[spectre] fwd.: HELP RUSSIANS KICK RACISTS/RIGHTWINGERS OUT OF THE ANTI-GLOBALISATION MOVEMENT

[geert lovink]

From: <FFWi@aol.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2001 9:07 AM

RUSSIA INFO-LIST

from International Solidarity with Workers in Russia - ISWoR@aol.com
ISWoR web-site - http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/index.html

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HELP RUSSIANS KICK RACISTS/RIGHTWINGERS
OUT OF THE ANTI-GLOBALISATION MOVEMENT!

IMPORTANT - please sign the short petition following the letter below
in solidarity with anti-racists and internationalists in Russia.

THEN - forward this letter and petition as widely as you can.

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Dear activists of the anti-globalisation, labor, antiracist and progressive
movements,

In July the Genoa protests saw the first ever participation of an organised
Russian delegation in the international protest movement. Now, despite the
offer of the Putin government to use massive police brutality, live
firearms,
etc to make the country the "safest" place for future assemblies of the
G-8,
WTO, IMF, etc, there is a growing determination to build the movement in
Russia and the Ukraine.

But there is a great danger! As many of you know, Russia and other countries
of the ex-USSR have suffered the collapse of their industry and the
near-total impoverishment of their people since the market economy was
re-introduced. Diseases such as TB are now epidemic in Russia, and the
average male life expectancy is down to 56. Russians have every reason to be
angry at the world's capitalist leaders, the neo-liberal monsters, coming to
Moscow as Putin requests.

But into all this misery have stepped the venomous forces of racism,
fascism,
bigotry -  who try to divert the just anger of  Russian people away from
those responsible and onto traditional scapegoats - Chechens, Muslims, Black
people, Jews, the gay community, etc..

In July the international association ATTAC (via its French section) largely
financed the trip of the joint Russian-Ukrainian delegation to Genoa.
Alexander Gelenin, a Russian left activist known for his uncompromising
stand
against racism, nationalism and collaboration with neo-liberals, has exposed
the participation in the delegation of racists (the so-called "red-browns")
as well as a former Yeltsin money-launderer (see link to The Gelenin Letter,
below). In Genoa, and then back in Russia, these right-wingers succeeded in
taking almost all the credit for the delegation in the mass media.

Two participants of the delegation, Nicolaev and Vedernikova, are leading
members of the RKRP, an extremely racist and homophobic party whose members
worship the murderous dictator Stalin. Many of the youth closest to the
party
are admirers of the butcher Pol Pot. The party recently published material
urging Russians to struggle against rap music (!), on the grounds that
Russians and Black people can never agree. In 1997 the party approved an
official statement blaming the economic crisis in Russia on Jews, and they
have also published material urging that gay men be locked up in prison.

On their return from the trip, Nicolaev appeared prominently in the Russian
mass-media, where he was quoted by Interfax urging indiscriminate smashing
of
windows, property, etc., reminiscent of the provocateurs who infiltrated the
Black Bloc in Genoa.

Another delegation participant, Sergey Khramov, head of the union Sotsprof,
was in 1996 involved in the laundering of millions of dollars for the
Yeltsin
election campaign. In Genoa he made statements in favour of Putin on
national
TV. (N.B., Khramov, it seems, had alternative funding for his journey,
nevertheless he was a leading voice of the delegation in Genoa).

Additionally, Evgeny Kozlov was present. This man is responsible for
bringing
the nazi National-Bolshevik Party, who call for imprisonment of Black people
in labour camps, into the leadership of the Leningrad branch of the mass
Labour Code campaign. In the outcry afterwards, he publicly defended his
actions.

During the trip these named individuals were able to gain effective
leadership of the contingent. On their return home, the delegation held a
press conference in which plans to build an anti-globalisation movement in
Russia were revealed. The racists were allowed to appear in the mass media
as
 spokespersons for the newly-forming movement.

In the anti-globalisation movement internationally, people are becoming more
and more aware of the threat from nationalists who advocate protectionism
and
racism as the antidote to "globalisation". As a result people are now using
slogans such as "globalise resistance" in order to demonstrate the need for
unity of all peoples in the fight against the corporate giants, not for
exclusion.

We urge you to sign the e-mail petition below to help our Russian friends
kick racists, bigots, and pro-Putin forces out of the emerging
anti-globalisation movement in Russia. The events which soured the Russian
delegation to Genoa must not happen again!

>From the  Executive Committee
International Solidarity with Workers in Russia - ISWoR

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Further information can be found at:
http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/news/genoagel.html    - (the letter by
A.Gelenin exposing the reality of the Genoa delegation)

http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/isworarts/Russianleft01.html    -
(links
to a recent article explaining the above with far more detail)

http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/isworarts/rkrp2001.html    - ( Lisa
Taylor article on the Russian Communist Workers Party , the RKRP)

http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/discuss/cesspit.html     - (article on
red-brown phenomenon in Russia)

http://members.aol.com/ISWoR/english/index.html    - ( ISWoR homepage)

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Petition/letter - please sign below

Dear ATTAC,

I am writing to express my/our extreme disappointment on learning that,
during the recent anti-G8 demonstrations in Genoa, a Russian-Ukrainian
delegation mainly funded by ATTAC included leading members of a red-brown
organisation, the Russian Communist Workers Party (RKRP), an individual
responsible for promoting the fascist National Bolshevik Party in Russian
labour campaigns, and a former Yeltsin money-launderer who, during the
demonstrations, praised Putin in front of the mass media. Further, these
individuals manoeuvred to assume political leadership of the delegation and
afterwards stole the limelight in the mass media.

We condemn the Putin government, and its western puppet masters, the IMF,
World Bank etc., for imposing the market-led impoverishment on Russian
working people.

We oppose the hardened racists, the bigots, the ultra-nationalists. We call
on you to ensure that in future the funds or the name of ATTAC are not
misused in this way again.

In general the bringing of Russian activists of the labor, civil rights, and
women's movement to Genoa was a very positive achievement, and we welcome
the
birth in Russia of a resistance movement to global corporate domination. We
assert our solidarity with all genuine internationalist organisations who
are
fighting Putin, the IMF and the neoliberal privatisation which has
devastated
 the lives of ordinary people in Russia..

Signed

NAME

ORGANISATION

TOWN

COUNTRY

EMAIL

Now send to following addresses:

attacfr@attac.org
shein72@mail.ru
ISWoR@aol.com

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