Timorese Blowback - Bob Boughton

NimFM

4.9MB 96 Kbps 5:30 mins

Bob Boughton, senior lecturer in Adult Education at the University of New England in Armidale has spent many months over many years in Timor Leste advising the Timorese government on education programs and policies. He doesn't accept the mainstream media take on recent events, and suggests the international community should have looked a little more closely at the events that disrupted Timorese governance in March 2006.

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Original audio source

Venezuelan People vs. Exxon - Lisa McDonald

Source: NimFM

5.1Mb. 64kbps. mono 11:06 mins

Lisa McDonald of the Australia Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN) fills us in on the latest attempt to undermine the sovereignty of Venezuela by the US based transnational corporation Exxon, which has taken out legal action against the Venezuelan state oil company. Exxon seems to believe that a non-privatised oil company that spends its profits on social programs is a blight on the planet, and has managed to have $US13 billion worth of Venezuelan assets frozen around the world while it sues for a US$180 million in compensation. Oddly enough, US$13 billion is exactly what the Venezuelan State oil company spends on social programs for the Venezuelan people!

Original audio source

Remembering Timor - Janelle Saffin MHR

4.9Mb. 64Kbps 10:34mins

Janelle Saffin, recently elected as the Federal member for Page recalls the three years she spent working in Timor Leste as an assistant to Jose Ramos Horta, who was shot and seriously wounded by a rebel commander on February 10 2008.

Original audio source

Bolivia's spy bust - Stuart Munckton

Source: NimFM

3.53Mb 64kbps mono 7:43mins

Stuart Munkton from the Latin American desk of Green Left weekly reports on the expulsion of a US spy from Bolivia, and a reprimand to the US Ambassador. The spy made the mistake of approaching a Fullbright scholar doing research in Bolivia, to report on the activities of Cuban and Venezuelan doctors and literacy teachers working in Bolivia.

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Popout

Original audio source

Timor Leste - is it really a 'crisis'? - Jim Dunn reflects

Source:NimFM

5.7 Mb 64kbps mono 12:20 mins

Jim Dunn, former diplomat, adviser to Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta, and Human Rights activist, reviews the traumatic events of the last week in Timor Leste. The stampede of much mainstream media in Australia to label the attack on the President and Prime Minister of Timor Leste a coup is ill advised, he says, and it would be misjudging the situation to say that Timor Leste has been further destabilised by the events of last week. And the jury is still out on what exactly was Reynado's motivation?

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Original audio source

Cuban Challenge to Australia's commitment - Tim Anderson on the Brigades

Source: NimFM

3.4Mb. 64kbps. mono 7:08 mins. (Note: sound quality is poor)
Tim Anderson, Lecturer in Political Economy at Sydney University talks about his recent experience with the Cuban medical brigades in Timor Leste and a visit to Cuba where he gathered materials for a documentary on the 600 Timorese students studying medicine there on Cuban scholarships. He has written a letter challenging the Rudd Labour government to match this level of Cuban aid, and invites other Australians to do the same.

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Original audio source

• Download the MatchIt!statement

MATCH IT!
Prime Minister of Australia
Mr Kevin Rudd, MHR
Parliament House, Canberra, A.C.T. 2600
25 January 2008

Dear Prime Minister

Match It! - Australian and Cuban education assistance to Timor Leste We the following academics, writers, organisations and NGO workers observe these
developments, on education assistance to Timor Leste:

• over 2002-2007 the number of University scholarships offered by the Australian
Government to students from Timor Leste declined from 20 per year to 8 per year
• over 2003-2006 the number of medical training scholarships offered by the Government of Cuba to students from Timor Leste increased from 50 to 1,000
There are currently 800 students from Timor Leste studying medicine with the Cubans.

This makes it probably the biggest aid program in medical training, per capita, in the world. Adult literacy training in Timor Leste is now also dominated by the Cubans.
So far there have been two Australian reactions (government, media, NGO) to Cuban programs in ‘our’ region. One was to ignore, snipe at or seek to undermine the Cubans, as perceived ‘competitors’. The other is to respond with a generosity that matches them. We urge your government to strengthen this latter path and match the Cuban scholarship offer.

Cuban health and education programs are recognised and commended by the World Health Organisation and U.N.E.S.C.O.. But Australia also has great capacity to share through its schools, universities and teachers. There is a great deal of goodwill in our country towards the East Timorese, despite the damage done by the oil and gas dispute and the recent crisis.

We urge your government to begin a large scale public education program for the East Timorese, matching the Cuban offer of 1,000 scholarships, in areas in which we have great capacity, such as teacher training. We emphasise that the measure of support should be through the extent of human capacity building, not through a dollar sum.

The ordinary people of East Timor deserve nothing less from a rich and powerful neighbour that has so often let them down.

