LETTER TO BUSH FROM MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT ALICIA CASTRO

In November 4-5 the Summit of the Americas will take place in Mar del Plata, Argentina. Below is the translation of an astounding letter sent to Bush by an Argentinean Member of Parliament, Alicia Castro. The letter speaks for itself.

As Member of Parliament of the Argentinean Nation. I am one of the 257 representatives of the Argentinean people in Parliament; the second time I got into the Chamber of Deputies half a million citizens voted for me, but I can guarantee that what I will be expressing to you in this letter represents the majority of the Argentinean people.

President Bush:

We do not want you to come to our country. Maybe for diplomatic reasons, our Chancery will not have made you aware how reviled you are by our people. It is not simply that we disagree with your policies, but that you represent a danger to the democracies of South America.

Not long ago, at an OAS Summit where you defended interventionism, you dared to mention the name of Jose de San Mart’n in your speech. You must know that this father of our nation fought against imperialism and in favor of the unity of South America.

The people of San Martin do not want you, Mr. Bush, because you represent neo-imperialism, which, as in the 19th century, is an attempt to dominate regions by means of financial measures or armed actions.

We Argentineans know full well the consequences of the policies that you promote: our country, being immensely rich, was driven to misery by irresponsible leaders who followed each and every of the recipes of the International Monetary Fund. We know that international credit organizations are not neutral and respond to the policies of the United States.

Bolivar's prophecy is fulfilled: "the United States of America seem destined by providence to sow misery in Latin America". We Argentineans have nothing against the American people, but much against the government that has put the largest political and military might in the planet at the service of bloody ambition, which does not doubt to annihilate lives to appropriate someone else's oil, to make money from arms trade and, moreover, to expand its most sinister industry: the one that reconstructs what you destroy. You represent the decadence of Western values. Your people, which used not to tolerate lies in political practice, has to endure your having lied with a brazen face to the entire world regarding the existence of nuclear weapons in Iraq, in order to justify invasion.

The Nobel Peace Prize recently awarded to Mohamed El Baradei, who revealed the existence of these deceptions, is an eloquent display of the importance that the international community attaches to Truth in the construction of Peace. The theory of "pre-emptive war", one of the distasteful novelties in your political discourse, places your government outside any known law and presently threatens concretely Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba, in sum, the whole world.

You threaten us, but you do not confound us. You do not fool us with your proclaimed "war on terrorism", while you practice state terrorism. This is borne out by the tortures at the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons, the distraught mothers of American soldiers taking part in the carnage of women and children in Iraq, and the advances to militarize and control our region. You are a terrorist protecting other terrorists such as Luis Posada Carriles, escaped from a Caracas prison and who, among other crimes, has confessed his authorship of the explosion, in 1976, of a Cuban airliner causing 73 deaths.

Spare us your undesirable presence. We do not share anything that can be debated at the Summit of the Americas, to be held the next 4 and 5 November in the city of Mar del Plata. No government supporting your policies could guarantee its own stability. We the peoples of South America have already chosen.

We choose Energy sovereignty: we want Petrosur; we need to recover our Food sovereignty, and for that, American companies must stop infecting our seeds with their pesticides and their trademarks; we reject your patents which leave our sick without a cure; we do not want your dangerous "Open Skies".

Do not come here to promote the FTAA, we do not want your "free trade" from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, we choose our solidarity and fair trade to complement and benefit the peoples of South America. We have already constituted the South America Confederation of Nations: larger and wealthier than the United States, which we shall unify following the ideals of San Mart’n, Bolivar, of O'Higgins, of Artigas, of Mart’.

Your values, Mr. Bush, are not within our scale of values nor are your aims compatible with out principles. We have our own South Agenda: we foster a Latin American Monetary Fund, a South Bank, a great South University; we want to inform ourselves from the south and for the south.

Unearth already, the antennas of CNN and your international machinery of lies, spare us your crude conspiracies. Your government, which rejected the Kyoto protocol, and your terrible management, which drowned your own people in New Orleans, represents a concrete threat to the environment and to planet Earth. We South Americans are for the happiness, freedom and life of peoples, we are also for peace. You are on the side of war, of predation and of death. Regarding practical matters, responsibly and as a national representative, I consider it evident that nobody could guarantee your safety in Argentina. Not yours, nor that of our citizens.

