What the U.S. media won't tell you-Powell's visit to S.A.

[Salim Vally <155vas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Two students, David Masondo and Nicholas Dieltins, suffered serious head
and facial wounds during a protest against Colin Powell at the
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. They were attacked by
security personnel from Powell's entourage. Hundreds of students and
staff from a wide range of progressive organisations  were protesting
the acting vice chancellor's (Leila Patel) decision to host Powell who
many consider a war criminal. Text of a pamphlet distributed at the
protest is attached:

A simple matter of human rights?

25 May 2001
To members of the Wits Community,

We protesters are here to provide an appropriate welcome to Colin
Powell, US Secretary of State.
 Mr Powell is responsible for the foreign policy of the world?s worst
rogue nation.
 Powell is personally responsible for an attempted cover up of the
horrific 1968 My Lai massacre of women and children by US forces in
Vietnam; for participating in the mid-1980s cover-up of the Iran-contra
Arms Scandal; and for covering up and downplaying 1991 ?Gulf War
syndrome? diseases as well as violations of the Geneva Convention
associated with mass slaughter of retreating Iraqi troops.
 Powell?s responsibilities for human rights violations continue through
* Washington?s coddling of the terrorist state of Israel, which with US
financial and military support (R80 million daily) is killing hundreds
of Palestinians,
* the ongoing illegal blockade of Cuba, in the wake of at least 17
asssassination CIA attempts on Fidel Castro; and
* a $1.5 billion escalation of an alleged ?drugs war? in Colombia which
in reality is merely another failing counterinsurgency in the tradition
of Indochina, Central America, and Southern Africa.
In all such cases, the US has been, and continues to be, on the side of
oppressive, undemocratic regimes.
 The US must still apologise, and provide meaningful reparations, for
CIA support to the apartheid regime, and encouragement of the apartheid
invasion of Angola in 1975, from which that country has still not
recovered, for promoting civil war in Mozambique which left a million
people dead, and for Ronald Reagan?s ?constructive engagement? policy
which prolonged apartheid?s life during the 1980s.
 Powell, more recently, has been associated with the Bush
Administration, a regime which came to power through a banana-republic
election in Florida, and which shows its regard for the rest of the
planet?s citizens through:
* a massive military boondoggle in the form of the ?Star Wars? missile
defense programme;
* the refusal to honour more than $1 billion in United Nations dues;
* the retreat from international efforts to curb illicit money
laundering, which mainly occurs through US banks and their ?hot money
centre? subsidiaries;
* the rejection of obligations to stop trashing the planet ? which the
US does more than any other country -- through the Kyoto Protocol on
carbon dioxide emissions;
*a brand new US Office of the Trade Representative attack on Brazil?s
ability to produce anti-retroviral generic drugs to combat HIV-AIDS
(similar to the 1998-99 US attack on the South African Medicines Act);
*a refusal to fund organisations that provide family planning and
abortion services in the Third World;
*sabotage of Korean peace talks;
* nomination of men with appalling human rights records to the UN and
Organisation of American States;
* insistence on Third World countries? repayment of illegitimate foreign
debt to the World Bank and IMF, debt whose origins in many cases (like
South Africa?s) can be traced to US (and IMF/Bank) support for dictators
and tyrants; and
* continuation of the extremist trade liberalisation process of the
World Trade Organisation and African Growth and Opportunity Act, while
hypocritically retaining protectionist tariffs at home.

The US State Department has a record littered with assassinations,
coups, terror, torture, destabilisation. We remember the murders of Che
Guevara (Bolivia), Patrice Lumumba (Congo), Salvador Allende (Chile), to
mention just a few.

The South African government should be ashamed to welcome Colin Powell,
so soon after the Bush Administration?s international illegitimacy was
confirmed by the US? own peers in the United Nations. Over the past few
weeks, the US was stripped of its seats on the UN international drug
monitoring board and the UN Human Rights Commission. We join human
rights activists across the world in celebrating such rejections of the
world?s most dangerous rogue nation, including its main foreign policy
representative, General Colin Powell.

 Issued by concerned staff including Salim Vally and Patrick Bond.