“WITHOUT A PEOPLE’S MEDIA, THE PEOPLE HAVE NOTHING” • basicsnews.ca • BASICS #20, JULY / AUG 2010

BASICSFree Community Newsletter

T.O. Tamils Remember May Massacre >> PAGE 2Assessing the Coroner’s Inquest of Alwy >> PAGE 3 Crisis in Greece or Crisis of Capitalism? >> PAGE 5Guerrilla Artist Banksy Hits Up Toronto? >> PAGE 7

Canadian Tamil Facing Extradition to U.S. on Bogus Charges >> PAGE 6

Kabir Joshi-Vijayan

Running from the police is not a crime punishable by death in Canada.

Yet this is the sentence 18-year-old Junior Alexander Manon received on the eve-ning of May 5, 2010 when he ran from the police near York University in Toronto.

And by looks of what be-came of the young Dominican teenager, it’s no surprise that youth like him run when con-fronted by Toronto police.

Around 6:30pm, Manon jumped out of a car and fled police after a random pull-over on Founders Road and Steeles.

Police claim that Manon spontaneously collapsed and died of a heart attack while trying to run from them, de-spite witness testimonies and

a pool of blood to suggest oth-erwise.

The other passenger of the vehicle reported that: “They beat him up, he was on the floor, he wasn’t resisting. Two officers on him, punching him in the face, one kicking him in the ribs… And then five more come and jump on him… He’s not that big for seven boy’dem [cops] to be on him like that.”

A student on campus at the time also saw the carnage first hand: “I was driving to my night class and witnessed the Manon being arrested. At the time I was driving by there were only two officers, one standing directly on top of Manon and stomping on him, the other officer was placing handcuffs on him. My window was rolled down and it was evident that Manon was not in

ANY WAY resisting arrest, he was crying for help.”

If the eye witness testimony is not enough to prove Junior was murdered in a most bru-tal way, just ask his family who arrived at the scene to see their loved-one in a stretcher and neck brace with blood all around him.

So why has Toronto’s corpo-rate news covered up this dis-turbing evidence, and for the most part, put forward that the healthy Junior collapsed from a heart attack? Why is it that the supposedly indepen-dent SIU (Special Investiga-tions Unit) investigating the case, told the police their au-topsy found “no broken bones and no anatomical reasons for the death of the 18 year old”?

Both developments suggest the unfortunate reality that

police brutality is something that is systematically covered up and extended by all ele-ments of the state: the legal system, the coroner’s office (that heads the SIU), the me-dia, and government-funded agencies.

Junior was a resident of the Shoreham area of Jane and Finch, and while the hundreds of state-paid agencies in the area have made little com-ment on the horrific murder of one of their constituents, the community itself along with the Manon family has been tirelessly organizing since the night of Junior’s death.

On Mother’s Day some 200 people marched from the site of Junior’s execution to 31 division headquarters to de-mand justice, and another 300

>> continued, PG. 2

Ashley Matthew

On June 2, 2010, Barrio Nuevo hosted a press conference at Romero House in Toronto to create awareness about the deportation decision of the Immi-gration and Refugee Board (IRB) concerning Salvadorean José Figueroa.

This decision is based on Figueroa’s past affiliation to the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) of El Salvador.

After 13 years of living in Canada, the Canadian Border Services Agency and Ministry of Public Safety has decided that the FMLN has “engaged in terrorism and subversion” and because Figueroa was a member of the group, they want to bar him from Canada.

Figueroa joined the event via Skype to talk about the latest

news on his case and next steps. The event was just one of the initiatives Barrio Nuevo has launched to challenge the Cana-dian government’s characteriza-tion of the FMLN as a terrorist organization.

“It’s 13 years after the fact. Why now?”, Figueroa asked. At the time of Figueroa’s associa-tion with the FMLN, the group was internationally recognized as fighting for a legitimate cause.

The Canadian government even recognized the recent election, which saw the FMLN elected as the leading party in El Salvador, as “free and fair”.

In fact, Peter Kent, Cana-dian Minister of State of Foreign Affairs, represented the Cana-dian government during FMLN President Funes’ inauguration.

On what grounds can the Canadian government now con-

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Barrio Nuevo Rallies Support for Figueroa and FMLN

British Colombia resident and father of three Canadian-born children Jose Figueroa with his son Jose Ivan. Figueroa has been suddenly ordered deported for his past affilitation to the FMLN.

The BP Disaster Failure of a System

Michael Perovic

The April 20, 2010 explosion and failure of the blowout preventer on the British Petro-leum (BP) owned oil-rig in the Gulf of Mexico has led to what is now clearly the largest oil spill disaster in United States history. As of the writing of this article, the geyser that was unleashed on the sea floor continues to spew its toxic crude oil into the surrounding ocean at an unknown rate that certainly runs at least into several tens of thousands of gallons daily.

The spill is not just the oil slick along the top of the water - there are particles of oil floating in various layers beneath the wa-ter’s surface in giant plumes that stretch for miles in all directions, draining the ocean of its oxygen levels and threatening to create “dead zones” – the complete collapse of the marine ecosystem in areas that stretch from the sea floor to the surface. The livelihoods and safety of people impacted and at health risk expands daily, stretching beyond the United States into Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

BP is mounting a huge propaganda ef-

Police Beatto Death18-Year-olDJuniorManon

>> continued, PG. 5

ALSO SEE PAGE 6 FOR SPECIAL ARTICLE BY FMLN MEMBERRené Guerra Salazar

>> continued, PG. 2

Steve da Silva

For a while, it seemed like the hosts of summits like the G8 had finally learned their lesson from the 1999 “Battle of Seattle”, where massive protests of at least 50,000 people rocked the meeting of the World Trade Organization: International summits should be held in remote regions inaccessible to the people. The G8 Summits in Kananaskis, Alberta (2002), Sea Island, Georgia (2004), Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland (2005) all denied the anti-globalization movement of an urban terrain to besiege the closed meetings of the representatives of global capitalism.

So why have the Federal Conservatives here in Canada decided to break with this recent convention and hold the G20 Summit in Toronto? And why have they spent $1 billion on security, in a city that already spends as much on the Toronto Police Services budget? The estimated $930-million being spent on the G8/G20 Summits tops the outrageous $898-million spent on security at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The security price tag for the G8/G20 Summits will be at least 30 times larger than the $30 million spent on security at last year’s G20 Summit in Britain.

Illusions aside, it seems to me like the

$1-bn Summit?Forking Over More Pork to the Cops

In 2007, media activists caught this image of one particularly violent “protestor” being arrested by police. Upon closer inspection, one can see that the police and “protestor” are wearing the same boots.Police require violence to justify their existence and when it doesn’t appear, they orchestrate it.

>> continued, PG. 6

LoCAL BASICS #20, JULY / AUG 2010

2

Errol Young

The most direct attack on pub-lic resources in Toronto is cur-rently being made by the Toronto District School Board, with its plans to close and sell up to 100 local schools in the coming years.

The Board wanted to close 12 schools this year alone, but due to community resistance only eight will be closed: Briar Hill Jr. P.S., Kent Sr. P.S., Silverthorn Jr. P.S., Pringdale Gardens Jr. P.S., McCowan Rd. P.S., Heron Park Jr. P.S., Peter Secors Jr P.S. and Brooks Rd. Jr P.S.

Many communities fought against these closures, each in their own way. In one pre-dominantly middle-class area, Willowdale, the community worked behind the scenes to keep their schools open.

The Accommodation Review Committees (ARCs) that the TDSB has been using to “consult” communities about the closures have been a complete sham. In a more working-class area like Jane/Finch, staff actually lost control of the public meetings.

On February 2, parents re-fused to be split into discussion groups led by hired coordina-

tors so that community issues could be discussed as a com-munity. Staff closed down the meeting immediately.

As a result, the TDSB will not be bothering the Jane/Finch community for a while and the Shoreham Public School will remain open.

Many parents have complained that the ARC staff do not listen to their concerns. Parents have said that the TDSB staff has a preordained agenda at each com-munity meeting that they do not vary from; meetings are called and cancelled at the last-minute; difficult questions are consistent-ly ignored; and the agendas of public meetings are engineered to sidestep the issue that a school is planned to close.

At one meeting, staff recruited former students and others to speak in favour of school closing in order to skew public meetings in favour of the Board’s agenda.

However, the fact that the “consultative” methods that the TDSB has been using to convince people to go along with school clo-sures has worked in eight com-munities is a testament to the disorganization of our class.

