Solidarity 3/32, 12 June 2003

Report from Geneva

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Alan Johnson describes the protests against the G8 annual meeting on 1-3 June.

When I arrive in Geneva - for the protests against the leaders of the G8 - US, UK, France, Germany, Canada, Japan, Italy and Russia - it is sun-lit but Geneva is all wrapped up and shivering. Geneva has boarded itself up. Almost no shop windows can be seen. This being Geneva, a very expensive blond wood with a nice finish has been used. Anyway, they have unwittingly created a vast urban canvass for political art and agitprop. Some of the slogans that begin to appear are great. "The rich play golf and the poor pick up the balls" reads one. But much is the usual rubbish. 'Bush and Blair - the REAL terrorists', as if al-Qaida are not.

Repression in Aceh

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By Harry Glass

The assault by the Indonesian army in Aceh has led to extensive civilian casualties and human rights violations.


Reports in the Australian socialist paper Green Left Weekly (GLW) say that more than 23,000 people have fled their homes. The main hospital in the provincial capital Banda Aceh reports receiving dead bodies that show signs of beatings and torture. Amnesty International announced that grave human rights abuses, including the extra-judicial killing of children and other civilians, are widespread.

Blair caught in a lie

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By Dan Katz

In some wars there are substantial reasons for the fighting. In the Falklands/Malvinas war in 1982 for instance the Argentinian military did invade the islands and the British people living there did not like foreign military rule.

Class struggle in Iraq

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Electricity workers in Iraq have been paid their wages after threatening strike action, according to BBC reports. Around 6,000 electricity workers in Baghdad were the first to be paid at the end of May, while other government employees such as teachers and doctors have been told they will get their wages in June. They will be paid for out of Iraqi assets frozen in the US since the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

What we say: Fight for labour representation!

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New transport union leader Tony Woodley has pledged to coordinate a trade-union drive "to get Labour back representing working-class people".


After winning election as the new General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, Woodley declared on 1 June that: