Cuba: Treasured Island

ALEJANDRO Gortazar is a Cuban photographer who has worked for the past 10 years in the fashion industry and the commercial sector on the island. But he’s best known as a nature photographer who visited protected nature reserves and explored the most inaccessible parts of the island to capture a wild and beautiful environment through the lens of his camera. For him Cuba is a "bastion of struggle, sacrifice, culture, nature and love" and we can now, for the first time, see a selection of some of his finest shots at exhibitions in London and Northampton. Last week Andy Brooks talked to him about his work.

Andy Brooks: Why did you choose to come to London?

Alejandro Gortazar: Well, I met my wife, who is Spanish, in Cuba. But my wife works in London so I felt it was time to spread my wings. I came to London in June and now we plan to spend our time partly in London and partly in Havana.

AB: Why do you focus on the natural world?

AG: My grandfather was a cartoonist and a landscape painter at the time of the revolution. He painted the people and the fields in which they worked. I wanted to follow in his footsteps but I was no good at painting. I soon realised that I didn’t have a natural talent for painting so I took up the camera to do the same thing with the lens and my eye. I don’t really have any limits when it comes to photography but what dominates my eye is light especially at sunrise and sunset. When I see something I want to shoot I’m very particular about technique and timing. I’m trying to show something that is not really there by enhancing the beauty of the image.

AB: What do you want people to see?

I want people to understand light, to really capture light. You can capture that with a lens and through the use of technique you can transform knowledge into an art. In my work I am representing Cuba and in this exhibition I want to show British people that there is more to Cuba than they might imagine.
Cuba is a land of absolute beauty and unforgettable landscapes – an island you would never want to leave in your life. I want to show people the wonderful wildlife of the island. This display includes a photo of the bee hummingbird which only lives in Cuba. It is only 5cm long and it’s the smallest bird in the world. I spent over two hours waiting to capture the moment of that bird in flight. I want to show how all life, like that bird, can be so attractive when humankind is good to nature.

AB: Just nature…

AG: Oh no. I don’t ignore people. In fact I’ve got a forthcoming exhibition of shots of Cuban people – 50 images for the 50th anniversary of the Cuba Revolution – as part of a project with Cuba Solidarity which will tour the UK and then go on to France and Spain.

AB: How far does the landscape mould the Cuban character?

AG: People who live in towns focus their lives on everything that urban life represents, like consumerism and technology. But when people are outside, living with nature, they realise they don’t need that many things to live a happy life. They see that nature gives them a lot. They get up early with the sun, work the land and receive its fruit, smell the air and see the sun set. You can see examples here of really proud people whose lives may be simple but who are, nevertheless, really happy…

AB: So you’re aiming at the Cuban audience as well as the world…

AG: Yes, many Cubans who live in Havana and the other towns take the countryside and the nature reserves for granted while many people in the rest of the world just have a tourist image of the island – you know the clichés – beaches, cigars, the crumbling buildings of Old Havana, shoeless children and vintage cars on the streets of Havana… I want to show a hidden Cuba to the Cubans and my first photo exhibition of Cuban landscapes in 1999 proved really popular at home. It was packed out and it continued in that gallery in Havana for two years. I wanted to show the most remote areas of the island to the Cuban people. Now I want to take this hidden Cuba to the world and this is what I’m trying to do with this selection of my work here today.
I had a chance to talk about this at the opening of this exhibition in London last week. There were about 50 people there and many of them came up to me afterwards to tell me they wanted to go to Cuba to see what I had seen with their own eyes.


AB: Will your photos be published for a wider audience…

AG: I hope so and the Opus Gallery is considering producing a coffee-table book of this collection here in the near future. This exhibition is going to Northampton and Dublin and some of my works are going to Paris and Chicago. I want everyone to see this other Cuba.

AB: I guess you’re also exploring Britain…

AG: Yes indeed. I can’t spend even one day without taking photos.



Cuba, Treasured Island an exhibition by Cuban photographer Alejandro Gortazar is on at the Opus Gallery until 23rd November. Admission is free and the gallery is at 10-13 King Street, London WC2E 8HN. It then moves to the Lavata Galleria, 228 Wellingborough Road, Northampton NN! 4EJ for a Christmas season from 3rd to 31st December.

