Battle at Hormel's Minn. plant heats up . 3 TH£ Woodworkers' strike against Weyerhaeuser . 4 LaRouchites: anatomy of fascist outfit . 9

A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PlJRLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE VOL. 50/NO. 30 AUGUST I, 1986 75 CENTS Nicaraguan U.S. gov't aids S. Africa president hits U.S. war on freedom fighters

BY FRED FELDMAN war plans "I've known about it for a long time, that we target the African National Congress," the Reagan administration official said. BY CINDY JAQUITH "We've always considered them to be the ESTELl, Nicaragua- In seven years of bad guys." aggression sponsored by the U.S. govern­ A former Reagan aide declared: "Our in­ ment, 31 ,290 Nicaraguans have been terests require helping the South Africans." killed or wounded. Nicaragua is a country The officials, quoted in the July 23 New of only 3 million people. York Times, were commenting on the role Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega re­ of U.S. intelligence agencies in helping the ported these figures to the July 19 rally South African government wage war on the here celebrating the seventh anniversary of ANC, the leading organization in the free­ the Sandinista revolution. Ortega is the co­ dom struggle against apartheid. The ANC, ordinator of the executive commission of outlawed by the white rulers, is recognized the National Directorate of the Sandinista by the United Nations, the Organization of National Liberation Front (FSLN). African Unity, and many governments as Some 14,260 of those killed or wounded the legitimate representative of the South were victims of the U.S.-armed counter­ African people. revolutionaries, or contras. And 16,925 "What is important about the revelations were Nicaraguans who had joined or been in the New York Times," said Neo Mnum­ forced into the contra bands organized by zana, the ANC' s chief representative to the Washington. United Nations, "is that they establish two The chief civilian targets of Washing­ related facts: namely that the Reagan ad­ ton's war- in addition to defenseless chil­ ministration regards the ANC and the dren - have been those Nicaraguans people of South Africa as the enemy and growing food to feed the nation, building apartheid as the friend." roads to link the countryside to the cities, After the Reagan administration took of­ and teaching people to read. Of the more fice in 1981 , current and former officials South African youths protest apartheid. Reagan claims anti-apartheid fighters, not than 4,300 Nicaraguans killed by the coun­ told the Times, U.S. intelligence opera­ government, have committed atrocities. terrevolutionary terrorists, the majority tions against the ANC and its allies steadily were workers and peasants serving in the increased at the request of the apartheid re­ armed forces. But 103 were teachers, 293 gime's Directorate of Military Intelligence. Southern Africa between U.S., British, such tasks as spying on Soviet shipping in were students, 194 were construction A 1977 regulation supposedly barred col­ and South African intelligence agencies. waters off southern Africa and monitoring workers or farm workers, 103 were techni­ laboration with South African intelligence One official who attended such a meeting developments in Angola, where the apart­ cians, and 420 were farmers. Another 879 agencies, but the ban was simply ignored. expressed surprise at how "extensive" col­ heid regime is waging war against an inde­ were children under 12 years of age. The article described "tasking" meetings laboration with the apartheid regime was. pendent government. The president said that with the U.S. that divided the common labor of policing South African intelligence is assigned Continued on Page 5 House of Representatives' approval of $100 million more for the mercenaries, Washington has a five-point strategy for tightening the squeeze on Nicaragua mili­ Aug. 4-7 nat'l antiwar actions set tarily, economically, and politically. First, he said, there will be "a significant escalation of military activity throughout BY LISA AHLBERG are also set for October 25. The National Emergency Civil Liberties Nicaragua, possibly including attacks on Opponents of the U.S.-sponsored At a July 17 meeting, leaders of national Committee placed an ad on the op-ed page the capital." mercenary war against Nicaragua have im­ antiwar and solidarity organizations of the July 20 New York Times, signed by Second, Washington will try to achieve portant opportunities to protest Washing­ formed an ad hoc coalition and issued a call Leonard Boudin, Corliss Lamont, and "more disciplined combat with fewer civil­ ton's aggression. National antiwar actions for the August 4-7 actions. The coalition Edith Tiger, condemning the U.S. govern­ ian victims and human-rights abuses" by its have been called for August 4-7 in Wash­ includes SANE, the Pledge of Resistance, ment's repudiation of the World Court's paid killers, in order to give the war a better ington, D. C. , to protest the U.S. govern­ the Committee in Solidarity with the ruling. "Such military aid would violate the image internationally. ment's attempts to secure $100 million in People of El Salvador (CISPES), Witness Court's order that the Reagan Administra­ Third, the U.S. government is attempt­ aid to the contras. for Peace, and the National Network in tion cease and refrain immediately from Continued on Page 14 Nationally coordinated regional protests Solidarity with Nicaragua. such unlawful action," said the ad. The protests have been called to take August 6 is the 41st anniversary of the place when the U.S. Senate is scheduled to devastating atomic bombing of Hiroshima, decide whether or not to approve $100 mil­ Japan, by the U.S. government. The pro­ 28,000 sign to put socialist lion in aid to the contras. The U.S. House test will focus on the immorality of the of Representatives voted on June 25 to ap­ U.S. war on Nicaragua, bringing together prove the contra aid. religious and disarmament organizations. candidates on New York ballot The organizers of the protest are calling August 7 is the anniversary of the day in the actions the "People's Filibuster," and 1964 when Congress voted to support the BY MICHAEL BAUMANN • And dozens of names of young people see the debate in the Senate as an opportu­ bombing of North Vietnam, an action NEW YORK - More than 60 petition­ who want to know more about the cam­ nity to build an antiwar movement. which followed the Gulf of Tonkin inci­ ers for the Socialist Workers Party ticket paign and the youth group supporting it - "The approval of contra aid is an act of dent, a U.S. government-staged provoca­ celebrated the seventh anniversary of the the Young Socialist Alliance. war," reads a letter sent out by the coali­ tion. Vietnam veterans and unionists are NicaraguNew York City to get out the word on ested people than we expected," says It is a death sentence for thousands of Nic­ on this day. the antiwar, anti-apartheid campaign. Theresa Delgadillo, a 26-year-old garment araguans. Silence is complicity. The op­ Local actions in conjunction with the Another 10 people mobilized to campaign worker who is a leader of the YSA and the position of American people must be August 4 rally are also being encouraged in the state capital of Albany. And what a SWP candidate for governor of New York, heard." for those who can't make it to Washington, response they got! "that we had to begin by calling only those Four days of actions have been planned D. C. For more information on the People's Weary but elated teams reported back who said they wanted to join the YSA." around various themes and will begin each Filibuster call SANE at (202) 546-7100. July 19 from two Nicaraguan solidarity fes­ Mike Shur, a 30-year-old sheet metal day at noon. On August 4 a rally entitled The October 25 regional antiwar actions tivals, a Queens meatpackers' picket line, worker who is the SWP candidate for U.S. "Contra Aid- Act of War" will be held on have been called by a coalition sponsoring Albany, shopping centers on Long Island, Senate, spent the day campaigning in Al­ the Capitol steps. This rally will be the the Actions for Peace, Jobs, and Justice. In and working-class neighborhoods across bany. focus of the four days. April 1985 a similar broad coalition or­ the city. They turned in: "The big event of the day," said Shur, The rally will be followed by an August ganized national antiwar protests mobiliz­ • 6,250 signatures on petitions to place "was a parade celebrating the 300th an­ 5 action designed to draw attention to the ing over 125,000 people. the SWP candidates on the New York bal­ niversary of Albany, But we found a con­ World Court's ruling that the U.S.-or­ The actions coalition comprises many lot; tingent we could march with - a Central ganized contra war violates Nicaragua's organizations, including peace, anti-apart­ • 350 copies sold of the two campaign American solidarity contingent, sand­ national sovereignty. On June 27 the heid, antiwar, labor, student, and religious newspapers, the Militant and the Spanish­ wiched in between National Guard tanks, World Court, an agency of the United Na­ groups. The fall demonstrations will de­ language Perspectiva Mundial; that marched under a banner reading '300 tions, found the U.S. government guilty of mand an end to the U.S. war on Nicaragua, • $950 from sales of revolutionary years of Albany - seven years of freedom intervening in the affairs of another country breaking of all U.S. ties to the apartheid re­ books, pamphlets, buttons, and T-shirts (a in Nicaragua!' through its "training, arming, equipping, gime in South Africa, abolition of nuclear one-day local record for street-comer cam­ "At the parade and across the city we financing, and supplying the contra weapons, and creation of jobs by cutting paigning); Continued on Page 8 forces." Continued on Page 16 St. Louis electrical workers fight concessions

BY JIM FOSTER sign reading "News on Hormel tried, one worker reaching for his past had met with limited success. ST. LOUIS - Socialists here Strike. The Militant, 75 cents," change explained, "Did you hear But the contract struggle at the have been selling the Militant at and the other holding up the paper what they're doing to us?" The plant and the paper's coverage the entrances of the world head­ and collecting money from the Emerson workers, organized by from Austin have combined to quarters of Emerson Electric on people stopped at the light. Some- International Union of Electronic change that. Workers Local 1102, recently overwhelmingly rejected a con­ Now the team sells an average cession contract calling for cutting of half a dozen papers every week, SELLING OUR PRESS wages for some workers and freez­ and some repeat customers are de­ ing wages for others. They are veloping. It's especially inspiring AT THE PLANT GATE looking to the fight of United Food to sell on "T-shirt Wednesdays" and Commercial Workers Local P- when workers drive in wearing 9 in Austin, Minnesota, as a union and anticoncession T ~shirts. a weekly basis for about two times, other salespeople sell at a model for their own struggle. Particularly militant are the months. shopping mall across from the Many had their 75 cents out when women workers, most of whom Two salespeople have generally plant where some workers leave they drove up, and 19 papers were belong to the classifications that been standing at the traffic light by their cars and at the rear gate. sold. would be hardest hit under the re­ the front gate, one holding up a The first morning this sale was Militant sales at Emerson in the jected contract. Book reception at NAACP convention draws 100

BALTIMORE - Pathfinder Press one man, one vote." hosted a reception for its latest publication, Madison told how the marchers had got­ The Struggle Is My Life. It was held in Bal­ ten a copy of the Mandela book in Atlanta timore July 1 during the National Associa­ and that it became "our Bible during the tion for the Advancement of Colored march .... It has a practical use, I'm not People's national convention. More than selling it, I don't get a commission, but 100 participants attended the reception at that book brought South Africa to life." the Omni Hotel. Helen Meyers, representing Pathfinder The featured speaker at the reception Press, chaired the program. Meyers was Joseph Madison, NAACP national di­ explained that "The Struggle Is My Life rector of voter education. He had just led was published as part of the worldwide an NAACP cross-country march for human campaign to win Mandel a's release and the dignity and against apartheid from Los release of all other political prisoners held Angeles to the convention. by the racist Pretoria regime." Madison talked about books by Path­ She also introduced Habla Nelson Man­ finder that had contributed to an under­ de/a, a collection of his speeches in standing of the struggle. The works of Spanish. W.E.B. DuBois, he said, "helped to bring Pathfinder Books of Baltimore had a to life the fight against slavery," and Mal­ table at the NAACP convention. They sold colm X's speech "The Ballot or the Bullet" more than $1,100 worth of literature, in­ (originally published by Pathfinder Press) cluding 95 copies of The Struggle Is My Militant/John Lemon taught us "the importance of the fight for Life. From right, Joseph Madison and Helen Meyers with two NAACP convention dele­ gates. They discussed Mandela's writings at Pathfinder Press reception. Salvadorans arrested inN. Y. NEW YORK Forty-six un- were put into waist chains, which were at­ 'The Struggle Is My Life' reviewed documented Salvadoran refugees in Long tached to the handcuffs already in place, Island were arrested by the Immigration and they were flown via INS plane to the "Pathfinder Press issues collection of which he is still the acknowledged leader. and Naturalization Service (INS) in factory Oakdale detention center. On the plane, Mandela speeches" is how Publisher's The book was originally published by raids on Long Island, shackled in chains, they were not fed or allowed to use the Weekly introduced its review of The the International Defence and Aid Fund for and sent to a new INS detention center in bathroom and were not informed of where Struggle Is My Life by Nelson Mandela. South Africa as a tribute to Mandela on his Oakdale, Louisiana. they were going. Mandela is the jailed leader of the Afri­ 60th birthday. "The Fund makes this re­ The Oakdale detention center is already Monica Schurtman of the Center for Im­ can National Congress of South Africa. vised and updated version available as a notorious for the lack of legal representa­ migrants Rights and the coordinator of the The review was the lead item in the further tribute to Mandela, and as a contri­ tion available to those imprisoned. New York Central American Legal De­ paper~ack books section of Publisher's bution to the many campaigns throughout The 46 Salvadorans were arrested in INS fense Committee said, "We are very con­ Weekly, which is the most important the world calling for his release and for the raids at Austin Productions in Holbrook, cerned that the basic legal rights of the Sal­ book trade journal for retail store release of all other political prisoners held Long Island, and American Tissue Corp. in vadoran refugees sent to Oakdale have al­ buyers in the United States. The review by the apartheid regime." One of the fea­ Farmingdale, Long Island. ready been violated and will continue to be is reprinted below. tures of the new edition is a section of In the course of the raids, all exits to the violated. They may be deported back to El photographs of Mandela. The book has factories were blocked, and only "foreign­ Salvador without any opportunity to dem­ The Struggle Is My Life is a collection of now been indexed, as well, and includes a looking" persons were questioned. Follow­ onstrate that they deserve political asylum speeches and writings by South African catalogue ofMandela's published writings. ing questioning, those detained were taken here in the United States." anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela, just Pathfinder Press publisher Helen Meyers in handcuffs to the INS offices in Manhat­ The Center for Immigrants Rights, along published by Pathfinder Press (paper says that the publication of this book repre­ tan. They were informed of proceedings in with Central American refugee organiza­ $6.95). The book, originally published in sents "the first time that the speeches and English, were not allowed to make tele­ tions and civil liberties groups, has England in 1978, has been updated to in­ writings of Nelson Mandela will be widely phone calls, and were not fed, even though launched an effort to defend these refu­ clude recent statements by Mandela, as available in the United States." they were held overnight in the waiting gees. For more information, call Monica well as material by others related to his im­ Pathfinder is located at 410 West St., room. Schurtman, Center for Immigrants Rights, prisonment and the political movement of New York, N.Y. 10014; (212) 741-0690. The following morning, the detainees (212) 505-6890.

The Militant tells the truth - Subscribe today! The Militant That's the way you'll Closing news date: July 23, 1986 f f 1 I get facts about Editor: MALIK MIAH Managing editor: Washington's war MARGARET JA YKO f r r, against working Business Manager: people at home and LEE MARTINDALE rf r 1 abroad: from South Editorial Staff: Rashaad Ali, Susan Apstein. Fred • Africa and Nicara­ Feldman, Andrea Gonzalez, Pat Grogan,"-' Arthur Hughes, Tom Leonard, Harry Ring, Norton Sandler. gua, to embattled Published weekly except one week in August and the workers and farmers last week of December by the Militant (ISSN 0026- in the U.S. Read our 3885), 14 Charles Lane, New York, N.Y. 10014. Tele­ ideas on how to stop phone: Editorial Office, (212) 243-6392: Business Of­ fice, (212) 929-3486. i apartheid, war, the Correspondence concerning subscriptions or it;; oppression of Blacks changes of address should be addressed to The Mili­ ~------, I Enclosed is: o $3 for 12 weeks o $15 for 6 months and women, and the employer tant Business Office, 14 Charles Lane, New York, - 1 o $24 for 1 year o A contribution I offensive against all workers. N.Y. 10014. Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y. POST­ !Name : At the plant gates, picket MASTER: Send address changes to The Militant, 14 I Address ______Charles Lane, New York, N.Y. 10014. Subscriptions: lines and unemployment U.S. $24.00 a year, outside U.S. $30.00. By first-class I City/State/Zip I lines, at antiwar and abortion mail: U.S., Canada, and Mexico: $60.00. Write for air­ I Telephone I rights actions, the Militant is mail rates to all other countries. 1 Union/Organization I there, reporting the news, Signed articles by contributors do not necessarily rep­ participating in struggle. resent the Militant's views. These are expressed in edito­ t._:'endtoM~ant,14Charles~e,N'::.Y.:k,NY10014 _ J rials.

