French unionists oppose deportations
Thousands marched in protest at the French government's tough immigration policies on August 28. The demonstrators, led by Communist Party leader Robert Hue, dissident former bishop Jacques Gaillot and human rights activists, chanted, "We all are children of immigrants". The CFDT union at Air France said government plans to use the state-owned airline to fly immigrants back to Tunisia, Niger, Mali, Senegal and Zaire was "a fresh violation of human rights".
"The CFDT's Air France branch is intervening immediately, at all levels of Air France management, to prevent the airline's planes and staff from being used in such police operations", the union said in a statement. There has been an uproar since police raided a Paris church in mid-August and dragged out some 300 Africans seeking refuge, 10 of whom had been on hunger strike.
Swedish arms deal with Indonesia
The Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society on August 16 uncovered yet another arms deal between the Swedish government and the Indonesian dictatorship. Stockholm has granted permission for the arms maker Bofors to export surface-to-air missiles to Indonesia. Earlier this year, revelations that Sweden had secretly arranged to sell naval cannons to Indonesia caused international outrage.
Ban arms to Indonesia, say rights groups
Two US human rights groups, Human Rights Watch and the Robert Kennedy Memorial Centre for Human Rights, on August 18 called for an international ban on arms sales and state visits to Indonesia to protest the crackdown on democracy activists. The Indonesian regime is "whipping up an imaginary Red scare" by accusing the activists of being communists, and has launched an "assault" on freedom of expression and association, the groups said.
Campaign against factory trawlers
Greenpeace has launched a campaign to ban the US fleet of "factory trawlers" by 2001. Factory trawlers, industrial-scale fishing vessels which use nets with openings five kilometres in circumference, capable of catching 230,000 kilograms of fish per tow, are devastating marine environments worldwide by transforming fishing into a "strip-mining" industry. The trawlers catch an enormous amount of incidental species. In 1994, factory trawlers threw overboard, dead, more than 230 million kilograms of fish because they were the wrong sex, size or species.
Union wants action on Nigeria
The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) on August 29 demanded that Commonwealth ministers meeting in London take "strong effective action" to end repression of unions in Nigeria. The Commonwealth should press for the immediate and unconditional release of union leaders Milton Dabibi, general secretary of PENGASSAN, and Frank Kokori, general secretary of NUPENG. PENGASSAN and NUPENG are ICEM-affiliated unions in the Nigerian oil and gas sectors. Dabibi was arrested by the State Security Service on January 25. Kokori has been in detention since 1994. The ICEM's call is backed by the Commonwealth Trade Union Council, which groups labour confederations throughout the Commonwealth.