This rush to pull resources

away from the working class and sell them off to the private sector is about following the neo-liberal agenda that is try-ing to mine the public sector to increase its profits.

From the perspective of the cash-strapped TDSB, which has been pointing to its $2.8 billion backlog in deferred repairs when justifying the closures, there are potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to be gained from the sale of school lands.

Our job, as citizens, is to fight this process. We have to make it very difficult, politely at first, for any board to close a school by asking those difficult questions and sometimes being disruptive.

This does not mean that schools will not, and sometimes should not, close. It does mean that when a school does close, the decision should have gone though a rigorous and legiti-mate community consultative process. And when a school is closed, the public should re-tain the land and building for its own use, either as a future school or for some other social-ly-necessary function.

For more information see saveschools.wordpress.com.

Jeevini Sivarajah & Pragash Pio

At the end of May 2009, the Sri Lankan army brutally murdered tens of thousands of Tamil civilians with heavy ar-tillery, mortars, bombs, rockets, and even chemical weapons in the name of ‘fighting terror-ism’. While thousands of Tam-ils were protesting in Toronto and around the world, the Sri Lankan army had mercilessly corralled, starved, and then bombed tens of thousands of Tamils out of existence in what has come to be known as the massacre of Muilivaaykkaal.

In the so-called government-declared ‘safety zone’ at Muili-vaaykkaal, where 350,000 flee-ing Tamils had been crowded, thousands died by both heavy bombardment and a Sri Lank-an government blockade of food, water, and medicine.

Even after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the surviv-ing Tamils were forcibly in-terned in SLA-run concentra-tion camps. These camps were noted for their deplorable con-ditions, while UN aid agencies weren’t allowed full access to provide assistance or monitor conditions.

In all, more than 30,000 Tamil civilians, out of a popu-lation of 350,000, were slaugh-tered by the Sri Lankan gov-ernment while for months the Tamil Diaspora tried to warn the world about the looming genocidal atrocity. Gone is the naïveté in the Tamil commu-nity that Western governments will act to stop such genocidal atrocities.

Rather, we have come to re-alize that Western imperialist governments play a central role in enabling governments such as Sri Lanka to carry out the genocidal atrocities. In Sri Lanka’s case the West openly tipped the military balance in favor of the Sri Lankan state, strategically located in the

middle of the Indian Ocean, by funneling millions of dollars of aid to the government and even approving an IMF loan in the midst of the massacre to prop up the Sri Lankan state.

Now a year after the mas-sacre at Muilivaaykkaal, the pain of the massacre is still very much present and marks the lives of Tamils around the world. Tamils and their allies will forever commemorate the month of May as the May Mas-sacre Remembrance, highlight-ing the peak of the genocidal massacre committed by the Sri Lankan government.

On International War Crime Day, globally commemorated on May 18, Queens Park was once more filled with thou-sands of Tamil Canadians and their allies, who rallied to mourn and remember the cruel mass murder of Tamils.

Banners read “War Crimes Day,” as community members dressed in black stood holding candles to commemorate those who lost their lives.

Prior to the candlelit vigil a few speakers from the Toronto Transit Commission, Markham Municipal Council, and com-munity youth activists spoke urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the international community to take immedi-ate action: a UN investigation into war crimes, freeing 82,000 Tamils still held in camps with horrifying living conditions; legal protections for Tamils al-leged to be rebel fighters, in-cluding children as young as 11, who are held incommunicado in prison camps; and assistance for Tamils who ‘return home’ from camps to face immense poverty and devastation.

The struggle for justice has not ended; the Sri Lankan gov-ernment stands as a precedent for other states looking to carry out genocidal atrocities, war crimes, and crimes against hu-manity without fear of reper-cussions.

Eight T.D.S.B. school closures this year Remembering the May MassacreThousands of Tamil Canadians rallied on May 18 at Queen’s Park to commemorate the May massacre of Muilivaaykkaal in May 2009.

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clude that José Figueroa is inadmis-sible in Canada for being affiliated with the FMLN, an internationally recognized political party? Barrio Nuevo, in their Declaration of Solidarity, states that the FMLN’s insurgency was internationally recognized as legitimate and rep-resentative and that it led to peace and democracy in 1993. The actions of the Canadian authorities are shameful and contradictory in this case (and many others that haven’t been publicly recognized).

Figueroa has not given up hope. He is now taking the case further. He now has 30 days to prepare evidence for his presentation at the Judicial Review. He has a sup-portive group of people who are helping him across the country, in

Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal and now Toronto. Barrio Neuvo, along with many other allies, are trying to raise funds to support his legal fees.

Philadelphia-based filmmaker Jamie Moffett is one of those sup-porters and he is coming to Toronto to screen his film “Return to El Sal-vador”, which will have its world premier in Toronto on June 17, 2010 at the Toronto Underground Cinema (186 Spadina Avenue, Queen and Spadina) at 7:30pm.

There will be other screenings at 9pm on June 18, 21, 22 and 24, as well as 4pm on June 20. Twenty per-cent of the proceeds will go to support the legal costs of Figueroa’s case.

For more information and ways to help, please visit barrio-neuvo.org or basicsnews.ca.

« Barrio Nuevo / FMLN, from PG. 1« Junior, from PG. 1showed up at Latin Fever at Keele and Hwy.7 on June 11 for a family fundraiser.

True people’s organizations, including International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, Barrio Nuevo, Jane-Finch.com and the Justice for Alwy Cam-paign have got behind the Jus-tice for Junior movement and events will be held throughout the summer that concerned com-munity members should look out for in BASICS Free Community Newsletter and at basicsnews.ca.

What needs to be remem-bered about Junior’s case is that this individual act of ex-treme brutality against a young racialized man from a margin-alized area of the city is part of a structure of police terrorism that people like Junior and com-munities like Jane and Finch experience on a daily basis.

Just days before his killing, Junior’s neighborhood includ-ing his very building were one of the many sites raided by over a thousand police officers from all across Ontario.

Junior’s murder also comes just weeks after the Coroner’s Office, (the same one that has put up a fraudulent autopsy of Manon’s body), concluded an outrageously bogus inquiry into the 2007 police killing of Alwy Al Nadhir (see Provincial sec-tion of this issue).

While justice in the courts should always be fought for as a matter of principle, especially when the police do something as horrifically overt and brash as beat an unarmed youth to death on a university campus, the only real solution to the systemic is-sue of police terror is to organize and mobilize for the next attack.

JUSTICE FOR JUNIOR!END POLICE TERRORISM!

ProvINCIAL BASICS #20, JULY / AUG 2010

3

Herman Rosenfeld

Many working class people here in Southern Ontario don’t know that there is an 11 month-long strike of over 3,000 work-ers, going on in the nickel mines and smelters at Sudbury, Port Colbourne and Voisey’s Bay, Newfoundland.

The outcome could affect not only the organized labour move-ment, but the entire Canadian working class.

Vale is a huge, Brazilian-based mining multinational, which bought out the nominally Canadi-an-owned Inco in 2006. Its manage-ment seems bent on transforming the longstanding culture of union independence and militancy that the workers in Sudbury, members of Local 6500 United Steelworkers Union, have established there.

Over the years, there have been a number of key strikes, which mobilized both the com-munity and entire labour move-ment over worker efforts to es-tablish and defend decent wages, benefits and safety rights in the face of difficult and dangerous work environments.

The workers are striking over company demands to force new hires to accept lower and less se-cure pensions and end the practice of supplementing basic wages of workers by paying bonuses tied to the increased sales of nickel, and eliminate important rights that workers have in the workplace.

Even though there is a down-turn in international nickel mar-kets, Vale is not on the verge of going under. Vale has $22 billion U.S. in cash assets. It earned $13.2 billion U.S. profit in 2008. The to-tal compensation for the top six Vale executives has increased by 120% from 2006 to 2008.

Vale is arrogant and brutal in dealing with the workers. For the first time in recent history, the company has started work using management and scabs, with an-nounced plans to actually ramp up production using strikebreak-ers later this summer.

This is unprecedented in a workplace that has seen a num-ber of long and important strikes in the past that have inspired Canadian working people.

Vale also has an elaborate and expensive series of “security” mea-sures, trying to bully the strikers.

It has also gotten the courts to intimidate the strike leaders with huge fines for stopping production.

Only eight strikers are al-lowed on the picket line and they can delay delivery vehicles for only 15 minutes at a time.

Vale fired 10 workers and sued the union, its leaders and members for alleged “property damage” on the picket line.

This struggle has implications for all working people. We are currently in an era when employ-ers are looking to take advantage of the crisis to further reduce the power and independence of work-ing peoples’ organizations and continue to squeeze workers’ living standards and future security.

We’ve also seen a torrent of propaganda by business against unionized workers who have made gains over the years – such as autoworkers and city public sector workers.

The strategy is to divide the working class. If the Vale workers are defeated, it becomes easier to attack all working people and take away our past gains. It would also dramatically damage the already weakened union movement.

In April, the workers in Local 6500 overwhelmingly rejected the company’s latest concession-laden offer, in spite of the financial hard-ship they are facing.

But while the workers are show-ing determination to struggle, the rest of the union movement has not stepped up to the plate.

There have been rallies and the odd symbolic mass picket and dem-onstration, but there has been no real strategy to win this struggle.

Victory would require a mass educational campaign, to be waged across the country explaining why this struggle matters to all of us. Then, there needs to be a strategy of struggle, such as a mass picket and occupation, making sure that Vale cannot run its operations.

This struggle should become the focal point of efforts to begin a movement to collectively fight back against continuing moves towards “austerity” in the public and private sectors.

The Vale strike should also in-spire a political movement to raise demands for nationalization of re-sources such as nickel production, as part of a larger effort to develop an eco-socialist strategy to serve the needs of working people.

Vale-Inco strike continues

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Jamal Briggs & Yakira Hume

March 22, 2010 marked the beginning of an agonizing two-week-long inquest into the murder of Alwy Al Nadhir, a young man murdered by Toronto Police in the fall of 2007.

Alwy’s family and the Justice for Alwy Campaign Against Police Brutality came into the Inquest with due scepticism.

The Inquest would not locate any culpability for Alwy’s murder; it was not a criminal trial.

In fact, the purpose of a Coro-ner’s Inquest is an inquiry into the manner and cause of an individu-al’s death. Information concerning the victim’s death is presented in order for the jury to determine the source and means of death (acci-dent, homicide, natural, suicide or undetermined).

At base, the coroner’s inquest and its verdict are merely fact find-ing and statistical.

We knew that justice through this process would not be had.

What we didn’t know was the extent to which an allegedly un-biased and ‘scientific’ judicial pro-ceeding would further extend the violence against Alwy, his friends, family and the community at large.

We, Alwy’s family and the Jus-tice for Alwy Campaign Against Police Brutality, raise the issue of Alwy’s Inquest because the Coro-ner’s proceedings — much like the SIU, the media, and the legal system itself — continues to ob-fuscate, conceal, and justify police brutality, and in this case, police murder.

When all was said and done, and with all the court room trickery and clear police bias that went on throughout the proceedings, our original scepticism proved to be spot on: witness testimony exposed the SIU for its nefarious conduct;

the Coroner’s office tried its best to ensure that our presence was muffled; and of course, Alwy was constantly vilified while the police were presented as heroes in their slaying of an unarmed young man who will never have his chance at living a full life.

Right from the outset the terms were set. Alwy was angled as a criminal; constant references were made in regards to his baggy clothes and a minor run-in with the law that occurred quite some time before the night of his mur-der.

That he had good grades, that had a part time job, that he was a beloved son, brother, cousin and friend — these were all aspects of Alwy that were ignored or ruled out as inconsequential.

In fact, the Coroner’s Lawyer Rebecca Edwards made a fuss over what picture of Alwy was displayed to the court; she wanted to show a picture of Alwy from facebook wearing baggy clothes, a hoody and ball cap.

No doubt, we can all guess why she was so intent in casting Alwy with all the other young men in our communities who are often presented as dangerous and hard-ened criminals better suited for prison then the streets.

Edwards even began her tes-timony by saying that Alwy “en-gaged in a series of dangerous and unfortunate events that led the police to use force that ended with tragic consequences…”

In contrast, the shooting officer P.C. Raheim and attending officer P.C. Lashley were presented as he-roic in their shooting of the young unarmed high-school student.

One of the more telling aspects of the testimonies was the inadver-tent exposure of the incredulous nature of the SIU.

P.C Raheim (the shooter) al-

leged that he and Alwy collided, were jostling; that he felt “pres-sure” on his gun hand, and that he was scared as Alwy attempted to flee the scene.

He also alleged that he was yell-ing verbal commands at Alwy to de-escalate the situation and that at one point he even struck Alwy in the head with his gun before decid-ing that he had to shoot.

There is, however, a severe prob-lem with this testimony. None of the other 5 other witnesses, in-cluding the other on-scene officer, P.C. Troy Lashley, saw or heard a struggle between Alwy and Ra-heim.

The only evidence backing up Raheim’s testimony was the state-ment given to the SIU by Tony Siv-apiragasam, an on scene witness.

In his statement, Sivapiragas-am reported to have heard a fight between Alwy and Raheim. This would seem to back-up Raheim’s claim of a struggle between him-self and Alwy.

However, when asked about his statement, Sivapiragasam stated that in fact, he did not see or hear a fight.

Instead, all he heard was the scuffling of shoes as Alwy ran. What is more, Sivapiragasam also said that the use of words like “fight” in his testimony were lan-guage that the SIU interviewer, not he, insisted on using.

In fact, Sivapiragasam’s testi-mony suggested that the SIU ac-tually held him for hours, asking him the same questions about an alleged “struggle” until they got an answer that would exonerate the officer from any wrongdoing.

Sivapiragasam went on to say that after being detained for so long he “just wanted to go home.”

It would appear then, that the SIU detained Mr. Sivapiragasam for hours until he complied with

Clear police bias at Alwy inquiry

The HST: Tax Grab or Tax Shift?Michael Perovic

The HST is one end of a poor tax reform scheme that is being imple-mented by the McGuinty Liberals working with Jim Flaherty, the Finance Minister under Stephen Harper’s government.

It’s a regressive tax that will nail working class people with the effect of the provincial sales tax right across a range of the goods and services we consume, as well as nailing any worker who holds a multi-employer pension.

The exact effects have been dif-ficult to determine in advance as Premier Dalton McGuinty has not been transparent on the distribu-tional impacts of the tax reforms, and projections depend on some presently unknown factors (such as how much of the $4.7 - 5.9 bil-lion in savings to businesses will be passed along to consumers as the PST is converted into a “Value-Added Tax”).

Even in the most optimistic sce-narios many working class people and families in Ontario will lose out.

There is also no reason to as-

sume the most optimistic scenari-os. While some businesses may be forced by competition to pass along their tax credit savings to consum-ers, many if not most, will simply pocket the added revenue.

The Liberal government has pointed to its across-the-board cut to the personal income tax rate, some key exemptions on certain goods and services, as well as a se-ries of sales and property tax cred-its to suggest that the impact of the HST will be offset for many.

While this, fortunately, may be true for many families whose com-bined income is $20,000 or less an-nually, it is certainly far from clear that this will be the case consis-tently even in those instances.

The tax credit offsets have some progressive merit at face value, but there are numerous problems: for example many low income se-niors, whether living single or as a couple, will fall through the cracks of the benefits of the offsets, as will many First Nations persons and working people who do not have residency status or citizenship.

In addition the Liberals have not made public their methods of

indexing the credits to inflation, so we don’t know if the credits will simply lose value over time.

To add to this concern the pro-gressive content of the tax credits, or the very existence of any given one, would be easily modified or cancelled by future governments as they are separate from the HST itself.

That is to say, what relief they do provide will hang by a thread in a provincial legislature dominated by political parties who do not rep-resent working people’s interests.

What is even less well under-stood is the other end of the scheme – a massive tax cut to the Ontario corporate tax rate.

All told, by 2014-2015 when the full cut takes place the province will pass on a savings of $2.3 bil-lion to corporations.

Taken as a whole, the tax reform scheme is not in fact a tax grab by the government (which will stand to lose around $3 billion annually from revenues as a result of the combined corporate tax cut, per-sonal income tax cut and tax cred-its); it is in fact a massive tax shift,

>> continued, PG. 8

>> continued, PG. 8

INterNAtIoNAL BASICS #20, JULY / AUG 2010

4

Canadian Humanitarian Ap-peal for Relief of Tamils (Cana-dian HART) both condemns and refutes the campaign of misin-formation and intimidation be-ing employed by the Sri Lankan government and it’s envoy to misrepresent Canadian HART’s international solidarity work in Venezuela.

Canadian HART is an inde-pendent grassroots humanitarian group organized by Canadian uni-versity students and activists in 2008 to educate and advocate for the human rights of the vulner-able displaced Tamil population of Sri Lanka. Canadian HART is an anti-imperialist, anti-oppres-sive, grass roots, solidarity based, non-partisan human rights orga-nization and is in no way affiliated or connected with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE). Canadian HART works with and in concert with student and labor unions; human rights NGOs and anti-war activists; anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-poverty organizations;

Latin American, Palestinian, and Indigenous solidarity groups; and other grassroots community-based organizations.

Canadian HART has recently expanded its work internation-ally as the situation of the Tamil population within Sri Lanka has deteriorated forcing many Tamil civilians to flee internationally seeking asylum. Currently Cana-dian HART is working on trying to get recognition and assistance for the plight of Tamil asylum seekers trapped on boat for nearly 9 months and abandoned by the international community. These asylum seekers have now been detained in Indonesian detention centers and face forcible repatria-tion to Sri Lanka where they face persecution, torture, and death at the hands of the Sri Lankan state. Canadian HART has specifically approached Venezuela as both admirers of the Bolivarian Revo-lution and Venezuela’s history of providing asylum to Palestinian, Colombian, Saharawi, and other desperate peoples fleeing violence, displacement, and persecution in

their homelands.Furthermore there have been

statements made about Sri Lanka which both mislead and misrepre-sent the state to the Venezuelan public. While we do not wish to judge or prejudice the Venezu-elan’s peoples international re-lationships, we do feel that they deserve to know the truth.

1. Tamils are not proxies for the CIA or the United States, where the LTTE has been listed as a terrorist organization along-side groups such as the FARC and Hamas, making any kind of support for the organization ille-gal. Tamil solidarity and human rights activists are often accused by the Sri Lankan state of being LTTE supporters as a tactic to in-timidate and persecute activists.

2. Sri Lanka has several mili-tary treaties and trade agree-ments with the United States al-lowing the United States military forces to use the island’s seaports and airports for military opera-tions. Sri Lanka also purchases large quantities of weapons and training from the United State’s

proxy, Israel.3. Sri Lanka is currently run

by a coalition of racist Sinhalese ethnic majoritarian parties, from both the left and Far Right, such as the JVP and the JHU, who share common ground in wanting to deny equal rights to minorities of the island. Sri Lanka shares many similarities to Israel’s eth-nic majoritarian government, not Venezuela. The last elections were marred by violence, intimi-dation by government backed paramilitaries, militarization and absenteeism in Tamil areas, and hundreds thousands of Tamil ci-vilians being imprisoned in army run concentration camps.

4. Grassroots initiatives such as the People’s Tribunal in Ireland and many humanitarian organi-zations have begun to demand an accounting for the May 2009 Mas-sacre of 40,000 Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan government which dwarfs even the Gaza Mas-sacre. Compelling evidence has

been gathered and we are more then willing to present this as a proof of the genuine need of the Tamil people for asylum and as-sistance.

5. Nearly 1/3 of the Tamil pop-ulation 3 million has been forc-ibly displaced by the Sri Lankan state. There are 370,000 Tamil IDPs in Sri Lanka with another 600,000 Tamils having fled inter-nationally with thousands more in transit or being detained in In-dia presently. 76,568 Vanni IDPs in temporary camps; 93,329 with host families in districts of origin; 1,192 in transit camps in districts of origin (UN RC/HC, 29 April 2010); 197,925 IDPs from before 2006 (UN, August 2009). These statistics do not include thou-sands of Tamil political prisoners who are as young as 11 being de-tained by the Sri Lankan govern-ment.

For more information please contact Canadian HART at info@canadianhart.org.

Statement on Canadian HART work in VenezuelaEditorial Note

In response to the solidarity work of the Tamil human rights organization Canadian HART in Venezuela, Sri Lanka has ex-tended its campaign of misinfor-mation into the Bolivarian nation and across Latin America in an attempt to turn the Latin Ameri-can people against the Tamil struggle for justice and liberation.

Supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution across the world were shocked when one of Venezuela’s most important public intellectu-als, Eva Golinger, wrote a piece on May 15 referring to Sri Lanka as an “anti-imperialist” and “pro-gressive”, despite its close military ties to Israel and the United States.

Golinger, following the slander-ous line of the Sri Lankan gov-ernment intended to isolate and

criminalize all Tamil activists, referenced Canadian HART as a front group of the now defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The following public statement was written by Canadian HART to counter the campaign of dis-information being spread by Sri Lankan diplomats and taken up by the likes of Golinger.

See basicsnews.ca for more information.

J.D. Benjamin

With the widely despised and thoroughly corrupt regime of President Gloria Macapagal Ar-royo on it’s way out of office, peo-ples’ organizations in the Philip-pines and around the world are already asserting their demands to soon-to-be President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

Aquino ran a campaign that promised “change” and an end to corruption.

After enduring violent repres-sion, kidnappings, assassina-tions of popular leaders and massive theft of public wealth, many are anxious to see those responsible behind bars.

Since 2001, more than 1,000 progressive workers, farmers, stu-dents, church people and lawyers have been killed, while hundreds more have been abducted.

The International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL), a world-wide organization of public inter-est and human rights lawyers, has called the prosecution of the Ar-royo and her cronies a “litmus test for Noynoy Aquino.

His attitude and policy towards human rights will be judged at the first instance on how he will pur-sue the prosecution and conviction of Mrs. Arroyo, her family mem-bers and allies who committed crimes against the people.”

Those calls were echoed in a press conference by Desapareci-dos, an organization representing families of people “disappeared” by the Arroyo regime.

Victims families called on Aquino to immediately release all political prisoners seized illegally and to pun-ish human rights violators.

Aquino is being urged to re-start peace talks with armed rebel groups, including the New People’s Army, led by the Communist Party of the Philippines. The Ar-royo regime repeatedly sabotaged the peace process and launched military campaigns to crush the insurgency. Each campaign was accompanied by large scale human rights violations and ended in fail-

ure. There were also calls for major changes in the Philippine economy.

Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pili-pinas (KMP), a peasants’ associa-tion, rallied in front of the gates of Noynoy’s residence, attempting to hand over a list of farmer’s de-mands. The KMP called for the implementation of “genuine” land reform based on “free land distribu-tion to farmers” as well as an end to “land grabbing, displacements of farmers and land use conversions”. Previous land reform schemes car-ried out by the government were mostly fake and did little to help landless peasants.

Workers are also calling on Aqui-no for “change” to include a desper-ately needed minimum wage hike. “For more than nine years now, we workers have not had a substantial wage increase. Mrs. Arroyo has implemented a ‘wage freeze’ policy, ensuring that workers receive mere crumbs while foreign investors get maximum returns on their invest-ments,” said Elmer “Bong” Labog, chairperson of trade union federa-tion Kilusang Mayo Uno.

There is little evidence however that Aquino will push for the kind of systemic reform that would be necessary to get to the root of cor-ruption and other social problems. Noynoy is a member of the Co-juangco-Aquino clan, which owns vast tracks of land and benefit from maintaining feudalism, bu-reaucrat capitalism and imperial-ism in Philippine society. To shift the Philippines on to a path of in-dependent national industrializa-tion and pro-people reforms would involve turning on his own base amongst the elite, whose wealth and power depend on raw exports and exploiting cheap labour on be-half of foreign companies.

Fortunately, while the people are demanding that he follow through on his promises of “change”, they are refusing to take a wait and see approach. Calling Aquino’s prom-ises “a long shot”, activists are con-tinuing to build an independent movement for genuine change based on the strength of the people rather than a faction of the elite.

New Philippine President faces demands of the PeopleIsrael Flaunts Int’l Law,

Attacks Civilian Aid FlotillaGhadeer Malek

The Israeli attack on the Free-dom Flotilla that sailed to break the illegal siege on Gaza was not discrete nor was it intended to be. Israel, with the help of its com-plicit supporters of which Canada tops the list, has been trying to massage the media to make itself appear like the victim.

However, the violence enacted aboard the ships of the flotilla was a clear attack on interna-tional activists and civil society actors in Israel’s attempt to deter any future attempts at solidarity with Gaza. And to that end, they stopped at nothing.

Fully armed IDF soldiers boarded the flotilla ships at 4:00am on May 30. They killed at least 9 humanitarian activ-ists, injured 50 and held another hostage 600+ unarmed civilians on international waters.

