Republican News · Thursday 19 December 2002

The world that was, 2002

Palestine

Christmas have been cancelled for year 2002 in Bethlehem, after Israeli president Ariel Sharon stated that the Israeli occupation of the city will remain in place, while banning Yasser Arafat from attending Christmas mass at the Church of the Nativity.

The decision to ban Arafat from Bethlehem emerged from an Israeli Cabinet meeting on Sunday 15 December. Also at the session, Israel's military chief said his troops would remain in Bethlehem through the Christmas holiday because of security threats.

Palestinians, who take great pride in hosting the Christmas services in Manger Square that attract Christian pilgrims from around the world, sharply criticised the Israeli ban. "The Israeli decision ... is a violation of their promises to the American administration, the Vatican and the pope," said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, Arafat's spokesperson. "All the excuses that they give are lies and are rejected."

Arafat is a Muslim, but since returning from exile and becoming head of the Palestinian Authority in 1995, he regularly attended the Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem.

Last Christmas, Israel prevented Arafat - whom it blamed for failing to prevent military attacks - from travelling the 12 miles from Ramallah to Bethlehem. Bethlehem is heavily dependent on tourism, particularly during the Christmas season. Visitors used to pack Manger Square, just outside the Church of the Nativity, which was built in the 4th century AD to mark the spot where tradition holds that Jesus was born.

The last year has seen Arafat held prisoner in his own presidential bunker while Israeli troops took over Ramallah and destroyed the presidential compound. Repression against the Palestinian people has increased, as this is the favoured response - though not a solution - of Sharon's to Palestinian suicide bombings.

During the past twelve months, Israel unleashed a wave of attacks in densely populated areas in the West Bank and Gaza, killing and wounding Palestinian civilians, journalists and United Nations personnel, while the world's leaders have stood idly by.

On the night of 5 December, during Eid el-Fitr, the celebrations to mark the end of the fast of Ramadan, Israeli troops used 25 tanks, armoured personnel carriers and helicopters gunships in a pre-dawn raid on the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, killing 10 people. Palestinian sources stated that at least seven of the nine killed were civilians.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said that the victims included two of its own personnel-a teacher and a school attendant. The schoolteacher, 32-year-old Ahlam Riziq Kandil, was killed in her home. Osama Hassan Tahrawi, the 31-year-old school attendant, was killed along with six friends and relatives when a rocket fired from a helicopter hit him as he stood in his backyard.

This brings to five the number of UN staff killed this year and three in as many weeks. On 22 November, an Israeli soldier shot 54-year-old Iain Hook in the back from a rooftop some 25 metres away, using a telescopic sight. Hook, a British UN official, was leading a UN project to rebuild the Jenin refugee camp, parts of which were destroyed last April by the Israeli army. Security forces then prevented an ambulance reaching the compound for 25 minutes. As a result, Hook bled to death before the ambulance reached the hospital.

Also, peace activists in Palestine have been routinely attacked by Israeli settlers and members of the Israeli security forces while helping Palestinian farmers to harvest their olive crops. Irish activist, Caoimhe Butterly, was had her leg injured by an Israeli soldier while she tried to protect some Palestinian children.

With the support of the Bush presidency, Sharon has torn up the 1993 Oslo Accord that sought to secure a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. He wants to consolidate Israel's control of the most valuable and fertile parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip through the construction of a Security Wall that is robbing Palestinians of more land. Sharon's newly appointed foreign affairs minister and main leadership rival, Benyamin Netanyahu, was even more explicit. "We are going to cleanse the whole area and do the work ourselves," he declared.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his ministers have openly declared that Palestinians must be driven out to make way for Jewish settlements in land occupied illegally since the 1967 war, and in contravention of UN resolutions. Sharon's policies have cost him the support of the Labour party for his government, and elections have been called for 28 January. Palestinians also are expected to go to the polls in January to elect a new president.

Latin America

Year 2002 got off to a bad start in Latin America, as it opened with the collapse of Argentina's economy. Argentina and Chile were considered the exception within South America, with quite dynamic economies, on the back of huge inequalities, and very observant of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies. The collapse has brought famine and rocketing unemployment, but also the reinforcement of new social structures. Neighbourhoods have organised their own committees and alternative markets where people swap their products, workers have taken over factories and resume production while improving their wages and working conditions. And the Argentineans managed to depose three presidents.

Talking about presidents, there is increasing hope of change in the subcontinent after the election wins of leftist candidates in Brazil and Ecuador's presidential elections.

Lula Da Silva, a former shoe-shining boy and trade unionist, won the presidential election in Brazil at his fourth attempt. Da Silva is a founder member of the Workers Party in Brazil, and it was his promise to put an end to social inequalities in the country that won the election.

Similarly, in Ecuador, Lucio Gutiérrez, a former army officer, was elected president with the support of the left, small farmers' organisations and the indigenous party Patchakutik. Gutiérrez, who was demoted and imprisoned after participating in an indigenous and campesino uprising, won over the conservative candidate, a member of the richest family in the country, the Noboas.

