Category: Uncategorized

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/

It’s a real fine piece of writing done by Colleen Kenney of the Lincoln Journal Star, talking to migrant workers on the day the President passes through town.

“One man said he’d ask the president to adopt him. That made the other men laugh,” writes Kenney, reporting from a day-labor site.

“I definitely would benefit (from Bush’s immigration proposal),” says a grocery worker from El Salvador who hasn’t seen her five children in five years. “I would appreciate that opportunity. It’s a good objective — so all people without papers can get jobs.”

About eight blocks north on 24th Street is the NPDodge office where Jose Correa sells homes.

Jose, 46, came to the United States in 1977 unable to speak English. He loaded coffee from railroad cars at the Beechnut plant downtown, making $2.65 an hour. Then he got a job making $3 an hour at a south Omaha meatpacking plant, rising to superintendent. He taught himself English by reading free newspapers at the plant.

In 1986, he said, everything changed economically for him and other Hispanics when President Reagan signed an immigration reform law that made immigrants like him legal.

After that, instead of buying land in Mexico as he’d planned, he bought a house in south Omaha for $12,000. He asked his agent a lot of questions. He didn’t know of any bilingual real estate agents, so he decided to study it.

It paid off. He doesn’t want to reveal how much money he makes.

“He makes a lot!” fellow agent Estela Torres shouted from her desk.

Nice work.

Sure enough that’s what a Texas National Guard Spokesman told the AP about plans to militarize the border with Mexico. But you have to read all the way to the bottom of the inverted pyramid to find the quote. Note also how volunteering for border service may keep a guardsman out of Iraq or Afghanistan:

---

Posted on Wed, Jun. 07, 2006

National Guard troops to be in place on Texas border by Aug. 1

SHEILA FLYNN
Associated Press

DALLAS – Most Texas National Guard troops should be in place along the border by Aug. 1, and officers are already assembling around Austin to build up that force, officials said Wednesday.

Texas Guard spokesman Col. Bill Meehan said preparations for deployment began immediately after Gov. Rick Perry signed the order last week authorizing up to 2,300 troops at the border.

“Between today and the first of August, we will be bringing on, training and deploying them to their jobs,” Meehan said. He said 150 planners, logisticians and leaders were already being assembled in the Austin area to work out specifics for bringing in more troops in the coming weeks.

But Meehan said the “action-packed month will be July,” when the bulk of soldiers would be arriving for training and placement next month.

Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said the governor hoped to see troops move in quickly and efficiently.

“He’s been encouraging Washington to take action to provide more security along the border,” spokeswoman Kathy Walt said.

President Bush on May 15 said that up to 6,000 National Guard troops would be sent to the Texas-Mexico border for about two years to help local and federal law enforcement stem the flow of illegal immigration.

“The governor would like to move the process along as quickly as possible, but we also recognize that there are details that have to be developed with the Border Patrol before the troops can be on the ground.”

Meehan said the Guard and the Border Patrol had to work out exactly where the troops would train and be stationed.

Guard officials already put out a call for volunteers across the state for a long-term border commitment, and the response should be tabulated within the next few days, Meehan said.

Members of a Guard unit based in Weslaco had just returned from Afghanistan, but several had already volunteered for the border duty.

But, Meehan said, if enough volunteers don’t materialize, the Guard will assign units to do their two- to three-week training on the border.

He said volunteering for border duty would likely discount troops from being deployed overseas.

“Once they’re tasked on this mission, they’re on this mission,” Meehan said. But he added that officials “have seen no indication that anyone would want to do this mission to get out of a combat service mission.”

Officials plan to build up the state’s border force with Texas Guard members but could turn to other states to fill specific needs, Meehan said.

“Our expectation is first we will fill these tasks with Lone Star State soldiers,” Meehan said.

Meehan said Texas’ border plan should not be compared to Arizona and New Mexico, where National Guard troops have already arrived at the Mexican border.

“We think this is a long-term mission, so it requires detailed planning with your partners.”

Officials have said that National Guard troops will serve in support capacities along the border, constructing fences, installing vehicle barriers, running surveillance systems and analyzing intelligence with the goal of freeing up more Border Patrol agents to actively stop illegal border crossings.

The Star-Telegram talked to a few guardsmen about the upcoming mission to the border with Mexico:

National Guard Sgt. Douglas Salley said he will volunteer for deployment to the Mexican border because he wants to stay on active status.

Salley, who served in Iraq, said that his wife is about have a baby in Fort Worth and that he does not have a job to go back to.

“I got to do what I got to do. I’ve got a family to support,” he said. “You have to work 12 hours a day every day just to get the money that I make on active duty.”

Sgt. Alfred Bethea said he will not volunteer to go because he served in Iraq for a year and fears that border service could turn into another yearlong deployment.

Capt. Cameron Lenahan said he will not volunteer because he served in Iraq and is trying to restart his career as a lawyer, this time in Paris in East Texas.

“If they asked me and tell me they desperately need me, I’ll go of course. But I’ve got to get my life back together here,” he said.

See: Guard troops deployed to southern border, By JOHN MORITZ, STAR-TELEGRAM AUSTIN BUREAU, with contributions from staff writer Patrick McGee (Fort Worth Star Telegram: June 6, 2006)