It was clear that Israel not only behaved with complete disregard to international laws, but it is also asserting itself as an exception to any human rights code of conduct. Israel’s meting out of collective punishment that night extended far out into international waters with the threat clearly not being Hamas but anyone willing to speak out on Israel’s violence.

While the Canadian media kept silent and only reported skewed figures of those killed and injured, the international media coverage

allowed everyone across the world to witness first hand Israel’s ter-rorism on the Freedom Flotilla.

To say the least, civil society and several state representatives around the world expressed their outrage. Yet Canada and other governments with close ties to Israel remain complicit with their silence and continued support through their public statements and political cushioning.

Since 1948, Israel has been building a Jewish-only state by bargaining away all international law and UN conventions holding them accountable for Palestinian human rights. This, the “inter-national community” accepts and has become largely desensitized to this as Israel continues to use its massive propaganda machine to give itself the image of a normal state “just like everyone else”.

The violence on the flotilla is far beyond race, ethnicity or religion: it is a threat to anyone and every-one who threatens Israel. The international community is now no longer speaking in defense of

the Palestinian struggle, it is in response to an attack on the inter-national community itself.

If anything positive came out of the flotilla events, then it is the unmasking of 62 years of Zionist racist and colonial agenda.

So, what is to be done now? The flotilla events highlighted

the importance of boycotting and divesting from Israel, as well as putting pressure on governments especially Canada and the United States to place sanctions on Israel. Canada was the first country in the world to cut its assistance to the Palestinian Authority as well as support Israel in its collective punishment on Gaza.

The United Nations has also played its part in turning a blind eye to Israel and failing to sanc-tion and protect human rights.

Therefore, the exposure that Freedom Flotilla brought to Israel’s impunity makes it more important than ever to now push Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns all over the world.

PIRATES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

Throngs of people see off the Mavi Marmara from Istanbul in late May 2010. Photo from FreeGaza.org Flickr Stream

INterNAtIoNAL BASICS #20, JULY / AUG 2010

5

Eric Ribellarsi Reporting Live From Nepal

Going into May, Nepal’s Maoist movement put forward a series of demands, particularly the resignation of Prime Minister M.K. Nepal. He represents a corrupt party called the Unified Marxist Leninists (UML), a status quo party with Indian backing and Marxist-Leninist in name only.

This man, who lost two elections and came to power through a coup d’etat, has seen to it at every turn that the peaceful restructuring of Nepal’s society would be impossible. He has stood in the way of the peace process by blocking the restructuring of the Nepal Army, denying federal autonomy to Nepal’s oppressed nationalities, and ensuring the protection of India’s interests in Nepal.

The Maoists and their supporters prepared for the possibility of insurrection, “a final conflict” as the Maoists put it, if those demands were not met and if the conditions for revolution were there. Nepal was shaken as nearly a million people took to the streets in the capital city alone, and the economy came to a grinding halt during the following general strike. Demonstrators moved with incredible discipline and organization, systematically shutting down the city, sometimes in celebratory ways.

At a certain point, the general strike of early May 2010 was called off for reasons which are not yet clear, even on the ground here in Nepal. One Maoist mid-level cadre explained that this move was because insurrection would not have been possible at this moment,

and that “more time is needed to prepare.” Other speculation has appeared in the mainstream press about debates within the Maoist party, but none of it has been substantiated.

All day and into the night of May 28, large demonstrations surrounded the Constituent Assembly building. I interviewed a young Maoist outside the Constituent Assembly. She identified as being from the Association of Unemployed People, and told me that “Only communism can provide a solution for unemployed people in Nepal, and we should take this peace process to its logical conclusion. This government is increasing unemployment day by day, and won’t allow the reforms that Baburam Bhattarai tried to make for us when he was the Finance Minister. People should have power in our country, not a Prime Minister who was not elected… if he does not resign, we will fight until the end; the Constituent Assembly should not be extended without his resignation.”

At the last hour, M.K. Nepal,

the ruling parties, and the Maoists reached a “three-point agreement.” M.K. Nepal would resign within five days, the Constituent Assembly would be extended one year, and the peace process would be carried through.

Then, not even twenty-four hours after the three-point agreement, M.K Nepal announced that, actually, he would not resign. Constitutional issues continue to be debated, while M.K. Nepal states that he will not resign unless the Maoists dismantle the People’s Liberation Army and the Young Communist League. The Standing Committee of the Maoists has just completed its five-day meeting, with a statement by Prachanda, describing M.K. Nepal’s move as “a great betrayal.” The Maoists have been boycotting meetings with the other parties, and planning a new wave of actions.

Things are complex and tumultuous, and it is unclear what will happen. This regime is verging on a complete legitimacy crisis, and outpourings of rebellion or even revolution may lie just around the corner.

Crisis in Europe is the Crisis of the Imperialist World System

Steve da Silva

The economic crisis unfolding in Europe today is the crisis of a pu-trefying world imperialist system.

All across Europe, working people are being confronted with the concerted attack by the Euro-pean Union (EU) and the Inter-national Monetary Fund (IMF) in the form of imposed “auster-ity measures”: raided pensions, eliminated jobs, slashed wages, and massive cuts to social secu-rity and the public sector.

The pretext for the wave of “austerity measures” being im-posed is what is being called Europe’s “sovereign debt crisis”. Most of the EU countries have

total debts ranging from 50% to 115% of their GDP and annual budget deficits up to as high as 14% of GDP. By these mea-sures, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland appear to be in the worst positions.

In early May 2010, the IMF, the European Central Bank, and the European Union passed what they are calling a 750bn-euro “stabilization package”, “bailing out” the governments that they placed into such dire fiscal crises to begin with. As a condition of the “stabilization” plan, by 2014 all EU countries must slash their budget deficits to below 3% of GDP and their overall debts to below 60% of

GDP. This can only come by way of an unprecedented attack on working people and must entail a thorough restructuring of the state in the interest of capital.

With what amounts to a mas-sive Structural Adjustment Pro-gram for Europe, blaming the workers for the current fiscal cri-sis in the EU is absolutely ludi-crous considering that it was less than two years ago that nearly every central bank in the impe-rialist countries forked over tril-lions of dollars in “bailout” pack-ages to financial corporations.

In the EU alone, these bailouts totaled approximately €4 trillion. These same corporations and the financial institutions that repre-sent them are now demanding that workers pay for the fiscal cri-ses created by capitalism. In fact, there is no other way from within the parameters of the imperialist world system for the current cri-sis to be resolved.

The “austerity measures” be-ing imposed on European work-ers today is the acceleration and intensification of the program of neoliberalism that has been at-tacking worker people and rural peasant peoples everywhere for

the past thirty years. Since the 1980s, workers in every coun-try have been on the defensive against attacks on their wages and social security. The blocs of monopoly capital that constitute the financial basis of institutions like the IMF and the World Bank have kept themselves afloat by:•Steadily increasing the exploi-tation of workers;•Continuously cutting corporate taxes;•Raiding public sector assets; and •Plundering the planet of its natural resources.

The effect of neoliberalism on the Third World has been most devastating and has taken its toll on billions of people. In ex-change for IMF and World Bank loans taken on by Third World ruling classes (propped up and in many cases installed by the imperialists), these societies were “restructured” in the inter-ests of foreign capital and at the expense of workers, peasants, and smaller domestic capitalists. Wages and social securities were slashed and state support for do-mestic industries were eliminat-ed to make way for big foreign capital. But as the exploitation

and plunder of the Third World comes up against certain social limitations, the turn to intensify the exploitation of workers clos-er to the imperialist centers has come. It’s no accident that the peripheral countries of the Euro-zone – Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland – are being hit first and the hardest. These at-tacks on the workers have been met with the largest wave Eu-rope-wide mobilizations, strikes, and general strikes in decades.

It is crucial for those of us try-ing to comprehend the current crisis that we are very clear about where this current system is taking us.

The largest corporations and blocs of corporations in the impe-rialist world system strive for the highest possible profits and the greatest degree of control over world markets. In their struggle for growth and survival, monopo-ly capital must of necessity carry out a combination of the follow-ing measures, which we know all-to-well to be characteristic of “neoliberal” capitalism:•The raiding of public assets as a means to open up completely

fort to convince the public that it will shoulder responsibility for the clean up, that it will assume all costs and that it will be providing compensa-tion to those affected.

BP has even purchased search terms from the popular search en-gine Google, so that links to their own website boasting about their clean-ups efforts appear at the top of searches conducted by browsing members of the public.