Proof of this is that Argentina has suffered terrible terrorist attacks, which remain unpunished and unsolved. Today terrorism travels on public transportation and the vengeful threat that you profess like a dogma, has already cost the lives of worker and users of public transport in Madrid and London, and has made unsafe such disparate places as Roma, Bali, Miami and New York. I ask you in the name of the Argentinean people, that you spare us of these risks; you could make yourself present at the Summit of the Americas through a teleconference from Washington, which, at the same time, would keep you safe from physical expressions of our repudiation of you.

Awaiting your response, I greet you with distinguished regards.

Alicia Castro
Member of Parliament of the Argentinean Nation

Argentina

By Alicia Castro posted 7 November 05

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WHAT HAPPENED TO STEPHEN?

We are not sure what happened to Stephen or how he ended up in Argentina. This is what we do know.

Stephen was working in a factory in Sydney. He met a Peruvian girl who befriended him, we think through his work. A relationship may have developed.

We then discovered that Stephen was in Peru and living with the Peruvian girl and her family. Stephen wrote to us saying that her family were being very kind and treating him well. We don't know if this was a genuine relationship or Stephen was targeted to become a drug mule.

Stephen was arrested in a hotel room, without any drugs. We think this happened in Buenos Aires although DFAT have never told the family the exact details. Stephen has always maintained he knew nothing about carrying any drugs. He says he was asked to deliver some gold.

At this stage, his life and the lives of his family in Australia had been threatened. He was obviously very scared that we were going to be harmed.

We learned Stephen was arrested in Argentina on a drugs charge through a programme on the local news. We still do not know what happened to the Peruvian girl or whether she was involved.

Stephen was convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced to 11 years in prison. There is an appeal in 6 months.

DFAT informed Stephen's family in Australia of the trial just weeks before it began. They spelt the name of the Argentinean lawyer incorrectly and gave no contact details. Because of the incorrect spelling, it took 5 days to trace the attorney. By this time, the trial had started and it was too late for the family to compile evidence for his defence.

In 2003, Stephen was surviving on one meal a day and was malnourished. He was very ill. When his original lawyer visited him, the translator was so horrified at his condition that she called a doctor. Stephen was crippled and bent double in intense pain. This was due to a back injury that had happened prior to incarceration but had been left without treatment in the prison.

6 weeks before the trial, his sister Ann wrote to DFAT to ask how Stephen was. Ann was told 'happy and okay,' but after the trial, she found out he had been hospitalised during that time with a serious chest infection.

Stephen is contactable, though it is very difficult. Contacts are available only only through an Argentinean volunteer who lives a 3 hour bus ride from the prison. She has only managed to visit once because of problems with authorisation from the Australian Consulate in Argentina.

By Kate Gibbons kategibbs7@optusnet.com.au posted 26 September 05

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RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: When Protesting Becomes a Crime

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 27 (IPS) - Social and labour organisations in Argentina demanded that the national government and provincial authorities support a proposal for a draft law that would lead to the dismissal of cases against 4,800 people facing charges based solely on their participation in protests.

The Argentine Workers Central (CTA) trade union confederation and social and human rights groups held demonstrations in Buenos Aires and the provinces of Salta, Neuquen, Jujuy, Catamarca and Tucum'n.

At the end of the demonstration in the capital, the CTA (one of the country's two trade union federations) and other organisations handed over their proposal for a new draft law to Human Rights Secretary Eduardo Luis Duhalde, asking the government to adopt the initiative in order to "de-prosecute" those who have been arrested and charged for taking part in street protests.

"We're not asking for an amnesty, because the people who are facing these charges did not commit any crime," V'ctor Mendibil, on the CTA national board, told IPS. What the organisations are asking for, he said, is an end to the persecution of protesters and activists.

Mendibil said that since 1999, 4,785 activists have been prosecuted for various protest-related offences, like "blocking traffic" or "obstructing economic activity".

Of that total, 1,800 belong to the CTA, which groups trade unions mainly representing public employees and teachers.

The CTA's rival trade union federation is the General Labour Confederation (CGT), which is linked to the most right-wing factions of the governing Justicialista (Peronist) Party.

On Monday, the labour leaders did not blame the government of President N'stor Kirchner - who is from a centre-left sector of the Peronist party -- for what they describe as "judicial persecution". However, they said that if the problem was not swiftly addressed they would hold the national and provincial governments responsible.

