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More recently, longshore workers in Denmark, Spain, Sweden In France, a month-long general strike united millions of work-
and several other countries closed down ports around the world in _ ers who protested privatisation, a government worker pay-freeze
solidarity with striking Liverpool dockers. When Renault closed and cutbacks in social services. Telephone, airline, power, postal,
its plant in Belgium, 100,000 people demonstrated in Brussels, education, health care and metal workers all joined together,
pressuring the French and Belgian governments to condemn the bringing business to a standstill. The right-wing Chirac govern-
plant closure and compel its reopening. ment was forced to make minor concessions before being voted
In the United States there is a glimmer of hope, as the AFL-CIO out for a new "socialist" administration.
[the merged American Federation of Labor and Congress of At the Oak Park Heights Correctional Facility in Minnesota,
Industrial Organizations] has voted-in some new, more progres- 150 prisoners went on strike in March 1997, demanding to be paid
sive leadership. We'll see how that shapes up, and whether the the minimum wage. Although they lost a litigation battle to attain
last 50 years of anticommunist, this right, their strike gained attention
bread-and-butter American unionism and support from several local labour
is really a thing of the past. unions.
What is certain is that resistance to Just as the prison industrial com-
the transnational corporate agenda is plex is becoming increasingly central
growing around the globe. In 1996,
the people of Bougainville, a small
to the growth of the US economy,
prisoners are a crucial part of build-
What is certain is that
Papua New Cuine island, organised resistance to the transnational ing cifective opposition to the
a secessionist rebellion, protesting the . . transnational corporate agenda.
dislocations and ecological destruc- corporate agenda Is growing Because of their enforced invisibility,
tion caused by corporate mining on around the globe. powerlessness and isolation, it's far
the island. When the government too common for prisoners to be left
hired mercenaries from South Africa
to train local troops in counter-
insurgency warfare, the army
rebelled, threw out the mercenaries
and deposed the Prime Minister.
out of the equation of international
solidarity.
Yet, opposing the expansion of the
prison industrial complex and sup-
porting the rights and basic humanity
A one-day general strike shut down Haiti in January 1997. of prisoners may be the only way we can stave off the consolida-
Strikers demanded the suspension of negotiations between the tion of a police state that represses us all, where you or a friend or
Prime Minister and the International Monetary Fund/World Bank. family member may end up behind bars.
They protested the austerity measures imposed by the IMF and Clearly, the only alternative that will match the power of global
WB, which would mean the layoff of 7,000 government workers capital is an internationalisation of human solidarity—because,
and the privatisation of the electric and telephone companies. truly, we are all in this together. oo
In Nigeria, the Ogoni people conducted a protracted eight-year
struggle against Shell Oil. Acid rain and hundreds of oil spills International solidarity is not an act of charity. It is an act of
and gas flares were turning the once fertile countryside into a near unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the
wasteland. Their peaceful demonstrations, election boycotts and same objective. The foremost of these objectives is to aid the
pleas for international solidarity were met with violent govern- development of humanity to the highest level possible.
ment repression and the eventual execution of Ogoni writer/leader — Samora Machel (1933-1986)
Ken Saro Wiwa. Leader of FRELIMO and First President of Mozambique
corporate agenda is growing
around the globe.
International solidarity is not an act of charity. It is an act of
unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the
same objective. The foremost of these objectives is to aid the
development of humanity to the highest level possible.
— Samora Machel (1933-1986)
Leader of FRELIMO and First President of Mozambique
RESOURCES McAllister St, San Francisco, CA 94102, — Europe:
USA (continued): website