More examples of the art of Alejandro Gortazar

Red Salute for Red October

THE GREAT October Russian Revolution is commemorated by communists all over the world and comrades and friends gathered at the NCP Centre on 7th November for the Party’s traditional celebrations of the greatest event of the 20th century. Our old print shop doubled up as the bar and buffet largely prepared by our own comrades. In the main meeting room the lessons of Red October and its meaning for communists in the 21st century was highlighted by our friends during the formal part of the celebrations opened as usual by Party Chairman Alex Kempshall. Comrade Cabinda from the RCPB (ML), John Callow, the Secretary of the Marx Memorial Library and NCP leader Andy Brooks all spoke about the immense achievements of the Soviet Union in war and peace and all were confident that we will see sweeping changes in the 21st century across the world and millions upon millions join in the struggle for national liberation, peace and socialism.
That was also stressed in a message from young communists from Siberia to the NCP. The youth movement of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in Novosibirsk said the first victorious socialist revolution had “accelerated the progress of revolutionary and liberation struggle” and “shown the world a way to the socialist future of other countries and nations…on the anniversary of that glorious day, we wish you every success in achieving a splendid triumph of communist ideas in the whole world!”Perhaps the most traditional part of an NCP social is the collection and Dolly Shaer made a rousing call to keep our new colour presses going and comrades responded by raising £600 for the New Worker fighting fund. Friends slowly departed for the last trains but thanks to the night buses the bar chalked up a new record by staying open till 2.00 am!

photo: at the bar

Pride and Remembrance

THE SOVIET Memorial Trust marked Remembrance Sunday with a moving ceremony at the Soviet War Memorial in the grounds of the Imperial War Museum in south London last Sunday.
As usual the event was attended by the Mayor of Southwark, local MP Simon Hughes and the ambassadors of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and many other former Soviet states, along with the representatives of many different organisations.
Pride of place among these, as always, went to the veterans of the Second World War, and especially to the veterans of the Arctic Convoy Club, whose numbers are now sadly dwindling.
There were speeches and the Russian ambassador emphasised the importance of resisting attempts from some quarters to rewrite the history of the the Great Patriotic War against Nazism.
After that wreathes were laid by the veterans, local dignitaries, the ambassadors and representatives of other organisations, including the New Communist Party, the Marx Memorial Library and the Communist Party of Britain.

photo: Daphne Liddle from the Central Committee lays flowers on behalf of the NCPB

Don't Burn It -- a major new contribution to war cinema

by Theo Russell

DON’T BURN IT, a remarkable new film about the Vietnam War, was shown recently during the Vietnam Festival Of Culture 2009 in London. It is based on the diary of a young woman doctor, Dang Thuy Tram, at a field hospital in Quang Ngai province, a National Liberation Front stronghold during the war.

The diary’s discovery by a South Vietnamese Army soldier and his American officer begins a process which changes their lives and reverberates to the present day.
In the tradition of socialist war films, the focus of Don’t Burn It is on the effects of war on those caught up in it, rather than the actual fighting. It shows not only the horror and suffering, but the heroism of those defending their homeland and the mental anguish of the occupiers.

Many viewers will be surprised at its portrayal of the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies, who from the outset are shown as thinking human beings rather than evil barbarians.

Quang, the officer who finds the diary, is transfixed when he starts reading it, and hands it to the US captain, Fred, saying “don’t burn it, it already has fire inside it”. As they start translating the diary, Fred begins to understand his Vietnamese enemies for the first time, changing his life forever.

Written in a traditional Vietnamese style, the diary combines daily events with stirring poetry, which greatly increases its impact. Ho Chi Minh famously kept a similar “diary” while imprisoned by the Chinese nationalists as a spy in 1943.

Many years after the war, at the urging of his mother back in North Carolina, Fred (in real life lawyer Fred Whitehurst) hands the diary to scholars at the University of Texas. Eventually it is published, causing a sensation in Vietnam, and a search begins to find Dr Tram’s family in Hanoi.
During the film scenes of Dr Tram living and working in the midst of war alternate with moving memories of her family life in Hanoi. One of the most interesting sequences shows a researcher travelling around present-day Hanoi by moped in search of her family.

Don’t Burn It is without doubt a major contribution to war cinema. It combines a hatred of war with admiration for the Vietnamese people’s heroic struggle and culture, and the humanity of which ordinary Americans are capable – a powerful message of peace and friendship.

(Don’t Burn It, directed by Dang Nhat Minh, was released in April 2009. The original book, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: An Extraordinary Diary of Courage from the Vietnam War, is available in paperback.)

