In order to help the growth and development of Basics as an organization, the general membership has created a Women’s Committee. For the working class to organize themselves, we need a media apparatus that reflects our struggles. Although Basics strives to present all issues in a way that addresses the most oppressed and exploited group of people, the perspective of working class women is not always reflected in our journalism.

To improve the quality of our journalism, the Women’s Committee will contribute to the editorial process, ensuring that working class women’s perspectives are reflected throughout all of our media productions. The Women’s Committee will also contribute to the internal growth and development of the organization by facilitating workshops and educationals on issues of concern and importance to women.

Some of the issues we hope to address include women’s mental health, the unemployment and underemployment of women, childcare and lack of social services, to name a few. We need to address all of these issues and more so that we can contribute to the struggle for women’s liberation.

For more information or to join the struggle send us an email at [email protected].

On December 17, 2011, BASICS Community News Service held its second Annual General Meeting (AGM), just a little over a year after launched as a formal mass organization with a constitution in 2010.

The main tasks of the AGM included reviewing the successes of the past year, putting forward suggestions for the upcoming year, and electing a new executive.

In the realm of media work, highlights from the past year include:

• Maintaining our weekly radio show on CHRY 105.5FM, producing over 40+ radio shows
• Producing 5 print editions (Issues 23-27) with a total print run of over 30,000 copies
• Launching a new website
• Beginning to make regular use of Facebook and Twitter for the organization
• Building up a public list-serv to almost 1500 subscribers, and circulating a regular online newsletter

Rebel Diaz live in Toronto

We continued to advance our alliance work as well by participating in International Women’s Day organizing, advancing May Day organizing in the May 1st Movement and playing a leading role in the founding of the Canadian Chapter of the International League of People’s Struggles. We also sent three delegates to ILPS 4th International Assembly in the Philippines, and reported from there.

At our December 2011 AGM, the results for the elections to the Executive Committee were as follows: Martin Cook (Editor) and Shafiqullah Aziz (Social and Cultural Officer) were re-elected to their positions; J.D. Benjamin (Assistant Editor) and Pragash Pio (Finance Officer) were elected to new posts; and Marianne Lau (Education Officer) and Louisa Worrell (Secretary) are newly elected members to the Executive Committee.  BASICS thanks its outgoing Executive Committee members, Greg D. (Distribution Officer), Steve da Silva (Education Officer), and Noaman Ali (Assistant Editor) for all their efforts in 2011, who did not stand in elections in order to play more active roles at the base of the organization.  The Distribution Officer was not contested at the AGM, but was later filled by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan.In the upcoming year, in addition to continuing our strong community journalism we will be ramping up our School of People’s Journalism into a series of people’s journalism modules to be deployed across multiple working class neighbourhoods in Toronto.  We hope that the SPJ will allow us to continue improving the relevancy of our content; expanding to new mediums (such as video podcasts); and increasing the number of people our news reaches (both in print and online formats). We are committed to increasing our membership and also ensuring that our membership becomes increasingly based in the working class communities that we ground our work and content in.

Any one or organization interested in joining the BASICS news team or in the School of People’s Journalism may contact us at [email protected].

For general inquiries contact: basics.canada[at]gmail.com

This part of the site is still under development – more details forthcoming.

We’ve got various size shirts and you can catch them at most of our public events.

To get one mailed to you, you can make a payment PayPal account:

TheRealVoyce knows the BASICS. Check his music at http://www.therealvoyce.com

BASICS Free Community Newsletter condemns the Sri Lankan government’s ongoing genocidal war against Tamil civilians in their effort to occupy Tamil region in the north-eastern coast of the island. This historic Tamil territory had been under the control of the Liberation of Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) since 2002. The bloody climax of the war came last week with the decimation of the LTTE as a conventional military force, and claims of the death of all its top brass after months of indiscriminate land, air and sea assault by the Sri Lankan army. The “glorious total victory” callously claimed by Sri Lankan war criminal President Mahinda Rajapaksa in the latest phase of the war came with the slaughter of some 10,000 Tamil men, women and children and the maiming of several thousands more. A further 300,000 Tamil civilians from the northeast that Rajapaksa declared “liberated” by the Sri Lankan army have been herded into dozens of detention camps (illegal under international law) and commanded over by the Sri Lankan forces responsible for displacing them. The Sri Lankan government continues to restrict access to the camps to independent monitors, journalists, humanitarian workers, United Nations agencies or even Tamil parliamentarians. Conditions in the camps have been called an “unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe” by the International Committee of the Red Cross with severe shortages of food, clean water, shelter and medical aid. Shocking reports of atrocities are filtering out about mass rapes, disappearances and subsequent killing of young Tamil boys and men, forced separation of families, forced sterilizations and abortions and the starvation of refugees. The Sri Lankan government admits that Tamil men, women and children are being “processed” for links to the LTTE and will be detained in the prison camps for at least two years.