Yours sincerely

Dr Tim Anderson, Political Economy, University of Sydney
John Pilger, filmmaker and author
Professor Frank Stilwell, Political Economy, University of Sydney
Pat Anderson, Board Chairperson, Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health
Dr Ben Bartlett, Leader PHC Program, Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health
Dr Meredith Burgmann, Former President of the NSW Legislative Council
Lee Rhiannon MLC, Greens member of NSW Legislative Council
Professor Stewart Firth, Head of the Pacific Centre, Australian National University
Shirley Shackleton, East Timor activist
AID/Watch Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA
Max Lane, Indonesian Studies, University of Sydney
Dr George Morgan, University of Western Sydney
Dr Bob Boughton, University of New England
Dr Duncan McDuie-Ra, Development Studies, University of New South Wales
Peter Weitzel, teacher and union activist
Stephanie Lusby, Policy and Advocacy Director, Jubilee Australia
Jessica Bommer, Jubilee Australia
Dr. Danielle Celermajer, Director of Global Studies, University of Sydney
Dr. Robert Austin, Honorary Fellow, History, University of Melbourne
Peter Boyle, Democratic Socialist Perspective National Secretary
Emma Murphy and Stuart Munckton, Green Left Weekly Editors
Pip Hinman, Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific
Dr James Arvanitakis, Humanities and Languages, University of Western Sydney
Eko Waluyo, Indonesian Solidarity, Sydney
Giovanni Ebono, Ebono Institute
Kerry Lawrence, Australia Cuba Friendship Society
Anna McCormack, Southside Peace Group, Brisbane
Associate Professor Peter Sainsbury, Public Health, University of Sydney
Assoc Prof. Winton Higgins, Institute for International Studies, University of Technology Sydney
Ross Johnston, Principal Consultant, Bushwork Consultants
Stephen Langford and Jefferson Lee, Australia East Timor Association
Janette McLeod, Brisbane
Alan Roberts, Climate Change Action Network

Contact:
Dr Tim Anderson
Email: t.anderson@usyd.edu.au
Tel: 0418-604-488
Postal: PO Box 109, Glebe, NSW 2037
cc.
Mr Stephen Smith MP, Minister for Foreign Affairs
Mr Bob McMullan MP, Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance
Mr Duncan Kerr SC MP, Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs

Caracas on the Line - US declares economic warfare against Venezuela

Caracas on the line: US declares economic warfare

3.9Mb. 64kbps mono 9 mins.

Kiraz Janicke in a phone interview from Caracas has the details of the attempts by the US based multinational corporate giant Exxon, to lock up US$12 billion worth of Venezuela's assets in a specious legal claim for a few hundred million dollars, against Venezuela's State owned oil company. In retaliation, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is threatening to cut off oil supplies to the US - over ten percent of its intake.

Original audio source

Caracas on the line - The reaction to Chavez' FARC hostage release

Kiraz Janicke, based in Caracas is on the phone to Latin Radical with the latest developments in the media war against the government of President Hugo Chavez. Chavez' success in negotiating a successful hostage release, without military intervention stuck in the craw of the US and the government of Columbia. Columbian embassies and Consulates have organised demonstrations against the FARC around the world (including Australia) in an effort to discredit the Chavez government and torpedo his promotion of peace talks between the FARC (which controls over 30% of Columbia) and the Columbian government of President Uribes.

Meanwhile, Chavez has evicted the US drug enforcement officials of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) with a dramatic rise in big drug busts by Venezuelan authorities. Right wing columbian governemnt sponsored paramilitaries are infiltrating into Venezuela across the Columbian border to disrupt land reform programs by simple peasant farmers.

Finally, how to join an Australian brigade to Venezuela, and see for yourself.

Read more about the next brigade.

8Mb 64kbps mono 17 mins.

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Original audio source

Return of the Death Squads Pt 2 - Lara Pullin on Presidential Campaign

El Salvador's 2009 elections Pt 2 - a Death Squad campaign?

Lara Pullin on the El Salvadoran elections Part 2

Part 1 here

Picture: The Mayor, Wilbur Funes, assassinated several weeks ago by the resurgent Salvadoran Death Squads. Government prosecutors refuse to investigate this and other murders.

Lara talks about some of the details of the return of the Death Squads in El Salvador, and the incremental increase in their activities, including the assassination of a Mayor, and threats against a Public radio station that caters to the people, rather than the commercial media moguls.

She analyses possible reasons for the violent reaction of the right wing governing party. Is it possible that they might lose the next Presidential election. Does the influence of Venezuela allow political parties more scope to be independent of the interests of the US?

(More information on El Salvador here: )


5.6 Mb 11 mins 64kbps mono

Original audio source

Picture: The Mayor, Wilbur Funes, assassinated several weeks ago by the resurgent Salvadoran Death Squads. Government prosecutors refuse to investigate this and other murders.

El Salvador's '09 elections Pt1. - Death Squad campaign strategy?

Lara Pullin on El Salvador's coming elections. Pt 1

10Mb 11mins 96kbps Mono

Photo: A Peace March in El Salvador protesting Death Squad tactics.

El Salvador suffered terribly in a civil war that lasted through the decade of the 1980s. After the FMLN fought the US backed military to a standstill in 1989 a peace was negotiated over the next 2 years, and in 1992, amid much jubilation an 'accord' was signed with the FMLN which became a major, legally registered political party, and narrowly lost winning government against a five party coalition led by the right wing ARENA party.

Next year, 2009, will be another presidential election. But over recent years it seems that ARENA is reverting to form. The founder of ARENA, Roberto D'Aubuisson ran the notorious Death Squads through the 1970s and 1980s, and is believed to be the intellectual author of the assassination of Archbishop Romero in March 1980. The Death Squads are back, and the head of the National Police of El Salvador sees no need to investigate the political violence, assassinations of leading FMLN Mayors and political figures.

And guess who has been chosen to be ARENA's Presidential candidate next year? If you guessed the head of the National Police, you win a free bag of tortillas.

Original audio source

Check out the CISPES website, for more information: