Search LBO-Talk Archives

616 Indonesia carrot and stick? -- rank: 1000

The following extract from the CNN site is a record of Clinton's signals yesterday. The third paragraph was not I think said in the actual conference but looks as if it was part of an accompanying press briefing, which would be fit with a pattern of a mixture of public and more coded signals. >>>>>>>>>>> President Clinton on Thursday suspended immediately all U.S. "programs of military cooperation" with Indonesia and warned Jakarta that economic aid wo ...

Document Size:	11172
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Fri Sep 10 00:19:03 PDT 1999

617 South African CP on East TImor -- rank: 1000

At 12:06 09/09/99 -0400, you wrote: >Chris Burford wrote: > >>It should be noted that the logical position argued by Yoshie and Carrol on >>this list is that *as a matter of principle* it is foolhardy for any >>individuals to support this principled call by the SACP. >> >>Time they did some serious thinking. > >Some South Africans I know say the SACP is masterful at talking left >and acting right - of providing just the right quotation from Marx to &g ...

Document Size:	7277
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Thu Sep 9 13:09:52 PDT 1999

618 South African CP on East TImor -- rank: 1000

This is a serious marxist statement from an organisation that knows that capitalism is still very much in the ascendant in South Africa, but also knows that tens of thousands of lives may get sacrificed in the struggle for justice if bourgeois democratic rights are not respected and if fascists have a free hand. It is also an organisation that knows the need to appeal to international bodies, while understanding of course that international bodies are dominated by the representatives of - surpri ...

Document Size:	7921
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Thu Sep 9 00:09:06 PDT 1999

619 East Timor and Kosovo -- rank: 1000

At 05:34 08/09/99 -0400, Yoshie wrote: >The fundamental problem here (which W. Kiernan already pointed out to >Chris) is why some leftists have begun to think _as if_ they were >formulating foreign policies that they had the power to execute (when, as a >matter of fact, they are not in power at all). Such a habit of thinking >only belongs to the governing elite and their think-tank servants. Since >e-lists are media of sovereign individualism, I suppose anyone is free to > ...

Document Size:	7469
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Sep 8 15:58:48 PDT 1999

620 East Timor and Kosovo -- rank: 1000

At 10:02 08/09/99 +0100, you wrote: >Chris, what was your position on sanctions against South Africa? > >Peter Interesting question. I spent thousands of hours trying to promote them. And of course so did many others. But then what do we see now? Capitalists in power in south Africa, as much poverty as ever, but some of the capitalists are now black. The folly of attempting to be pip-squeaks! I did also think at the time there should be a Marshall aid programme for Africa to compensate ...

Document Size:	5107
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Sep 8 15:41:55 PDT 1999

621 East Timor and Kosovo -- rank: 1000

At 23:17 07/09/99 -0400, Yoshie wrote: >Those who have called for stopping all aids, I think, have been doing so >betting that such threats are enough to make the Indonesian military and >government change its policy, not wishing to actually 'smash the economy of >Indonesia.' I don't know if it's a wise bet, but it sure beats a call for >Western military intervention! In any case, what's the point of 'smashing >the economy of Indonesia'? What will it do for the East Timorese ...

Document Size:	9359
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Sep 8 00:22:28 PDT 1999

622 East Timor and Kosovo -- rank: 1000

At 14:43 07/09/99 -0400, Yoshie wrote: >The demand that the US cease military aid has been long advanced by those >who have been involved in the solidarity with the East Timorese. Here's a >message from one such person: > >> Subj: A Message from East Timor >> Date: 9/5/99 9:37:45 AM Eastern Daylight Time >> From: JohnM85747 >> >> John's Message from East Timor Good. Obviously progressive people in the UK also campaign against the UK arms sales to In ...

Document Size:	8232
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Sep 7 15:58:17 PDT 1999

623 PDS tail up (Neue Mitte in the doghouse) -- rank: 1000

At 16:16 07/09/99 +0200, Johannes wrote: >At the moment it seems the PDS does not want to enter a coalition with the >Schröder-SPD. Obviously a tactical move: They think they can gain more from >opposition. Interesting. I see Schroeder has just specifically refuted a claim that he had forbidden the Brandenburg SPD to enter into a coalition with the PDS. He is on record publically that he thinks Stolpe should have a free hand to decide which coalition partner to pursue, the PDS or the C ...

