Millions come out for May Day
By
Berta Joubert-Ceci
Published May 4, 2005 5:25 PM
Throughout Latin America the
commemoration of May Day was once again a reminder that the majority of the
peoples south of the Rio Grande are not willing to allow the United States to
impose so-called “free trade” agreements on them. From Mexico to
Argentina, unions and social organizations mobilized, honoring the legacy of the
Chicago heroes of 1886 while bringing into focus the local issues particular to
each country—all of them voicing specific demands on their own
governments.
Many of the demonstrations were products of unified
coalitions of labor unions and social and popular movements. How ever, in
Nicaragua and Puerto Rico, different rallies were held by opposing groups,
reflecting deep diverging political ideologies and representing positions of
adherence to or rejection of the United States and its neoliberal imperialist
policies.
This year’s May Day came on the heels of the controversial
trip of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to several Latin American
countries. Her trip has been viewed in the region as an attempt by the Bush
administration to rally forces for a Latin American “coalition of the
willing” against democratically elected Vene zuelan President Hugo
Chávez.
But Rice had to tone down her hostile pronouncements
against Chávez because, with the exception of Colombia, where President
Álvaro Uribe Vélez is a U.S. puppet and its closest ally in South
America, Latin American leaders rejected her demands for the isolation of
Venezuela—politely but firmly.
In Brazil, the first country visited,
Rice tried to curry favor by calling it “a remarkable and emerging power
in the region.” However, when she used the occasion to urge Venezuela to
“live up to the democratic principles in the charter of the Organization
of American States,” Celso Amorim, the Brazilian foreign minister,
reportedly answered that Brazil will “always, of course, observe the
sovereignty of Venezuela,” and that “in any society, if problems
exist, they should be solved by the people of the country
itself.”
Rice’s visit seems to have fueled more animosity, if
this is possible, against Washington’s attempt to totally dominate the
continent, which was palpable in the May Day events.
The rallies in Cuba,
Venezuela and Colom bia had the highest turnout in years, with a combined total
of more than 5 million people.
In Cuba, according to Prensa Latina, 1.3
million people gathered in historic Revolu tion Square. Presided over by
Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro, the gathering was also attended by many union
representatives from around the world who had been part of the Fourth
Hemispheric Conference against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, held
recently in Havana. A total of 60 percent of Cuba’s population attended
simultaneous rallies held throughout the island.
The main topic there was
Washington’s anti-Cuba policy, particularly the outrageous act of the
imperialists in allowing Luis Posada Carriles to recently enter the United
States. The case of Posada Carriles exposes the hypocrisy and double talk in
Washington’s “anti-terrorism” rhetoric.
Posada Carriles
was found guilty of participating in the bombing of a Cubana airliner in 1976
that killed 73 people. He was jailed in Venezuela—long before Hugo
Chávez became president—but escaped after eight years with the help
of a right-wing Cuban American connected to the CIA, Jorge Mas Canosa.
Posada Carriles was also involved in the “Iran-Contra”
scandal, importing large quantities of cocaine to the U.S., and has been linked
to a recent string of bombings in Cuba.
Bolivarian revolution
gaining momentum
Shortly before May Day, Chávez had
visited Cuba and signed new agreements within the framework of ALBA—the
Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas—a thorough economic, cultural and
social development program between both countries initiated last
December.
This cooperation between Cuba and Venezuela is giving enormous
strength to the powerful anti-imperialist forces developing throughout Latin
America.
Chávez returned home from Cuba for a May Day rally that
highlighted the role of the Venezuelan workers in the Bolivarian Revolution.
Addressing more than a million people, Chávez spoke at length about the
advances of the revolution and the tasks ahead in constructing what is called
“Bolivarian socialism.” But he also caution ed the masses to be
vigilant about attempts by the U.S. to destroy the revolution.
Recent
developments that challenge capitalist property relations and modes of
production in Venezuela were visible in slogans that workers chanted or wrote on
banners: “Co-management is revolution,” “Venezuelan workers
are building Boli varian socialism,” “Co-management and production:
All power to the workers.”
The most progressive Venezuelan workers
are rapidly pushing forward the development of workers’ collectives to
take control of companies, with the help of the state, in order to benefit the
people.
Starting with Venepal, a company that was taken over and run by
the workers after its owners filed for bankruptcy, the government has been
following the workers’ lead. Now this paper industry is being run by the
workers and the state through co-management and has been renamed Invepal. It is
a model that is spreading like wildfire throughout the country.
The
question being raised now is how to initiate co-management in private firms.
Because the workers have raised it through the National Workers Union (UNT), the
largest and most progressive workers’ confederation that was formed a year
ago, it will be debated in the National Assembly.
Repression
can’t stop Colombia’s May Day
In neighboring Colombia, the
treatment of the workers by the government is a different story. Nine out of 10
union leaders killed in the world in recent years have been Colombians. Their
struggle is not for co-management but for sheer survival.
President
Uribe, undoubtedly urged on by the U.S., introduced a so-called Patriot Plan
aimed at destroying unions and the vigorous social movements that oppose his
policies of selling out the country’s resources to transnational
corporations. This repression poses a grave danger to Afro-Colombians, the
Indigenous, peasants, workers and human rights defenders.
The Consulting
Group for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES) said in a recent report
entitled “The Ostrich Policy” that 778 people were displaced every
day and 11 killed every 24 hours during the first quarter of this year. The
report identifies the Patriot Plan as the principal cause of the
displacements.
Sinaltrainal, the union representing Coca-Cola bottling
plant workers, lost nine of its members last year at the hands of paramilitaries
in the service of the soft-drink giant. These crimes continue with impunity with
the complicity of both the Colombian and U.S. governments. Yet the struggle
continues and gets stronger, despite the repression, massacres, displace ments
and selective assassinations.
Sinaltrainal struggles not only for its
members, to save their lives, but for a just and democratic Colombia. Unions are
joining with other unarmed civilian organizations to bring changes for the
benefit of the masses. The people in Colombia are waging the most courageous
struggle in the continent.
And this May Day, according to Fabio Arias,
vice-president of the United Workers Center (CUT), was the largest ever in
Colombia, with the participation of 2 million people—100,000 in
Bogotá alone.
In Brazil, where the Landless Move ment MST had
initiated an 11,000-strong march from Pernambuco to Brasilia demanding land
reform on May 1, more than 1 million attended a May Day march in Sao Paulo,
Brazil’s capital.
In Mexico, where, according to the Electrical,
Social Security and Telephone workers’ unions, half of the population
survive on less than $7 a day and nine out of 10 peasants do not receive even
minimum wage, tens of thousands demonstrated against President Vicente Fox,
accusing him of being a “lackey of the United States and the World
Bank.”
In Ecuador, where the masses last month forced out President
Lucio Gutiér rez, leaving his vice president, Alfredo Palacio, in charge,
10,000 workers demo nstrated, chanting “Palacio out, Congress out,
everybody out.” They also carried giant banners against the Free Trade
agreement.
Demonstrations were held in almost every country of South and
Central Amer ica and the Caribbean, including Argen tina, Chile, Uruguay,
Nicaragua—where protests have been held recently against the neoliberal
government of Enrique Bolaños—and Puerto Rico. The progressive
sector of the unions in this island colony of Washington joined in solidarity
with organizations waging a struggle against the privatization of beaches by
U.S. corporations.
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