By Greg Moses
“History has shown that there is nothing contradictory or incoherent with an approach that has as one of its components a discussion of human rights. Speaking with clarity on this issue does not prevent or even discourage progress on immediate security concerns.”
We like this quote from Jay Lefkowitz, speaking in April to the Asia Society in New York. Lefkowitz has recently been dispatched on a human rights tour of the North Korean maquilas in Kaesong, an enclave of South Korean industry, but just across the border. Whether to call goods from that area South Korean or North Korean is one of the issues on the table in the recently started FTA negotiations.
Border-conscious negotiators from the USA will not agree to label the goods as South Korean. But according to facts stated by a Korean labor organizer, if you look closely at who owns what, South Korea might better be known as Western USA:
… presently 60 percent of South Korean financial and manufacturing industries are in the hands of U.S. corporations.
Some 86 percent of Kook-Min Bank, the largest South Korean bank; 54 percent of Samsung Electronics, a world-class corporation; 70 percent of POSCO—the cream of the crop of South Korean corporations are owned by U.S.-based transnational corporations.
In a speech translated and transcribed by Workers World, Oh Jongryul, co-chair of the Korean Alliance talked about a need for worker unity in an age of neo-liberalism.
Since NAFTA, U.S. workers are competing with oversupplied Mexican migrant workers in a labor market that has heightened the intensity of labor and job insecurity and worse working conditions. Imperialism sees no border. It also victimizes its own people.
Under neoliberalism, the new economic imperialism, we are one. Workers from Korea, the U.S. and Mexico are one.
If human rights are consistent with security, then we might ask Mr. Lefkowitz to remind Washington that the USA has not yet signed the 1990 Convention on Rights of Migrants.
A December 18 movement, named after the day the UN General Assembly passed the migrant convention, is being organized in the USA by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR).
In Texas, the NNIRR lists two organized events for the past Dec. 18 commemorations. In El Paso, there was a Dec. 10 Walk for Human Rights (catching two human rights anniversaries with one net) organized by the Border Network for Human Rights.
And in San Antonio the Southwest Workers Uni-n (SWU) also doubled up their migrant rights action with a celebration of Día de la Virgen de Guadalupe on Dec. 15.
Back in November, Ruben Solis of the SWU, wrote a report about his participation at the US-Human Rights Network (USHRnetwork) conference in Atlanta.
SWU took the position that the focus should not just be on human rights as a UN framework but a more inclusive strategy to human rights i.e., peoples struggles, workers and communities fighting environmental racism , military toxics, racism etc. SWU gave the example of our work with the University without Borders (Universidad Sin
Fronteras) as a University without walls concept that develops and trains for human rights work. Ruben made emphasis in the need for developing popular
education curriculum for human rights education at the grassroots level. The people centered human rights focus prevailed amongst all of the participants
throughout the day.
Solis reported that the SWU was looking into filing a complaint against the Minutemen with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
At the Worker Caucus meeting, Solis met up with Trevor Palacios from ‘Voices of the Future’ from Houston, TX. They talked about a Southern Human Rights conference for August 2006.
We definitely need to give this guy a call. Stay tuned.
As for Fernando Garcia, the El Paso organizer, you can talk with him by telephone June 15 at 3pm EST as he facilitates a conference call on “Rights and Immigration.” Register online for free.
Also coming up soon is the Southern Girls Convention in Houston (June 23-25). So far, I don’t see immigration or migrant rights on the menu there, but they are inviting workshops, etc. http://southerngirlsconvention.org/2006/
MoPress 
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