All this while in practice BP has denied access to independent scien-tific review at the site of the disaster, has consistently engaged in lies, de-nies publicly the extent of the disas-ter and has even refused to pay for safety masks for the workers hired to spray (toxic) dispersants on the oil that has collected on the ocean surface. A number of workers have reported health side effects from the combined oil and dispersant fumes.

If the self-serving behaviour of those who control BP wasn’t enough to leave one sceptical of BP’s claims, a closer look at the reality of the big-ger system within which BP was created and operates shows how hollow their assuring words are. BP is a corporation, and as such its sole legal mandate is the maximi-zation of profit for its shareholders through its activities.

Today, corporations are the main way that large enterprises and industries are legally structured under capitalism as profit seek-ing centres of activity. The drive for profit leads to all sorts of short-

sighted actions and resistance to safer regulations. Even where such regulation exists, in the drive to do things cheaper and more profitably in the short term, regulations can be ignored in daily practice. Work-ers who attempt to question or raise concerns will be singled out and fired.

The profit motive leads corpora-tions to attempt to externalize costs on the environment and people. It also leads to a legal responsibility in this instance for BP executives to do everything to limit their liability in this disaster of their own making. Are we really to believe that a Mexi-can fisherman who develops cancer as a result of this spill 15 years from now will be compensated?

How do you even compensate someone for such damage as their own death? Who and how do you compensate for the destruction of an ecosystem? BP has already as-sured its shareholders (including JP Morgan which owns 30% of US BP) that it will not be on the hook for more than 3-6 billion UD$ as a result of this. Why is BP still enti-tled to its assets? How can BP treat such an ecological disaster and its management as if it were a private affair?

We are told by those who profit that the profit motive is the best way to organize the various branch-es of production in our society.

Yet here we see an ecological ca-tastrophe brought on by a corpora-tion that makes billions of dollars

« BP Oil Spill, from PG. 1 Nepal’s Crisis: Resistance and the Lies of the RulersRevolutionary youth on the march in Nepal, May 2010. Photo by Jed Brandt

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is draining the ocean of its oxygen in massive regions, threatening to create “Dead Zones” as ecosystems collapse.

AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

>> continued, PG. 8

The E.U. and IMF are imposing “austerity measures” on most European countries, looking to slash hundreds of billions of euros from programs that serve working people. Finance capital’s attack on working people comes as a natural consequence to the EU’s approval of about €4 trillion in bailouts to European banks.

Scene from the May 5 general strike in Greece.

each year, but that wouldn’t even install a $500,000 acoustic switch safety feature (mandatory in Nor-way) because it was not required to

do so by law. The ineffectual response of the

US Government has simply re-vealed the extent to which it is dom-

inated by and complicit in the inter-ests of wealthy corporations over even the most basic interests of its own people and the environment.

FederAL BASICS #20, JULY / AUG 2010

6

Ashley Matthew & Steve da Silva

On Thursday May 6, 2010, a public hearing on Bill C-11 was held at Ryerson University in Toronto. The event was co-host-ed by the Canadian Council for Refugees, FCJ Refugee Centre, the Metro Toronto Chinese & South East Asian Legal Clinic, and the Ontario Council of Agen-cies Serving Immigrants.

This piece of legislation seeks to ‘reform’ Canada’s refugee deter-mination system, which, Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and Multicultural-ism, is currently trying to pass through the House of Commons.

The purpose of the public meeting was to educate the public concerning the fact that there had been no public consul-tation on this important piece of

legislation to date.Concerned community members

gathered to question the govern-ment’s lack of debate and the startlingly accelerated process to pass a Bill that potentially affects all those currently in the refugee process and future refugee and humanitarian claimants.

One of the speakers, Francisco Rico-Martinez, brought to the attention of the room that “it is not refugee reform that the government wants, but immigration reform.” Rico-Martinez went on to say that “they are trying to tackle ‘irregular’ migration by accusing people of cre-ating bogus claims”.

Bill C-11 will create a two-tiered system that will deny applicants from countries deemed to be ‘safe’ through the Safe Country of Origin Clause.

Amnesty International has pointed out that “not all coun-

tries even have documented human rights violations, but just because the country has been ‘deemed safe’ does not mean that human rights violations and ref-ugee claims will not come from these places. The government is also not consulting us [Amnesty] to find out about what is happen-ing in the world.”

The Canadian Council for Ref-ugees has aptly pointed out that “Having a list of ‘safe countries of origin’ politicizes the refugee system”.

We can guess that among the countries that will make the ‘safe’ list will include Canada’s diplomat-ic allies Mexico, Colombia, Israel, India, Philippines, and Sri Lanka – all formal democracies, but among the most notorious human rights abusing regimes in the world, all of which have received unbending dip-lomatic support from the Canadian

government in recent years.By delegitimizing refugee appli-

cants from countries such as these, the Canadian government will be closing off the refugee system to those in desperate need of protec-tion from the state terror waged by Canada’s diplomatic allies.

If passed, Bill C-11 will place Canada in an even greater degree of complicity with the human rights violations taking place in the Philip-pines, occupied Palestine, Colombia and Sri Lanka by slamming the door on the face of genuine refugees from these countries.

Furthermore, appeals under the new system will not be granted and applicants will not be able to make a humanitarian and compassionate claim. Under the proposed system persons who have made a refu-gee claim within the past year, or who have a refugee claim pending are not entitled to humanitarian

and compassionate consideration regardless of their circumstances.

Also under the new system, refugee claimants will be expected to initially present their case to authorities within eight days of making a claim. A hearing in the claim will occur within 60 days of the initial meeting.

Lawyers and advocates at the May 6 public meeting raised con-cerns that eight days is not enough time for claimants to find a lawyer and gather documents, especially for someone fleeing from violence.

The House of Commons is adjourning on June 23, 2010, and depending on the outcome of the hearings and the 3rd Reading in the House of Com-mons, this Bill will be sent to a committee for review or put into place without further debate.

To learn more about Bill C-11, please visit www.ccrweb.ca.

Dela M.

Suresh Sriskandarajah is a name that is heard and men-tioned a lot these days.

The name belongs to a bright young Canadian individual who is facing bogus, trumped-up charges that will change his life.

The U.S. government alleges that Suresh was involved in providing computer software to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) back in 2006, prior to the banning of the LTTE in Canada.

The U.S. government is now demanding the extradition of Suresh to the U.S. to face charges based on the technical-ity that the server of the Hot-mail account he was using is New-York based.

The U.S seeks to have Suresh extradited by September of this year for this sole reason.

Suresh was ordered to be ex-tradited to the U.S. by the Su-perior Court of Ontario, as well as the Minister of Justice.

Suresh’s nightmare began after having visited Vanni, Sri Lanka in 2004 on a co-op term through the University of Waterloo.

Suresh volunteered at two sites and offered his technical expertise, time and generosity.

While volunteering at Sen-thalir Ilam, an orphanage in Vanni, Suresh created a spon-sorship program.

At the Vanni Institute of Tech-nology, he helped devise a cur-

riculum for its aspiring students.The work of Suresh, a hum-

ble young individual whose impressive resume is driven by his humanitarianism, has landed him in a legal situa-tion that could just as easily be slapped onto many, many more Canadians.

It is unconscionable that the Canadian government can de-port its own citizens on such trumped-up and ill-substanti-ated allegations.

It is important to note that the validity of evidence pre-sented in such cases is not as-sessed in extradition hearings, but only on trial after an extra-dition has been executed.

This process leaves thou-sands of other Canadians, ranging from human rights activists to those connected with other legitimate struggles around the world, exposed to the repressive and sweeping measures of the ‘war on terror’.

Suresh Sriskandarajah con-tinues to work hard and help out in his community.

He has inspired leaders and individuals in academia, busi-ness, religious communities, and students to form a ‘Justice for Suresh Team’ and they are doing everything they can to ensure Suresh’s freedom.

Canadians must stand up and demand that Suresh be kept in Canada.

For more information on Suresh Sriskandarajah please visit: justiceforsuresh.org

René Guerra Salazar

In a Kafkaesque turn of events, Salvadorean refugee claimant José Figueroa, a married father of three Canadian-born children, was ordered deported by the Immigra-tion and Refugee Board (IRB) for his past ties to the Farabundo Martí Front for National Libera-tion (FMLN).

