just commentary december 2010

Vol 10, No 12 December 2010

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THE KOREAN CRISIS: A CALL FOR THE

ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INDEPENDENT

PANEL...........Citizen groups the world over are deeply

concerned about current political tensions in the Korean

Peninsula..................................................................Page 4

ARTICLES

EMBRACE THE COOPERATIVE

MOVEMENT

STATEMENTS

THE MYTH OF TIANANMEN AND THE

FORCE OF A PASSIVE PRESS

DWINDLING FOSSIL FUELS AND OUR

FOOD SYSTEM

AUNG SAN SUU KYI IS FREE!....... JUST

warmly welcomes the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, the

world’s most famous political prisoner, from house arrest

on 13 November 2010..................................................Page 4

FAQ ON BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND

SANCTIONS

By Lester R. Brown......................................Page 5

By Carlos Perez de Alejo.............................Page 6

By Jay Mathews..........................................Page 7

By IMEU.....................................................Page 9

WIKILEAKS AND

THE NEW GLOBAL ORDERBy Jonathan Cook

The Wikileaks disclosure this week

of confidential cables from

United States embassies has been

debated chiefly in terms either of the

damage to Washington’s reputation or

of the questions it raises about

national security and freedom of the

press.

The headlines aside, most of the

information so far revealed from the

250,000 documents is hardly earth-

shattering, even if it often runs starkly

counter to the official narrative of the

US as the benevolent global

policeman, trying to maintain order

amid an often unruly rabble of

underlings.

Is it really surprising that US officials

appear to have been trying to spy on

senior United Nations staff, and just

about everyone else for that matter?

Or that Israel has been lobbying

strenuously for military action to be

taken against Iran? Or even that

Saudi Arabia feels threatened by an

Iranian nuclear bomb? All of this was

already largely understood; the leaks

have simply provided official

confirmation.

The new disclosures, however, do

provide a useful insight, captured in

the very ordinariness of the diplomatic

correspondence, into Washington’s

own sense of the limits on its global

role — an insight that was far less

apparent in the previous Wikileaks

revelations on the US army’s wars in

Afghanistan and Iraq.

Underlying the gossip and analysis

sent back to Washington is an

awareness from many US officials

stationed abroad of quite how

ineffective — and often counter-

productive — much US foreign policy

is.

While the most powerful nation on

earth is again shown to be more than

capable of throwing its weight around

in bullying fashion, a cynical

resignation nonetheless shines through

many of the cables, an implicit

recognition that even the top dog has

IRAQ - MASSACRE IN A CATHEDERAL

.........The massacre reveals how bloody, brutal and

barbaric al-Qaeda and its affiliates can

be..............................................................................Page 5

L E A D A R T I C L E SI N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D

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continued from page 1

continued next page

to recognise its limits.

That is most starkly evident in the

messages sent by the embassy in

Pakistan, revealing the perception

among local US officials that the

country is largely impervious to US

machinations and is in danger of

falling entirely out of the ambit of

Washington’s influence.

In the cables sent from Tel Aviv, a

similar fatalism reigns. The possibility

that Israel might go it alone and attack

Iran is contemplated as though it were

an event Washington has no hope of

preventing. US largesse of billions of

dollars in annual aid and military

assistance to Israel appears to confer

zero leverage on its ally’s policies.

The same sense of US

ineffectiveness is highlighted by the

Wikileaks episode in another way.

Once, in the pre-digital era, the most

a whistleblower could hope to achieve

was the disclosure of secret

documents limited to his or her area

of privileged access. Even then the

affair could often be hushed up and

make no lasting impact.

Now, however, it seems the contents

of almost the entire system of US

official communications is vulnerable

to exposure. And anyone with a

computer has a permanent and easily

disseminated record of the evidence.

The impression of a world running out

of American control has become a

theme touching all our lives over the

past decade.

The US invented and exported

financial deregulation, promising it to

be the epitome of the new capitalism

that was going to offer the world

economic salvation. The result is a

banking crisis that now threatens to

topple the very governments in

Europe who are Washington’s closest

allies.

As the contagion of bad debt spreads

through the system, we are likely to

see a growing destabilisation of the

Washington order across the globe.

At the same time, the US army’s

invasions in the Middle East are

stretching its financial and military

muscle to tearing point, defining for a

modern audience the problem of

imperial over-reach. Here too the

upheaval is offering potent possibilities

to those who wish to challenge the

current order.

And then there is the biggest crisis

facing Washington: of a gradually

unfolding environmental catastrophe

that has been caused chiefly by the

same rush for world economic

dominance that spawned the banking

disaster.

The scale of this problem is overawing

most scientists, and starting to register

with the public, even if it is still barely

acknowledged beyond platitudes by

US officials.

The repercussions of ecological

meltdown will be felt not just by polar

bears and tribes living on islands. It

will change the way we live — and

whether we live — in ways that we

cannot hope to foresee.

At work here is a set of global forces

that the US, in its hubris, believed it

could tame and dominate in its own

cynical interests. By the early 1990s

that arrogance manifested itself in the

claim of the “end of history”: the

world’s problems were about to be

solved by US-sponsored corporate

capitalism.

The new Wikileaks disclosures will

help to dent those assumptions. If a

small group of activists can embarrass

the most powerful nation on earth, the

world’s finite resources and its laws

of nature promise a much harsher

lesson.

30 November, 2010

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist

based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest book is

Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments

in Human Despair (Zed Books).

