Raytheon 9 activist to speak at anti-St Athan rally

With reports suggesting this Saturday’s anti-St Athan march will be larger than expected, an activist from the Derry-based Raytheon 9 campaign is due to speak at the closing rally. The Raytheon 9 are currently facing trial following their excursion into Raytheon’s offices in Derry in protest against the arms giant’s involvement in multiple atrocities.

Raytheon, for those still unaware, are part of the Metrix consortium who will build and run the military academy at St Athan through the glorified HP agreement known as PFI, for which we will all eventually pay.

Other speakers include Jill Evans MEP, the only professional politician in Wales to oppose the project, despite being left to hang by her party, Plaid Cymru, who at the first test of office have sacrificed any credibility as a left alternative; even the most left wing of its elected members, Adam Price MP and Leanne Wood AM, have baulked at opposing a scheme which they suppose to be a vote-winner.

Anti-St Athan campaigners on the ground are reporting that this in any case may be an illusion. The groundswell of opposition to the giant academy extends well beyond pacifist, socialist and anarchist groups, particularly in the local areas most affected by the expected influx of squaddies from half the world’s armies.

That opposition will surely grow once the strength of feeling against St Athan makes itself felt this Saturday. The demonstration will be hard to ignore - even by the post-Hutton BBC with its paranoia at being seen as anti-war and its comfortable business relationship with Land Services Trillium, the property outsourcing group who are building its new centres and who also happen to be fully paid-up partners in the Metrix consortium.

Volunteers are still needed for various tasks on the day. If you can help out, email us.

An updated leaflet advertising the next campaign meeting on 29 April can be downloaded from our resources page.

Lecturers’ strike - eye-witness account

Pauline Atienza of Cardiff PR, secretary of Wales UCU FE section, sent the following report from today’s action:

“I have just returned from a very successful lobby at the Senedd. About 250 lecturers from colleges across Wales were at the lobby having left their comrades on the picket lines at the colleges. The strike is solid across the country.

At Rhondda college pickets discovered that there was a police training event happening. Two uniformed police officers agreed not to cross the picket line! Their inspector was not happy!

At another college one of the managers was so infuriated by the picket line that he drove off in a huff and crashed his car into another vehicle. That will be an interesting insurance claim!

This has been a good start to the action. Pressure on fforwm (the principals’ organisation) and the college principals will be maintained through refusal to participate in any work which relates to ‘quality’. This is an area crucial to college managers in their claims for funding. Hopefully college managements across Wales will recognise that they cannot get away with destroying the all-Wales pay agreement and will finally honour the deal.

Even Deputy Minster for Skills John Griffiths addressed the gathering and expressed the WAG’s commitment to the all-Wales pay agreement which principals are trying hard to scupper.

One thing is for sure. We are ready to take further strike action if management continue to renege on the agreement.”

Wales FE lecturers strike over pay betrayal

Lecturers in every Welsh FE college will strike for one day on Wednesday April 16. The dispute has been called by the lecturers’ union UCU following the failure of last ditch talks at which the college employers’ organisation, fforwm, would not guarantee to fully implement a new national pay structure finalised only 12 months ago.

On the strike day, FE lecturers from all over Wales will picket colleges from 8.30am and hold a rally at the Senedd (Welsh Assembly building) in Cardiff at 11.30am.

UCU members in Welsh colleges voted in a recent ballot by 72% in favour of a programme of strike action and 90% in favour of withdrawal from key duties associated with college quality management. Lecturers were balloted following fforwm’s refusal to implement a significant step in the new pay structure, which should have seen experienced lecturers progressing to the top of their new pay scale this month.

UCU representatives and representatives of fforwm met with the Wales Assembly Government (WAG) minister responsible for FE, John Griffiths, in a final attempt to resolve the dispute on April 7th. Some limited progress was made. However the employers refused to implement salary progression from April and would give no assurances that they would adhere to the new national agreement in every college in the future.

UCU Wales official Margaret Phelan said:

“The principle has been accepted in Wales that lecturers should be paid the same as school teachers. UCU signed a national agreement on this with the employers, in good faith, and we expect it to be fully implemented. The funding has been provided by the Welsh Assembly Government and colleges should be paying up. I now urge UCU members to give maximum support to the planned industrial action. The union will do everything it can to bring about a fair and swift solution.”