The results of the elections in Brazil and Ecuador worried deeply the United States administration, as both countries hold huge economic interests for US businesses and the election of left-wing presidents could interfere with the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) - an economic plan designed by the US an directed to extract the maximum benefit for the North American economy via Latin American resources. Opposition to the FTAA is getting stronger, and there is now a question mark over its viability.

US interference in the elections was contra-productive for those candidates favoured by the Bush administration. Apart from the election of Lula and Gutiérrez, a lesson can be learnt from Bolivia, where warnings against the election of Evo Morales, the candidate of coca farmers and indigenous people, increased his popular support to that extend that he only narrowly lost the presidential election on the second round.

On the other hand, in Venezuela, the big business, the rich, the right and the United States are still trying to overthrow democratically elected president Hugo Chavez, as they disagree with policies directed to share the wealth of the oil and emerald producing country. So, the so-called strike - really, lockouts, as employers are denying workers the access to their workplace - continues, crippling the already damaged Venezuelan economy. The opposition wants Chavez to resign, but the majority of Venezuelan people - these are the unemployed, the workers and the poor - want him to stay. Chavez has promised a new referendum to allow people to decide whether they want early presidential elections. However, this does not seem to satisfy the opposition, who will happily go for another coup.

Chavez survived a coup attempt in April 2002, when some elements within the army supported the big business in their push against the president. Chavez was detained and the president of the Business Federation, Carmona, took over the country with an intention to impose a reign of repression and terror on Chavez supporters. However, his presidency only lasted 48 hours, as the army and people united to bring Chavez back.

Europe

The Second Nice Referendum dominated the headlines of the papers in October. Now the treaty has gone ahead and the gap between the larger and smaller states is widening.

But meanwhile, opposition to European policies designed to create a United States of Europe, on the back of gross inequality and repression, continues. On the weekend of the 13, 14 and 15 December, thousands of people marched through the streets of Copenhagen calling for a more transparent and democratic Europe. On Friday 13 December, a group of Touti Bianci (white overalls) penetrated barricades while attempting to enter the city's "Red Zone" where European Union leaders and ministers were meeting. The police targeted supposed leaders, mostly Italian activists. Additionally, an Internet service provider for protest sites was reportedly raided by 50 Danish police officers.

Several thousand demonstrators met on the morning of 14 December at the anti-capitalist demonstration at the castle housing the Danish government, Christiansborg. The demonstration was made up of socialist, anarchists, other radical and the labour unions - all agreeing that another world (and another Europe) is possible.

But the Europe that is coming is in some ways frightening. Poland and the Czech Republic have already been integrated into NATO. Others - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Slovac Republic and Slovenia - were invited to participate in the Accession Talks at the NATO meeting in Prague in November. And it seems that during the Copenhagen meeting, the US finally convinced European countries to consider Turkey as a fit candidate state, despite the country's outrageous human rights record.

On 11December, seven people were detained in London by British police who entered their residences. All of those detained, with one exception, were from Turkey. At one place the police claimed that their operation was authorised under Britain's Terrorism Act. Britain took the lead on the drawing of a list of so-called "terrorists" organisations together with the EU. Some of the banned organisations are left-wing and revolutionary groups in Turkey, including the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).

Against the background of more than 100 political prisoners' deaths on the current hunger strike (opposing new high security prisons in the country), it is thought the arrests were designed as a gesture of support from Britain to the Turkish government.

However, the inclusion of Turkey as a candidate country is no surprise. Existing member state Spain approved legislation for the banning of Basque pro-independence political organisations and groups in support of political prisoners' human rights.

War against Terror

The United State launched a campaign to bomb Afghanistan and chase their number one enemy, Osama Bin Laden. More than one year and thousands of bombs and casualties after, Bin Laden is still a free man, and Afghanistan is not anymore on the news. The country was destroyed by twenty years of consecutive wars, and there are reports that currently the situation in some of the refugee camps is so bad that babies have died because of the cold. But the West is too busy organising a new war to undertake its promises of reconstruction and help.

Iraq is the next target. George W Bush seems determined to finish what his father started despite all diplomatic efforts by Iraq to avert fresh attacks.

The publicity and euphoria that has accompanied Bush's crusade against his 'Axis of Evil' is serving as a very effective smokescreen amid massive financial scandals that have broke the bubble of corporate capitalism in the US.

United Nations

Year 2002 did not do any favours to UN credibility. Think the Conference Against Racism in Durham, where the West failed to apologise for imposing slavery on Africa. The Human Rights High Commissioner, Mary Robinson, refused to adopt the NGOs' declaration at the meeting, as she deemed the wording too harsh.

d then, and also in South Africa, the Sustainable Development Conference, organised by the UN and paid for by corporations, was the focus of massive street protests. The conference did not give us Kyoto back, or any commitment on reducing pollution by opting for environmentally friendly energies. The only serious debate took place on the streets of South Africa, where people voiced their opposition to the prevailing global order.