by Paola Reyes
Published in Latin America News Dispatch
 http://latindispatch.com

NEW YORK – Over 120 people and 40 organizations participated in the Third Encounter for Dignity and Against Gentrification hosted by the Movement for Justice in el Barrio this past Sunday in East Harlem, New York. The meeting, referred to by the Spanish term encuentro, brought together activists from places as far as California, Puerto Rico, and Maryland.

“The objective of this third encuentro was to connect our struggle. Our struggle doesn’t have boundaries,” said Filiberto Hernandez, a member of the Movement for Justice in el Barrio.

During the five-hour-long encuentro, members of different organizations spoke about the ongoing struggles in their communities. Members of the South African Shack Dwellers or Abahlali Movement were present via video conference and discussed displacement in Africa caused by the South African government initiative to clear out the country’s slums by 2014.

Other speakers included Tom Demott who spoke on behalf of the Coalition to Preserve our Community. He discussed successful community efforts to curtail the multibillion dollar expansion plan of Columbia University. Such expansion would result in the displacement of over 5,000 tenants, according to Nellie Hester Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council.

A New York appeals court voted in a three-to-two decision to not allow the state to use eminent domain to help Columbia obtain the land in Upper Manhattan. However Columbia plans to appeal the decision.

Bailey emphasized the importance of showing support for social causes, critical thinking, and offering financial support when possible. A representative from Sunset Park Alliance of Neighbors emphasized the need to think about how to prepare residents to use venues available to them to speak out.

“We don’t have money, what we have is people,” he said.

The practice of the encuentro was inspired by the contemporary Zapatista Army of National Liberation movement in Mexico and this grassroots model is based on bringing together social activists dedicated to fighting similar struggles. The Movement described their encuentros as a way to “get to know and recognize one another in our struggles for a world where many worlds fit and against neoliberal exclusion,” according to an article published in the Movement’s newspaper.

The Movement for Justice in el Barrio was formed in 2004 in response to gentrification in East Harlem and, more specifically, the use of illegal tactics commonly employed by landlords to pressure their tenants to vacate housing. “There are city laws that don’t allow tenants to be evicted over night so the landlords use tactics that put the health of the tenants at risk,” said Oscar Dominguez, a member of the Movement for Justice in el Barrio, during an interview with Radio Zapatista.

The Movement for Justice in el Barrio fights against these illegal tactics by mobilizing tenants, organizing protests, filing legal suits, or working with the bank that owns the building’s mortgage, according to Dominguez.

The two dominant themes that arose during the encuentro were collaboration across borders in the battle against gentrification and the question of where the struggle should go next.

“We shared our struggles, our experiences. What people were asking was what are we going to do? How can we support each other? This question wasn’t there before,” said Dominguez.


Original article:  http://latindispatch.com/2010/03/04/zapatista-inspired-rally-held-in-new-york-city-aims-to-fight-gentrification/

BORON, CA - February 24th - A caravan of four big rig trucks and around 150 cars carried over 200 people and $30,000 in food to support lock out miners in the town of Boron last week. The miners have been lock out since January 31st by the Rio Tinto Corporation, a giant foreign-owned mining firm that operates one of the world’s largest borax mines near the town of Boron in California’s Mojave Desert.

Miners were lockout and scabs bused in from out of state after new contact negotiations with Rio Tinto broke down. The situation, although barely mentioned in local corporate media, has drawn international attention in what many see as a clear case of illegal union busting. At stake is the livelihood of nearly 600 families. Reports from the newswire: Caravan to Rio Tinto to support miners locked out | | UFCW Delivers Food to Locked Out Miners in Desert

In anticipation for the statewide strike and day of action on March 4th activists have stepped up their actions with a renewed round of occupations in California. An occupation of a construction site at UC Berkeley resulted in a "mass riot" on Telegraph Avenue with hundreds of youth fighting the police. March 4th actions are planned throughout the Bay Area, California and beyond. In the East Bay strikes and walkouts are planned to converge in Downtown Oakland and an evening rally is planned for San Francisco.

Occupy Everything Fight Everywhere Strike March 4! | UC Berkeley Actions and March to Oakland | Evening Rally in San Francisco

On Thursday night, 2/25, a dance party of hundreds taking place on Sproul Plaza turned into an occupation as partygoers took over the construction site of Durant Hall. After taking over the building and causing some amount of property damage, participants took the party onto the streets. The crowd moved down Telegraph Ave. pulling objects into the street to prevent police movement while smashing a window out of a Subway. For more than an hour the party swelled in numbers while dancing around a burning dumpster and throwing projectiles at police who tried to move in.

The Durant Riot: Initial Brief | Daily Cal Student Newspaper Article and Video | Daily Cal Slide Show | SAVE-UC Open Letter to Chancellor Birgeneau

Banners have been dropped from buildings in CSU Fullerton, SF State and UC Santa Cruz while students have occupied a building at UC Irvine over budget cuts and in UC San Diego and UCLA against racist policies in the past week.