2 The Militant August 1, 1986 Minnesota meatpackers fight heats up Battle is over who will represent workers in Harmel plant in Austin

BY NORTON SANDLER As the two accompanying leaflets dem­ NORTH AMERICAN MEAT PACKERS UNION MEETING NOTICE onstrate, the battle over which union will For Current Hormel Workers represent meatpackers at the Geo. A. Hor­ 1. WHAT IS NORTH AMERICAN HEAT PACKERS UNION? mel & Co. plant in Austin, Minnesota, is We are a new labor organization, foraed to de•ocratically heating up. represent all Austin Horael plant production and On one side stand the rank-and-file aaintenance workers. lYou Have a Right to Know workers, who recently formed the North 2. WHY WAS IT FORMED? American Meat Packers Union (NAMPU). North Aaerican Heat Packers Union was foraed to address the specific needs of aeat packers and to proaote rank & fi Ia trade That's why the UFCW is holding FOUR meetings to answer On the other side stands the United Food unionisa and aolidarity aaong all workers, and Commerical Workers (UFCW) top of­ your questions about: 3. WHO FORHEO THE NEW UNION? ficialdom and those loyal to it. It was fol"'aed by 1"'8nk & file •e•bet"'a who believe that out"' * * The upcoming Labor Board Election Both sides are focusing their attention on I"'Bpl"'esentativaa should be elected and directed by the wi I 1 of * * Hormel Chain Bargaining winning the hearts and minds of hundreds the •ajol"'ity, not appointed by a self-perpetuating gl"'oup of bu ... eaucrats accountable only to the•aalvea. * * UFCW's plans to move forward of workers inside and outside the Hormel plant who will be eligible to vote.in an ex­ 4. DO ~E INTEND TO REKINDLE THE STRIKE? pected upcoming union bargaining elec­ No, the atl"'ike ia over! It was terainated by the UFCW's trustee, joe Hansen. It can only be revived by a two-thit"'da ••jority ANY AND EVERY QUESTION IS IMPORTANT, SO PLEASE tion. vote of the aeaberahip Ol"' through the initiative o( the UFCW t ... uatee. JOIN US AT THE MEETING BEST SUITED FOR YOU! A petition signed by 600 workers calling The Austin Labor Center S. WHERE CAN I GET "ORE INFORMATION? for a "recertification" election was filed Tuesday, July 22, 1986 with the National Labor Relations Board North A•arican Heat Packers Union ia located at 103 4th Ave N.E. (NLRB) in July. No date has been set for Stop in or ca I I us at 437•8'580. #1 12:30 p.m.- 1:30 p.m. an election. #2 3:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. The petitioning effort was carried out by SPECIAL MEETING NOTICE #3 4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. #4 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. members of UFCW Local P-9 determined An Infor•ational Heating Wi II Be to win a decent contract from the giant Held (ot"' AI I In-plant Horae! Work&I"'S meatpacking firm. AND GIVE US A CALL IF YOU WANT TO HELP THE IN­ Local P-9 members were forced to strike PLANT ORGANIZING COMMITTEE; OR IF YOU'D LIKE A in August 1985 to resist a union-busting CEDAR CREST HALL UFCW HAT AT 437-6989, 437-8848, 437-8694, 437-7122. drive by Hormel. While on strike, the ALSO, THE UNIONIST IS ON ITS WAY''' 1 ,500 P-9 members had to stand up to WEDNESDAY, JULY 23 police violence, the use of National Guard troops, and court rulings invariably favor­ 7:00 P. H, Issued by UFCW P-9 Organizing Comm1ttee lor UNITY AND A FAIR CONTRACT! able to Hormel. A Label"' Attorney WI 11 Be Preaent To Anawer Your Questions. In addition, they have had to overcome the obstacles the top International officials of the UFCW have placed in their way at every step of the struggle. Rogers, he said, "expertly played on dustry and slowly bring wages back up. Ray Rogers did not want an agreement." The UFCW tops are determined to crush their [workers'] emotions." Hansen told the group that he questioned Both Hansen and Larson agreed that the the rebellious local and keep its example of According to Hansen, the UFCW tops how Guyette managed to get some of the Hormel strike had been a "quirk." democratic, fighting unionism from had decided not to support P-9 because of a signatures on the recertification petition. Guyette responded to the slanders, ex­ spreading. difference in philosophy. He said Guyette He also said that workers hired by Hor­ plaining that he supports the effort to have In May the UFCW International officials and Rogers had a theory that workers mel in January to replace the strikers dis­ the new union certified and intends to vote imposed a trusteeship on P-9 and appointed should get more money because the com­ like P-9 and are unlikely to vote for it. for it. But, he explained, a committee of UFCW District 13 Director Joseph Hansen pany was profitable, while the UFCW of­ Hormel's Larson echoed many of the workers circulated the petition, and he was trustee over the local union. ficialdom wants to stabilize the entire in- same charges, stating that "from day one, not involved in the effort. Backed up by a federal judge's order in June, Hansen suspended P-9 President Jim Guyette and the other officers of the local and abruptly called an end to the strike. Talks on U.S. and world politics to be Since that time the members of the union have had no rights. As the NAMPU leaflet being distributed in Austin explains, the "North American featured at socialist conference Meat Packers Union was formed to address the specific needs of meat packers and to BY NORTON SANDLER volved in this struggle today. industrial unions; and why the struggle for promote rank and file trade unionism and Daily talks on the struggles of working "Class Struggle Trade Unionism" will women's liberation is an essential part of solidarity among all workers." people, from Austin, Minnesota, to Johan­ be the subject of a talk by Mac Warren, co­ working people's fight to establish a work­ The union was formed by "rank and file nesburg, South Africa, will be a major fea­ ordinator of the SWP's trade union bureau. ers' and farmers' government. members who believe that our representa­ ture of the upcoming Socialist Educational Warren will speak on the battle being Cindy Jaquith will give a talk on "The tives should be elected and directed by the and Activists Conference. waged by members of the North American Nicaraguan Revolution Today." She is a will of the majority, not appointed by a Sponsored by 'the Socialist Workers Meat Packers Union against Geo. A. Hor­ member of the Militant-Perspectiva Mun­ self-perpetuating group of bureaucrats ac­ Party and the Young Socialist Alliance, the mel & Co. in Austin, Minnesota. He will dial bureau in Managua, Nicaragua. countable only to themselves. conference will be held in Oberlin, Ohio, explain how the involvement of the ranks Jaquith's talk will explain how Nicara­ "We are a new labor organization August 9-14. of the union at every stage of that struggle gua's workers and peasants are advancing formed to democratically represent all Au­ Jack Barnes, national secretary of the is pointing the road forward for working their revolution and how they are combat­ stin Hormel plant production and mainte­ SWP, will open the conference with a talk people who want to resist employer and ing the U.S. -organized war and seeking to nance workers," the NAMPU leaflet says. on "Why We Need a Revolution in the government attacks on their living stan­ deal with the hardships imposed on the A NAMPU meeting for in-plant workers United States." That talk will explain why dards and rights. country by it. was held July 23. A group loyal to the it is crucial to the forward march of human­ Militant managing editor Margaret "The Coming Revolution in South Af­ UFCW International calling itself the ity for the workers and farmers to topple Jayko will speak on "Women's Liberation rica" is the title of the talk that will be given "UFCW P-9 Organizing Committee for the tiny handful of billionaire ruling and Socialism." Jayko will explain why by Militant editor Malik Miah. Unity and a Fair Contract" held meetings families who control the United States gov­ socialists seek to build a powerful move­ ernment - the main bastion of worldwide ment for women's liberation; the growing Miah will explain how the South African the day before. people are fighting to establish a democrat­ On July 17 Hansen and Hormel Vice­ political reaction. He will explain why it is involvement of women in the union move­ important for workers and farmers to be in- ment, including in the potentially powerful ic, nonracial republic with one person, one president for Labor Relations David Lar­ vote; the leading role played in that strug­ son spoke together at a St. Paul forum enti­ gle by the African National Congress; and tled, "Hormel- Quirk or Quintessence." why Washington and London prop up the The forum was sponsored by an organiza­ South African government. tion called Association of Labor Relations Agencies. A report of the meeting in the SWP leader Mary-Alice Waters will Minnesota Daily gives an indication of the speak on "Revolutionary Cuba." She slanders the UFCW International will use covered the Third Congress of the Cuban in the wming election. Communist Party for the Militant earlier Hansen focused his attack on suspended this year. P-9 President Guyette and former P-9 con­ Waters will describe the advances sultant Ray Rogers, an approach that is de­ Cuba's workers and peasants have regis­ signed to drive a wedge between the mem­ tered since they made their revolution 27 bership of the union and its elected leaders. years ago. She will also explain the role Hansen claimed that Guyette had never revolutionary Cuba plays in leading the wanted a settlement of the strike and had worldwide struggle to end imperialist op­ manipulated the members of the union into pression and exploitation. opposing concessions. In addition to the major talks, a wide variety of classes is being prepared. There 'Militant' Prisoner Fund will also be numerous panels and work­ The Militant's special prisoner fund shops. makes it possible to send reduced-rate Evening entertainment will include con­ subscriptions to prisoners who need certs, movies, and dances. help paying for the paper. Please send If you are interested in attending the your contribution to: Militant Prisoner Howort Militant/Holbrook Mahn Socialist Educational and Activists Confer­ Subscription Fund, 14 Charles Lane, Left, Mac Warren, coordinator of Socialist Workers Party's trade union bureau. ence, contact the SWP nearest you. (See New York, N.Y. 10014. Right, Jack Barnes, national secretary of SWP. directory on page 16.) August 1, 1986 The Militant 3 Weyerhaeuser threatens scab use as strikers vote on new offer BY TIM MAILHOT During the six-week strike, they have or­ each mill for the workers to make up the ABERDEEN, Wash. -After four days ganized mass picketing to stop logging pay cuts. of negotiations between representatives of trucks and trains from entering the mills, At the White River Mill near Enumclaw, the International Woodworkers of America and they have set up picket lines at non­ Washington, Don Malgarini, president of (IWA) and Weyerhaeuser Co. officials, struck Weyerhaeuser Pulp and Paper mills. IW A Local 157, explained that the com­ another contract has been sent to the union They have sent roving pickets to the ports pany would have to make $8 million a year membership for their consideration. of Seattle and Vancouver, British Colum­ in profits for the workers to maintain their According to many union members, the bia, in Canada to block shipments of current wages. I. W. J\ four days of negotiations have resulted in lumber. "We are already breaking all production no serious changes from the previous offer, This latter action resulted in a complete records. Last year we made $4 million in .... lOCAL 3 ..5 36 which was voted down by a four-to-one one-day shutdown of a pier that served a profits for them. Under this new contract margin earlier this month. number of non-struck shipping firms in we would be left $1 an hour short of our IW A members in the Washington cities Vancouver. current pay. Anytime we get close to catch­ of Raymond, Centralia, and Aberdeen, The British Columbia Federation of ing up, they will just juggle the books to after voting on the contract in a secret bal­ Labor has issued a "hot" edict prohibiting cut their profit. There is no way we will be DN STRIKE lot, also took a public straw poll. They the handling of Weyerhaeuser Co. lumber able to make it back." AGA/Nsr unanimously rejected it in a show of hands. from the United States by union members. Weyerhaeuser is threatening to eliminate With the majority of the locals yet to At issue in this strike is an all-out at­ 2,300 logging jobs if this contract is not ap­ vote, the outcome is up in the air. Vote to­ tempt by the lumber industry's leading proved. This threat is an attempt to try to EUSER tals were to be announced July 25, the day company to impose major concessions in split the loggers away from the mill work­ Weyerhaeuser has threatened to begin hir­ wages, benefits, and work rules on the log­ ers in order to get the contract ratified. ing scabs to replace the strikers. gers and mill workers. Takebacks the com­ In Aberdeen, spirits on the picket line Lumber workers are fighting Weyerhaeu­ July 25 is also the day the strikers are pany is demanding total $4.30 an hour. are very high. The strikers have won broad ser's attempt to impose concession contract. holding a rally in Olympia, the state capi­ One of the concessions that has received community support. The picket lines are tal. The rally comes at the end of a number much media attention is the company de­ staffed not only by striking members of the monitoring the movement of all trucks in of four-day marches being organized from mand for a profit-sharing plan. IW A and members of the Lumber Produc­ and out of the town. logging towns. Weyerhaeuser runs its mills on a so­ tion and Industrial Workers (LPIW), but The company has tried to provoke con­ Hundreds of supporters will caravan into called "independent" basis. The amount of also by longshoremen, machinists, retired frontations on the picket lines by telling in­ the capital as well. The strikers have been profit "shared" would vary from mill to unionists, and the wives and children of the dependent truckers that the lines are infor­ quite active in keeping their case before the mill. strikers. mational only. public and putting pressure on the company The company has issued a schedule Through effective radio and telephone But once the drivers approach the picket to negotiate. showing how much profit has to be made at communications systems the workers are lines loaded with lumber, they are con­ fronted with a mass picket line of between 200 and 500 strikers and supporters. Most drivers insist that their trucks be Detroit workers strike for pay raise unloaded and then leave the area empty. Local police, at first aggressive about en­ forcing court injunctions, have been forced BY KIBWE DIARRA fourth of the union's jobs. The workers added, "Labor and the Detroit community to back off because of the support. DETROIT- On July 16, some 7,000 have had to live with job speed-ups that know the mayor is wrong." Negotiations have also been going on city workers went on strike here to demand followed reductions of the work force. Mark Phillips, president of AFSCME between the IW A and LPIW and other log­ a decent contract. The union points out that the $53.3 mil­ Local 229, said, "We've looked at all the ging companies in the northwestern United The striking workers are members of lion budget surplus is a direct result of the ramifications and we feel that now is the States and in British Columbia, where American Federation of State, County and concessions union members have made. time for justice." there are more than 30,000 IW A members. Municipal Employees union (AFSCME) Lucrative tax breaks given to industry in District 25. Those on strike include public Detroit have not saved jobs. health employees, clerical workers, bus Included on the AFSCME leaflet was the mechanics, and zoo workers. Trash-truck demand, "Money for jobs and services Philadelphia gov't forces drivers and bus drivers are honoring the rather than for the military budget." picket lines. Thousands of other city workers not on Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, once a strike will be directly affected by the workers back to jobs union organizer and the AFL-CIO's choice strike's outcome. for mayor in the 1985 election, is now Young, still considered by many to be a BY HALKET ALLEN replied to the police reading the back-to­ showing that he is no friend of labor. friend of labor, has thrown the courts and PHILADELPHIA- The 13,000 mem­ work order. Young just had his salary raised from cops into the battle to crush the strike. bers of American ·Federation of State, The cops were out in force, with dogs $80,000 to $115,000. Court injunctions have been issued against County and Municipal Employees and horses at many trash sites. Said one "We don't pay our top personnel enough the unions, and Detroit cops have arrested (AFSCME) District Council 33 voted tore­ striking worker, "I kind of get the feeling money. That's an entirely different prob­ 10 strikers. turn to work July 19 without a contract. that I'm in South Africa." lem from what we pay people to drive Ed Wilson, director of the Detroit Board They had been on strike for 20 days. Another said, "Hey, it's not our fault. buses," Young said. It is this attitude that of Elections, is threatening to have the Na­ (As we go to press, a tentative contract We have to live too. We have bills to pay." Young took into the negotiations with tional Guard brought into town to protect . between the union and the city has been an­ The strike did not receive much solidar­ AFSCME. scabs he wants to hire in preparation for the nounced. The tentative pact calls for a 10 ity. The clerical workers in AFSCME Dis­ In a leaflet distributed to the community August 5 primary election. percent pay increase over two years and a trict Council 47 settled their contract after and other Detroit-area unionists, AFSCME Young is also insuring that the public re­ 32 percent increase in the monthly health­ an 11-day strike. They got a 10-percent pointed out that its members had not re­ ceives a steady diet of supposed horrors care benefits paid by tl}e city. The union wage increase and gains in benefits. The ceived a significant increase since 1977. that await Detroit if the garbage is not has agreed to allow an independent audit of contract also includes a "me too" on any The fact sheet explained that a beginning picked up. Young's antilabor lawyers have its health and welfare fund.) gains that the larger city unions, including typist earns wages at poverty level for a developed a sudden concern over the water The sanitation and health workers, who the sanitation workers, may get. The pres­ family of four. and air quality in Detroit. They have filed are the heart of the union, were issued a ident of the clerical workers, Thomas Paine Since 1983 the city has eliminated one- papers to get back-to-work orders from the contempt citation that would have fined the Cronin, asked the workers in his district to courts. And the judge hearing the case or­ union $40,000 a day. Mayor Wilson honor the picket lines of striking District dered the Environmental Protection Goode had threatened to fire all workers 33, but he warned that "there is a limit to Agency to insure that no sewage is dumped who defied the injunction. solidarity," and many crossed the lines. in the Detroit River because of the strike. The mayor forced the workers on strike Goode conferred with local leaders of So far all the actions by Young and his by demanding that they take concessions. the AFL-CIO during the strike. Julius Ueh­ cronies have failed to budge AFSCME and The main issues in the strike were wages, lein, president of the Pennsylvania AFL­ its supporters. · health benefits, contracting out union work CIO, confirmed that he had spoken with Many Detroit citizens are finding alter­ to private contractors, and the length of the Goode. "I did talk to the mayor," he said. native ways to move about since the bus contract. The union is asking for a one-year "I did tell him that he was in a difficult situ­ drivers are not crossing AFSCME's picket contract. ation and that he was doing what had to be lines. The city administration refused to pay done." At a small union-organized garment back a $48-million debt it owes to the The Philadelphia Inquirer quoted Henry shop in Detroit, where wages are only union's health and welfare fund. Philadel­ Nicholas, president of District 1199 of the slightly above the minimum, workers who phia city workers have a medical plan that National Union of Hospital Care Employ­ rely on the city bus service expressed sol­ is so poor many hospitals and doctors make ees, saying he had talked to the mayor on a idarity with the AFSCME strike despite the the workers pay up front before they can daily basis since the strike began. "The hardships it presents them. One worker get health care. mayor has to manage the city," Nicholas told this reporter, "The AFSCME workers The city administration is demanding the said. "Obviously, we don't want anyone to have not had a raise in years. They should right to audit the union's health and welfare lose their jol;>s. We are not in favor of stay out till they get one." fund. The city claims that it owes the union people getting fired. But we understand the The official union leadership has come only $15.9 million. mayor has to do what the mayor has to do." out against Young. James Glass, AFSCME The union has refused this demand, say­ District 33 held a meeting at the civic Council25 director, said, "If Young is that ing it would open the door to the city taking center, where workers voted to go back to concerned about getting us back to work control of the fund away from the union. work without a contract. After the meeting, then he should be at the bargaining table in­ Area media have violence-baited the they discussed the last 20 days and what stead of in the courts." Glass added, "What strikers and the union. had happened. "I hate going back to we are trying to achieve is the complete Sanitation workers had initially defied work," said Henry Gordon, a sanitation closure of this city just to make the mayor the back-to-work order issued by common worker. "But I have no other choice. I felt understand." pleas court Judge Edward Blake. The as though we were left out in the cold, and Tom Turner, president of the Metro-De­ workers instead demonstrated at the trash­ I think that stinks." troit AFL-CIO, said, "When Mayor Young disposal sites. Not one of the 2,420 sanita­ There was one group that started a chant offers employees an unfair contract, he is tion workers reported to work. "No con­ of "Strike, strike, strike." Another re­ Detroit city workers picketing July 16 calling their work unimportant." Turner tract, no work," shop steward Ed Boykin sponded, "Work, work, work."

4 The Militant August 1, 1986 Houston socialist certified for ballot HOUSTON- Joanne Kuniansky was sional Black Caucus. the contras and an end to all U.S. acts of certified July 11 to appear on the Texas This year, as in the last several elections, war against Nicaragua now. Instead of ballot as the Socialist Workers Party candi­ the Republicans decided not even to field a spending billions to create weapons of de­ date for Congress from the 18th district in candidate against him. struction for oppressing people abroad, all Houston. Supporters had collected more Leland's response to the "oil crisis" has the money now in the war budget should be than 2,300 signatures during a hot and been to support legislation that would help used to meet basic human needs here. rainy four-week petition drive. the oil companies improve their profit pos­ During the petition drive, campaign sup­ Kuniansky, 33, is an operator at the ition, such as proposing taxes on oil im­ porters found openness to a socialist oil ARCO oil refinery. She is a member of ports. worker running against a liberal capitalist Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union Kuniansky opposes such legislation. "It politician like Leland. Local 4-227. puts money in the pockets of the oil barons. There was overwhelming support for the Thirty-seven ARCO refinery workers It divides U.S. workers from our brothers socialists' right to be on the ballot. In par­ were among the signers. and sisters in other countries. And it won't ticular, many signed up on learning of the With the drop in the price of crude oil, do a thing to help the thousands who are socialist campaign's support for the South unemployment in Houston has risen to over facing joblessness or wage cuts here," she African freedom struggle and the fight for 10 percent. Many of Kuniansky's cowork­ says. breaking all U.S. ties with the apartheid re­ ers remember the "oil crisis" of 1979, gime. when the oil monopolies created a shortage Kuniansky has a socialist perspective on Kuniansky participated in Shell Boycott in order to sharply increase prices. Some this new "oil crisis." She says, "Working Day, organized by the Houston Free South companies reported 200- to 300-percent people should not be required to sacrifice Africa Movement. She campaigned at profits at that time. anything for the billionaire owners of the picket lines set up by the Communications Now with the oil glut in the world mar­ oil companies or the rest of the ruling Workers of America during their strike ket and the drop in prices, these companies rich." She calls for a massive public works against AT&T. Petitioners attended a pick­ are demanding concessions and laying off program to provide jobs for all at union et line against aid to the Nicaraguan contras oilfield production workers. wages and opposes all cuts in education and met a high school student who has Militant State and city governments have re­ and other basic social services. since attended socialist forums held at the Joanne Kuniansky, SWP candidate for sponded to the loss of taxes from oil pro­ She demands ending U.S. funding for Pathfinder Bookstore. Congress. duction by drastically cutting education and other vital social services. The 18th Congressional District covers central Houston and includes the poorest U.S. aids war on S. Africa freedom fighters Black and Chicano neighborhoods, which have been particularly hard hit by un­ Continued from front page Union for the Total Independence of An­ The ANC is leading a struggle to put an employment, deteriorating housing, and The South African spies, in tum, as­ gola, an organization that operates as part end to the apartheid state and its race war cuts in social services. The incumbent, signed U.S. spy outfits tasks that, the U.S. of the South African regime's war against by establishing a united, democratic, non­ Mickey Leland, is the head of the Congres- officials said, tended to grow in number Angola. racial republic in South Africa. with each tasking meeting. And Assistant Secretary of State Reagan left no doubt about which side U.S. intelligence agencies were as­ Crocker has pressured U.S. oil companies the U.S. government stands on in this bat­ signed the task of spying for the apartheid to divest from Angola, while firmly oppos­ tle. "In defending their society and people, SWP campaign regime on the movements of ANC Presi­ ing divestment or any other meaningful the Southern African government has a dent Oliver Tambo. In addition, "we got a sanctions against apartheid. right and responsibility to maintain order in at aid concert list of 10 people of Tambo's staff- the On July 9 Washington cut off aid to the face of terrorists." ANC high command - and they wanted Zimbabwe, one of the targets of South Af­ Reagan indicated sympathy for the BY DICK McBRIDE information from us." Messages transmit­ rica's May 19 military aggression in south­ MANOR, Texas - The Farm Aid II ted by the ANC were to be turned over to South African government's refusal to em Africa. The pretext was a July 4 denun­ negotiate with the African National Con­ concert in this town near Austin attracted the South African government. ciation by a Zimbabwean official of Wash­ 45,000 people who wanted to show support The officials indicated that the apartheid gress. Echoing the apartheid regime's fab­ ington's complicity with the apartheid re­ rications about the liberation group, he for working farmers in this country. The regime had been given "specific advance gime. July 4 concert featured 80 prominent musi­ information on planned bombings and dis­ stated: cians. ruptions by the congress." The term "dis­ Apartheid a 'flaw' "But the South African government is Farm Aid II was organized by singer ruptions" appears to refer to nonmilitary under no obligation to negotiate the future President Reagan's July 22 speech on of the country with any organization that Willie Nelson and patterned after the Farm actions against apartheid, such as demon­ U.S. policy toward South Africa was a de­ Aid concert held last year in Champaign, strations the ANC is involved in. proclaims a goal of creating a communist fense of this course. He conceded that the state - and uses terrorist tactics to achieve Illinois. The apartheid regime "tasked" the U.S. regime in South Africa was "flawed." But it., Supporters of the Socialist Workers National Security Agency to provide intel­ he denounced proposals to impose eco­ The official leaks about U.S. intelli­ Party's slate of candidates in the 1986 elec­ ligence information on Angola, Botswana, nomic sanctions as "immoral" and "utterly tion here in Texas saw the concert as an op­ Mozambique, Zambia, and Tanzania - gence operations against the ANC appear repugnant." He urged the regime to estab­ to have been timed to coincide with portunity to show support for the working five of the six Frontline States bordering on lish a "timetable" for ending apartheid. farmer and to offer a socialist perspective South Africa. All but Tanzania have been Reagan's speech. The heart of the speech, however, was a The Reagan administration's determina­ on the farm crisis. recent victims of South African military at­ smear job on the African National Con­ Driving all night, 16 campaign support­ tacks or of terrorist attacks bankrolled by tion to defend the apartheid state does not gress, which Reagan accused of "calcu­ mean that Washington cannot be com­ ers from Dallas and Houston were able to the apartheid regime. lated terror" aimed at "racial war." catch a few winks of sleep, rise at the crack pelled to take further steps against the of dawn, gulp down some coffee, and get U.S. sanctions violated Reagan portrayed the "necklace" execu­ apartheid regime. stuck in a six-mile traffic jam leading to the To improve the apartheid regime's spy­ tions of some of the apartheid regime's The demands of Republican leaders such concert. We didn'tjust sit there and stew in ing capabilities, U.S. -made computer cops, police informers, and officials by as Sen. Richard Lugar and top Democrats our juices. We got out and started leaflet­ chips were secretly shipped to South Africa anti-apartheid fighters as an "atrocity"- a such as Sen. Edward Kennedy for more ing the cars with a statement by Steve War­ by way of West Germany and Britain. word he has never used to describe any ac­ sanctions against the regime reflect both shell, socialist candidate for Texas agricul­ Under U.S. law, such transfers of com­ tion by the white rulers. the mass support in this country for eco­ nomic sanctions and important tactical di­ ture commissioner. puter technology to South Africa were ille­ He supplemented terrorist-baiting with gal. visions in the ruling class over how to re­ Roni Lerouge, a member of the Young red-baiting, denouncing "Soviet-armed Socialist Alliance from Dallas, said, spond to the anti-apartheid revolt in South On July 23, Secretary of State George guerrillas of the African National Con­ Africa. "People were responsive to our campaign Shultz told Congress that Central Intelli­ gress." and to the idea that farmers shouldn't have But the U.S. government's complicity in gence Agency chief William Casey denied attacks on the anti-apartheid movement in to pay for an agricultural crisis they didn't the statements made by the present and Apartheid state's race war create." South Africa shows the need for more pro­ former U.S. officials to the Times. But It is not the ANC that wages "race war" After three hours we got to the entrance tests demanding that Washington break all Casey himself secretly visited South Africa in South Africa but the apartheid state, its ties with apartheid. of the concert, set up a campaign table, and in March to discuss the delivery of U.S. which is a war machine set up by the South unfurled our banner: "Farm aid, not contra weapons to South African-backed terrorists African ruling class to smash the resistance aid." This caught everyone's eye. Some in Angola. of tens of millions of Blacks to oppression Tutu denounces Reagan yelled, "right on." Many came to the table and superexploitation. to get into discussions. In recent months the Reagan administra­ stand on sanctions By the end of the day more than 4,000 tion has been probing for ways to take a It is the apartheid state that has forcibly more aggressive stand in defense of the leaflets were distributed. and 20 copies of removed millions of Blacks from their The South African government had high the Militant were sold. South African regime, while continuing to homes, compelling 11 million to live in de­ praise for Reagan's July 22 speech. But In a statement to those attending Farm urge the regime to make more concessions. solate, tiny reservations called Bantustans. South African foes of apartheid were out­ Aid IL Steve Warshell said, "This event Washington views the South African It is the apartheid state that has set up the raged. state as a vitally needed cop for U.S. im­ shows the potential that's out there to build system of slave-like migrant labor in the Desmond Tutu, one of the most promi­ an alliance of workers and farmers. Anal­ perialist interests throughout southern Af­ mines and factories, and that has stolen the nent leaders of the anti-apartheid move­ rica. liance to get rid of the government of bank­ land of Black peasants and turned it over to ment in South Africa, told one interviewer: ers and bosses that we all suffer under white exploiters. It is the apartheid state "Your president is the pits as far as today and replace it with a government of Backing South African aggression that deprives Blacks of all political rights, Blacks are concerned." workers and farmers. In January Washington indicated no op­ and slaughtered thousands who demand "I found the speech nauseating," he said "My Democratic opponent, Agriculture position to the South African military human rights. to another. "Black trade unions have said Commissioner Jim Hightower, wants to blockade of Lesotho, a country surrounded The killing of informers and other col­ they call for sanctions. Over 70 percent of head off such confrontations between the on all sides by South Africa. Assistant Sec­ laborators and enforcers of apartheid in the our people in two surveys have shown that farmers and their exploiters. He tells farm­ retary of State Chester Crocker met with Black townships and Bantustans, which they want sanctions. No, President Reagan ers to put on business suits and lobby in South African President Pieter Botha in Reagan attributes to the ANC, is not knows better .... Washington. Here in Texas where 10,000 South Africa while the blockade was going viewed by the Black masses as an "atroc­ "He sits there like the great big white will lose their farms this year, he proposes on. The blockade resulted in a military ity." Even the Washington Post conceded chief of old can tell us Black people that we that farmers can end the crisis by changing coup, bringing to power a government that July 18 that many Blacks "believe it has don't know what is good for us. The white their crops and getting deeper into debt by expelled supporters of the African National served to erode and frighten off the vast man knows." investing in expensive food-processing Congress from the country. network of police informers that has been a "I am quite angry," he said. "I think the equipment. But the farmers' homes and the In February U.S. officials publicly an­ major factor for the state in the past in un­ West, for my part, can go to hell." land they work won't be saved without a nounced that Washington was "covertly" dermining the organization of an effective Secretary of State George Shultz dismis­ struggle." shipping arms to the so-called National opposition." sed Tutu's response as "nuts."

