Residents protest pollution
The Militant Labor Forum at the Pathfinder Bookstore in
Houston, Texas, on November 8, brought more than 70 people
together to discuss "Kennedy Heights Vs Chevron: A Case of
Environmental Racism?"
Most of the participants in the meeting were residents of Kennedy Heights, a predominantly Black subdivision in southeast Houston. This subdivision was developed in 1968 on land that was owned by Gulf Oil and used for oil storage. The oil storage left the area contaminated, and the residents of Kennedy Heights have faced a myriad of cancers and other health problems due to the contamination. They are fighting to get Chevron, which purchased Gulf Oil, to pay compensation for health damages and to move them to other residences away from Kennedy Heights.
Speaking at the meeting were John Simmons, who is Vice President of the Kennedy Heights Civic Association and chair of the Contamination Committee, William Paul Thomas, who is an assistant to State Senator Rodney Ellis, Constance Pickens, a hospital worker and Kennedy Heights resident, and Joette Baity, a refinery worker who spoke for the Socialist Workers Party.
John Simmons said that in getting information for the residents' lawsuit against Chevron, lawyers discovered a 1968 correspondence between Gulf and the real estate developer which said regarding the Kennedy Heights area "this would be a good place for a poor or colored neighborhood."
Constance Pickens described health problems in her family related to the contamination and talked about a neighbor who just died of cancer. She said that this is not so much a case about color as it is about people dying off and the need for justice. She also expressed the impatience that many residents feel about the legal process. The next court hearing will be in May, and there have been many delays prior to this. She said "What are they waiting for, all of us to die off? We need to be moved out now."
Joette Baity discussed the massive amounts of pollutants produced by Texas refineries noting that the Environmental Protection Agency cites Texas as the leading emitter of toxic industrial pollutants. She also recounted the attacks on health and safety in the refineries, the common interests of refinery workers and Kennedy Heights residents in their fight against the oil companies, and that the oil companies must be held responsible for the effects of pollution both past and present.
Bob Bruce
Houston, Texas
Rights victory in Tonga
A court in the Pacific island nation of Tonga ordered two
journalists and a pro-democracy campaigner released from prison
October 14. Kalafi Moala and Filokalafi `Akaúola, editor and
deputy editor of the newspaper, Taimi `o Tonga, and `Akilisi
Pohiva, Member of Parliament for the Pro-Democracy Movement,
were jailed in September for 30 days when an impeachment motion
against a government minister that Pohiva was to table in
Parliament was published in the newspaper.
The jailings drew widespread protests from international media organizations, including the Pacific Islands News Association and the International Federation of Journalists. Amnesty International called the three men "prisoners of conscience."
King Taufáahau Tupou IV rules over Tonga's 104,000 people and 150 islands with near absolute power. Only 9 of the 36- member Parliament are popularly elected. He can dissolve Parliament at will, and after it voted to proceed with the impeachment motion that sparked the jailings, he terminated the body - "until further notice."
Tonga, one of the few Pacific Island groups not to be formally colonized by European imperialist powers at the end of the nineteenth century, has long been dominated by Australian and New Zealand imperialism. The New Zealand army trains the Tongan military. The country's chief justice is a New Zealand lawyer.
Some 56 percent of Tonga's exports, mostly bananas, coconuts and vegetables, go to New Zealand, and 29 percent to Australia. New Zealand supplies 39 percent of imports and Australia 25 percent. Most Tongans are subsistence farmers on land strictly controlled by the nobles. Large numbers move overseas for work, mainly to Australia and New Zealand, but also to the United States and elsewhere. Private family remittances from these workers make up over half of the country's gross national income.
The Auckland factory where I work has a mainly Tongan workforce. Commenting on recent events, one co-worker noted the strong support for the Pro-Democracy Movement at recent elections. "I think a change is coming in Tonga," he said.
Terry Coggan
Auckland, New Zealand
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