Volume 2, Number 12
7 November 2004
E-Mail Newsletter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party
1. Editorial
2. Sovereign Decision for Water in Uruguay
3. The Legacy of the October Revolution
4. Hidden History: The Black Watch
5. Global Unions Condemn Expulsion of International Trade Unionists
6. From the Newspapers
7. What's On
*******
EDITORIAL
http://www.morrigan.net/irsm/bush-timecover.jpg
*******
SOVEREIGN DECISION FOR WATER IN URUGUAY: MORE THAN 60% SAID YES
On a historic day in Uruguay, more than 60% of the Uruguayan people
supported the Constitutional Reform in Defense of Water, adding water
as a human right to the Constitution and setting the basis for its
exclusive public, participatory and sustainable management.
The National Commission in Defense of Water and Life (CNDAV) promoted
this referendum. The commission was created in 2002 as an answer to
the signing of a Letter of Intent between the Uruguayan government and
the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which committed to extend the
privatization of potable water and sanitation services to the entire
country.
Privatizations started in Maldonado department, firstly with the
presence of French multinational company Suez Lyonnese Des Aux
followed by Spanish company Aguas de Bilbao.
As in most of water privatizations performed last year, these
processes have had negative consequences.
From the social point of view, wide sectors were prevented access to
potable water for not being able to afford the cost of the service,
which considerably decreased its quality in comparison to the services
provided by water state company OSE.
The conditions of the service were of such low quality that quality
control bodies in that matter recommended not to consume water because
it didn’t comply with minimum quality standards.
From an economic point of view, the "business" was really bad for the
Uruguayan state. Not only did the companies failed to comply with the
provisions of the contracts, but also they didn’t make the agreed
payments either. They filed for contractual reconsiderations with the
state, which assumed the losses caused in each of the cases.
From an environmental point of view, Aguas de la Costa company
(subsidiary of Suez) was responsible for draining Blanca Lagoon, which
used to be a source of potable water. Precisely for this cause,
neighbors of Maldonado department filed a lawsuit against the company
for environmental damages.
Water against everything
The victory of the water plebiscite was actually a social one. CNDAV
is a wide group of social and political organizations, which oppose
the commoditization of water.
Among their founders are community organizations, FFOSE (state water
company's trade union) and REDES-FOE (Friends of the Earth Uruguay).
After its foundation, the commission became greater, including the
majority left wing political party (Frente Amplio, winner of October
31st elections) and one nationalist party’s sectors.
The companies carrying out privatization—of water and other
sectors such as bottling companies along with conservative business
sectors (including large estate owners) carried out a strong political
and media campaign against the reform.
During the nine months previous to the campaign, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) started a public debate with the CNDAV, denying
any policy imposition on the Uruguayan government and refusing
responsibility for the content of the 2002 Letter of Intent.
The work, which enabled the triumph of the Constitutional Reform, was
based on the grassroots, which transmitted the spirit and content of
the proposed articles.
The auspicious result of the plebiscite opens the doors for a water
policy designed from a perspective viewing this resource as a common
good, to be publicly managed for social participation and
sustainability criteria.
http://www.realworldradio.fm/
For more information
CNDAV
aguayvida@adinet.com.uy
FFOSE
http://www.ffose.com.uy/
ffose@adinet.com.uy
REDES:
http://www.redes.org.uy/
agua@redes.org.uy
*******
THE LEGACY OF THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION
By Liam O'Ruairc
Readers of the Irish News, a nationalist daily paper in the North of
Ireland, have recently (3 November) debated the legacy of the October
Revolution. This is not just a historical question. This author has
already argued that far from making the world a better place, the end
of really existing socialism has represented a disaster of massive
proportions and a gigantic social regression. A brief glance at some
facts and figures included in the UN Report on Human Development will
irrefutably prove that all indicators of social developments have
dramatically regressed since the end of communism.