Source: Countercurrents.org

Scott Peterson’s fine piece at CSM

on Iranian reactions to the Wikileaks

cables is given further credence by

yet another document that surfaced

Tuesday. Peterson says that the

Iranians took the documents to

suggest that President Obama was all

along plotting against them even while

pursuing a diplomatic track in public,

and that a breakthrough through

negotiations is now very unlikely.

It is an account of conversations

between the US undersecretary for

arms control and British officials in

early September, 2009. It shows that

the then British Labor Government

supported President Obama’s

diplomatic outreach to Iran but was

very much prepared for it to fail, and

fail quickly, and so was already

focused on ratcheting up further

economic sanctions on Tehran. Simon

McDonald said that the prime minister

did not think Obama’s diplomatic

efforts should be “open-ended,” and

By Juan Cole

WIKILEAKS: UK, US PLANNED TO PRESSURE IAEA ON IRAN,

TIE TEHRAN TO PYONGYANG

I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D

3


seemed to have a 30-day deadline in

mind for Iran to respond.

That sort of impatience does not

comport with genuine diplomacy, and

it seems clear that the British were

eager to impose further sanctions as

soon as possible.

Another passage suggests strong

British and American pressure on

Yukiya Amano, the then incoming

head of the International Atomic

Energy Agency. Under his

predecessor, Mohammad Elbaradei,

the IAEA had steadfastly refused to

rubber stamp US and Western

European charges that Iran is pursuing

a nuclear weapon. The inspectors

could find no evidence of it, and were

able to certify that no nuclear material

had been diverted from the civilian

program. They were extremely

frustrated by Iran’s lack of complete

cooperation, and some entertained

dark suspicions, but Elbaradei’s

reports only included what could be

proven from the inspections.

Foreign Minister David Miliband

spoke of putting some “steel” in

Amano’s spine. Ellen Tauscher, the

US undersecretary for arms control

and international security affairs, said

that the US and the UK must work

to make Amano a “success.”

Reading between the lines, it seems

clear that London and Washington

intended to get hold of Amano as soon

as Elbaradei had departed, and twist

his arm to be more alarmist in his

reports on Iran. Surely from

Washington’s hawkish point of view,

any “success” of the IAEA would be

in demonstrating an Iranian weapons

program and giving evidence that

could be used to ratchet up sanctions

at the UN Security Council. Ironically,

the 2007 US National Intelligence

Estimate on Iran had supported

Elbaradei’s careful approach. Amano

may have been predisposed to be

suspicious of Iran because of his own

country’s experience of Hiroshima

and Nagasaki and his consequent

personal commitment to non-

proliferation.

It was improper for Miliband to have

spoken of putting steel in Amano’s

spine, with the obvious meaning that

the UK wanted the IAEA to put out

reports on Iran’s nuclear activities

that mirrored Whitehall’s suspicions–

suspicions for which there is no

known proof. (Iran has a civilian

nuclear enrichment program; no one

has found any dispositive evidence

that it has a nuclear weapons

program, and there is much evidence

to the contrary).

There is also a passage about tying

Iran’s nuclear program to that of

North Korea, said to be urged by then

National Security Adviser Gen. Jim

Jones. That strategy is shot through

with propaganda, since North Korea

went for broke to get a nuclear

warhead and has a handful of them

now. North Korea conducted

underground nuclear detonations in

2006 and 2009, as confirmed by

seismic activity. In contrast, Iran has

no bomb. All Iran can be shown to

have done is to whirl radioactive

material around to produce about two

tons of uranium enriched to 3.5% and

a very small amount enriched to

19.75%, intended for use in Iran’s

small medical reactor, given it by the

US in 1969. Both these levels of

enrichment are considered Low-

Enriched Uranium (LEU) and are

irrelevant to bomb-making unless they

are further processed to 95%–

something there is no evidence of the

Iranians trying to do or even being able

to do. Remember, their facility at

Natanz is being inspected. So, Iran is

just not like North Korea. The latter

is a known violator (like Israel,

Pakistan and India) of the Nuclear

Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nothing

Iran has done since 2003 violates the

NPT, which it signed– unlike Israel.

The USG Open Source center today

translated an Iranian Fars News

Agency, Wednesday, December 1,

2010, report of a television discussion

in which an Iranian security expert

complained about this very strategy:

‘ Fars News Agency: An expert on

Iran and the region emphasized with

the new atmosphere of controversy

the Zionists are creating they are

trying to show that Iran’s peaceful

nuclear program is connected to

North Korea’s nuclear program. Fars

reports Amir Musavi in an interview

with this week’s program The Israeli

Eye on the Al-Alam News Network

mentioned the creation of controversy

by the Zionists against Iran’s nuclear

program and said the Zionists are

trying to divert world public opinion

away from their own nuclear armory

towards other directions, and to

portray Iran’s peaceful nuclear

program as a threat they are

connecting North Korea’s nuclear

program to Iran’s peaceful nuclear

program. This expert on Iran and

regional affairs added: However,

unlike North Korea the Islamic

Republic of Iran consistently

cooperates with the IAEA.’ Musavi

added: If the Islamic Republic of Iran

were seeking to conceal its peaceful

nuclear program it could have done

this but Iran has always sought mutual

cooperation with the IAEA.

3 November, 2010

Juan Cole has published several books on

the modern Middle East and is a translator of

both Arabic and Persian.

Source: www.juancole.com

L E A D A R T I C L E S


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S T A T E M E N T S

STATEMENTS

THE KOREAN CRISIS: A CALL FOR THE

ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INDEPENDENT PANEL

Citizen groups the world over are

deeply concerned about current

political tensions in the Korean

Peninsula.

Both North Korea and China, on the

one hand, and South Korea and the

United States, on the other, should do

their utmost to defuse the tense

situation. Pyongyang’s bellicose

postures only serve to exacerbate an

already critical crisis which could

explode into open warfare at any time.

Likewise, the intensification of military

exercises by the South Koreans and the

threatening presence of the US nuclear

powered carrier, George Washington,

in Korean waters have heightened the

danger of a huge military conflict that

will engulf the entire region.

The North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-

il, should be prevented from launching

another attack upon South Korean

territory. The Chinese leadership should

use its influence over Kim and

Pyongyang to ensure that there is no

further provocation from North Korea.

At the same time, US warships and

aircraft should not enter the sensitive

northern end of the Yellow Sea which

could lead to an armed clash with

China.

Both North and South Korea should be

persuaded to agree to the establishment

of an independent panel to investigate

the exchange of fire on Yeonpyeong

Island on 23 November 2010 which

ignited the present crisis.

The panel should comprise former

leaders of ASEAN states who

command a certain degree of respect

in the region. Dr. Mahathir Mohammad

of Malaysia and Fidel Ramos of the

Philippines would be choice candidates

for the proposed panel. Both the North

continued next page

and South Korean governments should

at the outset agree to accept the

findings of the panel.

Once the findings of the panel have

been made public, one hopes that a

third Inter-Korean Summit will be

inaugurated. The first two Summits,

in June 2000 and October 2007

respectively, were relative successes.

They gave a boost to the “Sunshine

Policy” of the late South Korean

President, Kim Dae-Jung, whose long-

term goal was to overcome the tragic

division of the Korean Peninsula, and

to unify the Korean people.

A united Korean nation will strengthen

world peace.

Chandra Muzaffar,

President,

International Movement for a

Just World (JUST),

2 December, 2010.

AUNG SAN SUU KYI IS FREE!

The International Movement for a Just

World (JUST) warmly welcomes the

release of Aung San Suu Kyi, the

world’s most famous political prisoner,

from house arrest on 13 November

2010.

Imprisoned for 15 out of the last 21

years by a military junta which has

suppressed the people’s struggle for

human rights and democracy in

Myanmar, Suu Kyi has emerged as an

enduring, universal symbol of the

eternal quest for freedom. Her

indomitable courage and her

unwavering perseverance have won

accolades from individuals and groups

all over the world. What is remarkable

about her commitment to her cause is

her ability to retain her dignity and her

integrity in the face of formidable odds.

There is much speculation on why the

junta set her free. Since a political party

spawned by the junta, the Union

Solidarity and Development Party

(USDP) won a farcical election by a

huge margin a few days ago, the

regime may have felt that its position

is secure enough to release Suu Kyi.

On the other hand, given widespread

allegations of electoral fraud, her

release may also be a way of

refurbishing the regime’s tattered

public image. It is also true that for

some years now, Myanmar’s ASEAN

partners and even its close ally, China,

have been quietly cajoling the regime

to end Suu Kyi’s incarceration.

Whatever the reasons, JUST hopes

that her freedom will not be short-lived.

She was released in 1995, after six

years in detention. Then in 2000 she

was arrested and imprisoned again for

two years. After a brief spell of

freedom, she was imprisoned for a

third time in 2003. She remained in

prison or under house arrest for the

next seven years. ASEAN

governments and China should go all

out to dissuade the military junta from

detaining Suu Kyi again.

To prove that it is sincere about Suu

Kyi’s release, the junta should set free

the 2,200 political prisoners languishing

in jails in different parts of the country.

It should also begin to relax its iron

grip upon the media and allow social

groups to exercise a degree of


5

IRAQ - MASSACRE IN A CATHEDERAL

The International Movement for a Just

World (JUST) condemns the massacre

of 44 Christian worshippers and two

priests at the Sayidat al-Nejat cathedral

in Baghdad on the 31st of October 2010.

An al-Qaeda affiliate, the Islamic State

of Iraq, has claimed responsibility for

the massacre. It is allegedly part of the

attempt to drive out Christians from

Iraq.

The massacre reveals how bloody,

brutal and barbaric al-Qaeda and its

affiliates can be. It is a manifestation

of the vile hatred and vicious bigotry

that characterise the actions of this

terrorist group.

Al-Qaeda demeans Islam through its

senseless, mindless violence. Its

massacre of Christians worshipping in

a cathedral violates every tenet of

Islam— its acceptance of the right of

people to worship in a manner of their

choosing; its respect for the sanctity

of all places of worship; its observance

of the bond it shares with Christians

as people of the book and as co-

religionists within the Abrahamic

tradition; and most of all, its

commitment to our common humanity.

The Christians of Iraq who before the

invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003

by the United States and Britain

constituted three percent of the

population, are an ancient community

which has lived in peace and harmony

with the Muslim majority for centuries.

They have contributed immensely to

the advancement of Iraqi society.

Before the invasion, there was hardly

any political pressure upon Iraqi

Christians. Today, many of them are

leaving the land of their forefathers out

of fear and anxiety.

In this regard, it should be emphasised

that before occupation, there was no

al-Qaeda in Iraq. Religious bigotry had

no adherents in Iraqi society under

Saddam Hussein. Atavistic notions of

religious exclusiveness and doctrinal

purity had no followers.

These destructive religious sentiments

have come to the fore as a

consequence of the Anglo-American

occupation. At one level, al-Qaeda sees

itself, and is perceived by a small

segment of Iraqi society, as a

resistance movement fighting the

unjust occupation of the Iraqi nation.

At another level, it has fashioned itself

as a group protecting Muslims from

the alleged onslaught of Christian

evangelists determined to convert

Muslims to Christianity.

It is true that in the wake of occupation,

Christian Right evangelism, sometimes

allied to Christian Zionism, has become

active and aggressive in various parts

of Iraq. Though they have had very little

success in converting Muslims, their

belligerent thrust has created a great

deal of uneasiness within the country’s

deeply rooted Christian community.

These ancient Christians sometimes

refer disparagingly to these Christian

Right elements as the “new” Christians.

Needless to say, the “new” Christians—

like the al-Qaeda bigots— are driving a

wedge between the Muslims and

Christians of Iraq and have inflicted

massive damage upon the nation’s social

fabric.

The time has come for Muslims and

Christians who value harmony and

amity to join hands and hearts and fight

these divisive and destructive forces

within both our religious communities.

For a start, let us express our solidarity

with the Christians of Iraq who have

displayed such restraint and

compassion despite their pain and

anguish

Chandra Muzaffar,

11 November, 2010.

continued next page

autonomy in their evaluation of the

regime’s governance. Myanmar’s

monks should also be given some

latitude to act as the nation’s

conscience.

Suu Kyi would certainly want to

encourage the regime to move in this

direction. In this regard, she should

be more strategic than she has been in

the past. While holding on to her

principles, she should act in such a

manner that the regime will have no

excuse to abrogate her freedom or to

tighten even further its hold upon society.

Let Suu Kyi’s freedom this time pave

the way for the eventual liberation of

the people of Myanmar.

Chandra Muzaffar,

14 November, 2010.

By Lester R. Brown

DWINDLING FOSSIL FUELS AND OUR FOOD SYSTEM

ARTICLES

Since 1981, the quantity of oil

extracted from the earth has exceeded

new oil discoveries by an ever-

widening margin. In 2008, the world

pumped 31 billion barrels of oil, but

discovered fewer than 9 billion new

barrels. World reserves of conventional

oil are in a free fall, decreasing every year.

It can’t be denied: Agriculture uses a

vast amount of oil. Most tractors use

gasoline or diesel fuel. Irrigation pumps

S T A T E M E N T S


I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D A R T I C L E S

6

continued next page

By Carlos Perez de Alejo

use diesel, natural gas or coal-fired

electricity. Fertilizer production also is

energy-intensive. Natural gas is used

to synthesize the basic ammonia

building block in nitrogen fertilizers.

The mining, manufacture and

international transport of phosphate and

potash fertilizers all depend on oil. Our

answer to the question of how we can

end world hunger has thus far been to

focus on increases in agricultural

technology. These advances,

unfortunately, require even more fuel.

Fertilizer production accounts for 20

percent of energy use on U.S. farms,

and the demand for this fertilizer

continues to climb. In addition, the

international food trade separates

producer from consumer by thousands

of miles, further disrupting soil nutrient

cycles. For example, the United States

exports some 80 million tons of grain

per year — grain that contains large

quantities of basic plant nutrients:

nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

The ongoing export of these nutrients

will slowly drain the inherent fertility

from U.S. cropland if the nutrients are

not replaced.

This international food trade is

responsible for more than just soil

nutrient depletion. Sustainable farming

alone cannot solve this problem.The

amount of energy used to transfer

goods from farmer to consumer equals

two-thirds of the total amount of energy

used to grow it on the farm (see “U.S.

Food System Energy Use” chart in the

Image Gallery). An estimated 16

percent of food system energy is used

to can, freeze and dry food —

everything from canned peas to frozen

orange juice from concentrate.

Food miles — the distance food travels

from producer to consumer — have

risen in the United States thanks to

cheap oil. Fresh produce routinely

travels long distances, such as from

California to the East Coast. Most of

this produce moves on refrigerated

trucks.

In the international food trade, staples

such as wheat have historically moved

long distances by ship — traveling

from the United States to Europe, for

example. But more recently, fresh

fruits and vegetables have begun to

travel vast distances by air; few

activities are more energy-intensive.

Packaging is surprisingly energy-

intensive as well, accounting for 7

percent of food system energy use.

Along with marketing, it also can

account for much of the cost of

processed foods. On average, a U.S.

farmer gets only about 20 percent of

the total consumer food dollar, and for

some products, that figure is much

lower.

What’s the most energy-intensive

segment of the food chain? The

kitchen. We actually use more energy

to refrigerate and prepare food at home

than our farmers use to produce it in

the first place.

With higher energy prices and a limited

supply of fossil fuels, the modern food

system that evolved while oil has been

cheap clearly cannot survive as it is

currently structured.

18 August, 2010

Lester Russel Brown is an American

environmentalist, founder of the Worldwatch

Institute, and founder and president of the

Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research

organization based in Washington, D.C.

Source: Motherearthnews.com

EMBRACE THE COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT

In the midst of mounting economic

insecurity, fueled by widespread

unemployment, foreclosures and

budget cuts, many people are seeking

alternative models to business as usual.

From community gardens to bartering

networks, grassroots efforts are

sprouting up across the country. One

of the main pillars of this growing

trend is an international institution with

over 160 years of experience in local,

sustainable economic development: a

cooperative.

Since the mid-1800’s, cooperatives

have promoted a unique, people-

centered model that sets them apart

from conventional businesses. Unlike

traditional corporations, which are

owned and controlled by outside

shareholders, cooperatives are

businesses that are owned and

democratically controlled by their

members – the people who use their

services or buy their goods. In other

words, cooperatives are member

driven institutions that put people

before profit to meet community needs.

Co-ops exist in a variety of forms in

countless industries across the country

and around the world. United on the

basis of member-ownership and

democratic control – generally

following the decision-making principle

of “one-member, one-vote” – co-ops

have a range of ownership structures,


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7


continued next page

from consumer-owned food co-ops to

worker-owned manufacturing firms.

In whatever form they take, however,

surveys repeatedly demonstrate that

consumers rate co-ops as more

trustworthy than investor-owned

corporations.

In the US alone, the model has been

embraced by more than 130 million

members, served by over 29,000

cooperatives operating in nearly all

sectors of the economy.

Cooperatives play a vital role in local

economic development, helping people

improve their lives through

empowering jobs and access to goods

and services that would otherwise be

more expensive, lower in quality, or

simply unavailable. These

demonstrated benefits have sparked

growing interest in the cooperative

movement worldwide. Indeed, the

United Nations recently declared 2012

the International Year of Cooperatives.

In light of the economic crisis, many

people have embraced worker

cooperatives in particular as an

effective pathway out of poverty.

Owned and controlled by the people

who work in the business, worker co-

ops have an impressive track record

of providing stable jobs with asset-

building potential, higher wages, a

deeper connection to the local

community, and an array of personal

and professional development

opportunities.

Worker cooperatives often operate on

the basis of a “triple bottom line”,

measuring success not simply by the

money they earn, but by the well-being

of their workers; their sustainability as

a business; and their overall

contribution to the community and the

environment. Cooperatives have

served as a foundation for growth in

the green economy, where worker-

owned businesses operate primarily in

labor-intensive sectors such as

recycling, solar installation,

landscaping, green cleaning, and

deconstruction.

Internationally, the bulk of worker

cooperatives are concentrated in

countries like Spain, Italy and Canada.

Yet in recent years the movement in

the United States has become

increasingly organized. In May 2004,

members of the worker co-op

community founded the US Federation

of Worker Cooperatives, a national

membership-based organization “of

and for worker cooperatives, other

democratic workplaces, and the

organizations that support the growth

and continued development of worker

cooperatives.”

For the past two years, membership

in the Federation has grown 25 percent

per year, with the majority of growth

coming from cooperatives developed

in response to social, economic and

community needs sharpened in the

wake of the financial meltdown.

Here in Austin, Third Coast Workers

for Cooperation, a cooperative

development center dedicated to

building worker-owned green

businesses with low-income

communities, is working with a group

of low-income women to establish Yo

Mamas Catering Co-op, a worker-

owned catering business.

“We wanted jobs that would provide a

good living for ourselves and our

families”, says Sylvia Barrios of Yo

Mamas. “We’ve spent a lot of time

working for other people...now we

want more control over our lives and

we think Austin is ready for more

worker-run businesses.”

Indeed, Austin already has its share of

notable worker-run businesses:

Ecology Action, a recycling center in

downtown; Tribe Creative Agency, an

advertising agency focused on the

“Common Good”; and the recently

opened Black Star Co-op, a worker

self-managed, consumer-owned brew

pub.

As one of the more noteworthy cities

for socially and environmentally

responsible local businesses, Austin is

ripe for more growth in the cooperative

sector. Socially and environmentally

responsible practices are not just a

trend within cooperatives – it’s just

how they work. That’s the cooperative

difference.

26 October, 2010

Carlos Perez de Alejo is co-director of Third

Coast Workers for Cooperation in Austin,

Texas.

Source: www.culturechange.org

THE MYTH OF TIANANMEN AND THE PRICE OF A PASSIVE PRESS

By Jay MathewsPresident Clinton’s precedent-setting

visit to China filled the front pages of

American newspapers and led the

evening television news for many days

this summer. The stories focused on

his controversial decision to attend a

welcoming ceremony in Tiananmen

Square, despite the stain of what

reporters called the massacre of

Chinese students there on June 4, 1989.

Over the last decade, many American

reporters and editors have accepted a

mythical version of that warm, bloody

night. They repeated it often before and


8

A R T I C L E S

continued next page


during Clinton’s trip. On the day the

president arrived in Beijing, a Baltimore

Sun headline (June 27, page 1A)

referred to “Tiananmen, where Chinese

students died.” A USA Today article

(June 26, page 7A) called Tiananmen

the place “where pro-democracy

demonstrators were gunned down.”

The Wall Street Journal(June 26, page

A10) described “the Tiananmen Square

massacre” where armed troops ordered

to clear demonstrators from the square

killed “hundreds or more.” The New

York Post (June 25, page 22) said the

square was “the site of the student

slaughter.”

The problem is this: as far as can be

determined from the available evidence,

no one died that night in Tiananmen

Square.

A few people may have been killed by

random shooting on streets near the

square, but all verified eyewitness

accounts say that the students who

remained in the square when troops

arrived were allowed to leave

peacefully. Hundreds of people, most

of them workers and passersby, did

die that night, but in a different place

and under different circumstances.