BASICS shares the deep concern of the Tamil community for the approximately 25,000 civilians that are believed still trapped in the “safe areas” of the war zones which were bombarded day and night by the Sri Lankan forces. The Sri Lankan government continues to ban the media and aid groups from the north-eastern region, and there have been reports that the government is “bulldozing and destroying evidence of massacres” prior to permitting the entry of international observers. Disturbing reports of other crimes by the Sri Lankan army include unlawful shooting of surrendering LTTE cadres and the detention of three government doctors who had recently made eye witness testimonies about Sri Lankan army violations in the “safe” zone. The fate of the doctors remains unknown, but it is believed that they are being held at the Terrorist Investigation (torture) Division in the capital Colombo on accusations of disseminating false information about the government. BASICS joins human rights groups worldwide in their appeal for the safe return of these health care professionals.

In addition, there are numerous reports that Tamils living in Sinhalese areas are being forced to join in the Sri Lankan “victory” or else face intimidation and harassment from police and Sinhalese thugs. The Sri Lankan army and police are also interrogating and detaining a number of Tamil civilians in Colombo and other Sinhalese centres, and that they are especially targeting Tamil youth. There is a real fear among Tamils in Sri Lanka and the diaspora of another pogrom against Tamils in Colombo and another mass exodus.

It was imperial Britain that post-colonially installed Sinhalese political elite to power with the concurrent centralisation of that power in the south and with no safeguards for the island’s other minorities. These Sinhalese elite have only ever acted on their personal advancement and brought the country to economic crisis by maintaining disastrous economic and political policies that have included brutal violence against minorities and extreme militarisation.

Since Sri Lankan independence in 1948, there has been ongoing anti-Tamil discrimination in employment, education and language; with developmental neglect of Tamil areas, the complete disenfranchisement of Tamil plantation workers and attempts to change the demographics of the Tamil majority in the north in favour of Sinhalese. This history and the nonviolent response of Tamils to the abuses have been written about (and should be reviewed) in previous BASICS newsletters. The armed struggle of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka came about only after the failed peaceful and democratic resistance of Tamils was met with brutal and unrestrained state violence. The Sri Lankan government has invested heavily in military expansion in order to continue its repression of Tamils, while neglecting the country’s grinding poverty; a distorted investment that continues to come at the expense of all its citizens and which has increased its unmanageable foreign debt to the benefit of regional and international powers.

The decades long war has claimed 100,000 Tamil lives and displaced over 500,000 Tamil civilians. Tamils endured its most brutal expression in the most recent phase begun last year when Sri Lanka unilaterally abandoned the internationally mediated ceasefire agreement being held with the LTTE since 2002. The government’s claim of fighting “terrorism” garnered permissibility for the withdrawal post-911, despite the grave breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law. Rajapaksa’s claim about fighting a “war on terrorism” was really about fighting the Tamil people and forcing their acceptance of their second class citizenship in a Sinhalese, Buddhist Sri Lankan nation. The Rajapaksa regime has committed genocide toward that aim, with the Sri Lankan army using Kfir jets, multi-barrel rocket launchers, helicopter gunships, cluster bombs, white phosphorus bombs and other banned chemical weapons. Even when the Tamil Tigers agreed to lay down their weapons, allow for the evacuation of civilians and give up armed conflict, Sri Lanka’s response was to continue their course of mass murder and scorched earth tactics. Despite feigning concern for “trapped” civilians, the Sri Lankan army never made an effort to guarantee the safe and free movement of people or open and maintain a safe corridor from the war zone – leaving civilians with a choice between being chemically bombed or interned in an army prison camp.