Today, Russia's GDP remains almost 30 percent below what it was in
1990. At 4 percent growth per annum, it will take Russia's economy
another decade to get back where it was when communism collapsed. By
the late 1990s, national income in the ex-USSR had fallen by more than
50 percent (compare that with the 27 percent drop in output during the
great American depression), investment by 80 percent, real wages by 50
percent, and dairy herds by 75 percent. Indeed, the degradation of
agriculture is in some respects worse even than during Stalin's
collectivisation of the countryside during the 1930s. The numbers
living below the poverty line in the former Soviet republics has risen
from 14m in 1989 (2 percent of population) to 147m in 1998 (over 40
percent of the population), even before that year's financial crash.
The market experiment has produced more orphans than Russia's 20
million plus war time casualties, while epidemics of cholera and
typhus (eradicated under Stalin) have re-emerged, millions of children
suffer from malnutrition and adult life expectancy has dramatically
plunged. To this must also be added an explosion of crime, ethnic
violence and unemployment.
The debate on the legacy of the October Revolution is not just
historical, because it is used to argue that socialism doesn't work
and is impossible.
Let's examine the countries that are still Socialist in 2004: China,
Cuba and Vietnam. Far from 'not working' Socialism has brought
tremendous improvements in the lives of people. Compare on the basis
of the 2003 UN report socialist China and capitalist India for
example. In India, more than
200 million people suffer from hunger and more than 400 million have
to live on less than one dollar a day. If India provided the same
health care as
China, every year 1.5 million children could be saved. Proportional to
population, China spends three times as much as India on health care.
India has an illiteracy rate of 35 per cent compared to China's rate
of 16 percent. The average Chinese can expect to live until 71, the
average Indian 64. India's infant mortality rate is twice that of
China. The London Guardian recently carried (27 May 2004) an
extraordinary article entitled: "Chinese Lesson in How to Put Food in
the Mouths of Millions: World Applause for Beijing's Record
Achievement in Creating and Spreading Wealth". Since 1978, Socialist
China has accounted for three quarters of all the people in the world
lifted out of abject poverty. According to the World Bank, the number
of Chinese people subsisting on a dollar or less a day (the World
Bank's definition of poverty) has dropped from 49 percent of the
population (490 million in 1981) to 6.9 percent (88 million in 2002).
Average life expectancy has increased from 35 years in 1949 to 71.4
years today. From 1978 to today, the country's GDP has increased more
than eightfold (from 362.4 billion dollars to 11.9 trillion dollars)
and it is expected to double again in the next ten years. For more
information, visit the following UN link:
In Cuba, there is one medical doctor for 170 people. In the rest of
Latin America, the proportion is of one doctor for 613 people. Cuba
spends per inhabitant twice as much on health care and education than
the rest of Latin America. In those countries, the ten percent richest
people earn 46 times what the poorest ten percent earn. In Cuba, the
proportion is five times. A quarter of Latin Americans have to survive
on 2 dollars a day or less. In Cuba, less than two percent do.
Vietnam is one of the world's poorest countries, which half a century
ago was still in the middle of colonialism and feudalism. It had to go
through 40 years of wars and massive destructions. The US army, in its
own words, bombed the country "back to the stone age". However, in 25
years of socialist construction, it was able to achieve more than many
countries in terms of social and economic development. The World Bank
begins its report on poverty in Vietnam by stating that "the
achievements of Vietnam in terms of diminishing poverty are one of the
greatest success in the history of economic development". (Vietnam
Development Report 2004
to 1999, the number of medical doctors has increased 700 times (from
51 to 37,100). Today, Vietnamese people have a life expectancy of over
68 years against 38 in 1945. Infant mortality is 42 for 1000 births
(against 135/1000 in neighbouring capitalist Cambodia for example).
The world average of infant mortality is of 83.2.
Economic growth over the last few years averaged 7 percent, and the
country aims to become an industrialized nation by 2020! (Do not
forget that a country like Belgium, for example, took about two
hundred years to evolve from an agricultural to industrial economy.)
According to the 2003 UN Report on Human Development, in 2001 Vietnam
has a net level of secondary school attendance of 62 percent and an
adult literacy rate of 92.7 percent. There were 52 doctors for each
100,000 inhabitants and 99 percent of one year children were
completely vaccinated against tuberculosis. Compare this with
Indonesia, a far richer 'New Industrialised Country': net secondary
school attendance is 48 percent, adult literacy rate is 87.3 percent;
the ration of doctors is 16 to 100,000 and the percentage of children
vaccinated against tuberculosis is 65 percent. That Vietnam, a
country so poor in natural resources, so over populated and destroyed
by decades of wars of aggression, can offer its population services
superior to those of Indonesia testifies to the enormous liberating
potential of Socialism. That's why at the end of 2004 (15 years after
the collapse of the Berlin wall), you still have protracted people's
wars for national liberation and socialism going on in Nepal, Peru,
the Philippines, India, Turkey, Colombia, and the Congo.
*******
HIDDEN HISTORY: THE BLACK WATCH
The Black Watch were formed on the understanding that they would
solely be used to police Scotland, that they would never have to leave
their native land and fight an English war.
The infringement of that understanding was to lead to a mutiny in
1743. King George had allegedly summoned the Scottish regiment to
London to be honoured. However, when they arrived there, they
discovered that he was conveniently absent and they were reviewed
instead by General Wade on the 14th May. It transpired that the real
reason for their summoning south was deployment in Flanders. They had
been tricked. The regiment held an unofficial meeting on Finchley
Green on the 17th. Some one hundred and fifty plus, knowing full well
the consequences, opted to leave for Scotland that very night. Almost
needless to say, this was a rebellion not lead by the commissioned
officers, but by NCOs and privates, most notably by brothers
Sammy and Malky MacPherson, both corporals, who were among the leaders
subsequently executed.
Marching at night, and staying clear of the main roads, they got as
far as Northhamptonshire before the inevitable capture. Despite the
alarm and scaremongering spread throughout the population by
government agents, none of the violence or pillaging by the 'mad
highlanders' manifested itself, so that by the time of their capture
they had in fact gained a great deal of sympathy from the ordinary
English person.
Those not shot were forcibly drafted into various overseas regiments,
few seeing Scotland again. This was not an isolated mutiny. At least
sixteen Scottish regiments mutinied because they felt cheated by
Hanoverian governments. The civilian population too spoke out, the
men, women and children slaughtered by government dragoons in the
Tranent Massacre was merely the most infamous example and also by no
means an isolated incident.
Given the recent deployment of the Black Watch to bolster Blair's pal
Bush's chances in the presidential election, what has changed?
1. "Scotland's Story" (p. 238) Steel
2. "Chambers' Book of Days" (May 18th)
3. "Highland Regiments in Revolt, 1743-1804" Prebble
Published by 'Scotland the Truth', for the 'Cawin Thigither' group.
*******
GLOBAL UNIONS CONDEMN EXPULSION OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNIONISTS
Global Unions condemn expulsion of international trade unionists
Brussels 2 November 2004 (ICFTU Online): The international trade union
movement today expressed its outrage at the expulsion of four
international union representatives from Colombia on 30 October and 1
November, on the order of the government of President Alvaro Uribe
Velez. It is understood that the Uribe government has drawn up a list
of trade union representatives banned from entering the country, and
that this list includes persons who took part in an international
solidarity mission* to Colombia in September, to press the Uribe
government to bring an end to the killing of Colombian trade unionists
and the other means of anti-union repression which are rife in the
country. Colombia has had a notorious record of violence and
discrimination against trade unionists over many years, with more than
50 trade unionists murdered already this year.
The four, Victor Baez Mosqueira, General Secretary of the ICFTU
regional organisation for the Americas ICFTU-ORIT, Antonio Rodriguez
Fritz (International Transport Workers' Federation), Rodolfo Benitez
(Union Network International) and Cameron Duncan (Public Services
International), were due to attend an Americas region trade union
coordination meeting. Immigration officials detained them on arrival
in the country and expelled them, in contradiction to Colombia's
normal visa entry requirements. Three of them had taken part in a
meeting with President Uribe during the September solidarity mission,
where the President assured the delegation of his government's full
commitment to trade union rights, and thanked them for their interest
in the situation inside the country.
In another development, union leaders from Great Britain, Ireland and
Spain who had arrived in Colombia to attend a meeting of women trade
unionists had their 60-day visas cancelled and were permitted to stay
only three days in the country.
The ICFTU and its Global Unions partners are writing to formally
protest to President Uribe at his government's actions, which
constitute a "totally unacceptable attempt to deny Colombian workers
their legitimate right to international representation", according to
ICFTU General Secretary Guy Ryder, who added "the Colombian government
has a responsibility to protect trade unionists from violence and
intimidation and to ensure that fundamental rights, enshrined in
International Labour Organisation Conventions, are fully respected.
This action by the government is entirely in the wrong direction, and
we call upon President Uribe to restore the right of entry to all
those affected, and to face up to its obligations under international
law".
The expulsion of the trade union leaders will also be brought formally
to the International Labour Organisation, which is this week examining
a number of complaints from the trade union movement over violations
of freedom of association in the country.
Global Unions' member organisations in countries around the world will
also be raising the case with their national governments, and with
intergovernmental and regional bodies including the European Union.
Meetings with the Colombian Ambassadors in Brussels, Geneva and other
cities are also being sought.
From: "ICFTU Press"
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 15:44:31 +0100
*******
FROM THE NEWSPAPERS
Monday 1st November 2004
More then 32,000 children in Northern Ireland are living in poverty.
Research by Queen's University academics has found that eight per cent
of Ulster's children do not have the basic necessities of life -- such
as enough food.
The study out for charity Save the Children also found that one in
five children do not have fresh fruit and vegetables and one in seven
children do not have three meals a day.
"These children do not have enough clothing or a warm, safe and
healthy environment," said research consultant Marina Monteith.
"Forty per cent live in households where the gas, electricity or phone
have been cut off. They also lack the things so many of us take for
granted, such as school trips, holidays, going to the cinema and
participating in sports and social activities. In addition, their
families live with the constant anxiety of unaffordable debt."
The research shows that:
* 70 per cent of children living in severe poverty are most likely to
live in a household where no one works
* More than half live with a lone parent
* 27 per cent have parents with health problems or disabilities and
14 per cent of the children are disabled themselves
* 24 per cent live in large families with more than four children
* More than a quarter of children who are severely poor live in
households where the parents believe that they live in poverty either
often or most of the time -- a figure slightly higher than that found
for comparable children living in Great Britain.
Sheri Chamberlain of Save the Children said: "It is extremely worrying
that eight per cent of children in Northern Ireland are deprived of
things such as proper food, clothing and housing.
"Many of them miss out on the normal childhood activities like sport
and even something as basic as having a friend round for tea.
"It is essential that we take action on this and create policy
initiatives to tackle severe child poverty and support children
currently living in these unacceptable circumstances."
Save the Children fights for children in the UK and around the world
who suffer from poverty, disease, injustice and violence.
(Belfast News Letter, By Gemma Murray)
*
As a follow up to last week’s article on the corporate interests
behind the US government, The Plough reproduces an edited version of
an article by Roy Hattersely which appeared in The Guardian (1
November 2004) entitled "A Weakness for Wealth and Power: Blair has
let corporate lobbyists dictate policy to his government":
A loyal minister assured me that Tony Blair contemplates the creation
of giant casinos with a high-minded distaste. But representatives of
the US gaming industry ... have convinced him that roulette, blackjack
and slot machines will be a powerful ally in his campaign to
reinvigorate the inner cities. The lobbyists were, the Blairite added
by way of mitigation, "at him for weeks". The day after I was assured
that the prime minister was no worse than weak-minded, the Guardian
revealed the outcome of a breakfast meeting with the "multinational
chairmen's group". Directors of British American Tobacco convinced him
that a proposed public inquiry into allegations that BAT condoned
smuggling should be replaced by an investigation, which, since its
conclusions could not be made public, would be (indeed was) forgotten.