The FMLN is El Salvador’s cur-rent governing party and was the opposition guerrilla coalition dur-ing the country’s 12-year civil war. IRB member Otto Nupponen is-sued the deportation order based on arguments from Ministry of Public Safety lawyers and a Ca-nadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) report claiming that the FMLN “is or was engaged in ter-rorism and/or subversion”.

For thousands of Canadians of Salvadorean origin this is an outrage. Proud of their ties to the FMLN, Salvadorean-Canadians are bewildered at the decisions made by the relevant Canadian authorities in this case.

During El Salvador’s civil war, the FMLN insurgency was a broad leftist coalition of political and guerrilla forces struggling against a murderous right wing Salvador-ean military regime that targeted its own civilian population, violated human rights with impunity, and sustained entrenched socio-eco-

nomic injustice. José Figueroa and tens of thousands of others made the heroic choice to stand up and fight tyranny. Indeed, the FMLN insurgency was quickly recognized internationally as legitimate and representative, as per the 1981 joint declaration by the French and Mexican governments. In 1992, peace and democracy came to El Salvador precisely because of the FMLN’s dogged resistance, which ultimately forced the U.S.-financed Salvadorean state to negotiate an end to hostilities under the auspic-es of the United Nations.

Since then, the FMLN transi-tioned into a political party that has steadily become the country’s leading political force. Since 2006, it has the most seats of all parties in the Salvadorean Legislature and governs more than half the Salvadorean population at the mu-nicipal level.

And on March 15, 2009, Salva-doreans elected FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes as their President, a historic moment for Salvador-eans everywhere. Indeed, the Ca-nadian government recognized that election process as “free and fair” and was represented during President Funes’ inauguration by Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas) Peter Kent.

So what gives? For José, the situation is almost

laughable, were it not for the very

real, if ludicrous, deportation order hanging over his, and consequent-ly, his family’s heads. As he contin-ues his fight to stay in Canada (he’s applied for a Federal Court judicial review of the IRB’s decision), José has found several other cases of Salvadoreans caught in the same contradictory bureaucratic and ideological web. In one prominent case, Eugenio Chicas, a Salva-dorean judge and president of El Salvador’s equivalent to Elections Canada, was detained at Pearson airport for several hours after be-ing flagged by CBSA agents for his current and past association with the FMLN. Over the course of the civil war, Chicas was a high-rank-ing guerrilla commander. He was eventually released and reports suggest that the Canadian govern-ment apologized to the judge.

Can we trust that the Canadian government will be so gracious in the Figueroa case? Perhaps. But just in case, Salvadorean-Canadians and their allies across Canada are mobilizing to pressure the relevant Canadian authorities to reverse the deportation order against Mr. Figueroa and to clear-ly and categorically recognize that the FMLN is not, and never has been, a terrorist organization!

René Guerra Salazar is an FMLN party member based out of Toronto and organizer with Barrio Nuevo.

“Justice for Suresh”CANADIAN FIGHTING ExTRADITION TO U.S. ON BOGUS CHARGES

“Linked to FMLN: Get out of Canada!”...OR SO SAy CANADIAN AUTHORITIES IN CASE OF SALVADOREAN REFUGEE

Bill C-11: “Reforming” the refugee system

« G8-G20 SUMMITS, from PG. 1Feds are using the occasion of the G20 Summit in Toronto to fork over more pork to security and police forces in Canada, the effects of which will long outlast the Summits themselves.

Just consider the comments offered by Toronto Police spokesperson Constable Wendy Drummond on the topic of the four “sound cannons” recently acquired for the G20: “It’s definitely going to be beneficial for us, not only in the G20 but in any future large gatherings.” The euphemistically named “long-range acoustic devices” have the power to blast out 135 decibel waves – far above the pain threshold of 110 decibels and strong enough to cause permanent

damage to one’s hearing.Not only has the corporate media

massively inflated the security threat at the G20 Summit in Toronto, I have no qualms against speculating that this sort of violence is actually being invited by the media. The window-smashing and fire-bombing that we are all being warned of is a sure way to strengthen the legitimacy of further militarizing the police forces without in the least bit threatening the economic system that the G8/G20 Summits represent. It’s what the cops would love to see. In fact, just google “Montebello” and “agent provocateur” to learn about how Quebec cops dressed up as protestors at the 2007 SPP Summit and were caught trying to incite

a violent police crackdown on the crowd.

The massive security spending for the G8/G20 summits will come back to haunt the working class in more ways than one. For one, the exacerbation of the fiscal crisis that such profligate spending causes will reinforce the arguments for slashing social spending. But more importantly, the beefing-up of police and security agencies and their training in urban crowd control has less to do with the threat of the June 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto and far more to do with the massive mobilizations they fear will come as a response to the deepening economic crisis of capitalism.

Suresh at the Senthalir Illam orphanage in Vanni, Sri Lanka in 2004.

ArtS ANd CuLtureBASICS #20, JULY / AUG 2010

7

Makaya

Live on stage at London’s Royal Festival Hall, Gil Scott-Heron told the audience that he “hates war” and in a lengthy monologue went on to tell his fans that his Israel concert would be cancelled.

Scott-Heron is best known for his 1970s classics ‘The Revolution will not be Televised’ and ‘The Bottle’ as well as his involvement in the 1980s South African anti-apartheid movement.

His music and poetry have been consistently anti-racist and extremely critical of government regimes all over the world for over 30 years.

He has influenced a whole

generation of artists and activ-ists, who were more than sur-prised when they learned of his Tel-Aviv tour date.

Audience members at a previ-ous concert crowded the artist, urging him to change his mind by reminding him that his deci-sion to play in Israel was con-trary to everything that he has stood for. Security had to be called in to stop the hecklers from disrupting the show.

Palestinian solidarity groups were outraged at his decision to play Israel given his longstanding commitment to fighting inequal-ity and structural racism.

Natasha Vally of the Pales-tine Solidarity Committee of South Africa wrote in a letter

addressed to Mr.Scott-Heron: “...we call on you to cancel your event in Israel. We remember your lyrics, ‘I know that their strugglin’ over there ain’t gonna free me, but we all need to be strugglin’ if we’re gonna be free’. Have you heard, brother Gil, that most of us in Johannes-burg say, ‘Apartheid anywhere is apartheid everywhere’. Or in the words of Nelson Mandela, ‘South Africa will not be free until Palestine is free’.”

A Facebook page was set up by fans who were deeply saddened by his decision to play such a high-profile gig in the apartheid state,

Posted on the page was: “This is a huge mistake from an enduring cultural and political hero. Let’s

see if we can change his mind.” Over 1200 people joined the page.

Scott-Heron was cheered and applauded as he made the announcement, adding that he would not play in Israel until everyone is welcome there.

Elvis Costello, the Pixies and the Gorillaz, among many

others, have also refused to per-form in Israel since Scott-Heron canceled his show.

Fans and activists alike agree that this is great news. Musi-cians and artists should not give any legitimacy to this apartheid state and continue to fight to end the occupation.

Martin Giroux-Cook

The Toronto premiere of the award-winning Filipino film “Dukot” (Desaparecidos) packed the Nat Taylor Cinema at York University on the af-ternoon of Saturday, May 22. The film is one of the first to focus on the political killings currently taking place in the Philippines.

“[The film] is not a collec-tion of stories from a distant past” said Bonifacio Ilagan, the screen writer. “This is what is happening in the Philippines since 2001. When outgoing president [Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo] assumed power, extra judicial killings, abductions, [and] illegal detentions have been increasing.”

Since 2001, over 200 cases of enforced disappearances and more than 1,000 cases of extra-judicial killings have been doc-umented by the human rights organization Karapatan.

Last November 2009, the Philippines made headlines worldwide for the Ampatuan massacre, a gruesome massa-cre in Mindanao that killed 57 people, including 30 journalists (see BASICS Issue 17).

The film is based on true sto-ries and the personal experi-ences of those who have been abducted and tortured as well as those who have lost loved ones.

Ilagan himself was abducted and tortured twice, first in 1974 and then in 1994. His sister went missing in 1977 and has not been found to date.

Melissa Roxas, a poet, writer, and human rights activists who is accompanying the Ca-nadian tour of “Dukot” was also abducted and tortured by agents of the Philippine military.

In 2005, Roxas led a U.S. delegation to par-ticipate in the Interna-tional Solidarity Mis-sion in the Philippines to investigate human rights violations and she

“was horrified to find out about the human rights violations go-ing on.”

“These are people, these are workers protesting for higher wages, these are peasants who are advocating for land reform, these are women that simply want to feed their children three times a day … and be-cause they advocate for a better world, they are being targeted by the military.”

After her initial trip to the Philippines, she returned in 2007 and 2009 to continue her community and human rights work.

“On May 19th 2009, along with two other companions, we were conducting health work in La Paz, Tarlac, and we were abducted by 15 armed military men, forced into a van and brought into secret detention” Roxas said.

“I was held in solitary con-finement. We were heavily tor-tured during those six days”.

As a result of the torture, Roxas suffers from Post-Trau-matic Stress as well as physical injuries inflicted upon her.

Roxas credits the solidarity work of groups like BAYAN Canada and Migrante Canada for her release.

For more information visit h t tp ://bayan-canada- in -toronto.blogspot.com and http://migrante.ca.

Derek Rosin

The British graffiti artist known as Banksy recently paid his first visit to Toronto, hitting our city with some of his signa-ture stencil pieces.

The visit coincides with the re-lease of a new film about the art-ist, Exit Through the Gift Shop.

Stylistically, Banksy’s work is quite different from the culture of hip-hop graffiti that has been the dominant form of street art for the past few decades.

But like the paintings of his hip-hop cousins, Banksy’s work retains its subversive quality, partly because the very act of making this type of art is con-sidered to be a crime.

Of course, Banksy combines the underground nature of his medium with explicitly radi-cal themes. One of his more fa-mous works is on the wall that separates the West Bank from Israel in Palestine.

Because of the wall’s effect of halting free movement, en-croaching on land and breaking up communities, the people of

the West Bank refer to it as the “Apartheid Wall” — a reference to South Africa’s former racist separation of blacks and whites.

His response was a painting that made it look like a hole had been blasted through the wall, revealing a beautiful sun-ny beach on the other side.

This is typical Banksy — fun-ny, thought-provoking, dream-like, and clearly on the side of oppressed people.

His work has aroused consid-erable controversy, invariably raising the debate on whether he is an artist or a vandal. He is clearly both, and couldn’t be one without being the other.

Banksy’s brief visit to To-ronto is a welcome addition to the debate over graffiti in this city. Here, graffiti must be re-moved at the property owner’s expense unless they can prove to the city that the painting is art. Not only does this put an unfair cost on many small busi-ness owners, it also leads to the ridiculous conclusion that some know-nothing city bureaucrat is the final authority on what

constitutes art. People listening to this de-

bate would do well to check the views of Banksy himself:

“Bus stops are far more inter-esting and useful places to have art than in museums. Graffiti has more chance of meaning something or changing stuff than anything indoors.

“Graffiti has been used to start revolutions, stop wars, and gen-erally is the voice of people who aren’t listened to. Graffiti is one of those few tools you have if you have almost nothing.

“And even if you don’t come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make some-body smile while they’re hav-ing a piss.”

J.D. Benjamin

Footage is released on the inter-net of fully armed police raiding a working class rooming house, bru-tally beating and terrorizing any-one in their path, and rounding up members of a minority group.

It ends with a scene of unbe-lievable carnage and gore.

The latest Wikileak from Iraq or occupied Palestine?

Nope. It’s the new music vid-eo for the song “Born Free” by M.I.A., an artist know for mix-ing radical politics and social commentary with her music.

Mathangi “Maya” Arul-pragasam, aka M.I.A., is a Brit-ish musician, record producer, fashion designer, activist, and

visual artist of Sri Lankan Tamil refugee origin.

She blew up in 2008 when her song Paper Planes was used in the trailer for Pine-apple Express and the movie Slum Dog Millionaire.

She has been nominated for 2 Grammies and an Academy Award and placed on Time Magazine’s 2009 list of World’s Most Influential People.

Despite her popularity, M.I.A. has frequently had to battle cen-sorship and attempts by govern-ments to stifle her voice.

In 2006, the US refused to grant her an entry permit to tour in the US and briefly placed the artist on the Homeland Security Risk List.

MTV censored a lyric in one of her songs be-cause it said “like the PLO I don’t surrender.”

Most recently, You-Tube took down the “Born Free” video claim-ing that it violated the terms of service that bans anything “porno-graphic or gratuitously

violent.”While the ending of the video is

indeed shockingly violent, in this age of “shock and awe”, war and occupation, it’s hardly gratuitous.

The video is directed by Ro-main Gavras, a French filmmak-er known for gritty and realistic music videos, whose first film (Our Day Will Come) will be re-leased in September.

He is the son of Costa Gavras, director of many political thrillers such as Z, State of Seige, Missing, Amen, and Le Couperet.

Costa Gavras’ films were scath-ing indictments of political re-pression and state sponsored vio-lence, a message his son seems to have taken to heart.

Gil Scott-Heron cancels show, boycotts Israel

Banksy bombs the T-Dot

Banksy is believed to have left this piece near Dundas and Manning.

Dukot (Desaparecidos)New film highlights gov’t-backed killings in the Philippines

M.I.A. shocks and awes with “Born Free”

Screenshot from ‘Born Free’.

CommuNIty eveNtS BASICS #20, JULY / AUG 2010

8

Attention Prospective Delegates from Toronto / G.T.A.

For more information, contact the Migrant Women’s Coordinating Body at womynanti.imperialists@gmail.com.

the fabricated story of a struggle between Alwy and Raheim.

Testimony from Sivapiragasam and the other witnesses however, suggest that in fact there was no struggle.

Thus, questions about the SIU remain: how can the public have any faith in an SIU, made up of mainly ex-police officers, when they will rely on such nefarious tactics to exonerate one of their own?

How can the SIU ever bring about justice when police brutalize our communities?

In the end, there were far too many biases and inconsistencies both in the proceeding itself and in the way attending family mem-bers, friends, and the community were treated to report on here.

Alwy’s sister was barred from using an outlet to charge her lap-

top as she took notes for Alwy’s lawyer Keke Roach.

Many of us were threatened to be banned from the proceedings for “improper” facial expressions that might “sway” the jury.

We were all, including Alwy’s mother and young sisters, searched with metal detectors before enter-ing the building — something that has never happened before at the Coroner’s Courts.

Meanwhile off-duty officers and their supporters were not searched.

Toronto is a city where racial-ized people, especially young men, are confronted with constant police presence. And most of us know the nature of the encounter: by way of verbal intimidation, assault, con-finement, and too often homicide, the police occupy and oppress our communities.

There is a palpable tension be-tween the police and our youth.

And when the media refuses to report on the issue of police bru-tality, when the courts rarely, if ever, charge officers who brutalize our community members, when a stacked SIU will resort to such cor-ruption to ensure officers are exon-erated, and when even a Coroner’s Inquest assists in this process, need we ask why?

« CRISIS IN EUROPE, from PG. 5

« ALWy INQUEST BIASED, from PG. 3

Alwy Al Nadhir, shot down unarmed by Toronto police on Oct 31, 2007.

running into the billions, off of cor-porations and onto the consump-tion of Ontario’s working class.

This means that not one dime of the increased tax revenue from the HST will go to public health care, or education, or public tran-sit and green energy.

It will be more than eaten up by

a massive corporate tax cut. McGuinty has claimed that this

cut will result in the creation of nearly 600,000 new jobs in On-tario over the next decade.

The problem is that it’s simply a claim, and one lacking in cred-ibility and evidence while resting on faulty assumptions.

The corporate tax cut is simply an unconditional cut across the board; there are no strings at-tached that make the tax savings conditional upon investment and job creation.

Recent Canadian history teach-es us that this doesn’t result in more jobs for workers, just more profits for corporations.

« HST: TAx GRAB OR SHIFT, from PG. 3

new markets;•Intensifying the exploitation of workers everywhere;•Continuation of mergers, ac-quisitions, and hostile takeovers of stronger firms over weaker ones as a means of reducing competition between firms in similar industries;• Keeping consumption and debt levels as high as possible, which comes into contradiction with the tendency to impose wage structures that can less and less sustain the debt and consump-tion levels of yesteryear;• Plundering and raiding the re-source-rich regions of the world, which has expressed itself in the most violent forms in the past

decade with the wars and oc-cupations in the former Yugo-slavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Haiti;• Most ominously, the threat of a violent redivision of the world market by the imperialist coun-tries by means of world war as a means to eliminate the competi-tion of some bloc of monopolies in the world.

The current wave of “auster-ity measures” is just the most recent phase of the crisis of the world imperialist system. The attack on working class people in Canada has intensified in the last two years and it can be ex-pected to worsen as the overall crisis sharpens.