Tag: left

Dirty War torturer dies

Posted on By 3arabawy

From the BBC:

One of the most notorious figures from the regime of former military ruler of Chile, General Augusto Pinochet, has died in prison, officials have said.
Osvaldo Romo, who was serving 15 years in jail for killing three dissidents during Gen Pinochet’s rule, died of heart and respiratory problems.
Known as “El Guaton” (“The Fat One”), Romo also faced pending trials for human rights abuses from 1973 to 1990. …..
A former officer in the feared Dina secret police force, Romo was accused by his victims of being a sadistic torturer.
Boasts
He worked at the notorious Villa Grimaldi detention center in the capital, Santiago, where Chile’s current president, Michelle Bachelet, was briefly held in the 1970s.
Romo once boasted about his actions in a TV interview he gave in prison.
He said he had told the Dina commander, Gen Manuel Contreras, that it was a mistake not to kill some jailed dissidents.
He said that he told Gen Contreras: “Let’s not leave any of these kids alive, my general.”
Romo also infiltrated leftist groups prior to the 1973 military coup in which Gen Pinochet overthrew Marxist President Salvador Allende.
More than 3,000 people were killed or “disappeared” during Gen Pinochet’s 17-year rule.

1923 Amon Newsreel: Saad Zaghlul Returns from Exile

Posted on By 3arabawy

Here’s another video clip from one of Muhammad Bayoumi’s works: “Amon Newsreel: Saad Zaghlul returns from Exile,” about the Egyptian nationalist leader’s return from his second exile in 1923.

Government and mainstream historians always focus on kings, presidents, “leaders” and “heroes”. Saad Zaghloul may have disliked the Brits, and wanted them out, but his class loyalty was always clear. We are taught how “Saad Zaghloul led the revolution”, but you hardly hear about those who ignited the revolution were in fact the tram workers whose strike brought the capital to halt, encouraging their brothers at the railways to join in… then confrontations with the British troops (and the Egyptian police) broke out all across the country… They don’t tell you how Saad and his exiled friends, horrified by the increasing militancy of their workers and peasants (yes, they were rich in case you forgot), rushed in to send messages “denouncing violence” and asking the protesters to stop “destroying private property,” while their minions back in Egypt were doing their best to control the protests, not push them forward… MORE IMPORTANTLY the Wafd Beiks and Bashas were pissing in their pants by the thought that their peasants were getting armed to fight the Brits…. “What will happen when the peasants are done with the Brits?” Saad and his comrades must have been thinking in exile… “Damn, they’ll turn them on us later if we mess with their land rights….” Such thoughts I’m sure did not amuse them… And once in power, Saad legislated anti-strike laws, and unleashed his police on leftists and labor activists. The successive security crackdowns and infiltrations led to the decimation of the first Egyptian Communist Party in 1924.

For more background on the 1919 revolution in Arabic, check this and this.

We need to write our history from below.

Mahalla updates

Posted on By 3arabawy

I finally received a copy of the statements distributed in the Ghazl el-Mahalla last Tuesday and Wednesday.

Both statements are agitating for a sit-in on 21 July if demands related to work conditions and housing are not met. The first is signed by “The 7th of December Movement- Workers For Change,” in reference to 7 December 2006, when a 27,000-strong strike brought the factory to halt causing an upturn in industrial militancy. The statement starts by affirming that this previously unknown entity is not affiliated with any political or religious group, refuses to recognize the corrupt Egyptian General Federation of Trade Unions (EGFTU) officials, and then blasts the “ruling regime” for “selling Egypt with the lowest price,” for corruption, rigging elections, and repression.

And below is the second statement, calling for a sit-in, and demanding the impeachment of the company’s CEO:

What is interesting is the name this previously unknown group has picked for itself. “Workers For Change” was Kefaya’s not-that-successful attempt to link the anti-Mubarak campaign with working class struggle championed by the radical left. Its representatives did not perform well during the labor union elections in fall 2006, and not necessarily because of the security interventions. But the wave of strikes instigated by Ghazl el-Mahalla’s truimphant industrial action last December, produced some political impact… whether it’s the demand to impeach the corrupt, state-sponsored trade unionists and the threats to launch an independent national labor union parallel to Mubarak’s EGFTU by the most advanced sections in the movement, or the “Workers For Change” statements we are receiving from places like Kafr el-Dawar and now Ghazl el-Mahalla that is slowly adopting the lingo of the radical left even if it is not necessarily affiliated organizationally with the current operating leftist groups.