The CTA and the Kirchner administration see eye-to-eye on many issues, especially human rights.

Organisations of the unemployed known as "piqueteros" for the roadblocks or "piquetes" that they often stage as a protest strategy, like Barrios de Pie (Neighbourhoods on their Feet) and the Land and Housing Federation (which belongs to the CTA) also held a demonstration in support of the government.

Parliamentary Deputy Luis D'El'a, who heads the Land and Housing Federation, has not escaped legal problems despite his affinity with the government.

D'El'a is facing charges for taking part in the brief occupation of a police station, where officers suspected of complicity in the murder of a community leader who belonged to the Land and Housing Federation worked.

Mendibil said there are labour leaders in the country's northern provinces facing between 30 and 50 separate legal charges each, all of them linked to their participation in street protests demanding respect for social rights that have been guaranteed by the constitution since it was amended to include them in 1994.

The largest number of cases involve former employees of the Spanish-owned Repsol-YPF oil company or its state-run predecessor Yacimientos Petrol'feros Fiscales (YPF).

Many of the workers who were dismissed when the former Argentine state oil monopoly YPF was privatised in the early 1990s are demanding compliance with the agreement through which they were to receive shares in the company.

The charges facing social and labour activists include illicit association to cause damages, blocking traffic, resisting authority and obstructing economic activity.

The latter was added to the penal code to crack down on crimes like fraud, the stripping of a company's assets or business lock-outs, but in the southern province of Santa Cruz the charge was brought this year for the first time against unemployed movement activists who occupied an oil company demanding jobs.

But according to Mendibil, trade unionists are most worried about the charge of "coacci'n agravada" (aggravated coercion), which prosecuting judges are frequently using against those arrested in street protests.

The term "coercion" is applied, for example, to protests in which demonstrators surround a public building and force functionaries to take, or not to take, certain measures, by threatening harm to people or property, Claudio Pandolfi, a lawyer who represents human rights organisations and groups of the unemployed, told IPS.

Pandolfi said that although the Kirchner government has been proactive on human rights, it has "delayed responses to those who are demanding jobs or other social rights, which forces them to take direct action, thus increasing the tension."

"Now the charge of 'coacci'n' is being used to criminalise any protest, as is the charge of 'illegitimate deprivation of liberty', which was created to punish kidnappers but is now being used in cases in which demonstrators keep functionaries from entering or leaving a public office for a few hours," he added.

Pointing out that unemployed activists in Santa Cruz have been charged with "obstructing economic activity", Pandolfi argued that if the offensive against social protests is not curbed, the same charge could be used against workers who go on strike.

"It's absurd. The next thing you know, they'll be accusing protesters of being terrorists," complained the lawyer.

When the economy collapsed in late 2001 after years of recession, the poverty level in this once-rich nation climbed to nearly 60 percent, and now stands at 47.8 percent of the population of 37 million.

Only 35 percent of the workforce is employed in the formal sector of the economy. And although unemployment officially stands at 14.5 percent (and under-employment at 17.6 percent), if the jobless heads of household who draw monthly stipends equivalent to around 50 dollars were counted among the unemployed, the rate would rise to 21 percent.

Households living on less than 115 dollars a month are considered extremely poor, or destitute, a category that now includes about 25 percent of the population.

Millions of people who before the crisis already had only intermittent and informal sector jobs have fallen into chronic unemployment, and depend on the myriad soup kitchens that have cropped up around the country in the past few years.

Because people arrested during demonstrations face the possibility of being held for as long as two years or more until their cases finally make it to trial and they are found guilty or innocent, the trade unions argue that the prosecutions are being used to send a warning to activists and protesters.

The head of the Independent Movement of Pensioners and the Unemployed, Ra'l Castells, who had already been in prison seven times in the past decade, was arrested and transferred to the northeastern province of Chaco in August after occupying a casino in that state in July as part of a protest by hungry people to demand food.

Since the casino managers were unable to provide food, they gave the demonstrators 10,000 pesos (3,300 dollars) to get them to leave the premises. A month later Castells was charged with extortion.

Eleven days ago, he began a hunger strike in prison.

"What they want is to generate fear, teach a lesson to those who continue participating in the protests, make us feel like criminals, so we won't come out and demonstrate the next time around," said Mendibil during a protest.

By Marcela Valente posted 29 September 04

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