World Social Forum, Mumbai: USA criticized heavily

Washington further and further divorced from world public opinion as policy in Latin America is exposed

The protests today at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India, against the external policy of the USA is a clear sign that the Bush regime has lost its diplomatic war, instead confronting world public opinion with every step it takes, divorcing Washington from the international community with every day that passes. Open support of terrorist groups in Latin America and destruction of the Amazonian rainforest were two of the accusations raised in Mumbai today.

Days after the leaders of the Latin American countries forced the USA to rethink its strategy on the FTAA, protests against Washington's illegal war in Iraq and its policy in Latin America demonstrated the hostility felt deep within the international community against the external policies of this odious regime.

The mass media was also criticized, for being an obedient instrument of the Washington regime and for reporting international events with a biased slant which distorts the truth.

Thousands of protesters from all over the world gathered today in Mumbai in a mass demonstration against the "murderer", "criminal" and "invader", George W. Bush, due to his military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Bernard Cassen, Director of Le Monde Diplomatique, a French activist against globalization, accused the mass media of being "an instrument in the hands of powerful hegemonies". M. Cassen defends that an "Observatory of the Means of Communication" be set up (which was projected in the WSF in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2003) to monitor the coverage given to world events.

An example of biased coverage is Sky News, a TV station which repeatedly makes shocking generalizations, such as linking the Hussein government in Iraq to Al Qaeda and September 11th, or today's report, claiming that the Russian Armed Forces do not care about the lives of the soldiers, showing footage of unburied soldiers from the Second World War and comparing this
story to the soldiers left freezing on a runway in Siberia this week, 80 of whom developed pneumonia - but no mention of the investigation ordered by President Putin.

M. Cassen's attacks against the neo-liberal element in the world mass media were taken up by the Cuban Fernando Martнnez Heredia (Continental Social Alliance) who called for "a war to defend culture. The right to information" and criticized the campaign by the media "against the voices of the people".

Meanwhile Washington's policy in Latin America was also heavily criticized at the WSF, namely the terrorist groups financed by Washington and its policy of destroying crops by fumigation, which is devastating the health of local populations.

Edgar Isch Lуpez, ex-Environment Minister of Equador, declared that Washington's Columbia Plan (2 billion USD in military and economic aid) is "not only provoking a greater militarization and regionalization of the conflict but is also destroying the Amazonian rainforest".

Sr. Lуpez stated that the fumigation used to destroy coca leaf crops is not harmless, as Washington claims, but is creating deserts within the environment and the chemicals used, which include glisophosphate, cause skin lesions and anomalies in blood cells.

The World Social Forum (16 to 24th January) takes place every year studies the social effects of laboratory policies implemented by the army of managers with limited vision and no common sense, vomited forth by universities around the globe.

Among the many key speakers at the WSF this year are Professor Aijaz Ahmed (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, Marxist writer and philosopher); Luis Ayala (Secretary-General of Socialist International); Michael Albert (USA, Znet, Z magazine); Samir Amin (Egypt, Neo-Marxian philosopher); Christophe Aquiton (France, leader of ATTAC, anti-capitalist and globalization movement); Ahmed Ben-Bella (ex-resident of Algeria); Maude Barlow (Canada,
Chairperson of the Council of Canadians); Mustafa Margouti (Palestine Authority, one of the key players in building a democratic society in Palestine); Yosi Beilin (Israel, ex-Minister of Justice); Cesar Benjamin and Gustavo Carlos (Brazil, leading economists); Fausto Bertinotti (Italy, National Secretary of Italy's Refounded Communist Party); Nguyen Thi Binh (Vice-President of the Socialist republic of Vietnam); Chico Whitaker (Brazil, one of the founding members of the WSF and Aleksandr Zharikov (Russian Federation, General-Secretary of the World Federation of Trade Unions).

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.Ru