The corrupt and racist Rajapaksa regime has one of the worst human rights records in the world. They have been able to get away with their crimes because of a corrupt and partisan police (95% Sinhalese) and army (99% Sinhalese), and a corrupt and partisan judiciary that has allowed the rule of law to be replaced by emergency regulations. Dissenters in parliament, the media or civil society have been threatened, imprisoned or self silenced.

BASICS supports those in the Tamil community who charge that the Sri Lankan government had always planned to conduct an unseen genocide because they began their expulsion of human rights workers and agencies in the Tamil north at the same time that they withdrew from the ceasefire agreement in January 2008 and then began their military offensive. The campaign of persecution of local journalists was intensified at the same time, as well as the expulsion of foreign reporters. The recent phase of the war was preceded with the blockade of essential items like food, medicine and fuel into the Tamil stronghold followed by repeated bombing and shelling of civilian targets. Such tactics are reminiscent of the Israeli government’s actions in its own genocidal war against the Palestinians of Gaza last December. In much the same way as Israel, the Sri Lankan government has used its 175,000 strong army as a domestic occupying force with all the abusive characteristics of an occupier – the harassment, intimidation and unrepentant murder. In addition, there is the ongoing concern for the well being of Tamils living in the rest of Sri Lanka because in January 2008 the Sri Lankan government had started registering all Tamils in Colombo on grounds that they could be a security threat.

Regional and international hegemonic powers have no worry for the lives of Tamils or for a just resolution to Tamil autonomy. The genocidal war in Sri Lanka would not be possible without substantial financial aid or deadly weapons provided through the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, USA, France and the United Kingdom. Canada has also marketed weapons to Sri Lanka, and last year Canadian tax payer dollars subsidized a military radar system sold to Sri Lanka. Despite the crushing poverty facing Sri Lanka’s working and rural poor, the government spends thirty percent of its overall revenue on weapons of war and is the most militarized country in South Asia (though it has no external threats). Recently these armaments have also included illegal chemical weapons and cluster munitions. The weaponry has been used to bomb civilian markets, homes, cultural centres, schools, hospitals, fishing boats, fishing villages, refugee camps and to commit mass killings. There have been over 20 massacres of Tamils carried out by the Sri Lankan army in the past ten months and more than 53 Tamil schools have been bombed since the ceasefire.

The Canadian government has refused to condemn these atrocities. The plea of thousands of Tamil Canadians for a ceasefire and protection of civilians has been met with silence and indifference. The callous Conservative government has not even issued a statement of condolence to the Tamil community for their loss of family and friends – the very least that would have been done had there been that number of deaths from any other disaster. Government responses have instead focused entirely on the tactics and actions of the LTTE, with no reference to Sri Lankan state sponsored terror or unacceptable loss of civilian life. Conservative Members of Parliament have even called Tamil Canadians protesting in the GTA and Ottawa “terrorists” and “rebels”. Shamefully, the Canadian Minister of International Cooperation, Bev Oda used a recent visit to Sri Lanka to offer a further three million dollars in Canadian “aid” to the Sri Lanka government to maintain the prisoner concentration camps interning Tamil civilians not killed by the genocidal bombing and shelling.

BASICS unequivocally denounces the role that Canada played in advancing the Sri Lankan war against the Tamil people. In 2006, Canada was the first country to respond to the Sri Lankan government campaign to designate the LTTE as a terrorist organization. Other countries subsequently followed Canada’s lead. The terror listing undermined the negotiations that were underway between the Sri Lankan state and the LTTE, and permitted the Rajapaksa regime to brazenly withdraw from peace talks and begin the latest brutal offensive in the Tamil areas. The terror listing clearly aligned the Canadian government on the side of the terrorist Sri Lankan government in its war against the Tamil Tigers and Tamil civilians. Therefore, BASICS Free Community Newsletter further condemns any continued silence or support given to the Sri Lankan government by the Canadian state.