No choice but to march!

by Caroline Colebrook

LANCE Corporal Joe Glenton of the Royal Logistic Corps last Saturday led a march of thousands of anti-war protesters through London, even though he faces a court martial for doing so.
Glenton is refusing to return to Afghanistan and is calling on Britain to withdraw all troops from the country.
He told a rally, at the end of the march in Trafalgar Square: “It is distressing to disobey orders but when Britain follows America in continuing to wage war against one of the world’s poorest countries, I feel I have no choice.
“Politicians have abused the trust of the army and the soldiers who serve. That’s why I am compelled and proud to march with the Stop the War Coalition.”
He added: “I am marching to send a message to Gordon Brown. Instead of sending more troops, he must bring them all home. He cannot sit on his hands and wait while more and more of my comrades are killed.”
So far 223 British troops have been killed in Afghanistan since Nato forces invaded the country in 2001 on the premise that Afghanistan was somehow responsible for the 11th September attacks in the United States in 2001.
A recent poll commissioned by Channel Four News found that 84 per cent of people in Britain believe that British and American troops are currently losing the war in Afghanistan.
Almost half of the public in this country believe that military victory in Afghanistan is impossible and significant majorities think British troops are not winning the war and should be withdrawn either immediately or within the next year, according to a poll published today.
The poll suggests that the public mood is at odds with government policy that Britain and its Nato allies should see through their mission in Afghanistan and keep troops in the country until responsibility for its security can be handed over to home-grown forces in a process known as Afghanisation.
Last week, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was ready to send a further 500 troops, so long as they could be properly equipped and form part of a Nato-wide reinforcement with each ally bearing its “fair share”.
Joe Glenton was joined on the march by former colleagues and bereaved military families. They included Peter Brierly, whose son Lance Corporal Shaun Brierly was killed in Iraq in 2003. At a recent memorial service in St Paul’s’ cathedral in London Brierly refused to shake the hand of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, telling Blair that he had blood on his hands and would one day have to answer for what he had done.
“They are not doing any good while they are over there. They need to leave the country to sort itself out,” he said. “While British troops are there they are actually attracting more insurgents who are coming in to fight.”
Also on the march was 104-year-old Hetty Bowyer. She told the crowd in Trafalgar Square: “I march because I can see no reason for further killing. I have walked on every march against us going to war. At my age there is not very much I can do but while my legs can carry me I am going to march.”
Jeremy Corbyn MP, vice-chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said: “The war in Afghanistan has no clear war aims, is clearly escalating and spinning out of control and can only impact on Pakistan and the whole of South Asia.
“Nato forces have been in Afghanistan for eight years and the result appears to be increased drug production, high levels of corruption and terrible losses of life on all sides, civilian and military.
“Now is the time to change policy and bring the troops home to prevent Nato involving itself in a Vietnam-style quagmire.”

Vietnam comes to London

By Andy Brooks


LONDONERS will get a taste of Vietnamese culture this month with the screening of three major Vietnamese films, including the internationally acclaimed Don’t Burn It [Dung Dot], which has been officially chosen to represent Vietnamese cinema in the best foreign language film category at the 2010 Oscars in Los Angeles next March.
Over 40 years ago Vietnam was on everyone’s lips as the heroic Vietnamese people battled against the might of US imperialism to drive the invaders out and reunify their country under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh and the communists. Final victory was achieved in 1975 and the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Though the country still bears the scars of that monstrous imperialist war, Vietnam has advanced to develop a modern socialist economy and a haven for peace and progress in south-east Asia. But while we remember those epic days of sacrifice and struggle we often forget that Vietnam is an ancient land with rich traditions and a thriving movie industry that is now going beyond the confines of Asia to span the entire globe.
Some of the best Vietnamese films will be shown in London as part of the

Vietnam Festival of Culture this month. And the festival kicked off with a gala performance by the country’s top artistes on Monday at Chelsea’s Cadogan Hall, attended by Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, and opened by visiting Vietnamese deputy premier Hoang Trung Hai.
Then the hall was transported into the heart of modern and traditional Vietnamese culture as singers, dancers and musicians held the audience spellbound with a selection of traditional and modern Vietnamese music as well as an interpretation of the English folk-song Scarborough Fair and a Hungarian classic Czadas gypsy dance.
The Vietnam film festival that follows will be held at the nearby Cine Lumiere, French Institute, in South Kensington from 29th to 31st October. Londoners will have the exclusive opportunity to see some of the most exciting and celebrated films to come out of Vietnam including The Black Forest, Don’t Burn It and The Story of Pao.
Two of the films are dramas: The Black Forest tells the tale of a love triangle between an illegal lodger in a northern forest, his fiancé and his second son; The Story of Pao is set amongst the Hmong ethnic minority while Don’t Burn It is based on the true story of Dang Thuy Tram, a young female doctor from Hanoi who volunteered to help the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam working as a surgeon in a battlefield hospital during the Vietnam War and was killed by American troops.
The film reflects the profound humanity of the film’s modest and courageous heroine Tram, played by young actress Minh Huong. The film triumphed over 23 other movies to win the Audience Award at the Fukuoka International Film Festival in Japan earlier this month.

Tickets are just £5.00 and further details can be obtained by contacting the Cine Lumiere box office on 0207 073 1350 or checking out their website at http://www.institut-francais.org.uk/

Milestone in Korean history

Communists and progressives gathered in London last week for a seminar on the meaning and impact of the Korean revolution to mark the anniversary of the foundation of the Workers’ Party of Korea on 10th October 1945.
Organised by Friends of Korea and chaired by Harpal Brar, the guest of honour was a diplomat from the DPR Korea embassy in London and contributors included NCP leader Andy Brooks, Michael Chant of the RCPB (ML), John McLeod of the Socialist Labour Party and Ella Rule of the CPGB (ML) along with Korean solidarity activists Keith Bennett and Dermot Hudson of the British Juche Society.
The discussion, held at the RCPB (ML) headquarters in south London, covered all aspects of life in Democratic Korea including the Juche philosophy, leadership and the role of the communist party in socialist construction. At the end of the seminar a congratulatory letter to Korean leader Kim Jong Il was adopted unanimously.

photo: Andy Brooks making a point

Words to change the world

by Daphne Liddle

THREE themes came together is Kensington Town Hall last Saturday night – they were Third World Solidarity, the Poetry Olympics and the Muslim celebration of Eid in an event of performance poetry and music.
Too often English audiences are deterred from poetry performances by bad poetry badly presented. Poetry is for everyone but like any other art form is requires some thought and effort from the creator and the presenter.
I remember a peace rally in 1991 in Woolwich Town Hall that was almost entirely cleared by a recital from veteran peace campaigner Pat Arrowsmith. No one doubted her courage or credentials as a fighter for peace but she was not a wordsmith.
She was about to go out to the Gulf and interpose herself between two front lines to try to prevent the impending war. We wondered if her “poetry” was the magic weapon to send both frontlines into rapid retreat.
A poet, like a painter or a composer, has inspiration and a message, a thought or a feeling to communicate. But to do justice to their inspiration the artist chooses carefully the right colours and textures of paint and surface; the musician chooses carefully the right notes, rhythms and instruments to give the right tone and texture of sound.
Communicating an inspiration into a form that other minds can receive takes some care and effort. For a poet, that means choosing carefully the right words, the rights sounds, rhythms and textures to generate a complete picture in the mind of the listener.
Chosen carefully, words are the most powerful tools we have. Words can convey information; they can soothe and comfort; they can encourage; they can humiliate; they can break hearts; they can anger; they can confuse and deceive; they can sell; they can create a god; they can bore; they can make people fall in and out of love; they can satisfy or they can start a revolution that will change the world.
There is nothing boring about the study of language. The power of magic spells in superstitious times was entirely in the right choice and use of words.
And the performers we saw on stage in Kensington Town Hall last Saturday were absolute masters of language and demonstrated poetry at its very best. And both in content and presentation it was poetry at the service of justice, peace and democracy – the aims of Third World Solidarity.
The event was organised by local Labour councillor Mushtaq Lasharie and presented by Michael Horovitz.
The first performer was Mahmood Jamal who performed poetry he had translated from the original Pakistani and some of his own.
This was followed by Guyanan Keith Waite, who, with the aid of a flute, conjured up the sounds and the atmosphere of the jungle.
Patience Agbabi gave us first a fast and vivid hymn of praise to the importance of words, Give me a word, then a well crafted story in rap poem of her life: born in Africa, raised in London and then returning to Lagos to find herself an outsider in both places – a Ufo woman.
Oliver Bernard gave us his experiences of life since the 1930s; Steven Berkoff presented a tennis championship final match as a fast and furious battle saga; Eleanor Bron read from an anthology produced by Poetry Olympics and some pieces of her own and Elvis McGonnigal had us laughing out loud with his quick-fire satires on the world of power politics, along with sporadic digs at the pop singer James Blunt, whom he compared to the Orville, the ventriloquist dummy duck.
We heard from Moazzam Begg, for four years a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, who wrote poetry to preserve his sanity during those terrible years. He explained how many prisoners, denied access to pens and paper, found a way of writing by using the little finger nails to cut into the surface of Styrofoam cups.
The size of the cups limited the poems to just a couple of lines but nevertheless these poems made it to the outside world, smuggled out, often by sympathetic guards and are now published.
The works of all these poets and many more are available in print with details from New Departures/Poetry Olympics, PO Box 9819, London W11 2GQ or http://www.poetryolympics.com/


photo:Eleanor Bron

Free the Miami Five!

