There's an interview (in Spanish) with Federico Puy, the sacked teacher, on this alasbarricadas thread -
http://www.alasbarricadas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=36184
And an interesting discussion about the current state of the different strands of anarchism in Argentina (including FORA) -
http://www.alasbarricadas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=36522
29th August International Action Day Against the Red Cross
Weeler wrote:
Quote:
streets blocks, boycottaHow exactly does one do this to the red cross without looking completely mental? Are you advocating shutting down their operations?
Well, we are not going to boicot the Red Cross when they are feeding refugees, for example. But as NGO, it is also an employer and can be the target of a union. We could press by direct action: pickets in the doors of their headquarters, sending letters to the representatives in our cities, informing the citizenship, the public administrations which fund such entity...
Of course the campaign should not be as "crueless" as if it were a multinational such as... Starbucks, but the Red Cross is an employer as well. CNT, for example, has had conflicts with several NGOs.
There are interesting actions we could do to show our international solidarity.
In Slovakia we plan to visit as many branches as possible, hand out protest letter and speak to the employees. In fact last week our comrades already made an action like that. We also plan to inform education unions about this case and put pressure also on RC in Buenos Aires by a call to send them protest e-mails, faxes... Many small actions can have big impact.
Hello libcommers,
Pasted below is the text from a flyer/poster distributed a number of years ago across Italy as part of the campaign against CPT's (immigration detention centres). There were actions against the Red Cross at the time, and it co-incided with the struggle to close the San Foca centre in Lecce, where a number of anarchists were arrested for 'subversive conspiracy with terrorist intent' (i.e: All believing in anarchism and making direct action). The San Foca centre was eventually closed.
SHOOT THE RED CROSS?
The saying ’Shoot the Red Cross’ means to attack the best and most vulnerable people in the world. But is this the case? The Red Cross is not at all a humanitarian organization. It is, on the contrary, a paramilitary institution which has been backing the State wars for one hundred years. The Red Cross is supposed to appease the terrible suffering brought about by military operations without ever denouncing the latter. This is the other face of militarism, the one which gives credibility to all the lies used to justify bombardment and massacres. In a context of war, the Red Cross must discourage any attempt of rebellion against the occupation troops. Moreover, this ’charitible’ organization must take over the question of the survivors, the homeless, the refugees...under the control of army and police.
In Italy the Red Cross is responsible for the management of a number of CPT (’temporary stay centres’), the detention camps for immigrants. These are actually concentration camps for people guilty of being poor and without the right papers. CPT are not simply prisons, they are true concentration camps where foreigners are locked up waiting to be deported. When the inmates attempts a protest breaking the passivity of captivity, the Red Cross deliver them to police’s beating and abuses. The hypocrisy of humanitarianism turns into the brutality of repression.
The Red Cross, careless about the destiny of the immigrants deported to their countries of origin, keeps on its work of collaboration –in the name of ’humanity, neutrality, impartiality, independence, voluntary work, unity and universality’, as stated in its constitution.
After all, if war is a ’humanitarian operation’ and concentration camps are ’welcome centres’, why should not the Red Cross be a ’charitable organization’. From the Iraqi resistence to the struggle against the CPT, however, this veil of hypocrisy is being ripped open. The murderers’s uniform is more and more visible under the white coat...
A few enemies of all borders
If you really look at what the Red Cross does, you see that feeding refugees or giving first aid is just one part of its activity and that not all of its activities are positive. The American Red Cross, for example, does lots of different tasks for the armed forces including bookeeping, It actually helps the armed forces quite a lot. As we see above, it does some very creepy things indeed.
The Red Cross runs a lot of schools. I don't know much about what goes on there. I have a rather critical view of schools and NGOs in general, but most people don't and this action is a harder sell because the Red Cross generally has a positive image. Regardless of this we can go for the principle. Firing people for politics is common here and in general we have to react strongly against this.
The fact that might make this campaign is its global impact. RC has branches in almost all smaller towns. And you need sometimes only 1-2 people to do action. Many activists disconnected from bigger cities or towns can organise their small action. This may have many positive effects. Taking closer look at practices of RC just adds to all this as it can even more show how this humanitarian organisation is just another part of capitalism and war.