It was not the first time that Tony Blair had shown sympathy for
tobacco interests. After a meeting with Bernie Ecclestone, formula one
was granted temporary relief from rules that prohibited cigarette
advertising. But nicotine has not been granted favours that other
commodities were denied. Another minister -- far removed from the
casino apologist -- told me that British Aerospace board members were
in Downing Street so often, he suspected that they had a key to the
garden gate. It seems that the prime minister is susceptible to
lobbying. But there are no allegations of secret meetings with
pensioner groups, clandestine conversations with representatives of
asylum seekers or furtive trysts with homeless organisations. The
prime minister only gives audiences to the rich and powerful. No doubt
he will argue that he helps everyone who can move the economy forward.
But the lobbying of government -- from Downing Street downwards -- has
grown to levels that raise fundamental questions about standards in
public life.
The prime minister's personal financial integrity is beyond question.
The corruption is intellectual. It is based on the belief that what is
right for industry must be right for the country. Complemented by the
fatuous notion that businessmen always know where their companies'
best interests lie, his faith in private enterprise makes him a sucker
for every executive with a Harvard Business School diploma and a big
bank balance. He ought to know better. Two early advisers were the
fallen leaders of BA and GEC. Directors are usually more accomplished
at the art of protecting their own incomes than at the science of
pursuing their country's economic interests, but wealth impresses Tony
Blair.
That view is reflected in the relaxation of rules that once required a
decent period to elapse between a civil servant passing out of
Whitehall and into the employment of a company that his or her
department had once "sponsored". The willingness to blur the
boundaries of propriety is a characteristic of many of the most
enthusiastic "reformers" who rallied to New Labour 10 years ago.
Proponents of "the project" who have taken up the dubious business of
lobbying and euphemistically entitled public affairs are doing no more
than reflecting the ethos the prime minister encouraged. A prime
minister who condones that behaviour or who does not realise it is
happening diminishes himself and his government. The same is true of a
prime minister who -- even in the noble interests of inner-city
regeneration -- succumbs to the blandishments of lobbyists from
Atlantic City and Las Vegas. Perhaps it is true that Tony Blair is
guilty of nothing worse than gullibility and exploitation. But naivety
is a strange defence for his supporters to advance. And the
consequences of whatever makes him behave like this are even stranger
policies for a Labour leader to advance.
*
The Plough would like to draw the attention to this interesting
article. It is significant, as it has been written by a senior UN
weapons inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. Note that Republican
Socialists are not part of those moral cowards.
London Guardian
1 November 2004
The war on Iraq has made moral cowards of us all
By Scott Ritter
More than 100,000 Iraqis have died - and where is our shame and rage?
The full scale of the human cost already paid for the war on Iraq is
only now becoming clear. Last week's estimate by investigators, using
credible methodology, that more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians -- most
of them women and children -- have died since the US-led invasion is a
profound moral indictment of our countries. The US and British
governments quickly moved to cast doubt on the Lancet medical journal
findings, citing other studies.
These mainly media-based reports put the number of Iraqi civilian
deaths at about 15,000 -- although the basis for such an endorsement
is unclear, since neither the US nor the UK admits to collecting data
on Iraqi civilian casualties.
Civilian deaths have always been a tragic reality of modern war. But
the conflict in Iraq was supposed to be different -- US and British
forces were dispatched to liberate the Iraqi people, not impose their
own tyranny of violence.
