Solidarity 039, 23 October 2003

By Harry Glass The Brazil Network and the Latin America Bureau hosted a public meeting on the Brazilian landless workers' movement (MST) on 19 October in London. MST adviser Horatio Martins told the meeting that there were more than 200,000 families waiting in camps for land, and that so far Lula's government had only settled 13,500 families. He said he was pessimistic about the prospects for land reform. Martins explained that many urban workers have left the cities because of unemployment and violence to make a living on the land - so the number of land occupations has increased. He also...

By Pablo Velasco Bolivia's gas war turned into a national uprising against the neo-liberal government last week, forcing the president S·nchez de Lozada to resign. The capital La Paz was shut down by a general strike. Schools and businesses were closed, buses didn't run and barricades were erected in the streets. Overall around one million people demonstrated in the streets on 17 October to demand the president resign. A thousand tin miners marched on La Paz to join the demonstrations. The miners had earlier clashed with troops in the city of Patacamaya. After troops fired tear gas, the miners...

By Vicki Morris When France got back from its summer holiday, the French left could hope for a "warm autumn" after the mobilisations of May-June against pension reforms, plans to decentralise education and attacks on education workers. But it was just a hope. The government's pension plans went through - the government, after all, has a massive parliamentary majority, and all the initiative... what an initiative! In the "rentrÉe", the government is inflicting on the working class massive attacks on unemployment benefits, cuts in health benefits and a boost to private health insurance, a 3% cut...

By Sacha Ismail In September, I attended the European Education Forum in Berlin as a representative of the UK Campaign for Free Education. There I met Paul Dillon, an Irish Labour Party activist and president of the student union in University College Dublin (UCD), who-inspired by our struggle-had been involved in setting up an Irish CFE. Paul invited me and other CFE members to visit Dublin between 17 and 19 October, when his student union would be hosting the first meeting of the Irish Social Forum. We were eager to go, not only because of our positive experience at last year's European...

In the summer of 1766, Mexican silver miners of Real del Monte, about one hundred kilometres north of Mexico City, developed a major industrial strike without a trade union or a political ideology to sustain them. It was the first strike in the history of Mexican labour and the first strike in North America. The word "huelga" which means strike did not get included in Spanish dictionaries until 1884 and the workers of Real del Monte never used it. Their efforts represented struggles that involved working, living and being disappointed. They demanded rights that had been marked only in sweat...

One of the fiercest debates at the Irish Social Forum (see page 6) was about the decision of University College Dublin's student union to boycott Coke in protest at the company's alleged links with far right paramilitaries in Colombia. Activists say a number of trade union activists in the company's plants have been murdered, many local union organisations have been destroyed, under threat from paramilitary organistions. Following a call by the Colombian trade union SINALTRAINAL, the leaders of UCD SU (mostly members of Labour Youth or the ex-SWP group Socialist Alternative) organised a...

In a recent editorial Jack Conrad (CPGB) argues (Weekly Worker 498 October 2 2003) that "the SA could commit itself to the aim of a new workers' party. Not an old Labour mark two; rather a revolutionary party basing itself on a clear Marxist programme." As if to disprove himself he turns to the Scottish Socialist Party as his example. He says "riddled with left nationalism though it is, the SSP can nevertheless be used to illustrate what can be done". He then goes on to show how the SSP's intervention in the anti-war movement has enabled them to benefit in contrast to the Liberal Democrats in...

Opposition to genetic modification (GM) owes more to superstition than to science and I am sorry to see Solidarity going along with this (Tony Jeffreys, 3/38). So public opinion is against it. Ninety-three per cent believe GM technology is driven by profit, not public interest. How does that differ from any other technology? Why don't we demand that it be applied to problems that affect poor people? In fact, many scientists in this field work in universities and are keen to see their discoveries benefit people. One group has come up with rice genetically modified to contain Vitamin A and is...

Oppose the US/UK occupation of Iraq, but face the facts candidly Clive Bradley argues that the left only compromises and discredits itself if it argues against the US/UK occupation of Iraq by claiming that it is worse than Saddam. "In invading Iraq [Tony Blair] has done nothing to stop ëthe murky trade in [weapons of mass destruction]'... It is Britain and the US who are the murky traders. In invading Iraq he has replaced the brutality of Saddam with the brutality of an uncomprehending invading army. He has replaced the repression of Saddam Hussein with lawlessness and chaos." The Observer, 5...

By Sarah Thomson, National Union of Students Executive, in personal capacity There are three words you can bet NUS President Mandy Telford won't be saying on Sunday 2 October (the day of NUSís national demonstration against student hardship) - and those words are "Tax the rich". In March, NUS Conference voted to end seven years of retreat by passing a motion from Salford University Student Union calling for no fees, a living grant for every student and increased taxation of business and the wealthy to fund education. Since this victory for the Campaign for Free Education, which produced the...