Global Peace And Justice Auckland Newsletter #89, April 28, 2005

Website http://www.gpja.pl.net/

Dear friends,

We are calling on supporters to join us on May Day this Sunday. The traditional May Day march to commemorate international workers day is also a march against the current wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and a protest against police attacks on the peaceful antiwar protest March 19 which resulted in a number of arrests.

At GPA's monthly forum this Monday we have a special screening of the fascinating documentary "Control Room" about the Arabic news service "Al Jazeera". It has been a smash hit internationally (see "What's On" below.)

We still have plenty of posters to put up as last minute advertising TONIGHT (Thursday). Come to the Unite Office at 6pm, 6a Western Springs Rd, Morningside.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Each of the Iraqi children killed by the United States was our child. Each of the prisoners tortured in Abu Ghraib was our comrade. Each of their screams was ours. When they were humiliated, we were humiliated. The U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq - mostly volunteers in a poverty draft from small towns and poor urban neighborhoods - are victims just as much as the Iraqis of the same horrendous process, which asks them to die for a victory that will never be theirs: Source: Arundhati Roy, "Tide? Or Ivory Snow? Public Power in the Age of Empire," http://www.democracynow.org/static/Arundhati_Trans.shtml

ANNOUNCEMENTS

ANTI-APARTHEID MOVEMENT PROJECT –

Activists from the Australian or New Zealand anti-apartheid movements are invited to contact Peter Limb (<>) about a new history of the international anti-apartheid movement to be published in South Africa. He will be visiting Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide (and New Zealand) in October-November 2005 to interview anti-apartheid/liberation movement activists and others from the 1960s-‘90s across a wide range of organisations. The aim is to record the views and memories of those involved in the struggle for liberation in South Africa and neighbouring countries and to present this story for the benefit of South African readers. The project is an initiative of the South African Democracy and Education Trust, which has recently published the first volume of The Road to Democracy in South Africa series of books to record ``the history and voices of the individuals and organisations that laid the foundation for a new South Africa’‘.

It is with great sadness that I announce the PASSING OF JIM COAD - our good friend and colleague. Jim was the driving force behind the Wellington branch of the NZ-Cuba Friendship Society. He has long supported other community and progressive movements, including being an active member of the anti-Vietnam war movement in London. He came out to NZ in the 1970s as an engineer on the big hydroelectric developments in Tongariro and elsewhere. Jim had been battling against cancer for the last 12 months. However, even under the toughest of circumstances he approached everything with good humour and strong spirits – and never losing the ability to make others around him smile. Not being one to make a fuss, and ever the revolutionary spirit, Jim didn't want a funeral or any formal services. – Andrew Mercer

DICK

(Destructive Industries Connected to Killing) NZ Awards 2005 - just as you're recovering from the excitement of the Roger Award winner(s) announcement, the nominations for the 2005 DICK NZ Awards open. In preparation for the call for nominations, you can start collecting clippings from your local paper about your local weapons and/or military producing company, and quotes from government politicians for the Special 'Guided Missiles and Misguided Men' Awards. Organised by No WARP! (Network Opposed to Weapons and Related Production), for more information contact email pma@xtra.co.nz

Friday, 22 to Monday, 24 October - advance early warning of the 2005 NATIONAL PEACE WORKSHOPS which will be held in Auckland over Labour weekend. Preliminary planning is well underway, and more details will be available in late May. For more information contact Peace Movement Aotearoa, tel (04) 382 8129 or email pma@xtra.co.nz

New campaign - 'EVERY CHILD COUNTS'

a non-party political campaign with a simple message: "Children and families must be central to policy if New Zealand is to thrive socially and economically. Placing children and families as the centre of policy will lead to fewer children growing up in poverty, fewer children growing up experiencing violence, more children getting a good start to life, and public policy being more child and family centred." This project is being led by Barnardos, UNICEF New Zealand, Save the Children, Plunket Society and the Institute of Public Policy, Auckland University of Technology. To sign up as a supporter, or for more information, check out the web site at http://www.everychildcounts.org.nz or contact tel (04) 385 7560, email everychildcounts@barnardos.org.nz

New petition - PETITION TO KEEP MOTHERS AND BABIES TOGETHER,

requesting "the Minister of Health to provide all mothers of premature and sick babies in neonatal intensive care units with rooming-in provisions with their babies for as much of their infants' stay as they choose ... Currently, once mothers of premature babies are discharged from hospital care they become visitors to their babies and no further services by the hospital are provided to them." A print off copy of the petition is online at http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/numb05.doc or from email numb@numb.net.nz