More Information: Occupy California | Reclaim UC | Defend Education

The latest in the ongoing trial of Johannes Mehserle, accused of shooting Oscar Grant in the back early New Year's Day 2009. Mehserle is the first police officer in California history to be tried for murder committed while on-duty. The Grant-Mehserle saga has sparked unrest and rebellion in the Bay Area, leading to the transfer of the trial to Los Angeles, where social justice advocates have placed immense pressure to ensure that the truth comes out and that the structures permitting this type of injustice are challenged.

The preliminary hearing on February 19, 2010 dealt with four main things: the reduction of bail, the removal of the Alameda DA, a ruling made by Judge Espinoa, and the schedule of the case. Full report: The People vs. Johannes Mehserle Second Los Angeles Hearing by Traci and Erinn

RELATED: Lessons from the Oscar Grant Tragedy – We Need to Get to Work by Kokayi Kwa Jitahidi

Denison plans on extracting 335 tons of uranium ore per day out of the "Arizona 1 Mine", which is set to operate four days per week. The hazardous ore will be hauled by truck more than 300 miles through towns and communities to the company's White Mesa mill located near Blanding, Utah.

After being pressured by environmental groups, U.S. Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar initially called for a two-year moratorium on new mining claims in a buffer zone of 1 million acres around Grand Canyon National Park, but the moratorium doesn't include existing claims such as Denison's. The moratorium also doesn't address mining claims outside of the buffer zone.

The Raging Grannies joined with grassroots coalition A New Way Forward this month to spread the word to American consumers: It's time to move your money to a local credit union or bank!

At 400 events in cities and towns across the nation, activists are passing out flyers, telling people how to move their money and demand financial reform. Their message: What's good for MegaBanks is not what's best for the rest of us. The demonstrators insist that the Big Banks be held accountable for bringing down the American economy.

Members of the Raging Grannies distributed flyers in San Francisco Bay Area cities early last week, then took the action up a notch with culture jamming cutouts to help get their message across. The Grannies stood by and recorded reaction as bank customers watched animal teeth swallow up bank cards at Bank of America and Wells Fargo ATM's. Said Granny Gail Sredanovic, "It's just one more way we are demonstrating the greedy reckless behavior of the big banks."

Photos: 1 | 2

A New Way Forward

Approximately 34 students, workers, activists, and people of faith gathered in front of the Hanover Theatre, holding signs ranging from the playful to the direct. Representatives from the Worcester area Catholic Workers displayed an image of Don Quixote with the slogan, “Dream A Possible Dream" beside a banner that read: "End the Occupation. Live in Peace." Students from Clark University asked “Where Are the Arabs in Your Arabesques?” And Boston area activists held a banner proclaiming “Tutus Can’t Cover Israel’s War Crimes.”

Photo 1: http://bit.ly/99jf87
Photo 2: http://bit.ly/ce7UZI

Other demonstrators posed as ushers, distributing alternative programs to those attending the ballet. Appearing on the outside to be a regular performance program, inside it detailed the Israel Ballet’s role as an “Ambassador of Apartheid,” explaining how arts and culture are used by the Israeli government to promote a friendlier image of the country so as to distract from its ongoing system of apartheid, colonial occupation, and violations of human rights and international law. Activists succeeded in handing out all 200 programs they brought with them.

Video (youtube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCEGLnXmzMY
Video (vimeo): http://vimeo.com/9629470

At the conclusion of the 1-hour action, Israel Ballet Associate Director Dan Rudolf came out to address the protesters. Rudolph insisted that anyone who claimed the Ballet received money from the Israeli government was a liar, despite the fact that Ha’aretz has reported it receives over $1 million from Tel Aviv annually (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/815228.html). In response to questions from demonstrators asking “What happened in 1948?” Rudolf replied, “You know what was in Israel before 1948? Nothing. Nothing was.” When protesters cited Israeli historians Ilan Pappe’s and Benny Morris’s documentation of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced, exiled, and killed in 1948 and the destruction of 500 Palestinian villages, Rudolf stated, “That belongs to the tale of 1001 Arabian Nights, to the tale of Ali Baba.”

The Massachusetts activists were pleased to be part of a larger, multi-city campaign that refuses to let the Israel Ballet “tiptoe around apartheid,” a campaign that is part of the larger movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel (see http://adalahny.org/ for more information). Only two days prior, activists in Burlington, VT succeeded in disrupting the Israel Ballet’s actual performance with a banner: http://vimeo.com/9594080

The BDS movement is an international response to the call from Palestinian society to boycott, divest from, and sanction the Israeli government until it ends its occupation and dismantles the wall, recognizes the equal rights of Palestinian citizens, and respects the right of return of Palestinian refugees. To learn more about the call for BDS, and to read about other organizations engaged in BDS work who also support the protest of the Israel Ballet, see:
http://www.bdsmovement.net/ - site of the global BDS movement; you can read the call for BDS here
http://www.pacbi.org/ - site of the Palestinian campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/ - site of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

Photo 3: http://bit.ly/bzoo4M

link to report online:
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/209992/index.php
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/02/21/18638347.php