August 1, 1986 The Militant 5 SOUTH AFRICA South Africa: rural BOTSWANA revolt sweeps Bantustans

BY ERNEST HARSCH ident of the UDF' s northern Transvaal re­ South Africa's countryside is in revolt. gion. A longtime activist of the African The massive popular mobilizations that National Congress (ANC), Nchabeleng have been rocking the major cities for the had been jailed in 1962 and sent to the past two years are now spreading increas­ notorious Robben Island prison for eight ingly to remote rural areas that had not pre­ years. Upon his release he was banished to viously been swept up in the anti-apartheid Sekhukhuneland, where he eventually re­ upsurge. sumed his political activities. Virtually every one of the 10 Bantustans Political ferment in Lebowa has been on - the impoverished rural African reserva­ the rise since late 1985. The protests have tions - has experienced clashes between been directed in large part against the Ban­ villagers and Bantustan police in recent tustan administration, which implements South African Bantustans months. Pretoria's policies there. Government The grievances that have fired these re­ buildings and homes of Black policemen bellions stem from forced population relo­ and other collaborators have been burned dom songs and hoisted flags of the out­ On New Year's Day, Moutse was in­ cations, grinding poverty, inadequate edu­ down. Students have boycotted schools. lawed ANC and South African Communist vaded by lmbokotho goon squads, who cational facilities, and land shortages. Protesters have demanded that members of Party. kidnapped, tortured, and killed residents By law, some 87 percent of South Af­ the Lebowa Legislative Assembly resign, and burned down homes and shops. In just rica's land is reserved for white occupation and a few have. Protesting 'independence deathtrap' three weeks more than 30 people in Moutse and farming, while Africans - the big Reprisals have also been taken against The nearby Bantustan of KwaNdebele were murdered by Skhosana's thugs. majority of the population - are only allo­ tribal chiefs who support the Lebowa ad­ has witnessed an equally dramatic upsurge. Although this crackdown succeeded in cated the 13 percent that comprises the ministration or who have used their posi­ KwaNdebele is one of the smallest and terrorizing Moutse for a while, active op­ Bantustans. Under such conditions of ex­ tions to exploit the people. Some have been most recently established of the Bantu­ position to Skhosana's policies soon spread treme overcrowding, the more than 12 mil­ killed or have had their homesteads burned stans. It is also one of the poorest. Most of into the rest ofKwaNdebele. This was pro­ lion Africans confined to the Bantustans down. its 200,000 inhabitants were forcibly ex­ voked by the "independence" plans, as are unable to subsist from their tiny plots of Not all chiefs have sided with the au­ pelled from other Bantustans or from the well as by the brutalities of Imbokotho, land - if they have any land at all. thorities, however. A layer has joined the white-owned farming areas. which carried out widespread kidnappings Besides being driven to protest by their ongoing protests. This is especially true in Yet Pretoria has declared that this im­ and beatings of schoolchildren. own wretched conditions, these Bantustan Sekhukhuneland, where some of these poverished enclave will become "indepen­ A key element in this opposition has residents have also found inspiration in the chiefs had played leading roles in the 1958 dent" on December 11, the fifth Bantustan been the stance of a layer of tribal chiefs, broader upsurge against the apartheid state. rebellion. to be accorded that status (the others are including the royal family, the Mahlangus. So have the 4 million Africans who live In seeking to stem this upsurge, the ad­ Transkei, Ciskei, BophuthaTswana, and Although some hold positions in the and work in rural areas outside the Bantu­ ministration of Cedric Phatudi has un­ Venda). Such fraudulent "independence" cabinet and legislative assembly, they have stans, where only farmers who are white leashed a wave of terror against political proclamations are designed to deny Afri­ resented Pretoria's appointment of have the legal right to own land. More and activists, conducted by the Bantustan cans assigned to those Bantustans their few Skhosana and other "commoners" to do­ more of these Africans are refusing to ac­ police - who are under a white comman­ rights in South Africa as a whole. All the minant positions in the administration, a cept the abysmally low wages and long der- as well as by right-wing vigilantes. "independent" Bantustans remain under hours of hard labor imposed on them. Phatudi has called for the dismissal of all Pretoria's overall domination. move that runs against the traditional au­ Currently, the area of greatest rural fer­ employees deemed to be members of "sub­ thority of the tribal chiefs. To retain popu­ ment is in the northern and eastern Trans­ versive" organizations, in particular the In an effort to give KwaNdebele some lar support, these chiefs have joined in re­ vaal, which includes the Bantustans of UDF and the Azanian People's Organisa­ credibility, at least by the standards of sisting "independence." Lebowa, Venda, KwaNdebele, Gazan­ tion (Azapo), which also has some influ­ South Africa's other Bantustans, Pretoria On May 12 more than 20,000 people­ kulu, KaNgwane, and parts of ence in the area. Lebowa police stormed a is moving to significantly increase its total one-tenth of KwaNdebele's resident popu­ BophuthaTswana. The United Democratic regional Azapo congress held in Seshego in land area before December 11. This has in­ lation - rallied at the royal kraal (com­ Front (UDF), the massive anti-apartheid March, beating many of the participants. volved incorporating other African-oc­ pound). This mass assembly issued three coalition that is leading many of the coun­ Dozens of anti-apartheid activists have cupied areas into KwaNdebele, including a main demands: that the "independence" trywide protests, has been experiencing been murdered, and many others detained part of Lebow a called Moutse. plans be scrapped, that Imbokotho be dis­ significant growth there. A northern Trans­ and tortured in police cells. But the 120,000 residents of Moutse banded, and that all tribal representatives vaal regional branch of the UDF was estab­ In April police seized UDF leader have put up stiff resistance to this. resign from the legislative assembly. lished at the beginning of 1986, and by Nchabeleng from his home in Ape!, Opposition to incorporation has been Then on May 14 some 30,000 people April it had about 100 affiliated organiza­ Sekhukhuneland. Within hours he was spearheaded by the Moutse Youth Con­ again rallied at the royal kraal, despite the tions. dead. gress, a UDF affiliate. It has called on the fact that the meeting was banned. Police at­ Nchabeleng's murder provoked the most population to fight the "independence tacked the crowd, using helicopters to drop ANC flags in Lebowa massive outpouring yet in Lebowa. On deathtrap." tear gas. This provoked widespread fight­ To crush the Moutse resistance, as well The UDF's northern Transvaal region is May 3, some 30,000 people flocked to the ing throughout KwaNdebele, as police and tiny village of Ape! for Nchabeleng's fu­ as other opposition, Chief Minister Simon vigilantes confronted large crowds of pro­ centered in Lebowa. Skhosana formed a rightist vigilante force A part of that Bantustan that has a long neral. UDF leaders Henry Fazzie and Al­ testers. Workers staged a general strike. called Imbokotho. It is headed by legacy of political turbulence is bertina Sisulu addressed the crowd, and By early June, beleaguered cabinet Skhosana himself, and many of its execu­ Sekhukhuneland, where a peasant organi­ speakers from Sekhukhuneland called for ministers and the parliament building had tive council members are local zation known as Sebatakgomo led a revolt the resignation of all Lebowa assembly to be protected by a newly constructed members and for a boycott of white-owned businessmen who support his administra- fence and by round-the-clock armed in 1958. One of the leaders of that revolt, tion. · Peter Nchabeleog, was chosen as the pres- shops in the region. Participants sang free- guards. Pretoria's imposition of a countrywide state of emergency on June 12 has not halted this upsurge. Although severe press censorship has prevented details of the 'IP': Borge on Bay of Pigs invasion struggle within the Bantustan from leaking out, the government's own Bureau for In­ The upcoming August 11 issue of guan revolutionaries provided the formation has acknowledged ongoing Intercontinental Press will feature Cuban government about the activ­ clashes in KwaNdebele, including actions Sandinista leader Tomas Borge's re­ ities of the Bay of Pigs invasion by armed insurgents. collections of the role Nicaraguans force, which set sail from Puerto INTERCONTINENTAL In BophuthaTswana, an "independent" played in defending Cuba during Cabezas on Nicaragua's Atlantic Bantustan, major protests have been under the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Coast. PRESS way in the Odi and Moretele regions since In this fascinating first-person ac­ Borge also compares the Bay of mid-November. They have included dem­ count, Borge relates his experi­ Pigs invasion with the contra war onstrations, school boycotts, and other ac­ ences, along with those of other being waged against his country. Washington Gears Up for tions. On March 26, at the end of a three-day Nicaraguan revolutionaries, in the The Sandinista leader recalled Expanded War in Nicaragua general strike, some 15,000 people early days after the victory of the Cuban President Fidel Castro's gathered for a rally in Winterveld, a huge Cuban revolution, when counter­ speech at the time affirming the shantytown north of Pretoria, to demand revolutionary groups were still car­ socialist character of the Cuban the release of a large number of detained rying out armed struggles inside revolution. "That speech of Fidel's children. The crowd was predominantly el­ Cuba. was a premonition for Latin Ameri­ derly. BophuthaTswana police Col. Borge and other Nicaraguans had ca," Borge said. Makanye Molope ordered his men to open taken part in the mop-up opera­ The issue of Intercontinental fire, killing 11 and injuring up to 200. tions against counterrevolution­ Press with Borge's article can be or­ This massacre provoked widespread out­ aries in the Escambray Mountains. dered for $1.25 by filling out the rage. Consumer boycotts were launched When the Bay of Pigs invasion coupon below. began, the Nicaraguans played a South Africa Halt/ against white-owned businesses. Youths role in the front-line defense of the Rural Revolt Five Months of engaged in running battles with police. Name ______Sweeps Bantustan Continuing Protests Cuban capital, and a Nicaraguan 'The ANC has majority support' pilot was killed flying missions Address ______'Fidel and Religion' Book in English KaNgwane, a Bantustan set up for South against the invaders for the Cuban City __ State __ Zip __ air force. Africa's Swazi-speakers, has also been The present minister of the inte­ Clip and mail to Intercontinental rocked by school boycotts, demonstra­ rior of Nicaragua also recounts the Press, 410 West St., New York, NY tions, and other protest actions. On March crucial intelligence aid that Nicara- 10014. 22 more than 15,000 people rallied in Continued on Page 17

6 The Militant August 1, 1986 500 march inK. C. against S. African apartheid regime

BY WELLS TODD El Salvador. KANSAS CITY, Mo.-Unionists, stu­ Roger Allison, a Missouri farmer and dents, and women's, civil rights, and farm executive director of the Missouri Rural protest activists joined together here June Crisis Center in Chillicothe, Missouri, Militant/Jeff Powers 28 in the Kansas City United Effort to Free spoke about the crisis of the Black farmer South Africa demonstration. in the United States. "I liken President Farm protest activists, unionists, students participated in June 28 march Braving 93-degree heat, more than 500 Reagan's [policy of] constructh•e engage­ people joined the mile-long march to the ment to his golden rule," Allison said. rally site at Freedom Fountain at Benton "Those who have the gold, rule. But what and Brush Creek boulevards. Members of Mr. Reagan forgets is he doesn't have the the Independent Federation of Flight At­ support of the people." Petitioning for Seattle tendants, who are fighting TWA's union­ busting, participated. Many people along Other speakers included Matt Snell of the parade route joined the march. the Kansas City United Auto Workers The action was called by the Kansas City Community Action Program Council; Rev. socialist .is big success Anti-Apartheid Network, a coalition that Mac Charles Jones, coordinator, Black includes the Greater Kansas City Central Community Coalition; Bertha van Sittert, BY DAN FEIN Initiative 490 would institutionalize bar­ Labor Council, the Southern Christian Coalition of Labor Union Women, and SEATTLE - Supporters of Jill Fein, ring gays and others from tens of thousands Leadership Conference, Black United Carol Coe, Jackson County legislator. The the Socialist Workers Party candidate for of jobs. It forbids any person defined as Front, American Friends Service Commit­ rally was chaired by Rev. Nelson "Fuzzy" U.S. Senator from the state of Washington, "deviant" from holding jobs involving di­ tee, and the Socialist Workers Party. Thompson of the Southern Christian completed June I9 the gathering of I, 75I rect or indirect contact with children, the Leadership Conference. Nomazizi Sokudela of the African Na­ signatures on petitions to place her on the elderly, disabled persons, persons in state tional Congress of South Africa was pre­ Some auto workers at the demonstration ballot. custody, and other categories of people. sented with a key to the city. "The U.S. were able to have a good political discus­ That's I,OOO more thari the 75I signa­ Initiative 479 is a Washington state ver­ government is on the wrong side in Central sion with Sokudela of the ANC. One of the tures the state requires of candidates who sion of the federal Hyde amendment that America and is on the wrong side in South questions they asked was about U.S. gov­ are not well-heeled enough to pay a $751 bars the use of public funds for abortion. Africa. But when history is rewritten in ernment propaganda that the ANC is a filing fee. Initiative 30 would reverse Seattle's South Africa," she told the rally partici­ communist organization. She explained The next step in the process of nominat­ proclamation of itself as a sanctuary city pants, "it will say 'you were on our side.' that within the ANC there are members ing Fein for the senate seat now held by Re­ for refugees from Central America. who belong to the Socialist Party, the publican Slade Gorton will be a nominating "Our people are determined to fight until In addition to opposing attacks on gay Communist Party, and many other organi­ convention. It will be held July 26 from rights, speakers at the rally spoke against the bitter end for our objectives," she said. zations, who have joined together in a 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Pike Place "We, together with the Namibian people the U.S. government's contra war against common effort to rid South Africa of the Market in Seattle. Nicaragua and collaboration with the apart­ and SWAPO [South West Africa People's racist apartheid system and establish a non­ The petitioning drive was announced at a Organisation], will continue to engage the heid regime in South Africa. racial, democratic society. June 26 news conference attended by re­ One woman who signed a petition for enemy in the battlefield, and we ask you to porters from Seattle's daily morning news­ engage your government in the institution More than $1 ,000 was collected and pre­ Jill Fein wore aT-shirt on which she had paper, three radio stations, and the Mili­ printed the slogan, "Boycott Hormel - of sanctions." She closed by pledging the sented to Sokudela. tant. Fein promised to campaign hard solidarity of the ANC with the fighting support P-9- Austin, Minnesota." against "the U.S. government's dirty During the following week Fein and people of Palestine led by the Palestine Wells Todd is an activist in the Kansas City mercenary war against the people and gov­ Liberation Organization, with the fighting Anti-Apartheid Network and a member of campaign supporters petitioned at the gate ernment of Nicaragua." She pointed to the of the Boeing plant where she works. people of Nicaragua under the Sandinista United Auto Workers Local 93, Kansas filing fee as one example of "how the government, and with the rebel fighters in City, Missouri. Twenty-four signatures were collected, capitalist government stacks the electoral and four copies of the Militant were sold. process as part of keeping the capitalist On the weekends of July 4 and July II, class in power and keeping workers and campaign supporters drove to Aberdeen to farmers out." show solidarity with Weyerhaeuser Corp. La. chemical workers continue The first day of petitioning was June 28. workers who have been forced on strike More than 790 signatures were collected, against the company's takeback demands. fight against lockout and 70 copies of the Militant newspaper On the July 4 weekend, they collected were sold at the Gay and Lesbian Parade, signatures at a grocery store where many of BY NELS J' ANTHONY Greens' parliamentary representatives tour March, and Freedom Rally. The socialist the strikers and their families shop. A lot of GEISMAR, La. - After a two-year the plant. campaign distributed a statement to the people were pleased to hear that a union lockout by BASF, a giant chemical firm The Greens pledged to continue building 8;000 people at the rally entitled "Defend member (Fein is a member of the Interna­ based in West Germany, members of Oil, opposition to the lockout in West Ger­ lesbian and gay rights! Vote no on 490, tional Association of Machinists) is run­ Chemical and Atomic Workers (OCAW) many. 479, and 30." ning for U.S. Senate. Local4-620 here are hanging tough. A solidarity committee has been or­ BASF locked out the unionists in 1984 ganized in BASF's main plant in Ludwig­ when the local turned down a company de­ shafen, West Germany. OCAW has re­ mand for big cuts in wages, benefits, safety cently received $10,000 from the chemical W. Va. socialist denied place on conditions, seniority rights, and other con­ workers' union that represents BASF tract provisions. workers in West Germany. ballot, hitS 'swindle' by officials The union marked the second anniver­ On June 10 the locked-out local held a sary of the lockout June 22 by organizing a solidarity meeting of union members and BY JULIETTE MONTAUK across the state will now tum to building march and rally that drew 350 supporters. their families · that packed the Prairieville CHARLESTON, W.Va.