NCP comrades and supporters joined protesters outside the US embassy in London last week to demand the release of five Cubans arrested in 1998 on trumped-up charges of espionage. Some 400 demonstrators took part in an evening candle-light picket of the American embassy in Grosvenor Square on 1st October called by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign in support of Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González who are currently serving sentences of between 15 years and life. The vigil was supported by their families, Jeremy Corbyn, the London Labour MP who is also a prominent member of the Labour Representation Committee along with a number of union leaders.

London roundup

BNP councillor exposed

The British National Party’s third highest elected official has been exposed fabricating two murders in a high profile BNP campaign.
He has been found guilty of bringing both the Greater London Authority and the Barking and Dagenham Council into disrepute – his lies show the depths the BNP are willing to stoop to in their vile propaganda war.
This follows a BNP posting on You Tube which showed Barnbrook claiming there had been three recent murders in Dagenham – a total fabrication.

Hope not Hate campaigners are now aiming to raise £5000 to deliver 150,000 targeted leaflets across London.
Because of the severity of his lies, Barnbrook has been suspended by the Council for a month, forced to submit a written apology to the Greater London Authority and made to undertake “training” in ethics in public life.
But the Hope not Hate campaigners say this is just the tip of the iceberg – the BNP has been capitalising on fear for years in an attempt to pull our communities apart.
But this time is different – this time we have proof in black and white that their campaign is entirely based on fear, falsehood and hatred.

Eurostar cleaners take action

Rail Union RMT last Monday confirmed a further six days of strike action by Eurostar cleaners working at St Pancras International for contractors the Carlisle Group in an increasingly bitter dispute over pay, the introduction of routine staff fingerprinting, redundancies and the victimisation and harassment of RMT union reps.
RMT Eurostar cleaners will strike on the following dates:
• 05:30 hours on Friday 2nd October 2009 and 05:29 hours on Saturday 3rd October 2009.
• 05:30 hours on Sunday 4th October 2009 and 05:29 hours on Monday 5th October 2009.
• 05:30 hours on Friday 16th October 2009 and 05:29 hours on Saturday 17th October 2009.
• 05:30 hours on Sunday 18th October 2009 and 05:29 hours on Monday 19th October 2009.
• 05:30 hours on Friday 30th October 2009 and 05:29 hours on Saturday 31st October 2009.
• 05:30 hours on Sunday 1st November 2009 and 05:29 hours on Monday 2nd November 2009.
RMT have launched a global campaign in support of the London Eurostar cleaners and their fight for the London Living Wage and against bullying and harassment. So far over 3,000 people from over 70 countries around the world have joined the cyber-picket.
Bob Crow, RMT general secretary, said on Monday:
“The treatment of cleaners on the Eurostar, our flagship European rail service, is nothing short of a national disgrace. We have demanded that the Government, as the effective owners of Eurostar, step in to stop this scandalous exploitation of cleaners at St Pancras International who are fighting for nothing more than the London Living Wage, dignity and respect at work and the right to organise an effective trade union.”

London news round-up

Fascists target pro-Palestinian marchers

MEMBERS of the English Defence League – a loose structured group of former squaddies, football hooligans with neo-Nazi views – last weekend tried to attack a London protest march in support of Gaza.
Police made no arrests and succeeded in keeping the fascists and the marchers apart. But there were several brief confrontations as EDL activists chanted "We hate Muslims" and "Muslim bombers off our streets".
The pro-Palestinian protesters held up banners with slogans including “Justice for the murdered children of Gaza”, “We are all Palestinians”, “Boycott Israel” and “Judaism rejects the Zionist state”.
People from a number of organisations and groups throughout the country, both Muslim and non-Muslim, joined the demonstration, held during Ramadan every year.
The demonstration's organiser, Raza Kazim, from the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: "It's in aid of the oppressed people of Palestine in particular, but the idea of al-Quds is more general than that. It's for people who have been oppressed.”
Commenting on the EDL, he said that supporters of Israel usually protested but with them, he said, were "the BNP, the EDL, the racists, the extremists – all of this unholy alliance have got together" to say oppression should continue.
“We are going to say: 'No, that this is not going to happen'. That is why we are here – to raise our voices against that," he added.