Reading accounts of the US-led invasion, one is struck by the
constant, almost casual, reference to civilian deaths. Soldiers and
marines speak of destroying hundreds, if not thousands, of vehicles
that turned out to be crammed with civilians. US marines acknowledged
in the aftermath of the early, bloody battle for Nassiriya that their
artillery and air power had pounded civilian areas in a blind effort
to suppress insurgents thought to be holed up in the city. The
infamous "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad produced hundreds of
deaths, as did the 3rd Infantry Division's "Thunder Run", an armoured
thrust in Baghdad that slaughtered everyone in its path.
It is true that, with only a few exceptions, civilians who died as a
result of ground combat were not deliberately targeted, but were
caught up in the machinery of modern warfare. But when the same claim
is made about civilians killed in aerial attacks (the Lancet study
estimates that most of civilian deaths were the result of air
attacks), the comparison quickly falls apart. Helicopter engagements
apart, most aerial bombardment is deliberate and pre-planned. US and
British military officials like to brag about the accuracy of the
"precision" munitions used in these strikes, claiming this makes the
kind of modern warfare practised by the coalition in Iraq the most
humanitarian in history.
But there is nothing humanitarian about explosives once they detonate
near civilians, or about a bomb guided to the wrong target. Dozens of
civilians were killed during the vain effort to eliminate Saddam
Hussein with "pinpoint" air strikes, and hundreds have perished in the
campaign to eliminate alleged terrorist targets in Falluja. A "smart
bomb" is only as good as the data used to direct it. And the abysmal
quality of the intelligence used has made the smartest of bombs just
as dumb and indiscriminate as those, for example, dropped during the
Second World War. The fact that most bombing missions in Iraq today
are pre-planned, with targets allegedly carefully vetted, further
indicts those who wage this war in the name of freedom. If these
targets are so precise, then those selecting them cannot escape the
fact that they are deliberately targeting innocent civilians at the
same time as they seek to destroy their intended foe. Some would
dismiss these civilians as "collateral damage". But we must keep in
mind that the British and US governments made a deliberate decision to
enter into a conflict of their choosing, not one that was thrust upon
them. We invaded Iraq to free Iraqis from a dictator who, by some
accounts, oversaw the killing of about 300,000 of his subjects --
although no one has been able to verify more than a small fraction of
the figure. If it is correct, it took Saddam decades to reach such a
horrific statistic. The UK and US have, it seems, reached a third of
that total in just 18 months.
Meanwhile, the latest scandal over missing nuclear-related high
explosives in Iraq (traced and controlled under the UN inspections
regime) only underscores the utter deceitfulness of the Bush-Blair
argument for the war.
Having claimed the uncertainty surrounding Iraq's WMD capability
constituted a threat that could not go unchallenged in a post-9/11
world, one would have expected the two leaders to insist on a military
course of action that brought under immediate coalition control any
aspect of potential WMD capability, especially relating to any
possible nuclear threat. That the US military did not have a dedicated
force to locate and neutralise these explosives underscores the fact
that both Bush and Blair knew that there was no threat from Iraq,
nuclear or otherwise. Of course, the US and Britain have a history of
turning a blind eye to Iraqi suffering when it suits their political
purposes. During the 1990s, hundreds of thousands are estimated by the
UN to have died as a result of sanctions.
Throughout that time, the US and the UK maintained the fiction that
this was the fault of Saddam Hussein, who refused to give up his WMD.
We now know that Saddam had disarmed and those deaths were the
responsibility of the US and Britain, which refused to lift
sanctions.
There are many culpable individuals and organisations history will
hold to account for the war -- from deceitful politicians and
journalists to acquiescent military professionals and silent citizens
of the world's democracies. As the evidence has piled up confirming
what I and others had reported -- that Iraq was already disarmed by
the late 1990s -- my personal vote for one of the most culpable
individuals would go to Hans Blix, who headed the UN weapons
inspection team in the run-up to war. He had the power if not to
prevent, at least to forestall a war with Iraq. Blix knew that Iraq
was disarmed, but in his mealy-mouthed testimony to the UN Security
Council helped provide fodder for war. His failure to stand up to the
lies used by Bush and Blair to sell the Iraq war must brand him a
moral and intellectual coward.
