Haitian Election Boycotts: Masses Reject UN Occupation

Whilst the mainstream media maybe talking up US forces pulling out of cities and towns in Iraq there is another occupation that the US initiated that is still ongoing. On February 29th 2004, US special forces kidnapped the Haitian President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide and dumped him in the dictatorship of the Central African Republic after funding guerrilla insurgents and others to destabilise the country. US, Canadian and French forces moved to occupy the country, ostensibly as peacekeepers, and were later replaced by a Brazilian-led UN peacekeeping (read occupation) force.

Even 5 years on thousands still marched through Port-au-Prince to mark the anniversary of Aristide’s overthrow demanding his return to the country. Aristide is still associated with the hope the masses felt with the end of the hated Duvalier dictatorship and is seen as having achieved improvements for the mass of the population (such as increases to the minimum wage) despite the concession he made to imperialist countries to get international aid, such as the privatisation of public services. Indeed, the 2006 election of the Lespwa candidate and former associate of Aristide, Rene Preval, to the presidency was seen as a vote for the return of Aristide. But with huge food shortages leading to rioting in the capital, Post-au-Prince last year and no return of Aristide, support for Preval has massively diminished.

On April 19th the first round of Haiti’s senate elections were held with a record low turnout. According to the Provisional Electoral Council (Conseil Electoral Provisoire - CEP) the turnout was 11%, although other observers place the figure as low as 5%. Prior to the elections, the CEP excluded all 14 candidates of Aristide’s party, Fanmi Lavalas.

In the run-up to the second round of elections, a prominent Fanmi Lavalas supporter, who was imprisoned in the run-up to the 2006 to stop him being a candidate in the Presidential elections, Father Gerard Jean Juste died from cancer. His funeral was used as a rallying call by Fanmi Lavalas activists to call on the population to again boycott the elections. Yet the funeral was yet another scene of vicious attacks by UN troops, killing one of the mourners. Despite denials by the UN force, a video has emerged showing two Brazilian troops firing into the crowd. The boycott appears to have been equally effective the second time round prompting the government to claim that imaginery ‘violence and intimidation’ are to blame for the low turnout.

Whilst Marxists support the right of Fanmi Lavalas to take part in the elections, and the right of Aristide to return to Haiti, neither will solve the problems of the Haitian masses. If either were to return to power, they would be forced into the position that they were in previously of giving concessions to foreign imperialist and capitalist interests in return for meagre aid packages. The Haitian masses must look towards the small but significant working class in Haiti and the development of a revolutionary party that can lead serious struggles to improve their living standards.

Northern Ireland Hunger Strike - Solidarity Needed!

I haven't posted on this yet, and I probably should have. This dispute is long running and begins with stewards and workers being sacked by ICTS in Northern Ireland with the assistance of full-time union officers. That in itself is a disgrace! Further to this, the workers took the case to court and won, without any assistance from the union who then promised to pay compensation and the legal costs. This agreement has now shamefully been broken and forms the background to the latest events - please see the original press release below and the latest update and send protests to tony.woodley@unitetheunion.com & jkelly@tgwu.org.uk.

Sacked airport shop stewards to re-commence hunger strike at Transport House

Union leaders accused of reneging on promises and commitments given to workers

The two shop stewards have pledged that “we will not call off our hunger strike until we have firm commitments from Tony Woodley that he cannot wriggle out of.”

Two of the shop stewards who were sacked six years ago by airport security company, ICTS, are to begin a hunger strike at Transport House in Belfast on Monday 7 April, demanding that their union, Unite (formerly the TGWU) honour commitments made to them last summer.

Gordon McNeill and Madan Gupta have pledged that they will remain on hunger strike until their demands are fully met.

Last September a hunger strike and rooftop protest at Transport House was called off only after Tony Woodley, Unite General Secretary, agreed that the workers’ demands would be met within seven days.

He agreed that the union would pay the £200,000 in legal costs arising from the long court battle which the workers had to fight against ICTS without any support from their union. The workers won this battle, securing last August a landmark legal decision that found they had been sacked because of their trade union opinion and socialist political beliefs.

Tony Woodley also committed the union to pay the costs of defending this decision against any appeal by ICTS. He also promised that the union would pay damages to cover the financial and other hardship these workers have suffered. This was in recognition of the fact that, as was proven in court, senior union officials colluded with ICTS to have 24 of their members, including all their shop stewards sacked. Irish regional secretary, Jimmy Kelly, also made these commitments.

Not one of the commitments made last August has been met. This is why the two shop stewards, backed by their colleague, Chris Bowyer, have decided to resume their protest and have stated that this time “we will only call off our hunger strike when we have firm commitments from Tony Woodley that he cannot wriggle out of.”

Gordon McNeill explains:

“We are taking this drastic action because the leadership of our union have left us with no alternative. All we are asking for is justice. When Tony Woodley promised last September to meet our legal bill and provide compensation, that was an admission that the union was at fault in getting us sacked and in refusing to back our fight over six years.

“We accepted his word and called off our action. We soon discovered that the word of Tony Woodley and other senior leaders of this union is worthless.

“Not one of the promises they made have been kept. We have been left to pay half of our £200,000 legal bill, an impossible amount for low paid workers who found themselves out of work because we were betrayed by our union.

“ICTS are appealing the Tribunal decision and the union have not honoured their commitment to cover the costs. Our legal team have told us they are going to pull out of the case because the union will not put up the money to fight it.

”This means that ICTS can win the case by default. A victory we won for all trade unionists last year could be reversed because the leaders of Unite are about to present ICTS with an legal open goal.

“As to the promise to compensate us for their role in colluding with ICTS to get us sacked, not a penny has been offered or given.

“We are now demanding that all the commitments made last September by Tony Woodley and other senior Unite officials, including the senior regional officials in Ireland, be met in full. We also want a public inquiry set up to examine the union’s handling of this dispute from day one until now.

“We are not entering into this protest lightly. Madan Gupta is 72 years old and suffers from diabetes. I am 38, but in poor health with a heart condition. We know the consequences of starting what this time is likely to be a protracted hunger strike but we are absolutely determined to face the consequences.

“As we have said repeatedly over the last six years, we are not anti-trade union. We are committed trade unionists and want to see strong unions that are able to defend the interests of their members. It is the rotten role played by trade union leaders, as in our dispute, which disillusion workers and weaken the unions.

“ICTS thought we would just go away but we stuck it out and won an important victory against them. Tony Woodley and the Unite leadership should not make the same mistake and think that, because we are just ordinary workers from Northern Ireland, that they can walk all over us. Our struggle will continue until justice is done.”

BREAKING NEWS
Both Gordon McNeill and Madan Gupta have been rushed to Belfast City Hospital in a critical condition.

This is the second time today that Mr McNeill has been hospitalised. Quickly after returning to Transport House, Mr McNeill took ill and was joined by 72 year-old diabetic Madan Gupta back to Belfast City Hospital. Doctors earlier today warned that both McNeill and Gupta are likely to have suffered irreversible kidney damage as a result of their refusal to eat and drink. UNITE still refuse to meet with the workers who have been fighting for over 6 years for justice.

For updates contact Gary Mulcahy on 07743282321
For more info visit http://www.socialistworld.net and http://www.socialistpartyni.net

The Question of Human Rights

Is there such a thing as inalienable universal human rights? Are they just a distraction of the capitalists from class struggle? These are questions I’ve been grappling with over the last few weeks whilst I’ve been trying to write an essay.

The most important human rights document is probably the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Although this recognises such things as rights to medical care, asylum, and so on, it also includes the right to own private property. Although I agree if this were to be limited to personal property, I don’t this should extend to the right to own the means of production – not only because of being a Marxist and arguing for the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy, but also because without the aforementioned measure you can’t provide the facilities to guarantee the initial rights.

I think it’s a damning indictment of capitalism that 60 years after declaring ‘so-called’ inalienable human rights it hasn’t put them in place – indeed it seems to be threatening them ever more and more. Human rights as capitalism has presented them are just a fig-leaf to the oppressed masses around the world. Indeed, the UN is effectively a toothless body when it tries to act to curb the interests of the major capitalist powers. For them human rights are fine so long as they don’t interfere with their interests, and if they do then human rights get thrown out of the picture.

So should the working classes support the idea of human rights, or is it just a capitalist sham? As Marxist have always noted; the most advantageous capitalist regime for workers in the bourgeois democratic state – this of course is opposed to fascist or military-police bonapartist dictatorships which restrict civil liberties and human rights. So we should for my mind be fairly supportive. In the works of Marx and Trotsky, the idea of universal morality (to which the idea of human rights is derived from) is rejected, as it cannot exist in a class ridden society. To paraphrase Lenin (from State and Revolution) it is only possible to talk of real universal rights when class divisions exist no more.

In conclusion, answering my own questions I don’t think human rights are a tool of capitalists, I think they are in general an aspiration of the oppressed everywhere to live a decent life. To that extent they are actually in contradiction to the capitalist system that cannot sustain such rights – just take a look at the advanced capitalist countries where in theory they should be most obtainable but they aren’t. Thus the establishment of inalienable human rights is something Marxists should be fighting for, however, we need a system that can provide the necessary infrastructure to guarantee them, a socialist world.