The Chinese government estimates

more than 300 fatalities. Western

estimates are somewhat higher. Many

victims were shot by soldiers on

stretches of Changan Jie, the Avenue

of Eternal Peace, about a mile west of

the square, and in scattered

confrontations in other parts of the

city, where, it should be added, a few

soldiers were beaten or burned to death

by angry workers.

The resilient tale of an early morning

Tiananmen massacre stems from

several false eyewitness accounts in the

confused hours and days after the

crackdown. Human rights experts

George Black and Robin Munro, both

outspoken critics of the Chinese

government, trace many of the

rumor’s roots in their 1993 book, Black

Hands of Beijing: Lives of Defiance in

China’s Democracy Movement.

Probably the most widely disseminated

account appeared first in the Hong

Kong press: a Qinghua University

student described machine guns

mowing down students in front of the

Monument to the People’s Heroes in

the middle of the square. The New York

Times gave this version prominent

display on June 12, just a week after

the event, but no evidence was ever

found to confirm the account or verify

the existence of the alleged witness.

Times reporter Nicholas Kristof

challenged the report the next day, in

an article that ran on the bottom of an

inside page; the myth lived on. Student

leader Wu’er Kaixi said he had seen 200

students cut down by gunfire, but it

was later proven that he left the square

several hours before the events he

described allegedly occurred.

Most of the hundreds of foreign

journalists that night, including me,

were in other parts of the city or were

removed from the square so that they

could not witness the final chapter of

the student story. Those who tried to

remain close filed dramatic accounts

that, in some cases, buttressed the myth

of a student massacre.

For example, CBS correspondent

Richard Roth’s story of being arrested

and removed from the scene refers to

“powerful bursts of automatic

weapons, raging gunfire for a minute

and a half that lasts as long as a

nightmare.” Black and Munro quote a

Chinese eyewitness who says the

gunfire was from army commandos

shooting out the student loudspeakers

at the top of the monument. A BBC

reporter watching from a high floor of

the Beijing Hotel said he saw soldiers

shooting at students at the monument

in the center of the square. But as the

many journalists who tried to watch

the action from that relatively safe

vantage point can attest, the middle of

the square is not visible from the hotel.

A common response to this corrective

analysis is: So what? The Chinese army

killed many innocent people that night.

Who cares exactly where the atrocities

took place? That is an understandable,

and emotionally satisfying, reaction.

Many of us feel bile rising in our

throats at any attempt to justify what

the Chinese leadership and a few army

commanders did that night.

But consider what is lost by not giving

an accurate account of what

happened, and what such sloppiness

says to Chinese who are trying to

improve their press organs by studying

ours. The problem is not so much

putting the murders in the wrong

place, but suggesting that most of the

victims were students. Black and

Munro say “what took place was the

slaughter not of students but of

ordinary workers and residents —

precisely the target that the Chinese

government had intended.” They argue

that the government was out to

suppress a rebellion of workers, who

were much more numerous and had

much more to be angry about than the

students. This was the larger story that

most of us overlooked or underplayed.

It is hard to find a journalist who has

not contributed to the misimpression.

Re-reading my own stories published

after Tiananmen, I found several

references to the “Tiananmen

massacre.” At the time, I considered

this space-saving shorthand. I assumed

the reader would know that I meant

the massacre that occurred in Beijing

after the Tiananmen demonstrations.

A R T I C L E SI N T E R N A T I O N A L M O V E M E N T F O R A J U S T W O R L D

9


But my fuzziness helped keep the

falsehood alive. Given enough time,

such rumors can grow even larger and

more distorted. When a journalist as

careful and well-informed as Tim

Russert, NBC’s Washington bureau

chief, can fall prey to the most feverish

versions of the fable, the sad

consequences of reportorial laziness

become clear. On May 31 on Meet the

Press, Russert referred to “tens of

thousands” of deaths in Tiananmen

Square.

The facts of Tiananmen have been

known for a long time. When Clinton

visited the square this June, both The

Washington Post and The New York

Times explained that no one died there

during the 1989 crackdown. But these

were short explanations at the end of

long articles. I doubt that they did

much to kill the myth.

Not only has the error made the

American press’s frequent pleas for the

truth about Tiananmen seem shallow,

but it has allowed the bloody-minded

regime responsible for the June 4

murders to divert attention from what

happened. There was a massacre that

morning. Journalists have to be precise

about where it happened and who were

its victims, or readers and viewers will

never be able to understand what it

meant.

4 June, 2010

Jay Mathews is an education reporter for

The Washington Post.

Source: Columbia Journalism Review

FAQ ON BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS

By Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU)

What is BDS?

BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment,

and Sanctions. On July 9, 2005, one

year after the historic Advisory Opinion

of the International Court of Justice

(ICJ) which found Israel’s Wall built

on occupied Palestinian territory to be

illegal, an overwhelming majority of

Palestinian civil society called upon

international civil society organizations

and people of conscience all over the

world to impose broad boycotts and

implement divestment initiatives against

Israel, similar to those applied to South

Africa in the apartheid era.

What are the goals of BDS?

According to the 2005 call by

Palestinian civil society: Boycott,

Divestment, and Sanctions are non-

violent punitive measures to be

maintained until Israel meets its

obligation to recognize the Palestinian

people’s inalienable right to self-

determination and fully complies with

the precepts of international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and

colonization of all Arab lands and

dismantling the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights

of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel

to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and

promoting the rights of Palestinian

refugees to return to their homes and

properties as stipulated in UN

resolution 194.