Yeah the Red Cross has branches everywhere, including Belfast:
Northern Ireland
The British Red Cross is the official charity of the Deep RiverRock Belfast City Marathon 2008.
Operations Director Norman McKinley
Address 87 University Street
Belfast BT7 1HP
Telephone 028 9024 6400
Fax 028 9032 6102
Here are global contacts, just find your national RC website and check all their branches:
http://www.ifrc.org/address/rclinks.asp
Some have also youth organisations.
Few have also forums or guestbooks on their websites.
I'm fairly certain that the Red Cross was also involved in the administration of POWs in the attacks on Poland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg and France in WW2 because Germany didn't have the administrative capacity to cope - but I could be wrong about this. They - like the Allies as a whole - knew about the Nazi death camps but kept silent, thus submitting to the Allied motivation of not wanting floods of refugees to disrupt the war effort.
From WSA email solidarity appeal
We are circulating the following information. We urge all comrades, unions, organizations and social movements to express their solidarity with the FORA comrade.
This email is not an official IWA one. The text is from an IWA email, the links have been provided by WSA. Any link errors are strictly ours.
----------------------------------------------------------------
29th August - International Action Day Against the Red Cross
Last 28th May the Argentine Red Cross dismissed the teacher comrade Federico Puy from its secondary school because of ideological reasons. It was questioned his Citizen Rights’ syllabus for “have a lot of ideological content”, and the next day that this happened it was sent him a dismissal telegram, under the protection of the typical tricks that the labor precariousness has on the whole world.
The students submitted a letter in which they asked for the teacher’s reinstatement, and because of that they were threatened and persecuted.
From the Sociedad de Resistencia de Oficios Varios Capital (joined to FORA-AIT) it was demanded the immediately reinstatement of the dismissed teacher using the workers legitimate tools: direct action, demonstrations that included streets blocks, boycott and propaganda.
The employers sent repressive forces to all the demonstrations, offered money as the only way to solution the conflict and in every moment cleared that the comrade would not be reinstatement.
That is why we still demand:
¡¡¡IMMEDIATELY REINSTATEMENT OF THE DISMISSED TEACHER!!!
International Workers Association (IWA)
secretariado@iwa-ait.org.
F.O.R.A.
fora-ait@argentina.com.
www.fora-ait.com.ar.
http://gda.iwa-ait.org/node/32
The Red Cross offices internationally.
http://www.ifrc.org/address/rclinks.asp
Interview (in Spanish) with Federico Puy at
http://www.alasbarricadas.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=36184
newyawka wrote:
i'm missing something. how is the red cross involved with teachers?
(my spanish isn't near strong enough to get through JH's links)
Federico Puy was employed by the Red Cross branch in the Saavedra district of Buenos Aires, teaching civic education, language and literature to adults taking a high school diploma with an “orientation in health”. According to the interview most of his students were Bolivian immigrants trying to get a secondary education qualification. The students have supported him with demonstrations and petitions. It isn’t actually clear to me whether or not the Red Cross is running a secondary school here or just adult education classes.
It seems the main issue in his dismissal was an annual lesson plan he was asked to submit for first year civic education. The management of the Red Cross branch objected to the ideological content, in particular over his proposals to cover material on totalitarian states, discussing fascism, the Nazis, Stalinism and nationalism, and also on trade unionism, although as I understand it he was covering units that are part of the Ministry of Education curriculum.
The proposed units were deleted from his lesson plan and he was asked to teach about some of the papal encyclicals. He was also asked to take out material about Peronism and not to discuss the CGT, the main, traditionally Peronist, union federation. The following day he received a telegram of dismissal and was prevented from entering the building. Management claimed that he was still in his three month probationary period, but Federico says that this is incorrect as they are claiming that he started work on the 10th March when he actually started on the 10th February. The dismissal seems to have been on the initiative of the Saavedra branch of the Red Cross without consulting the national organisation.
Red Cross has a telephone hotline number in Argentina: 0810 -999-2222. Maybe somebody would call it. Or this number direct to Saavedra: (011)-4544-1188 E-mail: saavedra@cruzroja.org.ar
newyawka wrote:
JH wrote:
It isn’t actually clear to me whether or not the Red Cross is running a secondary school here or just adult education classes.yeah, that was what i wondered.
he certainly sounds worthy of support tho'.
