The April 30 march in Washington, organized by the Save Darfur Coalition, brought out some heroes of the left, like George Clooney, but also some that the hard left loves to hate, like Elie Wiesel and Samantha Power. While policy-makers equivocate, trying to sound tough against the genocide while actually doing not a thing to stop it, the radical left remains largely silent on Darfur: the atrocities there are not being carried out by US imperialism or its proxies, and the solutions most often proposed involve some degree of US military intervention. There is indeed a strong case that another Western military adventure would be a very problematic "solution" at best—but the anti-war left, afraid of losing popularity, doesn't even bother to make that case. As usual, it is being just as dishonest as the government it claims such moral superiority to.

With Darfur in the headlines, if not the minds of our policymakers, it is generally forgotten that armed attacks, forced deportations and even slavery continue against Black African peoples throughout the Sahel. On Tuesday, May 9, at 7:30 PM, the Libertarian Book Club's Anarchist Forum will present a discussion in New York's Greenwhich Village on "Ethnic Cleansing and Slavery in Contemporary Africa," with an emphasis on Mauritania, Sudan and Darfur. The featured speaker will be Abdarahmane Wone of the African Liberation Forces of Mauritania (FLAM), which has been attempting to resist and expose the system of slavery in that country for a generation.

The US is under review by the UN Committee Against Torture in Geneva, and spin control is the name of the game. State Department legal counsel John Bellinger testified out of both sides of this mouth today, saying the US upholds the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment—but that it doesn't apply in Afghanistan, Iraq or Guantanamo. He also denied that Justice Department memos had dumbed down the definition of torture—as if this cat wasn't already long out of the bag. From South Africa's News24, May 5:

It has now been reported everywhere that Zacarias Moussaoui, upon being sentenced by a federal jury to life imprisonment, shouted, "America, you lost... I won!" Obviously, he had been rehearsing the line for months, and was prepared to use it regardless of the sentence. Actually, the jury's rejection of the death penalty was a victory for the best values of the United States, and a defeat for the forces of pathological polarization, whether of the GWOT or jihad variety. The symbiotic, even incestuous relationship between al-Qaeda and the White House is illustrated (once again) by the fact that both Moussaoui and federal prosecutors were pulling for the death penalty: Moussaoui to finally acheive the glorious martyrdom he was cheated out of; Bush and the Justice Department to establish a precedent for a capital sentence in a terrorism case.

Will this mean the end of Atenco's status as a rebel "autonomous municipality"? And how will the Zapatistas, already on "red alert" in response to the repression, respond to this escalation? This is very ominous timing for Fox, with the new explosion in Atenco coming on the heels of wildcat strikes and Subcommander Marcos urging Mexico's workers to seize the means of production at the national Mayday march. The taking of Atenco also comes on the eve of Cinco de Mayo—which will afford left-nationalists the opportunity to bait Fox as betraying the fatherland to foreign interests, and glorify the rebel peasants as defenders of Mexican sovereignty. From Reuters, May 4:

SAN SALVADOR ATENCO, Mexico - Thousands of riot police firing tear gas forced their way into a rebellious town near Mexico City on Thursday and freed fellow officers taken hostage in a riot that left one person dead.

Scores of police in body armor swept into the fractious farming town of San Salvador Atenco, 15 miles (24 km) north of Mexico City, and hauled off bleeding protesters amid peasants armed with sticks, machetes and gasoline bombs.

Look who's laughing all the way to the bank. Good thing for Exxon that everybody's blaming the Jews. From the LA Times via Newsday, April 28:

OIL PRICES SHOCK AND AWE: GAS CRISIS
An $8.4B tiger in Exxon’s tank
As drivers reel from $3-a-gallon gas, oil giant pulls in record first-quarter earnings; politicians push new energy policies

Exxon Mobil Corp. brought home huge barrels of money in the first three months of the year - more than any first quarter in company history, the oil giant said yesterday - but it was less than Wall Street expected during a time of sky-high energy prices.

The Irvine, Texas-based company's $8.4 billion net income for the quarter added fuel to accusations from politicians, state officials and consumer groups that the oil industry is pocketing hefty profits while motorists grapple with $3-a-gallon gas.

Exxon Mobil's earnings for the quarter were equal to $1.37 per share, up from $7.9 billion in profit, or $1.22 a share, for the same period last year. Wall Street analysts were expecting net income averaging $1.47 a share, according to a survey by Thomson Financial.

We wonder how he feels to be briefly on the Reuters wire April 30?

Eritrea's last native Jew tends graves, remembers
58-year-old Sami Cohen has fond memories of friends, parents and families in the Horn of Africa. Now there's little left, apart from an empty synagogue
Tending graves knee-deep in dry grass and purple flowers, Eritrea's last native Jew clutches memories of a forgotten community.

Tens of thousands of Mexican workers from a wide range of unions left work and took to the streets on April 28 to express their opposition to the labor policies of center-right president Vicente Fox Quesada and to demand the resignation of Labor Secretary Francisco Javier Salazar Saenz. A major focus was the death of two unionists in the government's attack on striking steelworkers in Lazaro Cardenas in Michoacan on April 20. (See our last report, in which, following our source, we incorrectly identified a steel plant in Lazaro Cardenas as "Metal Steel"; the plant belongs to Mittal Steel Lazaro Cardenas, a subsidiary of the huge Mittal Steel multinational.)

In Mexico City, what was intended as a one-hour general strike at noon ended up snarling traffic until past 4 PM. Different unions affiliated with the independent National Workers Union (UNT) held simultaneous rallies at the Labor Secretariat offices, at the offices of the Luz y Fuerza electric company and at other locations around the city. Workers in the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Campesinos (CROC), an old-line union affiliated with the once-ruling centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), struck at the city's most luxurious hotels and restaurants, while about 400 garment workers affiliated with the CROC walked out in the Tlalpan section of the city. The CROC reported that workers honored the strike at textile, manufacturing and assembly plants in the states of Tlaxcala, Puebla, Mexico, Queretaro and Hidalgo.