UCU Wales FE Chair, Guy Stoate said:

“The ballot majorities in favour of action indicate the extent of anger and concern amongst ordinary lecturers. FE lecturers do not take action lightly. This is the first national FE strike in Wales for almost a decade. We will certainly do all we can to minimise the impact on students. However the employers are seeking to undermine a national agreement that not only restores fair pay to FE lecturers but also directly benefits students by promoting excellent professional practice. That is why UCU will take whatever action is necessary to defend the agreement.”

Pauline Atienza, Cardiff PR member and secretary of UCU Wales FE section said the following:  “Management is clearly trying to scupper the all-Wales agreement and go back to college by college pay bargaining.  This strike is a strike to save that agreement”.

For further details contact us at cardiffpr@yahoo.co.uk

As demo day approaches, let’s get the St Athan arguments right!

While the campaign against the privatised military academy at St Athan has been steadily growing, it has yet to register on the radar of the mass media. That will hopefully change after the demo in Cardiff on April 26th, which now features on the Stop The War homepage and looks set to pull in a big crowd. With increased media scrutiny, however, it is vital that campaigners get their facts right and are prepared for the arguments which our enemies will undoubtedly raise.

Cardiff PR were not involved in the statement of opposition originally drawn up by the campaign, but if we had been we would certainly have counselled against building the romantic illusion that Wales is uniquely pacifist as a nation. Wales, whether we like it or not, has been successfully integrated into the British imperialist military machine, not only through the involvement of Welsh regiments in the armed forces and Welsh politicians in sending troops to war, but also in the supply of essential goods to the armed forces: the British navy was once dependent on the high-quality steam coal which was the source of the Rhondda’s prosperity.

That does not mean there has not been opposition to this integration. The campaign against St Athan has a notable precedent in the campaign to prevent the siting of a bombing school on the Llyn peninsular in 1936. And the bravery of Welsh miners fighting against Franco in the Spanish Civil War, while the UK government was covertly supporting him, should never be forgotten.

Our role is to build on this tradition of opposition. However, the campaign against St Athan must not become a NIMBY campaign, but a campaign against privatisation full stop, and beyond that a campaign against public money being spent in the preparation of future invasions that the majority of people in Wales and the rest of the UK do not want. That is why, as we have argued before, we should defend the right of MoD workers to full employment and retraining if necessary, but we should not be arguing in defence of the existing training centres.

Of course we will be attacked for being pacifists (which Cardiff PR and many other activists certainly are not) and risking the defence of Wales and the rest of the UK. We have already dealt with this argument. The wars currently being waged by the UK military have nothing to do with our defence - in fact they have undermined our safety. No-one should accept the huge sums of money being poured into “defence” without a full and open public enquiry into this expense, run not by government with its vested interests, but by workers’ organisations.

It is important for us to also be clear on what a PFI project entails. PFI (now called PPP, or private-public partnership because of PFI’s unpopularity) is a scheme whereby private businesses pay for the building and running costs of an institution which government then rents back through regular payments over 25 or more years. PFIs offer the illusion that governments are spending less money when in fact they are spending more, since they have to subsidise the profits of the privateers, all the more so since businesses pay far higher interest on loans than governments do. Furthermore, if a PFI project gets into difficulties, it is down to government to bail it out.

One reason PFIs are so unpopular is that the supposed superior efficiency of the business model is achieved through cutting labour costs to the bone: every single PFI has involved redundancies and the employment of workers on minimal wages with minimal rights. A recent Guardian/ICM poll showed that two-thirds of people questioned favoured an immediate moratorium on PFI projects. And it should not be forgotten, as the likes of Rhodri Morgan praise the “Team Wales” PPP, that Labour originally came to power on a promise to end all PFIs.

A recent email purporting to be from the Cardiff Stop The War Coalition, besides unilaterally redefining what the 26th demo is about, claims that St Athan will be the UK’s “School of the Americas”. We should avoid such lazy comparisons. The School of the Americas was founded with the explicit intent of brainwashing South American military leaders and producing rabid anti-communists such as Pinochet. While it is certainly true that the products of St Athan will take part in reactionary wars and the repression of left dissent, the purpose of the academy will be to train students in aeronautical engineering, electro-mechanical engineering, and communications and information systems. Senior military officers will oversee the privatised training - they are not the object of it.