WHAT’S ON IN AUCKLAND

Thursday, April 28, 6pm, Unite Office, 6a Western Springs Rd, Morningside Final Pasteup of posters or MAYDAY

Sunday, May 1, 10am, Trades Hall, 147 Great North Rd, Grey Lynn MAY DAY BUS TOUR –

The massive crowd that had gathered outside an Auckland newspaper office reportedly chanted "Off with his head!" as Tory MP after Tory MP lost seats in the tumultuous 1935 General Election. That elated night of working people's hopes and triumph will be relived on May Day, May 1, this year. "Sites of Struggle", a May Day bus tour of Auckland, will be leaving the Auckland Trades Hall, 147 Great North Rd, at 10am on May Day, Sunday May 1. It will travel to the Onehunga cemetery where a labour martyr lies buried, then to the site of the old Westfield Freezing Works where a workers' occupation took place in 1937, on to the Taj Mahal-like mausoleum of New Zealand's first Labour Prime Minister and the nearby site of a Trades Council green ban in support of a Ngati Whatua land protest, and then back into the city to see city council memorials to prominent Auckland communists. But the highlight will be in Shortland Street.

Here 87-year-old Jim Edwards, son of a fabled leader of the unemployed, will describe his experience as a teenager standing outside the old Auckland Star building on the night of November 27, 1935. He was with an enormous crowd gathered to watch the unfolding results of the 1935 election posted up on huge lit billboards. That election seventy years ago, after the bleakest of depressions, led to New Zealand's first Labour government and the creation of a welfare state. The Sites of Struggle bus will be back in time for the annual May Day rally and march at 12.00. Sites of Struggle Leaves Trades Hall, 147 Great North Rd, Sunday May 1, 10.00am. $10. Information ring Dean Parker 09-378-6103

Sunday, May 1, 12 noon, Downtown, Queen St, City MAY DAY RALLY AND MARCH. GPJA is supporting the rally and march this May Day. GPJA will be highlighting the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and call for all foreign troops (including NZ forces in Afghanistan) to be withdrawn immediately. We will also be asserting our democratic right to protest in this country after police attacked the March 19 protest in Auckland and arrested some of our supporters there and at the later court appearance.

Monday, May 2, 7.30pm, Trades Hall, 147 new North Rd, Grey Lynn GPJA Forum: Special Screening of "Al Jazeera" –

A documentary of the independent Arab news service whose facilities and journalists have been targeted by US occupation forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan."A documentary about the most-watched Arab news station al-Jazeera has broken box office records in its first week's showing in New York. BBC Report: "The film, Control Room, shows how al-Jazeera's journalists covered the Iraq war. Its success indicates the interest some Americans have in finding out more about a TV station that has been heavily criticised by the Bush administration. To many in the US, like Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, it is a fount of anti-American propaganda and even a mouthpiece for Osama Bin Laden.

The controversy over its role has made the release in America of a documentary about al-Jazeera an event. In its opening weekend at the prestigious Film Forum Cinema in New York, every performance was sold out. Film-maker Jehane Nougaim followed al-Jazeera during the war. The influential political and cultural website, Salon.com, is predicting that Control Room will be the summer smash hit documentary. The film, directed by the Arab-American documentary maker Jehane Nougaim, depicts al-Jazeera as a serious, professional organisation that just happens to approach the news from a different perspective to American networks."

Monday, May 2, 7.30pm, New Lynn Community Centre, Totara Ave, New Lynn. Parking at rear Public meeting on Peak Oil & Climate Change. Jeanette Fitzsimons, Green Party, Co-Leader Presents:"Peak Oil & Climate Change: How will Auckland cope?" For further info contact: Lindis capper-Starr 376-4143, greenmps.auckland@greens.org.nz or visit www.greens.org.nz/events

Saturday, May 7, University of Auckland, Engineering School, Lecture theatre 1.401 on Symonds Street Attention teachers and high school students. The Auckland branch of the United Nations Youth Association of New Zealand (UNYANZ) will be running a model United Nations Assembly for high school students on the 7th of May. The Model UN provides young people an opportunity to research, relate to, and represent a member country of the United Nations General Assembly. It will also encourage students to engage in active negotiation and alliance-formation. Mostly, the MUN is an enjoyable and fun event which allows young people to become familiar with issues of international concern. The fee for the day (which includes lunch and afternoon tea) is $17.50 for UNYANZ members and $27.50 for non-members (includes year long membership to UNYANZ). For more information and registration forms see the MUN page on the UNYANZ website or email aucklandmun@unyanz.co.nz http://www.unyanz.co.nz/Regions/Auckland/AucklandRegionalEvents/AucklandRegi onalMUN2005/tabid/188/Default.aspx