Who is calling for BDS?

A 2005 call for BDS was endorsed by

over 170 Palestinian parties,

organizations, trade unions and

movements representing the three

major constituents of the Palestinian

people, Palestinians in the Occupied

Territories, Palestinian citizens of

Israel, and Palestinians living in the

Diaspora. On July 13, 2005 the UN

International Civil Society Conference

adopted the Palestinian Call for BDS.

Today, hundreds of organizations and

people of conscience around the world

are actively supporting the Palestinian

BDS call by engaging in a variety of

BDS actions and initiatives.

What are some examples of how

BDS was used during Apartheid in

South Africa?

US-based Motorola was providing

radio equipment to the apartheid

government in Pretoria, where the

police and army were using it. A US

campaign calling for boycott of and

divestment from Motorola products

and subsidiaries resulted in Motorola’s

sale of its South Africa subsidiary to

Allied Technologies Ltd in 1985.

In October of 1981, the board of the

Associated Actors and Artists of

America - an umbrella organization of

major actors’ unions with a total

membership of over 240,000 actors -

took a unanimous decision that its

members should not perform in South

Africa.

What is the call for academic and

cultural boycott of Israel?

Similar to the boycott against apartheid

South Africa, the Palestinian call for

boycott includes an institutional boycott

of Israeli cultural and academic

institutions. The website of the

Palestinian Campaign for the Academic

& Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)

provides a thorough explanation of the

nuanced cultural & academic boycotts,

clarifying some key misunderstandings

of the boycott, and providing guidelines

of how to apply it.

Who are some of the people

endorsing the Palestinian-led BDS

campaign?

1. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel

Peace Prize winner & chairman of the

Post-Apartheid Truth and

Reconciliation Commission in South

Africa

2. Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning

author and poet

3. Naomi Klein, award-winning author

continued next page


10

continued next page

4. Judith Butler, author and award-

winning philosopher

5. Cynthia McKinney, former US

Congresswoman & presidential

candidate

6. Ken Loach, award-winning film and

television director

7. Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, founder of

Shomer Shalom Institute for Jewish

Nonviolence

8. Arundhati Roy, award-winning

author.

9. Hamid Dabashi, world-renowned

cultural critic and award-winning

author

10. Ali Abunimah, author and

commentator

11. Glen Ford, executive editor of Black

Agenda Report

12. Adrienne Rich, Award-winning poet

and essayist

13. Stéphane Hessel, diplomat, former

ambassador, French resistance fighter

and BCRA agent. He participated in the

drafting of the Universal Declaration

of Human Rights of 1948.

14. Annemarie Jacir, award-winning

filmmaker

15. Hany Abu-Assad, oscar-nominated

and Golden Globe winning filmmaker

16.Udi Aloni, award-winning filmmaker

17. Emily Jacir, artist and recent winner

of the Hugo Boss prize.

18. Ahdaf Soueif, best-selling novelist

and political and cultural commentator.

19.John Greyson, award-winning

filmmaker

20. Ronnie Kasrils, former minister in

the South African government

21. Nancy Kricorian, author and poet

22. William Fletcher Jr., executive

editor, The Black Commentator and

immediate past president of

TransAfrica Forum

23.Michel Shehadeh, executive director

of the Arab Film Festival

24.Cathy Gulkin, award-winning film

editor

25. Sarah Schulman, award-winning

novelist, historian, and playwright

26. Saree Makdisi, literary critic

27. Naseer Aruri, author & former

board member at both Amnesty

International and Human Rights Watch

28. Joel Kovel, author

29. Betty Shamieh, award-winning

playwright

30. Ilan Pappe, historian and Columnist

31. John Berger, award-winning author

and artist

32. John Williams, grammy award-

winning guitarist

33. John Pilger, award-winning

journalist and filmmaker

34. Rev. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann,

M.M., former President of the United

Nations General Assembly and former

Foreign Minister of Nicaragua

Who are some of the people that

have been involved in or endorsed

a particular campaign of Boycott,

Divestment, or Sanctions?

1. Noam Chomsky, linguist, author,

philosopher, and cognitive scientist.

2. Danny Glover, award-winning actor

and film director

3. Harry Belafonte, award-winning

musician and actor

4. Norman Finkelstein, political

scientist and author

5. Howard Zinn, award-winning

historian, author, and playwright

6. Rashid Khalidi, author and historian

7. Debra Chasnoff, Academy Award-

winning filmmaker

8. Michael Ratner, President of the

Center for Constiutional Rights

9. Viggo Mortensen, award-winning

actor, poet, and musician

10. Wallace Shawn, actor, author, and

playwright

11. Nigel Kennedy, award-winning

English Violinist & Violist

12. Vincenzo Consolo, award-winning

author

13. Augusto Boal, award-winning

theatre director, writer and politician

14. Gerald Kaufman, British Member

of Parliament

15. Richard Falk, author and United

Nations Special Rapporteur on

Palestinian human rights

16. Neve Gordon, Israeli Academic &

Author

What are some of the key successes

the BDS movement has achieved?

Consumer and Corporate Boycott

Success

July 2010: U.S.-based Olympia Food

Co-op (two grocery stores) voted to

stop selling all Israeli goods with the

exception of a single brand called

“Peace Oil.”