Debt stress costs NHS millions

THE LONDON Health Forum last week reported that treating stress-related ill health in the capital costs the NHS £450 million a year.
Around 250,000 Londoners suffer from mental health problems as a result of debt, job cuts and money worries, resulting in 350,000 London GP appointments a year.
Stress-related illnesses which could cause high blood pressure and heart attacks are also on the rise, it said.
The forum urged councils and primary care trusts to "prescribe early debt advice" to Londoners.
The forum's report, London Capital of Debt, said primary care trusts in London are currently spending £1.8bn a year treating patients with mental health issues, which is 26 per cent more than the national average.
About one million Londoners suffer from mental health problems, a quarter of whom are worried about debt, the report said.
The forum said on average these people make 3.5 visits to GPs, which works out as 350,000 GP appointments sought in London a year.
John Murray, director of the forum, said: "The latest figures from the Consumer Credit Counselling Service show a 40 per cent increase in calls from Londoners to its helpline compared to a year ago.
"The NHS therefore needs to go onto a preventive footing by getting people to debt advice sooner, using the extensive channels of communication at its disposal."

Problems of Leninism

J. Stalin

Good condition
Hbk, 803 pp
Foreign Languages Publishing House
Moscow 1953

£20.00 including p&p (UK only)

orders to: NCP Lit, PO Box 73, London SW11 2PQ

all proceeds to the New Worker fighting fund

A gala of poetry in London

Poets and singers gave the media a taste of things to come last Friday at the launch of the Poetry Olympics Enlightenment festival that will revolve around shows at the 100 Club in Oxford Street and venues in Kensington and Chelsea. The Poetry Olympics began in 1980 as an artistic response to the philistine stance of the Tory Thatcher government, This year’s gala is being held to mark the 50th anniversary of the poetry magazine, New Departures, to give Londoners the opportunity to hear avant-garde progressive poetry and music from some of the giants of the genre. Kensington & Chelsea mayor Timothy Coleridge and local Labour councillor Mushtaq Lasharie of Third World Solidarity welcomed poets Michael Horovitz, Mahmood Jamal and Molly Parkin along with singer-song-writer Alexander D Great at the launch of the festival which begins with a show at Chelsea Town Hall, King’s Road, on 11th September. More details in the diary column or from the POE website: http://www.poetryolympics.com/

Pic: Mayor Coleridge and Councillor Lasharie and Michael Horovitz discussing the POE programme.

Climate Emergency -- Sink or Swim!

by Daphne Liddle

HUNDREDS of climate change protesters, including indigenous people from Alberta in Canada, last week targeted the London headquarters of oil giant BP and the Royal Bank of Scotland over the excavation of thousands of acres of tar sands in order to extract usable oil.
The protest was just one of a week-long series of well publicised actions on environmental issues initiated from the climate camp on Blackheath in south London.
These included the occupation of the lobby and main entrance of the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Four protesters walked into the reception, two in suits and two wearing goggles and flippers, and wedged a kayak in the main entrance.
They occupied the lobby in a peaceful sit-down while their comrades unfurled a banner that said “Climate Emergency: Sink or Swim” and proceeded to hand out goggles to passers-by.
One activist said: “We want no more false solutions to climate change and an end to carbon trading, the DECC’s current policies do not go far enough.”
On Tuesday activists occupied the head office of the RBS - currently owned by taxpayers.
Dressed as construction workers, they used stepladders, locks and superglue to form a blockade at the RBS building in the City of London, unfurling banners which read “RBS: under new ownership” and “Ethical renovation in progress”.

dirtiest oil

And they carried banners protesting at RBS investing in BP’s extraction of oil from Albertan tar sands. “Tar sands oil is blood oil,” said one banner; “Tar sands oil = dirtiest oil on Earth” said another.
They also took this protest to the BP headquarters in St James Square. Here Clayton Thomas-Muller from Alberta opened proceedings with a traditional Sun-dance ceremony and song.
He called on his 200-strong audience of protesters and passers by: “When I say ‘BP’, you say ‘criminal’,” and they duly obliged.
His comrade, George Poitras of the Mikisew Cree First Nation, added: “We have buried over 100 people since 2000 - our community is in a state of constant mourning.”
Their campaign concerns the digging of bitumen from an area they compare to the size of England, in Alberta, Canada.
It is big business in the region, with output expected to triple by 2020 with oil firms turning to it as stocks decline elsewhere.
In 2007, BP entered a joint venture with Canada’s Husky Energy aimed at producing 60,000 barrels a day from 2014, rising to 200,000 barrels over time.
The Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign says the process produces three to five times the volume of carbon dioxide per barrel as conventional oil production.

separating

Separating the tar from sand uses the same volume of natural gas per day as heating 3.2m Canadian homes for a year, the group says, and that is before it is converted to oil.
Some forms of extraction also create huge tailings ponds - stores for toxic waste made up of water, clay, sand, residual bitumen and heavy metals.
George Poitras claims leaks from these ponds - along with legal effluent release - have a serious environmental impact.
“We’re about 250km downstream from tar sands activities, on Lake Athabasca,” he said.
“Our traditional hunters and trappers have noticed that water levels have receded and fish are diseased and have blisters or mutations. The taste of animals is different and their flesh is discoloured.”
Poitras says his people are increasingly afflicted with cancers. “In a community of 1,200 people, we have buried over 100 since 2000. This is not exaggeration. Our community is in a state of constant mourning.”
Last Tuesday BP announced a “giant” new oil discovery in its fields in the Gulf of Mexico. BP is the largest producer of oil and gas in that area, with net production equivalent to more than 400,000 barrels of oil a day.
Meanwhile the climate camp broke up on Wednesday and participants went away with plans for a mass invasion of the E.on power station at Ratcliffe in Nottinghamshire.
Campaigners are hoping to force the station to close down for a couple of days on 17th and 18th October.
“We are doing this because it’s time to imagine a world without coal,” said Charlotte Johnson, protest organiser.

A day in the sun!

The New Communist Party's Metropolitan cell's annual garden party in Charlton was a success again, with plenty of food, drink and informal debate and general conversation in very pleasant surroundings. A collection raised £77 for the New Worker.

Naming the dead

STOP the War campaigners gathered around Lewisham Clock Tower in south London last Saturday to mark the death toll of British troops serving in the futile and illegal war in Afghanistan passing 200.
Those present – individuals and representatives of a wide spectrum of progressive organisations – took turns to read out the names of the 206 dead British troops and a similar number of dead Afghan civilians.
The casualty rate among Afghan civilians is far higher than among the invading troops but it seems that no one is keeping records and the numbers and names of the dead are hard to find.
Most British reporters in the country are embedded with British troops and rarely get to interview the victims of British and American bombing raids.
A lot of information has been supplied by a London reporter, Guy Smallman, who has travelled to Afghanistan to make his own independent investigation. Even so information about many of the dead is patchy; some are known only as “Amin’s mother” or “Khan’s baby son”.
The ceremony attracted a number of passers by and shoppers who stopped to listen to the list of names being read.
The Stop the War campaign is planning a major demonstration against the continuing war in Afghanistan on Saturday 24th October in central London. It will be organised jointly with CND and British Muslim Initiative.
And for next months a coalition of trade unions – NUJ, NUT, UCU and PCS – have come together nationally with Stop the War Coalition and other campaigns to call a joint protest at the Labour Party conference in Brighton on 27th September 2009.
The continued deployment of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq together with the proposed replacement Trident nuclear programme cost billions of pounds that could be spent on jobs, education and public services for the most vulnerable in society.
Stop the War calls on the Government to prioritise spending on public services rather than war or weaponry.

Boris angry with Tube PPP deal

TORY London mayor Boris Johnson last Tuesday declared the performance of the PPP company Tube Lines, contracted to upgrade the infrastructure of the London Underground, as “unacceptable”.
The public-private partnership (PPP) deal that was opposed by his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, but imposed by the Government is failing London’s travelling public.
Johnson said delays on a major underground railway route were "unacceptable" after doubts were raised that work on its upgrade would not be completed by its end of year deadline.
Tube Lines, and its key shareholder Bechtel, are carrying out a £500 million-upgrade of the Jubilee Line under the PPP deal.
The line has suffered full or part closures every weekend this year, causing havoc for commuters travelling to the busy Canary Wharf financial district and music-goers attending the O2 arena in Greenwich, south-east London.
"Tube Lines must get its act together if Londoners are to benefit from faster, more frequent and reliable services on the Jubilee Line," Johnson said. "I am hugely frustrated at their progress to date, which is simply unacceptable."
The mayor appoints the board of Transport for London (TfL), the body responsible for most of the city's transport system.
Tube Lines had initially promised to complete the work by June, and despite being one of London's newest Underground lines, it was granted an additional 12 weekends to meet its 31st December contractual deadline, (TfL) said.
Then in the summer, Tube Lines asked for another six weekends of closures. One weekend has been granted, but TfL is reluctant to grant the other five, saying it needs an independent review to restore confidence.
"Tube Lines' hunger for more Jubilee Line closures has stretched the patience of Londoners and business almost to breaking point," Johnson added. "Before we can consider any more disruption, we must have confidence they will deliver."
Financial penalties will kick in if the deadline is missed, adding up to several million pounds a month.