Courses run by the Red Cross in Saavedra - http://www.cruzroja-saavedra.org.ar/index2.php - apart from the high school diploma (bachillerato) they're all vocational courses such as radiology, first aid etc - so adult education classes rather than a secondary school. The full name of their educational side is "Escuela de Enfermería y Especialidades Paramédicas de la Cruz Roja Argentina Filial Saavedra A-732" which translates roughly as "school of nursing and paramedical specialities of the Argentinian Red Cross, Saavedra A-732 branch". Presumably this is vocational education by an organisation with close links to employers or potential employers of its students - or it may employ them itself - which I suppose would explain the touchiness about discussing unions and politics in the classroom. The course Federico was teaching was for adults studying in the evening after work, so I'd guess they'd be people without qualifications working or aiming to work in low level jobs in hospitals and clinics or similar, maybe with their employers paying the course fees.
Graphic for day of action - http://barricadavisual.blogspot.com/2008/08/da-de-accin-global-contra-la-cruz-roja.html
CHANGE: CNT graphic for the day of action
Here is the ok: http://barricadavisual.blogspot.com/2008/08/da-de-accin-global-contra-la-cruz-roja.html
several actions have taken place in Slovakia and Czech in recent 3 days (tomorrow is a state vacation day so we decided to do actions the whole week before 29th). just shortly some interesting points:
- talks with employees are generaly fine and they are interested why we are there
- talks with branch bosses are 50/50 from apathy to interest to craziness (as we have witnessed today in Bratislava)
- branches are informed about the protest because people send their protest emails to all of them (we have prepared a file with all the addresses so they just copy them and send as mass email; the same is prepared for emails to national organisations worldwide and in argentina as well)
- in general bosses try to say it is none of their business as each national organisation has its autonomy, so we usually argue mentioning they are federation and share the same code of ethics
Weeler wrote:
iwa says: 'stop ideological discrimination'iwa says: 'no wait, stop ideological discrimination - in the red cross'
More to the point they seem to have dropped the wording "international day of action against the Red Cross", which is probably just as well.
Yes, it's subtle but there. In the first posted the phrase "en la cruza roja" (in the red cross) has been deleted. This probably reflects the actuality of the situation.
As a point of general information, double and triple efforts should be made at fact checking before a campaign is launched. I recognize the difficulties of this at times. But it's hard to "pull back" some wrong information that's been sent many listervs, etc.
Anyway, good luck with the struggle!
http://priamaakcia.sk/?action=view_article&id=457
Global action day in solidarity with teacher Federico Puy in Slovakia and Czech Republic
13/09/2008
A short and incomplete summary of actions organised in Slovakia and Czech during the last week of August as part of the IWA campaign in support of Federico Puy - a teacher and FORA-IWA member sacked from Red Cross branch in Buenos Aires.
WHAT WE DID
1) A protest action and a delivery of official protest note to the nearest branch of the Red Cross
Red Cross has branches in a lot of even small towns. This was a great opportunity for people who were outside the “centers of activism” to organize their own actions.
...
(For the whole articul, see the link below.)
29th August International Action Day Against the Red Cross
Last 28th May the Argentine Red Cross dismissed the teacher comrade Federico Puy from its secondary school because of ideological reasons. It was questioned his Citizen Rights’ syllabus for “have a lot of ideological content”, and the next day that this happened it was sent him a dismissal telegram, under the protection of the typical tricks that the labor precariousness has on the whole world.
The students submitted a letter in which they asked for the teacher’s reinstatement, and because of that they were threatened and persecuted.
From the Sociedad de Resistencia de Oficios Varios Capital (joined to FORA-AIT) it was demanded the immediately reinstatement of the dismissed teacher using the workers legitimate tools: direct action, demonstrations that included streets blocks, boycott and propaganda.
The employers sent repressive forces to all the demonstrations, offered money as the only way to solution the conflict and in every moment cleared that the comrade would not be reinstatement.
That is why we still demand:
¡¡¡IMMEDIATELY REINSTATEMENT OF THE DISMISSED TEACHER!!!