Of course, the original plan was for much more training to take place at St Athan. That was before the government backtracked on “Package 2″, claiming that the Metrix bid did not represent sufficient “value for money” - a significant climb-down from the drive to privatisation. The loss of Package 2 means that the project is now calculated at £11 billion - but bear in mind the escalating costs of other privatisations and the potential fallout from the growing economic crisis.

The campaign has rightly focussed attention on the presence of arms manufacturers Raytheon in the Metrix consortium. As we have previously argued, the question of whether Raytheon actually manufacture cluster bombs or depleted uranium warheads is merely splitting hairs. Their own website includes pictures of the “submunitions” (cluster bombs) their “delivery systems” (missiles) are designed to carry. They are without question guilty of some of the most appalling crimes against innocent civilians.

One minor detail we haven’t mentioned yet: in 1997 Raytheon made a donation to the Labour party and took MPs on an expenses-paid holiday. Two years later they were handed an £800 million contract from the MoD.

As for the daylight robbery involved in the privatisation of Qinetiq (major players in Metrix), you know something is seriously amiss when even the Daily Mail takes exception.

And if all this cannot convince punters that they should at least be sceptical of handing huge amounts of public money to Metrix, maybe we should also mention that another Metrix partner, service provider Serco, has a senior independent director, Margaret Ford, who also happens to be a Labour peer.

In the light of the dishonesty, vested interests and shameless profiteering already associated with this project, why should anyone believe the claims about jobs and knock-on effects on the Welsh economy made by its proponents? The PCS, which represents most of those presently involved in MoD training, has rubbished the jobs figures: we and others have already pointed out that many of the training jobs will be relocated from elsewhere. The idea that the academy is the best way to use public money to cut dole queues in the Rhondda and other impoverished areas of South Wales is absolute nonsense.

But the money is only available for this project, we are told. Who says? In this supposed democracy, why should we accept that there is a bottomless fund for warfare and never enough for housing, health, new community centres, better services, etc, etc, etc? Why not ask the unemployed what they need and see if they answer “another war in Iraq”?

Further articles on St Athan:Open University and arms dealers
PR resolution to Stop the War conference.
Check archives for more.

Leaflets and posters in English and Welsh can be downloaded from our resources page. Below: a few of Raytheon’s products - see videos.

The Sukulas - a great anti-deportation victory

Cardiff PR salute the work of Cardiff activists in raising funds for the children of Ama Sumani, the Ghanaian woman deported to her death while receiving vital medical care in the UK. Her death was a tragedy rightly described as state murder. It has been followed, however, by excellent news for another important anti-deportation campaign. Jason Travis of PR, chair of the Sukula family campaign, gives his account of their victory:

On 27th March, almost three years after the start of the campaign the Sukulas, a Bolton family of asylum seekers who fled the civil war in the Congo, finally received the news that they’d been given indefinite leave to remain.

Over 3000 people have supported the campaign that has also had the support of Unison, the NUT, the NUJ and other unions.

The Sukulas were one of the first families to have all benefits withdrawn under the notorious Section 9 that the government had hoped would drive families out of Britain by taking away their homes, their benefits and even their children who would be placed into the care of social services with the adults made destitute and homeless.

The campaign declared that if any attempts were made to evict the Sukulas we would form a physical blockade around the house to prevent either eviction or deportation. We gained support of local unions and Bolton Unison backed social workers who refused to initiate care proceedings purely because of government imposed destitution. This stance was backed by the British Association of Social Workers and later Unison nationally.

As a result of this defiance by workers and the massive community support, taken up by the local paper the Bolton News, the council refused to evict the Sukulas. Following this another ten Greater Manchester councils and then councils in Yorkshire made a similar commitment to refuse to evict families of failed asylum seekers. The Sukulas themselves lived 17 months without benefits living only on community support and proceeds from the campaign (which is therefore several hundred pounds in debt). Hundreds demonstrated against the Act and led by the Sukula campaign Section 9 was smashed!

