LM Online

• The Asylum and Immigration Bill: What was that about institutional racism?
  
• Arrest of Abdullah Ocalan: Clinton's Kurd way
  
• Millennium Bug: Bugwatch
  
• The what's NOT on guide
  

What was that about institutional racism?

In the same week that the Macpherson report was praised for its stand against 'institutional racism', the House of Commons quietly approved the government's Asylum and Immigration Bill. Measures include:

• Removing cash benefits for all asylum seekers, replacing them with subsistence-level Home Office 'vouchers'.
  
• Moving asylum seekers (who often speak little English) away from their communities in London to other parts of the country, on a 'no-choice' basis, in order to relieve 'pressure' on housing.
  
• Advising employers that it is a criminal offence to employ asylum seekers who do not have permission to work.
  
• Instructing registrars to check passports and papers before marrying people, as teachers and doctors are already supposed to do before providing services. Registrars will also be obliged to inform the Immigration Service snoopers if they think a marriage looks 'suspicious'.
  

While the cameras focused on the government's declaration of war on 'institutional racism', New Labour MPs nodded through another law to treat new waves of immigrants as second-class citizens.

Suke Wolton is a member of the Close Campsfield Campaign in Oxford.
Email: suke.wolton@stx.ox.ac.uk

Clinton's Kurd way

When Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), was captured in Kenya and extradited to Turkey, thousands of Kurds protested at Greek embassies throughout Europe, assuming that Greece had a hand in Ocalan's arrest. But the country that really called the shots was America.

America has supported Turkey throughout its 14-year war with the PKK, despite its use of chemical weapons and 30 000 deaths (mostly of Kurds). US governments have supplied Turkey with helicopters and arms, and have turned a blind eye to Turkish invasions of Kurd-populated northern Iraq.

At the end of last year Ocalan was encouraged by Italian politicians to seek asylum here in Italy, where he stayed for two months. Germany, France and Spain investigated the possibility of an international trial for Ocalan as part of a peace process, but the US state department effectively told them to 'peace off' by insisting that Ocalan be extradited to Turkey. When the state department announced that 'countries should take steps consistent with their national legal system to assist Turkey's efforts to bring Ocalan to justice', his number was up.

The Clinton administration claims to take a principled stand against 'terrorists', but its opposition to the Kurds is informed more by realpolitik. Turkey is the only Islamic member of NATO and a key US ally. The Ocalan crisis occurred at a time when Turkey was one of the few countries prepared to support US and British bombing raids against Iraq, many of which were launched from Turkey's airbase in Incirlik. One of the pretexts which the Western allies have used to justify their permanent war against Iraq is, of course, Saddam's crimes against the Kurds.

Dominic Standish
Email: D.Standish@flashnet.it

Bugwatch

Apparently, claiming to be Napoleon has become increasingly unfashionable among mental patients in Greenwich - having 'the millennium bug inside my head' is now the number one complaint. Meanwhile, American psychologists have been discussing how to 'treat' the growing mental illness problem of 'Y2K anxiety'. This anxiety is leading to 'hypervigilance - continually scanning for signs of danger - which interferes with reflexive thought and effective concentration'. The psychologists' tips to avoid slipping into millennium madness include pointing out that anxiety about the year 2000 is culturally, not universally based (it's already the year 4698 according to the Chinese).

Mark Beachill is a computer programmer.
Email: mark@mb01.demon.co.uk

The what's NOT on guide

Compiled by Andrew Calcutt