June 2010: Responding to appeals

from Palestinian civil society after

Israel’s attack on a humanitarian aid

flotilla to Gaza, dockworkers in

Oakland - California, Sweden, and

Norway all refused to dock and unload

Israeli ships, imposing a blockade so-

to-speak on Israeli goods. Similar

historic action was taken by South

African dockworkers in February of

2009.

July 2009 – 2010: As part of a

CODEPINK campaign against Israeli

settlement-based and settlement-

owned Ahava Dead Sea Cosmetics,

Kristen Davis was suspended from her

post as Oxfam spokesperson after it

was revealed that she also represented

AHAVA Beauty Products. Davis later

ended her contract with Ahava.

CODEPINK also confirmed with

Costco that it would no longer carry

Ahava products after a letter-writing

and calling campaign by activists across



11


the U.S. Finally, the Dutch government

is currently investigating Ahava and its

practices.

2006 - 2010: The “Derail Veolia”

campaign against French corporation

Veolia, for its involvement in the

construction of a light rail train from

Jerusalem into Israeli settlements or

colonies on Palestinian land, led to a

loss of over •7 billion for the company

across several countries. Israeli news

daily Ha’aretz reported that after the

losses Veolia had decided to withdraw

from the project.

November 2007 - 2010: A global

campaign against Israeli billionaire,

diamond mogul, and settlement-builder

Lev Leviev initiated by US-based

Adalah-NY has led to his renunciation

by UNICEF, denunciation by Oxfam,

the removal of a promotional section

of his website featuring actors like

Salma Hayek, Drew Barrymore, and

Halle Berry at some of their requests,

a UK government decision not to rent

embassy space from his company,

Cultural and Academic Boycott Success

July 2010: According to festival

organizers, Hollywood actors Meg

Ryan and Dustin Hoffman cancelled

plans to attend the Jerusalem film

festival following Israel’s raid on a

Gaza-bound aid flotilla that left nine

dead.

June 2010: California-based folk artist

Devendra Banhart canceled two shows

he had been set to play in Tel Aviv just

hours before his scheduled arrival in

Israel.

June 2010: Rock band The Pixies

cancelled their first ever concert date

in Israel just after the Gaza flotilla

incident, blaming “events beyond our

control.”

May 2010: Elvis Costello pulled out of

two concerts in Israel, saying that his

appearance there could have been

“interpreted as a political act.”

May 2010: The University and College

Union in Britain, with well over

100,000 members, voted to sever all

relations with the Histadrut union in

Israel and commence looking into the

boycott of Ariel College.

April 2010: Gil Scott-Heron

announces that he will not play an

upcoming show in Israel.

March 2010 - Award-winning novelist,

historian, and playwright, Sarah

Schulman, chose not to accept the

invitation to participate in a conference

at Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Universities.

February 2010: According to Israeli

producers, guitarist Santana canceled

his concert in Israel due to pressure

not to play there. This was after letters

directed at him, including one from the

Palestinian Campaign for the Academic

& Cultural Boycott of Israel.

2008-2009 included: The Government

of Spain’s exclusion of an Israeli

university in the illegal settlement of

Ariel from a prestigious international

university competition for sustainable

architecture in the world, organized by

both the Spanish Government and the

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid;

rapper Snoop Dogg’s cancellation of a

concert in Israel; The Yes Men

withdrawing their film from the

Jerusalem Film Festival; Roger Waters

of Pink Floyd refusing to play in Israel

again until it removes the wall it built

largely on Palestinian land; and film

director, screen writer, and critic Jean-

Luc Godard canceling plans to attend

a Tel Aviv film festival.

Divestment Success

July 2010: Jewish Voice for Peace

activists presented over 15,000

petitions and postcard signatures to one

of the world’s largest retirement funds,

TIAA-CREF, asking them to divest

from companies documented as

profiting from Israel’s occupation of

Palestinian territories.

June 2010: Students at Evergreen

State College in Olympia, Washington,

voted to divest the college foundation’s

funds from companies profiting from

Israel’s illegal occupation.

September 2009: The Norwegian

Pension Fund announced its

divestment from one of the most

important Israeli defense contractors,

and constructor of Israel’s wall, Elbit

Systems.

August 2009: British bank Blackrock

divested from the West Bank settlement

projects of Lev Leviev and his

company, Africa Israel Investments

Limited. This was especially significant

since Blackrock was the second largest

shareholder of Africa Israel.

February 2009: Hampshire College, a

pioneer in the 1970s by becoming the

first U.S. university to divest from

apartheid South Africa, decided to

divest from some 200 companies that

“violated the college’s standards for

social responsibility,” including six

companies with close connections to

Israel’s occupation.

Sanctions Success

February 2010: The European Union

court in Brussels ruled that products

from Israeli settlements on the

Occupied Palestinian Territories are not

Israeli and are therefore not eligible for

the trade benefits between Israel and

the European Union.

July 2009: Britain blocked the sale of

spare parts for Israel’s fleet of missile

gunships because they were used in

the 2009 bombing of Gaza, revoking

five of Israel’s arms licenses with the

UK.

January 2009: The European

Parliament managed to halt negotiations

on strengthening the trade relationship

between the EU and Israel in the

framework of the Association Agreement

and there are new, emboldened efforts

to try and get the Association

Agreement suspended altogether.

12 August , 2010

IMEU is an independent, non-profit

organization that provides journalist with a quick

access to information about Palestine and the

Palestinians.

Source: IMEU

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