In addition we successfully campaigned against Flores Sukula being expelled from Bolton Soxth Form College- purely on grounds of being a failed asylum seeker- with Bolton NUT and the NUS threatening a campaign of massive publicity and protest of the college authorities didn’t back down. We also, through trade union support, demonstration and threatened pickets prevented the forced dispersal of the Sukulas to Liverpool.

We feel that as a consequence of the Sukula campaign, together with a growing number of similar campaigns around the country, the government had to back down and settle thousands of asylum cases, the so-called legacy cases. If we had not assembled a range of trade union and community activists prepared to take militant action up to and including physical blockades then the government would not have its policy on families left in tatters.

There is however still a lot to do. We have always from day one campaigned against all deportations- of men, women, children of anyone. This is why we have supported the No One is Illegal trade union conferences, the second of which met 29th March 2008 with some hundred trade unionists planning action to oppose immigration controls and organise migrant workers.

We demand the right to work and have continually pushed for a national network of trade unionists and community campaigns prepared to take physical action and strike action to defend migrants and refuse to implement immigration controls. We need a network of parents, teachers, other education workers and students to declare schools are no deportation zones. But we also need community campaigns with the ability to mount emergency defence pickets and we need trade unions to recruit all workers- documented or otherwise- to demand the right to work and organise at trade union agreed rates and to turn the success of exemplary campaigns like the Sukulas into a national movement of defiance to smash all immigration controls.

The family and campaign thanks everyone who has supported us and will continue to fight against all deportations.

For details of CardiffPR’s work supporting Congolese and other refugees in South Wales, email cardiffpr@yahoo.co.uk.

Zimbabwe demo this Saturday (29 March)

From the Zimbabwean Development Support Agency:

This Saturday the 29th of March, Zimbabwe is holding its national presidential elections once again. ZDSA Wales, in collaboration with Zimbabweans worldwide is demonstrating against continual electoral rigging, inhumane treatment of fellow Zimbabweans and utmost poverty of the masses under the Mugabe regime.
Zimbabweans in the diaspora have been stripped of their rights to vote in order to influence change in their own country.
-There is an average of 600 Zimbabweans living in Wales.
It is estimated half of them are been rendered destitute in the asylum process since 2002 and cannot be returned home due to the political situation.
-A high number of Zimbabweans have been living in limbo for more than 5 years with no light at the end of the tunnel since deportation was suspended in 2002.
-Mugabe’s repressive tyranny in the past of 27 years has brought the country to its knees.
-In Zimbabwe the average person lives in abject poverty with the highest inflation rate in the world.
Life expectancy of the average Zimbabwean male and female is now 32 years.
HOW LONG CAN THE WORLD WATCH THIS ATROCITY?
HELP US TO MAKE A STAND!!
HELP US CHANGE OUR FUTURE!!
HELP US TO BE HEARD!!
The Zimbabwean Development Support Association Wales is holding a demonstration in Cardiff at the Bevan Statue, Queen Street, Cardiff on Saturday the 29th of March and will be held from 12:30-14:00 hrs.

For PR’s comment on the situation in Zimbabwe in 2007, see our archive.

The Stop The St Athan Military Academy campaign also meets this Saturday at 3pm, Temple of Peace.

One arrested as Cardiff confronts anti-abortion bigots

There was no sign of Ann Widdecombe in Cardiff last night as the protest against her “Passion For Life”(sic) anti-abortion roadshow exceeded all expectations (video).

Over a hundred pro-choice demonstrators packed the pavement outside the City Temple to give the anti-abortionists a reception they will not forget in a hurry.

Speeches by Katy Ladbrook of Abortion Rights, Leanne Wood AM, Mariam Kamish of the Socialist Party and Jon Blake of Permanent Revolution stressed the bogus nature of the “pro-life” arguments and the need to keep up the offensive in support of progressive reform of the UK’s antiquated abortion laws.

Meanwhile the “Passion For Life”’s clientele, bussed in from as far afield as Cheltenham, was given a clear message from chanting protesters: “Pro-life, that’s a lie - you don’t care if women die”. With 80,000 women estimated to die each year in backstreet abortions around the world, the slogan perfectly encapsulated the rank hypocricy of religious bigots who aim to put women back in the dark ages when they were classed with the mentally ill as people incapable of making moral decisions.