Adams launches unity initiative in London

By Theo Russell

SINN Féin president Gerry Adams and Michelle Gildernew, agriculture minister in the Northern Ireland Executive, were in Westminster at Parliament last week to launch the party’s new initiative aimed at international debate on the question of a united Ireland.
Sinn Féin is planning a major conference in London next February and recently held a similar conference in New York.
In his keynote address Adams said: “The construction of a new relationship between Ireland and Britain based on equality is the single most important issue facing the people of Ireland and Britain”, and outlined three challenges.
“These are: getting the British government to change its policy from one of upholding the union to one of becoming a persuader for Irish unity; getting the Irish government to begin preparations for Irish unity; and engaging with Ulster unionism on the type of Ireland we want to create.”
Adams stressed the importance of understanding what Unionists understood about being British and looking at “new concepts and possibilities”, with any new structure based on agreement and respect for diversity. “That means,” he said, “that Orange marches will continue in a united Ireland, if that is the wish of the Orange”.
But he also underlined the “the right of the people of Ireland to independence and self-determination” – an aspect often overlooked by observers focusing on the concerns of the Unionist community.
Describing Irish partition as “one of the great contentious and divisive issues of Britain’s past,” Adams pointed to the remarkable changes in recent history. “Twenty years ago Margaret Thatcher said that Northern Ireland was ‘as British as Finchley,’ I was banned from the UK mainland, and Northern Ireland was gripped by military and political conflict”.
Both Adams and Gildernew emphasised the economic benefits for both jurisdictions of ending partition. Gildernew described Unionist farmers as having “minds which are British, but their cows are Irish” – in other words they wanted freedom of movement for their stock just like farmers in the Republic.
She said that swift action in 2007 to close ports, only six weeks after she took office, saved the livestock industry from foot-and-mouth disease, but pointed out that “as a devolved administration Northern Ireland has no powers to stop animals coming from high-risk disease areas”.
Adams said Sinn Féin intended to involve trade unions, the business sector, the community and voluntary sector, and the political class, “as well as with those of other ethnic minorities who have experienced a similar history of colonisation and immigration”. He noted that British Labour Party leaders “continue to uphold the union, and some, such as John Reid, have talked of changing the union. But a new type of union – it’s not possible”.
In an article in the Guardian newspaper last week, Adams pointed out that unionists make up fewer than two per cent of Britain’s population, and as such “cannot hope to have any significant say in the direction of their own affairs,” while they would carry far more weight as 20 per cent of a united Ireland and be able to “exercise real political power and influence”.

photo:Michelle Gildernew

Remember the brutality of fascism

by Robert Laurie

Saturday 4th July saw the International Brigade Memorial Trust hold their annual commemoration of the British volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. In the shadow of the London Eye a number of speakers paid tribute to the volunteers who rallied in defence of democracy in Spain which in 1936 was faced by a revolt by the Spanish army (particularly the Spanish colonial army) backed by Hitler and Mussolini. The British government effectively assisted the fascist rebels by a policy of so called "non-intervention". Two thousand volunteers came from Britain to aid the republican cause, many were communists who fought in the International Brigades while others served in front line medical services.
This year the commemorations had an international flavour with speakers representing the Swedish and German organisations of Spanish Civil War veterans and their supporters. A member of the Veterans for Peace from the United States and a representative of the British Jewish Ex-Servicemen's Association both laid wreaths. Official recognition came in the form of the Spanish ambassador and representatives from the Catalonian regional government.
In June the Spanish Embassy hosted a ceremony at which the surviving British brigaders were awarded Spanish citizenship in recognition of their efforts. At the July ceremony The Ambassador admitted it was long overdue. One of the veterans honoured, Sam Russell, recalled earlier visits to the Embassy where he protested against executions carried out throughout the Franco years. He stressed it is important to remember that the brutality of the regime, which included executions of republicans by garrotting carried out until his death in 1975.
Tributes were also paid to three recently deceased veterans including Jack Jones, the TGWU leader who served as IBMT president.

Party Day in London

NCP leader Andy Brooks and Party Chair Alex Kempshall recalled the history of the communist movement in Britain at the NCP's founding day reception last weekend. The Party celebrated 32 years of struggle at the celebration at the Party Centre which raised over £1,700 for the New Worker Special Appeal.