Saturday, 7 May, 2pm to 3pm, Aotea Square, Queen Street Rally for Justice and Peace in Palestine based on the end to Israeli occupation, right of return to Palestinian refugees, sharing Jerusalem, and no Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine,. For more information contact David Wakim tel (09) 520 0201 or email wakim.fam@xtra.co.nz

Tuesday, May 10 to Saturday May 14, 8pm, Heritage Auckland, 35 Hobson St, Central City HERITAGE 101 - A CONTRIBUTION TO THE DISCUSSION ON NATIONHOOD. WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY MICHELE A’COURT

Book at Ticketek: (09) 307 5000. Free Admission to Anyone Born in 1961. Award-winning comedian, Michele A'Court, presents a one-hour comedic lecture about what it means to be a New Zealander, who belongs here, and how we define ourselves. "[There is a] dangerous drift towards racial separatism in NZ…The principles of the Treaty are the thin end of a wedge leading to a racially divided state…" -

Don Brash, Speech to the Orewa Rotary Club, 27.1.04 "Maori are unique [in relation to] the other people who have come to this land, in that unlike them, we have no other country that we can claim as our homeland." - Tariana Turia, in a letter to M. A'Court, 2.11.04 New Zealand's official baby boom year was 1961. These "Sixty-Oners" have been the subject of considerable research – who they are, their achievements, their expectations, and their needs.

As it happens, Michele A'Court was born in 1961. The past 12 months have seen the beginning of a discussion on Kiwi nationhood – who has the right to be called "indigenous", whether government policy is based on need or race, who should own our beaches, and whether race matters. As it happens, Michele A'Court is Pakeha. Her daughter is Maori. Through stories, pictures and comedy, "Heritage 101" paints a picture of what it is like to be a Kiwi Baby-Boomer, what "home" means, what makes us different from the rest of the world – and each other – and what makes us the same.

There will be hand-outs, slides, prizes, awards, and an opportunity for Q&A. Feel free to take notes. Book early and often – three shows only in Wellington, and a tiny venue in Auckland. Michele is giving a free ticket to anyone, like her, born in 1961. Just bring a Driver’s Licence or passport. Potential free guests include: Peter Jackson, Ahmed Zaoui, George Clooney, kd lang, Meg Ryan, Eddie Murphy and Fabio. And some of them have already booked. For further information, contact Michele on: a.court@xtra.co.nz 027 296 5370

Thursday, May 12-19, Academy Cinema, City HUMAN RIGHTS FILM FESTIVAL:

Our exciting programme includes the 2005 Academy Award winning documentary, Born into Brothels, the radical, entertaining Resistencia – Hip Hop in Colombia, and some of the finest documentaries currently touring the globe. Further highlights include high profile British director Ken Loach’s dramatic feature, Bread and Roses starring Adrien Brody (currently in New Zealand filming King Kong); and the controversial study of the September 11 hijackers, Hamburg Cell, produced by New Zealander Finola Dwyer. The full programme for each centre will be released soon.

If you register on our website, we’ll email you an electronic version of the programme as soon as it’s available. Go to www.humanrightsfilmfest.net.nz and click on ‘keep me in the loop.’ Tickets will go on sale in a few weeks time.

BEST ON THE WEB

NZ WAR INDUSTRY

Peace Action Wellington: War mongers at Te Papa http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0504/S00278.htm Activists put Defence Industries on trial http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0504/S00271.htm

PAID PARENTAL LEAVE EXTENDED

Paid leave boost - In 2000, Clark said paid parental leave, then proposed by associate labour minister Laila Harre of the Alliance, would be introduced "over my dead body". http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3258407a10,00.html

NZ EDUCATION MOST EXPENSIVE

A new global report issued on Friday by the Canadian-based Educational Policy Institute says that NZ university education is the second most expensive in the world (just behind Japan). The EPI report takes into account not only the actual fees, which are obviously much higher in countries like the US, but student assistance, loans, housing and other cost of living costs. It noted that in Japan, the most expensive place overall, high rates of savings meant that parents could contribute more to their kids' education than in NZ. If private universities were excluded, then NZ tertiary education would actually be more expensive than Japan, and the most expensive in the world. In terms of state sector tertiary education, which is what universities in NZ are, then NZ is the most expensive in the world. The EPI report can be found at: http://www.educationalpolicy.org/