The protest was militant but commendably disciplined in the face of police heavy-handedness, confrontational meeting organisers and one cowardly anti-abortionist who sent a jet of water over two babies in prams from a passing car.

The police had been all warmth and sunshine to the members of Bristol Feminist Network who had contacted them about the picket. On the night, however, they suddenly sprang a demand that the protest take place on the other side of the road. When protesters refused, police reinforcements were called in and a well-known Cardiff anarchist singled out for arrest on a trumped-up charge of assaulting a police officer. If taking a photo now constitutes assault, civil liberties is in an even worse state than we feared.

Cardiff PR have often bemoaned the sectarianism of the Cardiff left, but the solidarity shown by protesters in heading off to the central police station after the demo was heartening indeed.

A grey-faced meeting organiser, clearly rattled by the strength and passion of the demo, demanded the right to speak. However, pro-choice activists can be assured of one thing: the Permanent Revolution megaphone will never be allowed into the hands of an anti-abortionist. He was given short shrift, along with his bogus talk of free speech - strange it hadn’t occurred to this bigot that the pro-choice argument had no chance of being raised in the meeting he supported.

In an age when awareness of sexual politics has been eroded by an overwhelming sexism in popular culture, the number of young people on the demo, both male and female, was encouraging. Now, however, we need to build on this protest to create a lasting pro-choice activist group in the Cardiff area which will go on the offensive to fight for the abortion rights that women need. Cardiff PR, in association with other local activists, have set up Pro Choice Cardiff for this purpose. Dozens signed up for this at the protest - it’s also possible to join on Facebook. Let’s ensure that Widdecombe and friends truly get the reward they deserve for daring to bring their medieval roadshow to our city.

Stop Press: Pro Choice Cardiff is organising a follow-up meeting next Weds, 12 March, at Cardiff University - details to follow.

Below: a reminder of how some of the left got suckered into an alliance with a well-known anti-abortionist - never again!

Open University opens arms to arms dealers

Those considering taking a course with the Open University might like to think again following remarks by the OU’s Wales director this week. In response to a demo against the OU’s involvement in the proposed St Athan military academy, Rob Humphries made the following statement:

“The University recognises that Britain’s armed services play a vital part in peacekeeping activities all over the world”

It must raise serious questions about the quality of education offered by the OU when its Wales director considers the invasion and occupation of Iraq as “peacemaking” - unless, of course, it was a slip of the tongue and he really meant to say “pitiless bloody warmongering without a shred of justification”.

But Rob’s schoolboy howlers don’t end there. If he had done even five minutes research on the subject, he would know that the St Athan military academy will train armed forces from anywhere willing to pay for the privilege.

The OU has certainly come a long way since it was founded by Wilson’s Labour government in 1969. Back then it met with scornful opposition from the products of Eton and Oxbridge on the Tory benches, appalled at the idea that hundreds of thousands of working-class people might get degrees through correspondence courses and BBC2. Under market pressures, however, the OU has become less concerned with education to improve society and more involved in vocational training. That already includes the training of the armed forces.

The involvement of the OU in the Metrix consortium no doubt seemed a logical next step for the OU’s management. But it has put the OU in direct partnership with some of the world’s most loathsome arms dealers: criminals in every respect except capitalist law. Raytheon – manufacturers of cluster bombs and missiles carrying depleted uranium warheads. Qinetiq – pasted by the National Audit Office for the most corrupt privatisation in UK history. And the aim of this unholy coalition will be a university whose graduates will not improve societies but destroy them; will not work for human rights, but crush them. St Athan will be the total negation of all the OU once stood for.

We do not believe the vast majority of OU students or staff, past and present, will find this acceptable. That is why Wednesday’s demo, part of the National Day of Action for University Ethical Investment, will not be the last. The OU buildings in Cardiff will certainly be on the route of the major march planned for 26 April, and we call on all students and staff of the OU to bring the maximum pressure – considering walk-outs, teach-ins, fees boycotts and whatever else it takes, to get the OU out of this project and help scupper it altogether.

Facebook users can join the groups Open University Fans Say No To Partnerships With Arms Dealers and No To St Athan Military Academy.