The catastrophic war by Sri Lanka has brutally suppressed the Tamil people’s struggle for the universal right of self determination. However, BASICS recognizes that the defeat or even elimination of the LTTE simply means the beginning of a new phase in the Tamil resistance towards peace, justice and independence. At this stage in that struggle BASICS supports:

• The call for the protection of the 300,000 internally displaced Tamil people who now languish behind the barbed wire fences of deplorable prison camps. The camps cannot remain under Sri Lankan army administration. Humanitarian workers, independent monitors and journalists must be allowed absolute access to all camps and detainees; and the health, security and life needs of the refugees must be immediately and sufficiently met. These refugees must be allowed freedom of movement with the right to return to their homes in the northeast as soon as possible. There is a concern that the Sri Lankan government will repeat a pattern of installing Sinhalese settlements in the newly ethnically cleansed Tamil areas, and there have been reports of government plans to double the size of the Sri Lankan army in order to permanently occupy the north.

• The call for the protection of the human rights of Tamils in the capital Colombo and other Sinhalese areas. These areas are being heavily militarized with reports of arbitrary arrests and disappearances of Tamil citizens, and of soldiers patrolling the streets and setting up checkpoints to “process” Tamil civilians.

• The call for a full and independent investigation, accounting and prosecution for war crimes committed by the Rajapaksa regime. Independent investigators must be given immediate access to the war zone.

• The call for recognition of the Tamil people’s legitimate struggle for economic, social and political independence in their recognizable homeland in the northeast, and for independently monitored negotiations toward that end.

END THE GENOCIDE! JUSTICE AND FREEDOM FOR THE TAMILS OF SRI LANKA!

BASICS Issue #12 Launch Party
Friday, January 16, 2009, 7-9pm
Toronto Women’s Bookstore, 73 Harbord St. (at Spadina)

From now on, BASICS will be having parties to launch the new issues of our paper. Come out to pick up the new issue, network with other serious community organizers, and just chill.

There will be performers, including Wasun with a new track, alongside speakers from fellow grasroots community projects and organizations.

There will also be SNACKS! C’mon people, do you think we’d seriously be chillin without snacks? Hell no.

$3.00 donation at door requested to support the paper, but no one turned away for lack of funds.

For more information contact: [email protected]

Basics Community Newsletter has expanded its work by venturing into the world of radio broadcasting. Basics is pleased to be hosting our very own show on CHRY 105.5FM in the Jane and Finch area, every second Wednesday from 8-9pm. Live-to-air broadcasting is just another way we are getting our vital information to the masses. The show combines live interviews, music, current news issues, reports from recent events, as well as listings for upcoming events and much more.

For our debut show we interviewed Odion Osegyefo from the African Internationalist Students Organization and the African People’s Socialist Party; Chris Bolton, a Toronto District School Board Trustee who has come out against armed cops in Toronto schools; and investigative journalist Kevin Pina, who discussed the current situation in Haiti after Hurricane Ike in the context of ongoing political repression by the foreign occupation forces. Since then we have held many interviews, including a phone interview with Jennifene Debassige, the mother of the young Native man slain by Toronto Police, Byron Debassige. We also interviewed local musicians and community activists, such as the Soca Emperor and Wasun from Black Action Defense Committee.

On our October 15 show, we featured Venezuelan rap group Familia Negra, who were in our studio to discuss the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and to perform some freestyle; and we also interviewed Will Prosper of Montréal-Nord Republik to discuss the popular resistance to police terror in the community. We have also been providing important updates on the current crisis in the global economy, and how capitalism’s richest billionaires are attacking people around the world and in Canada in order to keep themselves rich.

Radio Basics reflects many of the topics featured in our paper and issues unfolding in our communities. Radio Basics is from the people, and to the people, and this show is truly is revolutionizing radio! If you have not yet had the chance to hear the new audio component of the Basics Free Community Newsletter, tune in every other Wednesday from 8-9pm on 105.5 CHRY or online at www.chry.fm, or visit basicsnewsletter.blogspot.com to check out our audio library of past shows. Radio Basics will be airing its next shows on Nov. 12, Nov. 26, Dec. 10, and Dec. 24.

Venezuelan rap group Familia Negra on Oct. 15 show of Radio Basics freestyles and informs Torontonians about the social revolution in Venezuela.

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