POLICE RAIDS IN WELLINGTON

Police raid multiple homes in Wellington - On the 11th of December 2004 there was a protest at the Australian Embassy in Wellington, the protest was in the name of solidarity, for the Aboriginal People of Australia who were/are suffering at the hands of the inherently racist system. On Thursday the 21st or April this year the Wellington Police raided four houses simultaneously, they were searching for paint, receipts, computer/camera equipment relating to the alleged incident. About 9am they entered the houses and rummaged to see what they could find http://indymedia.org.nz/feature/display/32488/index.php

CATERPILLAR PROTEST

This Article appeared in the NZ HERALD Fri.16 April 2005. Caterpillar group boycotted for selling bulldozers to Israel From boots to baseball caps, the Caterpillar fashion range is marketed as upmarket outdoors wear for label-conscious youth. But consumers are now being urged to boycott the construction and clothing company because it supplies bulldozers to the Israeli Government, which then uses the vehicles to destroy Palestinian homes, roads and olive groves. They have also been used to build the "security wall" in the region that has attracted international criticism. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=87&ObjectID=10120710 A PHONE or FAX PROTEST: Please ring and express your disgust.......Caterpillar NZ The Gough Group Head Office Christchurch : CEO Brian Hogan: PH 03 9832333 Fax 03 9832330, Auckland Ph 09 9799333; Fax 09 9799339

AUSTRALIA

A Call to Demonstrate at the 2006 Stolenwealth Games in Melbourne - The Black GST campaign to boycott and protest at the 2006 Melbourne "Stolenwealth" Games was launched on 26th January 2005 in Melbourne. Representatives of the Black GST Collective had a stall selling t-shirts and distributing pamphlets at the "Invasion Day" concert in Treasury Gardens. http://www.kooriweb.org/gst/stolenwealth.html Howard's refugee "solution" should cause a revolution http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0504/S00381.htm

PACIFIC Pacific Ecologist – New Issue Out Now! - On 30 March, yet another study, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Synthesis Report highlights the global environmental crisis. The MA, conducted by 1,300 experts from 95 countries warns 60 percent of ecosystem services supporting life on Earth e.g fresh water, fisheries, air and water regulation, and regional climate are being degraded or used unsustainably. This adds to a stream of recent reports saying similar things http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0504/S00168.htm

JOHN PILGER

John Pilger: Election: the outrage - By voting for Blair, you will walk over the corpses of at least 100,000 people, most of them innocent, slaughtered in defiance of international law. - A familiar, if desperate media push is under way to convince the British people that the main political parties offer them a democratic choice in the general election on 5 May. This demonstrable absurdity became hilarious when Tony Blair, leader of one of the nastiest, most violent right-wing regimes in memory, announced the existence of "a very nasty right-wing campaign" to defeat him. If only it was that funny. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8607.htm

UK Lesser-Evilism Grips Britain: The Chancellor of the Exchequer and pretender to the throne, has, according to his biographer Richard Peston, told Blair that, "There is nothing you could say to me now that I could ever believe." http://www.counterpunch.com/waraich04162005.html

FOURTH WORLD The Fourth World is Right Here: Surviving the Nation Called Canada The contradictions of contemporary times are very acute. They involve a planet that is being exhausted of energy resources, namely but not limited to petroleum.

This same sphere that we all inhabit is increasingly becoming unlivable for human beings and other life forms, as unsustainable capitalist development continues to threaten livability for the benefit of corporate profits and ill-conceived growth. The conquest of populations who stand in the way of such profit continues, using whatever means necessary to pursue higher and higher returns. http://lefthook.org/Ground/Stainsby41505.html

NAOIMI KLEIN The Rise of Disaster Capitalism http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050502&s=klein

TORTURE INTERNATIONAL

The CIA's Kidnapping Ring: U.S. ally Uzbekistan teaches interrogators how to boil suspected terrorists http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0516,hentoff,63104,6.html Our Presidents New Best Friend Boils People Alive: - WARNING - Pictures should only be viewed by a mature audience http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3943.htm

GE

GMO Cover-up - Scientists Suffer for Exposing Hazards of Genetically Modified Organisms in Your Food http://www.wanttoknow.info/050420gmocoverup

