PDF of newsletter for printing
Rebellion is Contagious - The Uprising in France
Monday, Nov. 7th, 2005--For eleven nights in a row, beginning on October 27th, Paris has burned in a rebellion of the poor against the police and the rich. It started in the Clichy-sous-Bois neighborhood after two young men of African backgrounds fled from the police and were electrocuted to death after climbing into a power substation.
After several nights of rioting in that 'hood, with vehicles burning in the streets and clashes between young rebels and the cops, disorder began to spread to other impoverished and mainly immigrant sections of Paris. Arson attacks on police stations, government buildings, schools, shopping malls, and warehouses escalated.
Shots were fired at police in a few instances. Some cops were injured by firebombs. Journalists, being friends of the police and lackeys of business people and politicians, were also targeted.
Over the past few nights, the resistance has spread to dozens of French cities and towns, and into the center of Paris itself. Thousands of vehicles have been set alight and hundreds of people have been arrested.
Such street conflicts are not new to France. What's unique this time around is how long the rioting has lasted and how widespread it has become. The cops and politicians are calling it urban guerrilla warfare. They're right. It's class war, and it's been going on for as long as humanity has been divided into social classes.
Since ghetto rioting in France began to explode in the 1980s, the wars of conquest the French elite waged on the people of Algeria, the Ivory Coast, and other African colonies, have come back to haunt them. The racism of White society, the exploitation of immigrant's labour, the segregation and alienation of the ghettos, and the constant police checks, harassments, killings, and deportations, have all culminated in a violent backlash that is beyond the government's ability to control.
The police are rightly seen as an occupying army, like the French soldiers in Africa. The present-day ghetto population includes recent and illegal immigrants along with second and third generation French Africans and Arabs who'll never be "French" enough. In the 1990s, African and Arab rebels joined student demonstrations across France against government reforms, not to protest, but to loot stores and fight the cops.
Sporadic riots, attacks on police stations, and car burnings have hit the French ghettos for years. What else is there to live for in the cities when all space serves the needs and interests of police, politicians, and corporations?
Burning vehicles have now been reported in Berlin and Brussels. Despite the number of arrests, the rebellion in France grows, so far displaying no signs of burning out.
Unrest in Argentina as World Leaders Promote Free Trade
Argentina became a vivid example of the reality of free trade in 2001, when the economy crumbled and a popular insurrection toppled several presidents in a row
Rioting took place across Argentina and in the capital city of Uruguay as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) summit began in Mar del Plata, Argentina, on Friday, November 4th.
In the streets of Mar del Plata, masked rebels tossed firebombs and rocks at riot cops and also shot mortars at the police lines. Banks and corporate stores were smashed and set on fire, and businesses were looted for material used as street barricades, which were set aflame. Police fired tear gas and arrested dozens of people. Banks and shops were also attacked in the capital, Buenos Aires, and the cities of Rosario, Neuquen, and Mendoza.
In the neighboring country of Uruguay, dozens of masked anarchists hurled paint bombs and rocks at corporate and government targets in the capital city, Montevideo, leaving anarchist graffiti in their wake. Here too, rocks and mortars were sent in the direction of the cops, injuring a few officers. Police made more than a dozen arrests and dished-out severe beatings, while bankers threw rocks at the anarchists and kicked arrestees while cops held them on the ground.
The street battles against the summit bore a distinct contrast to the protest rally in Mar del Plata headlined by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who also took part in the summit itself alongside George Bush and other heads of state. Just as in Venezuela, where his cops have attacked indigenous peoples resisting industrialization and rebels who tore down a Columbus statue on Columbus Day of 2004, Chavez knows which side of the barricades he's on.
The unrest in Argentina came as no surprise, given the riots at the Quebec City FTAA summit in 2001, or the many other disturbances against related free trade propaganda events.
Prior to the Mar del Plata summit, banks and American corporations were bombed in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, with anarchists claiming responsibility for some of the attacks, denouncing the summit, all governments, and capitalist exploitation and misery.
Major riots also broke out in Argentina in the days leading up to the summit. At a suburban commuter train station in Buenos Aires, a delay sparked outrage, as people set fire to trains and the station, and began looting, attacking banks, fighting cops, and setting police cars on fire. Dozens were arrested. Then a riot erupted as government workers attacked the city hall of Avellaneda and burned police vehicles.
Masked students rioted in Panama City when Bush visited just before the summit, and cops attacked a demonstration in Sao Paulo, Brazil, against a visit from Bush after the summit ended.
In Europe and Latin America, Resistance Spreads Like Fire!
Contact: confrontation(at)excite.com