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Questionable Prison Fires in Honduras, As Bush Prepares to
Sign CAFTA
Toni Morrison & Cornel West: A Historic Discussion on
the State of the World, the 50th anniversary of the Brown
Decision and Condoleeza Rice
Cornel West on the Death of Emmett Till, 9/11, Preemptive
Wars and Race in America
Questionable Prison Fires in Honduras, As Bush Prepares
to Sign CAFTA
Tom Hayden reports from Honduras on the connections between
the signing of the Central America Free Trade Agreement, a
prison fire that left 100 alleged gang members dead and Rudy
Giuliani.
The Bush administration has scheduled a signing ceremony
today with five countries in Central America that are party
to CAFTA, Central American Free Trade Agreement.
The Central American deal faces heavy opposition in Congress
from Democrats who contend it doesn't provide enough protection
for U-S labor and environmental rights. Among the countries
participating in CAFTA is Honduras. But as CAFTA is signed
scrutiny is being focused on a mysterious series of prison
fires in Honduras that on the surface may not appear to have
any relation to the trade agreement being aggressively promoted
by the Bush administration.
On this May 17, over 100 alleged gang members were burned
to death in a fire in an over-crowded Honduran prison. Surviving
inmates claimed that it took two hours for help to arrive,
and that guards were shooting at inmates trying to escape.
The prison was designed for 800 inmates but held over 2,000.
Just over one year ago, in April 2003, 68 alleged gang members
died in another prison fire in Honduras. At first prison officials
blamed the inmates, but an independent commission concluded
that 51 prisoners were executed by police, and that the killings
were covered up.
US complicity, and especially that of former New York Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani, is being raised by critics as well. Not
only did the US run its Contra wars from Honduras, it supported
a regime that killed and tortured many citizens, including
prisoners, according to a 1998 report by the CIA itself.
Enter the Manhattan Institute, the conservative think tank,
and the Giuliani Group, formed to export the ideas of New
York’s hard-line “zero tolerance” campaign
against street people to Latin America. The Manhattan Institute
takes credit for advising the president of Honduras as has
the Giuliani Group whose advisors visited Tegucigalpa. We
go now to Honduras.
- Tom Hayden, former California State Senator. His latest
book is called Steet Warz: Gangs and the Future of Violence.
He is in Tegucilgapa, Honduras investigating a series of
mysterious prison fires at gang wards within the prisons.
- Alfredo Diaz, a member of Casa Alianza, which works with
street children in Honduras. The group is part of the commission
that is investigating the prison fires.
Toni Morrison & Cornel West: A Historic Discussion
on the State of the World, the 50th anniversary of the Brown
Decision and Condoleeza Rice
Today we spend the hour with two of the leading African
American thinkers of our time: Cornel West and Toni Morrison
in a public talk hosted by the Nation Institute.
Cornel West has been described as one of America's most vital
and eloquent public intellectuals. A professor of religion
and African-American studies at Princeton University, West
is a critic of culture, an advocate of social justice and
an analyst of post-modern art and philosophy. He has written
and co-authored numerous books on philosophy, race and sociology
and also produced a hip-hop CD entitled Sketches of My Culture.
Toni Morrison is one the most prolific American writers of
our time. She made her debut as a novelist in 1970, soon gaining
attention for her poetically-charged and richly-expressive
depictions of Black America. She has been awarded a number
of literary distinctions and in 1993 became the first African
American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
On March 24 at the New York Society for Ethical Culture,
The Nation Institute sponsored a conversation between Toni
Morrison and Cornel West. They spoke about the blues, love
and politics.
Cornel West on the Death of Emmett Till, 9/11, Preemptive
Wars and Race in America
We hear an excerpt from a major addressed delivered by Cornel
West at the Lannan Foundation.
Dr. Cornel West has been described as one of America’s
most vital and eloquent public intellectuals. Dr. West was
recently appointed Class of 1943 University Professor of Religion
at Princeton University. In ground-breaking books such as
Race Matters, Restoring Hope, The American Evasion of Philosophy,
Jews and Blacks: Let the Healing Begin; The War Against Parents;
The Future of American Progressivism; and his latest, The
Cornel West Reader, he teaches how the growing divisions in
our society fosters the despair and distrust that undermine
our democratic process. Having recently released the CD, Sketches
of My Culture, Dr. West continues to explore new avenues for
teaching and communicating. By working to create an ongoing
dialogue between the myriad voices in our culture, Dr. West
pursues his vigilant and virtuous efforts to restore hope
to America.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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