Document Size:	5417
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Sep 7 15:32:28 PDT 1999

624 East Timor and Kosovo -- rank: 1000

I appreciate Magellan's reply of 23:11 06/09/99 -0300, which is both thoughtful and concrete. Clearly such a carefully thought out position is the result of years of work which is collective and not just individual. This illustrates that the referendum in East Timor is not just something imposed by the imperialist powers as part of their busy global agenda of neo-liberalism and atomised human rights, but is the result of years of progressive campaigning which seized the opportunity of the upheav ...

Document Size:	15877
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Sep 7 00:16:05 PDT 1999

625 East Timor and Kosovo -- rank: 1000

Steve wrote clearly, >Why not start with a demand that the West, i.e. the US, immediately cease >all military aid to Indonesai right away. Were the US even willing to do >that much, we might see Indonesian generals finding ways to sway the >militias to cool it. > >Indonesia is far more economically and militarily dependent on the US >than Yugoslavia. So, yeah, there's a massacre going on in East Timor. >I'd say, stop all aid would be an appropriate start. Do you mean mi ...

Document Size:	8762
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Sep 6 14:51:49 PDT 1999

626 PDS tail up (Neue Mitte in the doghouse) -- rank: 1000

I am interested in the comments of Johannes. As far as I understand, much of the secret of German parliamentary politics is how the parties manoeuvre around each other after the election. I see the point that the failure of the FDP to pick up any protest votes (getting only 2.6% in Saarland and 1.9% in Brandenburg) must look ominous for its survival and could weaken the CDU in terms of future coalition partners. But if the Greens have also suffered in coalition with the SPD, and the left opposit ...

Document Size:	7711
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Sep 6 14:13:28 PDT 1999

627 East Timor and Kosovo -- rank: 1000

The wave of communal violence across the south east Asian archipelago in the last twelve months has been the direct result of the economic disasters wreaked on the area as a result of the world capitalist system with its unshakable US hegemony. Most members of this list are apparently unable to conceive any practical answer to US hegemony apart from total moral opposition, paralysed as they are by the dominance of US capital in their domestic political system. Nevertheless the parallels of East ...

Document Size:	12206
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Sep 6 00:20:41 PDT 1999

628 Sucking up water -- rank: 1000

In one part of Ethiopia children go down to the river bed to suck up water. Not to drink but to gather it in gourds to carry to their parents and store it for the day. They go early in the morning when the ground will be at its most moist. The rains have failed for the last two years, and there are a chain of puddles where the river should be. The local tribespeople are proud and resilient, according the the Christian Aid spokesperson on the BBC this morning. They are presumably using ages old t ...

Document Size:	6891
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Sep 5 15:07:44 PDT 1999

629 IMF blames Africa -- rank: 1000

>From the stop-imf newslist <stop-imf at essential.org> >IMF blames African nations for improper use of loans > >The Nation (Nairobi) August 31, 1999 By Samuel Nduati >The director for the African department in Washington, Mr. G.E Gondwe, said >debt relief was not a panacea to Africa's problems, adding >that on its own, it was unlikely to have the desired results. He said >although most African countries had received debt relief of some kind on a >regular basis ...

Document Size:	8556
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat Sep 4 11:27:43 PDT 1999

630 New approach to debt called for -- rank: 1000

Christian: >3. If you want those institutions reformed, it seems to me you got to begin >with the political cultures in the G-7--and especially the U. S. and Great >Britain. Until their political representatives feel themselves beholden to >something other than Anglo-American neoliberalism, nothing like IMF reform >is gonna happen. Chris: I think that is probably the unimaginative block in your thinking. You assume that because US politics is hegemonic nothing can happen that does ...

Document Size:	8057
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Fri Sep 3 15:59:43 PDT 1999