On Christmas night, the 116 residents of the Sonacotra dorm in Mezzavia learned that a bomb had been found in the parking lot, near the pipes bringing natural gas to their building. The bomb was neutralized and security measures have been taken to prevent any such actions from taking place again.

Sonacotra was founded in 1956 to provide housing for foreign-born workers in Corsica. The vast majority of the residents in the dorm, which is located in Mezzavia, a workers district south of Ajaccio, come from Tunisia. They arrived in Corsica 20 or 30 years ago to work in construction projects and restaurants.

On December 27, another Sonacotra dorm was attacked in Hauts-de-Bodiccione, in Ajaccio. A bottle full of acid foiled into aluminum paper was thrown under the postal boxes in the building’s entrance hall.

These were the latest of a long series of attacks aimed at intimidating and terrorizing these foreign-born workers. In the past, an ignited fuel barrel burned their entrance hall, the building has been repeatedly targeted by gunshots, and residents once found a bomb next to their local prayer room.

The bishop of Ajaccio, elected representatives, the Corsican anti-racist association Ava Basta, the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship of the Peoples (MRAP), and the Moroccan Council of France have all condemned these actions.

These attempts have not succeeded in intimidating the residents of the Sonacotra dorms. The vast majority have continued to work in Corsica. Mohammed, a resident of the Mezzavia dorm, told the French daily Le Monde, “Even if the Mirages [French warplanes] were bombing all of Corsica, I would not move.”

Corsica is the region in France with the highest number of reported racist attacks. France itself has seen anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and xenophobic actions on the rise in 2004.

Dimitris Fasfalis
Paris, France
 
 
Anti-Semitism in Russia
I recently ran across the following news item from Associated Press, which Militant readers might be interested in. The Cleveland Plain Dealer published it January 25 with the headline “Lawmakers want Jewish group ban.”

It said: “A group of nationalist Russian lawmakers called Monday [January 24] for a sweeping investigation aimed at outlawing all Jewish organizations and punishing officials who support them, accusing Jews of fomenting ethnic hatred and saying they provoke anti-Semitism. About 20 members of the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, asked Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov to investigate their claims and to launch proceedings ‘on the prohibition in our country of all religious and ethnic Jewish organizations as extremist.’ The call raised concerns of persistent anti-Semitism in Russia. Jewish leaders have praised President Vladimir Putin’s government of encouraging religious tolerance, but rights groups accuse the authorities of failing to prosecute the perpetrators of anti-Semitic and racial violence.”

Carole Lesnick
Cleveland, Ohio  
 
 
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