CUBA

The Bush Family's Favourite Terrorist: While the Bush administration holds dozens of suspected Muslim terrorists on secret or flimsy evidence, one of the world’s most notorious terrorists slipped into the United States via Mexico and traveled to Florida without setting off any law enforcement alarms. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/042405.html Resolution against Cuba approved under US pressure http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0504/S00297.htm Guantánamo, A Moral And Legal Black Hole http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0504/S00298.htm Cuba, the UN Human Rights Com And OAS Race http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0504/S00267.htm

ECUADOR ECUADOR:

People drive out president http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/624/624p15.htm

ARMS RACE

From Earth To Space, There’s No Biz Like War Biz http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0504/S00215.htm

How Bush Administration's Biological Weapons Buildup Affects You by Heather Wokusch, who considers the terrifying potential repercussions of the Bush administration's coveted new biological weapons programme http://www.spectrezine.org/NorthAmerica/wokusch2.htm

OIL PEAKS, THE ENVIRONMENT & WAR

Oil production could peak next year. Just kiss your lifestyle goodbye By John Vidal. The one thing that international bankers don't want to hear is that the second Great Depression may be round the corner. But last week, a group of ultra-conservative Swiss financiers asked a retired English petroleum geologist living in Ireland to tell them about the beginning of the end of the oil age. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8608.htm

The War for Oil - This is the story of the hidden agenda behind the invasion of Iraq. How much has this war really been about control over a dwindling resource? This is a must watch documentary. Real Video http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8582.htm Alaskan Oil Drilling Threatens Disaster - It's true that thousands of caribou and other types of wildlife will be displaced if Washington D.C. lawmakers pass a measure to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0504/S00206.htm

US appears to have fought war for oil and lost it - According to the former head of ExxonMobil's Gulf operations, "Iraqi exiles approached us saying, you can have our oil if we can get back in there", the Bush administration decided to use its overwhelming military might to create a pliant - and dependable - oil protectorate in the Middle East and achieve that essential "opening" of the Gulf oilfields. http://informationclearinghouse.info/article8522.htm

HAITI

Ousted Haitian President Aristide Accuses U.S. and France of Causing a "Black Holocaust": "We should not close our eyes on those who are behind the coup - yes the United States, the French. Clearly it's a failure of what they did a year ago using violence and as a consequence we have more violence in Haiti today," he said. http://informationclearinghouse.info/article8593.htm

VENEZUELA

Many Venezuelans join "guerrilla armies", plan to fight: From street vendors to lawyers, thousands of Venezuelans are joining militia units created by the government to fight off anyone - especially U.S. troops - that tries to thwart President Hugo Chavez's socialist "Bolivarian revolution." http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/world/11431512.htm

USA– Land Of The Free?

U.S. Prison Population Soars in 2003, '04 : Growing at a rate of about 900 inmates each week between mid-2003 and mid-2004, the nation's prisons and jails held 2.1 million people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents, the government reported Sunday. http://tinyurl.com/e4jwr Howard Dean Becomes Leader of the Other Pro-War Party Dean on Iraq: “We're There and We Can't Get Out” - It didn't take long, the former anti-war presidential candidate has now become the pro-occupation leader of the Democratic Party. Just when a majority of the public is saying the Iraq War is not worth it, Howard Dean the new leader of the Democratic Party is saying:

“Now that we're there, we're there and we can't get out.” Like the good partisan he is Dean blames Bush for a war most in his party voted for and an occupation that most in his party recently voted to continue to fund. Of the President Dean said: “The president has created an enormous security problem for the United States where none existed before. But I hope the president is incredibly successful with his policy now that he's there.” http://www.lefthook.org/Politics/Zeese042205.html

Militarism threatens to bankrupt U.S. economically and morally - It is up to the American people to demand that our representatives stop the warhawks' world-girdling military appetite in the Middle East and elsewhere, restore our own democracy. Michael Parenti, eminent author and historian, recently told an audience of almost 300 people in Penn State's Schwab Auditorium that what empires do is much different from how they are represented in history by their leaders. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8609.htm

WAR ON FREEDOM

How The United States Is Able To Torture Political Prisoners- Paul Buchanan examines the revelations about torture of political prisoners held in US prisons in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Iraq http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0504/S00197.htm Group Says U.S. Sent Up to 150 to Possible Torture Sites: A civil liberties group investigating allegations of prisoner abuse will report today that since the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. agents have secretly transported up to 150 detainees to countries that may practice torture. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8645.htm

AFGHANISTAN:

UN investigator who exposed US army abuse forced out of his job: The UN's top human rights investigator in Afghanistan has been forced out under American pressure just days after he presented a report criticising the US military for detaining suspects without trial and holding them in secret prisons. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8648.htm

ENDS

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