Panama wins back canal

At the end of the year Panama will take possession of the canal that splits its territory, after nearly a century of U.S. intervention and domination. Washington instigated the 1903 secession of Panama from Greater Colombia in order to build the canal across the isthmus. Thousands of workers lost their lives in its construction. For 85 years Washington has controlled the waterway and more than a dozen military bases. Protests demanding Panamanian possession of the canal have flared up over the years, and in 1964 police and U.S. troops killed 20 protesters as they attempted to fly the Panamanian flag in a Canal-Zone school. In 1989 the U.S. military mounted a brutal offensive concentrated on working-class areas in Panama City to overturn the country's elected government.

In 1977 U.S. president James Carter was forced to sign treaties transferring possession in 2000. U.S. secretary of state William Daley was the only ranking member of the Clinton administration who attended the December 14 celebrations in Panama. One academic reflected the widespread national resentment among Panamanians of imperialism's role when he said, "Their attitude is absurd. Fine. Until December 31, they are the boss. But after that, no."  
 

Washington's 'terrorist' scare

On December 11 U.S. state department officials urged U.S. citizens overseas to avoid large crowds during the holiday season, stating that "groups have been planning terrorist actions against American citizens and ... this is a worldwide threat." U.S. officials said around a dozen people had been arrested in the Middle East during the previous two weeks. Where the arrests occurred and who carried them out have not been revealed nor have government spokespeople presented evidence to support their scare-mongering assertions.

Washington claims—again without presenting any facts—that those arrested have links to Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born businessman accused by the U.S. rulers of involvement in bomb attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa last year. U.S. warships unleashed cruise missiles on a factory in Sudan and several sites in Afghanistan two weeks after those August 7 bombings.  
 

South Korea workers battle cops

South Korean riot police assaulted a December 7 demonstration of 20,000 people organized by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. The workers defended themselves with bamboo sticks and metal rods. The confrontation left 160 people injured. The cops launched their assault to prevent demonstrators from marching into the streets from their rallying point in a downtown Seoul plaza. The call for a shorter workweek headed the workers' demands. Unionists in south Korea are also calling for state assistance to industries threatening layoffs and the abolition of the antilabor National Security law. Some 24,000 workers employed by the Electric Power company have threatened to strike if the government carries out plans for its privatization, which will likely lead to job losses.

Working people in south Korea have endured two years of the "IMF era," as they call it. This began when the government signed a deal in December 1997 for an International Monetary Fund loan of $60 billion and agreed to a range of reforms, including dispensing with unprofitable companies. The imperialist powers, and especially Washington, use the IMF as a vehicle for imposing policies that profit foreign investors.  
 

U.S. stored nukes in Japan

Declassified U.S. government papers show that for at least a decade and a half the U.S. rulers stored nuclear weapons on Japanese soil, in spite of publicly vowing never to do so. The military used the islands of Chichi-jima and Iwo Jima for storage of the weapons in the 1950s. On Okinawa island the weapons were stockpiled until 1972. The U.S. Defense Department claims that no legal obligations were violated because the islands were occupied by U.S. forces at the time.

The authors of an article analyzing the documents state that it appears Washington had told Tokyo of the deadly stockpiles, and both governments kept the arrangement secret. The agreement would have been extremely unpopular among Japanese working people, the victims of Washing-ton's atom bombs at Nagasaki and Hiroshima.  
 

Filipino sailors win solidarity

In a dispute in November, sailors from the Philippines forced their employers, a German shipping company, to agree to increase their wages and to fork out back pay. On board the Hea, the sailors had to put up with inadequate food, lack of medical attention, and no supply of fresh water. River water was used for washing. Second mate Lucio Digal spearheaded the complaint to the International Transport Workers Federation. While the boat was working the Great Lakes, Cleveland longshore unionists responded to the sailors' fight by threatening to stop unloading the steel wire carried by the vessel. The company caved in.

The settlement of the dispute states that the sailors will be paid when the ship arrives in England. The captain of the Hea has already paid Digal the $5,000 back wages he is owed. The second mate plans to return to the Philippines. A sailor for 20 years, he expects to be black-listed by ship-staffing agencies. "That's capitalism," commented the captain.  
 

Cop gets 30 years in Louima case

On December 13 a federal district judge handed former New York cop Justin Volpe a 30-year prison term for the torture of Abner Louima. In August 1997 Volpe brutalized the 32-year-old Haitian worker by forcing a broken broom handle up his rectum, inflicting severe internal injuries. The incident occurred in a police station bathroom in Brooklyn, New York. The savage attack prompted street protests of up to 15,000 people. Volpe, like the other cops involved in assaulting Louima, initially denied any wrongdoing. He confessed before the court in May of this year. One other cop, Charles Schwarz, who faces sentencing, and two others will go to stand trial for trying to cover up Schwarz's role in holding down Louima during the assault. Louima spoke before the court, rejecting Volpe's continuing claims that he had acted under provocation. The prosecution had called for life imprisonment. Volpe's attorney said he will appeal the 30-year term as excessive.  
 

New Zealand gov't less stable

New Zealand's newly installed governing parties saw the outright majority they won November 27 evaporate over the following two weeks. The social democratic Labour Party and the Alliance, whose leader is a former Labour MP, united in a coalition after election day. The final counting of special votes, however, saw the Green Party take the seat of Coromandel from the National Party and lift its share of the vote nationally to 5.2 percent. This gives the Greens 7 seats in parliament and reduces the number of seats allocated to other parties. The Labour Party now has 49 seats and the Alliance 10 in the 120-seat parliament. To pass legislation they will have to rely on the backing of the Green Party, which supports the new government. The previous conservative government, led by National, also governed without a readymade majority.

Support for the Green Party jumped in the final lead-up to the election after it became a focus of attack by the National Party, which highlighted the party's support for decriminalization of marijuana use. Some prominent Green candidates were targeted as "communists" and supporters of "eco terrorism." The Greens stood on a platform centered on economic nationalism and opposition to genetic modification of animals and food crops.

—PATRICK O'NEILL  
 
 
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