murdered citizens in Egypt, like the hundreds of martyrs of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, water the tree of liberty? Or will their sacrifice grease the wheels as US banks and global corporations rush to replace “crony capitalism” with ever more profitable arenas for wealthy investors?
Young activists in Cairo remain camped in Tahrir Square-for now at least-where they have already had to stand up to the army‘s attempt to clear them out. Remaining steadfast, they are calling for substantive reforms-for a new system and democracy worthy of the name. Even with Mubarak gone, so long as his military commanders and chief of intelligence remain in power, nothing like a revolution can be said to have transpired in Egypt.
For that to be said, rather than celebrating their victory from high positions of power, Suleiman and his buddies should themselves be guests in the very prisons where they were previously hosts. The full turning of the wheel of justice-a revolution in the true sense of the word-demands nothing less. The sites where Suleiman tortured Habib and al-Lidi should become public museums open to ordinary Egyptians to sadly recount the country’s decades of suffering under the US-backed dictatorship of Mubarak. Instead, unless the movement continues to propel the country forward, Suleiman‘s torture chambers may be destined to be used against young activists whose only crime is to insist upon making reality what is today claimed by nearly everyone-a revolution in Egypt.
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_opinion/463472.html
* G. Katsiaficas (whose mother was born in Cairo) is a professor of humanities at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. He is currently completing Asia’s Unknown Uprisings, a study of recent People Power uprisings.
Related articles:
☞ Egypt protesters remind army who is really in charge (Haaretz, 2.16)
☞ Waiting for a 'real' revolution (al-Jazeera, 2.16)
☞ Is the revolution being co-opted? (Asia Times, 2.15)
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