But we all are moral cowards when it comes to Iraq. Our collective
inability to summon the requisite shame and rage when confronted by an
estimate of 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians in the prosecution of an
illegal and unjust war not only condemns us, but also adds credibility
to those who oppose us. The fact that a criminal such as Osama bin
Laden can broadcast a videotape on the eve of the US presidential
election in which his message is viewed by many around the world as a
sober argument in support of his cause is the harshest indictment of
the failure of the US and Britain to implement sound policy in the
aftermath of 9/11. The death of 3,000 civilians on that horrible day
represented a tragedy of huge proportions. Our continued indifference
to a war that has slaughtered so many Iraqi civilians, and will
continue to kill more, is in many ways an even greater tragedy: not
only in terms of scale, but also because these deaths were inflicted
by our own hand in the course of an action that has no defence.
· Scott Ritter was a senior UN weapons inspector in Iraq between
1991 and 1998 and is the author of "Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass
Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America"
WSRitter@aol.com
*******
WHAT'S ON
*
9th of November, 7.30pm
Ireland
Dublin
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) will hold a concert
on Tuesday November 9th- International Day against the Apartheid Wall
-- featuring artists from both Ireland and the USA. Guest musicians
and singers from Ireland include Kíla and Andy Irvine,
Róisín Elsafty and the Dublin band Herm. David Rovics, the
well-known international protest and alternative singer from the USA
that has dedicated one of his latest CDs to the struggle against the
Wall will play the first of his Irish gigs on this night.
Date: 9th of November, 7.30pm
Place: The Sugar Club on Leeson Street
Contact: supportpalestine@ireland.com
*
13th November: IRSP Ard-Fheis. For full members and specially invited
guests only.
*
10 December 2004
Women's Rights are Human Rights – summit conference
Women into Politics will mark International Human Rights Day with a
conference on Globalisation and the challenges for Women's
participation and leadership. This conference entitled Women's
Participation and Leadership in Global Processes is a summit following
a series of workshops on globalisation and its impact on women's lives
-- locally and globally. The day is dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi, the
Burmese pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize Winner.
The summit will address themes that increasingly define our world and
that pose enormous challenges to women, women's movements and
feminists worldwide. The conference takes place on 10 December 2004
in Grosvenor House, Glengall Street, Belfast, from 9.00am to 4.00pm
and will analyse the diverse forms of globalisation in local,
regional, and global arenas and its impact on communities and on every
woman’s right to participate at all levels of society and will
also explore ways of showing global solidarity.
There are limited places left so please contact Carola Speth on tel:
028 9024 3363 or email: dialogue@womenintopolitics.org to register.
*******
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central place to go on the Internet to find good quality items with a
distinct Republican Socialist theme. Proceeds from sales from this
effort go towards the IRSM and its various projects.
http://www.angelfire.com/folk/irishshop/
Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees - A new 2004 full colour glossy
calendar is available now on the RSM online shop. It celebrates the
brilliant work undertaken by the Teach Na Failte Memorial Committees
this past year throughout the six counties with full colour
photographs on each page. This calendar can be viewed online by
clicking the link below.
http://www.cafeshops.com/rsmshop.8844526
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Support the IRSP
Standing Order Form
To the Manager First Trust Bank, Andersonstown.
Please pay First Trust Bank Andersonstown Branch, Belfast, and credit
to Irish Republican Socialist Party, A/C Number 70490021, Branch Code
93-84-75
The sum of:
Amount in words:
Commencing date: and thereafter every month till further notice.
And debiting A/C number:
Name (Please print clearly):
Date:
Address:
Signature:
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