St Athan demo set for April 26

With the campaign against St Athan scoring successes throughout Wales and beyond, the date has been set for a major demo supported by the Stop the War Coalition. All activists should make a diary note for Saturday April 26th, when anti-military academy protesters will be assembling at 1.30pm on the lawns opposite Cardiff City Hall for a march at 2pm.

The case against the proposed privatised military academy has already been made on this site and others. Now is the time to build on the growing groundswell of support for the anti-St Athan campaign to ensure the 26 April march cannot be ignored.

The Stop the War coalition is already committed to the cause, and anti-St Athan speakers will feature in the STW “World Against War” rallies in Bristol (29th Feb) and Cardiff (3 March).

We criticised the SWP for initially opposing our attempt to make St Athan an issue for the Stop The War Coalition. Now we’re glad to say they’re on board the campaign and working to raise awareness amongst students.

Following our work building contacts with activists in north and mid-Wales, Cymdeithas Yr Iaith voted at their recent AGM to support the campaign. An active anti-militarist group in Caernarfon have held a successful rally against St Athan and plan to send a coach down to Cardiff for the demo.

We have already advertised our success in winning the Wales Further Education Sector Committee of UCU (lecturers’ union) to support our anti-St Athan resolution. The PCS (public sector workers’ union) continues to campaign against St Athan and the privatisation of defence training. Tony Benn has signed the campaign petition and John McDonnell has put down an early day motion opposing plans to continue with Package One at St Athan now that the government has backtracked on Package Two, admitting that the privatisation would represent poor value for money.

All in all, the rosy picture of the future of a militarised South Wales is revealing itself to be what we said it was all along: a fraud.

Unlike John McDonnell and Mark Serwotka of the PCS, however, we are not afraid to go all the way and question all the so-called “defence” spending which UK taxpayers subsidise. Attacking Iraq was not “defence”. Breaking the firefighters’ strike was not “defence”. Then why are we paying for it?

Posters and leaflets for the 26th March are available for download on our resources page: let’s pull out all the stops to turn the tide of public opinion well and truly against this latest misuse of public money.

Abortion: right-wing roadshow rumbles towards Cardiff

If someone made a film called “Ann Widdecombe - Passion for Life” you’d no doubt assume it was a comedy. But there is nothing funny about the Passion for Life roadshow which is heading for Cardiff on March 4th. Widdecombe and her cronies from an unholy alliance of anti-abortion groups aim to set the clock back to the time when women had no rights over their own bodies.

The Passion for Life tour has been inspired by the HFE (human fertilisation and embryology) bill currently going through parliament, which updates legislation for assisted reproduction and the regulation of the use of embryos in research and therapy. Though the bill is not specifically concerned with abortion, it has been subject to a number of right-wing amendments which aim to further weaken the provisions of the 1967 Abortion Act.

No-one should be in any doubt about the ultimate aim of Widdecombe, the Christian Medical Fellowship, Life, Care and the Right to Life Trust. It is the criminalisation of abortion. And if anyone wants to know the consequences of that, just ask the women of Northern Ireland, where abortion has never been legalised.

The hypocrisy of the anti-abortion lobbyists is staggering. If they really want to cut down the number of abortions, why are they opposed to contraception? Why are they opposed to sex education in schools? Answer: because they still hold to the medieval belief that sex itself is the enemy, and that sexual relationships should be only take place within the jurisdiction of priests, judges and politicians.

Permanent Revolution uncompromisingly support a woman’s right to choose in the matter of abortion. We believe the battle against Widdecombe and her ilk should not merely be a defensive one. We stand for the following:

* For a woman’s right to choose
* No to the time limit - as early as possible, as late as necessary
* End the need for doctors’ permission
* Allow appropriately trained nurses to perform medical and early surgical abortions
* End the restriction on where abortion can take place
* NHS funding to ensure full and free access to abortion for all
* for an expansion of sex education, contraceptive services and condom provision

We call on all those opposed to the anti-abortion crusade to unite to picket Widdecombe’s Cardiff meeting, which takes place at the City Temple, Cowbridge Rd East, 7.30pm. Anyone interested in so doing can contact us here.

STOP PRESS: The picket will take place from 6.30pm, Tues 4 March.  Indications are it will be large.

More details on the HFE bill and amendments at our main site and www.abortionrights.org.uk. For a thorough overview of the arguments around abortion, read this article.