- On July I4 support for the SWP's democratic right to The march stopped outside the plant Firehouse. Speaking at the event were the West Virginia secretary of state's office appear on the ballot. Initial endorsers of gate, where a brief rally was held. OCAW Aman Musani, a leader of the Commercial, informed the Socialist Workers' campaign this fight include Rev. Sandy Drayton, International Representative Ernest Catering and Allied Workers Union in that it didn't submit "enough" signatures to president of the Charleston NAACP; Rev. Rouselle and other speakers denounced the South Africa; Stanley Fisher, president of gain ballot status for the November I986 Nathaniel Turner Lacy; Pat Hussey and lockout and subsequent company actions OCAW Local 8-760 in Freehold, New Jer­ election. Needing I ,844 signatures, the Barbara Ferraro, sisters of Notre Dame; as an attempt to bust the union. At the end sey; and Todd Remker, a Hormel worker secretary of state claimed the socialists David Evans, Chapter 38 of Vietnam Vet­ of the rally marchers released hundreds of from Austin, Minnesota. were "a few hundred short." This decision erans of America; Bobbie Adams, presi­ balloons to warn the surrounding commu­ The importance of international solidar­ was based on what the state described as an dent of the Charleston National Organiza­ nity of the danger of chemical releases ity was the theme of the meeting. A vid­ "initial" check. tion for Women chapter; and Chuck from the plant. eotape was shown depicting 3M workers in The Socialist Workers Party is running_ Wright, founder of Students for Human The union has joined with environmen­ South Africa on a solidarity strike with 3M Dave Salner for Congress in the Third Con­ Rights. Endorsers from Morgantown, talists to protest the dangerous chemical re­ workers in Freehold, New Jersey. The gressional District and Kathy Mickells for West Virginia, include Sister Mary Bren­ leases from the plant. BASF produces Freehold workers are facing plant closure. Congress in the Second Congressional Dis­ dan Conlon, Order of Saint Ursula; Tim chemicals similar to those made at the Musani said, "Workers in South Africa and trict. Salner is a member of the United Sindelar, attorney; AI Morris, shop stew­ Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. Just the U.S. face the same enemy and must Steelworkers of America. Mickells is a ard United Food and Commercial Workers one week prior to the march a huge release unite in struggle." Leaders of the locked­ coal miner and member of the United Mine Local 347; Andy Klatt, Latin American of toluene· went unchecked for over 55 out local pledged to support the fight Workers of America. Solidarity Project; Eugene Hamer, senior hours. Two months ago a phosgene gas re­ against apartheid. citizen activist; Mary Kenney, attorney; lease threatened the community. Fisher called for worker solidarity with Speaking at a campaign barbecue cele­ and Tom Shaw, Latin American Solidarity The union's position has led the Green struggles against apartheid, farm foreclo­ brating the seventh anniversary of the Nic­ Project. Party of West Germany to support the sures, and plant closures and for solidarity araguan revolution on July I9, Salner de­ Building a broadly supported fight for locked-out workers. Leaders of the Greens with the Austin Hormel workers' union. scribed the state's action as a "swindle." ballot status is not new for the Socialist came to Louisiana in April to show their Hormel worker Todd Remker spoke on Socialist campaign supporters submitted Workers' campaign in West Virginia. support. A picket line was held at the plant Hormel's complicity with apartheid. He 3,000 signatures, along with paying an "Every year since I980, the state has gate, organized by the women's support was given a warm welcome by leaders and exorbitant $75I filing fee. "The state offi­ placed big obstacles in the way of our at­ committee. BASF refused to let the other members of OCAW 4-620 who ex­ cials will do whatever they can to keep a tempts to get on the ballot," Salner said. pressed their determination to continue to working-class candidate off the ballot. "But each time we've been able to get on refuse to buy Hormel products. They don't want working people to have the ballot because of the big support among Labor news in the Militant any alternative," Salner said to campaign working people for our democratic rights." The Militant stays on top of the most im­ Nels J' Anthony is a member of Oil, Chem­ supporters. Salner is the only challenger in Protest letters and telegrams can be sent portant developments in the labor move­ ical and Atomic Workers Local4-750. He the Third Congressional District to Demo­ to Ken Hechler, Secretary of State, state of ment. You won't miss them ifyou subscribe. is the Socialist Workers Party candidate cratic incumbent Bob Wise. See the ad on page 2 for subscription rates. West Virginia, Charleston, West Virginia for U.S. Senate from Louisiana. The energies of campaign supporters 25305.

August 1, 1986 The Militant 7 Union buster loses shot at S. Africa post

BY RICH STUART mill workers at Cannon in 1985 when they and been so embarrassing, he would've GREENSBORO, N.C. -The consid­ were trying to win union representation been a good ambassador to South Africa­ eration of Robert Brown for the post of with ACTWU. for the rich, including the South African U.S. ambassador to South Africa is the In the spring of '85, during the organiz­ rulers. He has done nothing for the masses latest attempt by the Reagan administration ing drive, Cannon brought Brown in and of Blacks in Highpoint and would do noth- to convince us that they have the interests sponsored an affair for the Black ministers ing for South African Blacks. · of Black South Africans in mind. Even in the area. But that's the idea behind Reagan's though consideration has been withdrawn, After wining and dining the ministers, wanting to send Brown to South Africa - there are some important lessons we can Brown and his cronies went to work in the to put a Black mask on U.S. imperialism's learn from it. Black community around Cannon's mills. face. It would help them buy time for the Brown, who is Black, lives in High­ They arranged for big ads in the area pa­ big-business profits being made in South point, North Carolina. I work in Highpoint pers signed by some of the Black ministers Africa by companies such as two ofB&C's in a textile mill. Brown doesn't work. He is and a Black school board member. clients, Reynolds and Sarah Lee, which a millionaire businessman. He used to be a These ads and even sermons from the both have big investments in South Africa. Highpoint cop. Then he was a narcotics pulpit argued against ACTWU's efforts, There should be no ambassador to the agent for the federal government. telling the workers they should work to­ apartheid regime. The only ties between Highpoint is like a 20th century planta­ gether with the company against imports in the U.S. and South Africa should be be­ tion. The slaves today are wage slaves­ these troubled times for textile workers. tween working people ourselves, through Black and white - working in furniture, The ads said the union would be a divisive our unions such as ACTWU and the Con­ textile, and other factories here. Highpoint force in the community. Who paid for gress of South African Trade Unions. calls itself the furniture capital of the these ads has never come out, but it's not Robert Brown and people like him are world, but its dozens of furniture plants are ~ hard to figure it out. enemies of working people and unionism, all nonunion. And of the many textile These ads and sermons played an impor­ whether in North Carolina or South Africa. mills, only two are unionized. tant role in poisoning the atmosphere Genuine Black rights organizations and ac­ against the union and covered up the real tivists, not imposters like Brown, are There are two sides of the tracks in Union-buster Robert Brown was issues at stake for Cannon workers, Black working together with unions, farm Highpoint. Our side, the side of the work­ Reagan's initial choice as U.S. ambas­ and white. Low pay, safety, stretch-outs, groups, students, and others to fight U.S. ers, Black and white, and Brown's side, sador to South Africa. He was in line to and some dignity in their lives were what ties to apartheid. The anti-apartheid dem­ the side of the rich. Their side does real continue U.S. government's support to was important, not imports nor so-called onstration of 100,000 in New York City on well for themselves. They have the only a~eid regime. togetherness between workers and bosses June 14 was a good example of unions Rolls Royce dealership in the Southeast. In at Cannon. leading the fight for solidarity with the Highpoint, where there's them and there's The workers lost the union election by a freedom struggle in ~outh Africa. us, Brown is one of them. unionism. B&C's dirty work is important margin of 63 to 37 percent. The lesson to be learn¢ from this ex­ Brown owns an outfit called B&C As­ because Black workers in the South are the Brown has political friends in both of the perience is that it is not the color of the per­ sociates. He calls it a public-relations firm. backbone of many unions and are among bosses' political parties - Democrats and son that is most important but what class he But by their right name B&C Associates the strongest supporters of unions and Republicans. In 1984 Brown contributed represents, rich or working people. are union-busters. union organizing drives. B&C is also used $10,000 to Jesse Helms' Senate campaign. nationwide in strikes and organizing drives Brown hires himself out to companies In the same year he organized a fundraising Rich Stuart is a member of AC1WU Local where Black workers are involved. such as R.J. Reynolds and Haines Hosiery, affair for Jesse Jackson's presidential cam­ 319-T at Highland Yarn Mills and is the both based in Winston-Salem; Cannon A good example of how Brown makes paign. Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Mills, based in Kannapolis; and Thomas­ his money was the job he did against the If Brown's record hadn't come to light Senate from North Carolina. ville Furniture Industries in Thomasville. These are all known as rabid antiunion companies. Brown helps them stay that way. Reynolds is the only nonunion to­ 28,000 sign for N.Y. SWP candidates bacco company in the United States. Brown helped Haines defeat a union or­ Continued from front page gua solidarity celebration in Manhattan and and South Africa out of the election. ganizing drive by my union, the Amalga­ collected 750 signatures supporting our with strikers picketing the Hebrew Na­ "They make us collect an outrageous mated Clothing and Textile Workers Union right to be on the ballot. And that included tional meatpacking plant in Queens. (See number of signatures. We don't have any (ACTWU), several years ago. almost every member of the antiwar con­ article on page 3.) choice about that. Brown's specialty is turning Black tingent." Saturday's campaigning came on top of "But we do a lot more than sign people workers against their union brothers and Jim Callahan, SWP candidate for Con­ an enormously successful two-week drive up on a long sheet of paper. We explain sisters, Black and white, to defeat union gress from Albany's 23rd Congressional by a full-time team of members of the SWP why we're running in the election, why we organizing efforts. A smooth operator, District, spent the day campaigning in New and YSA and a mobilization of more than like Nicaragua, which I recently visited as Brown passes himself off as a Black rights York City. Highlights of his tour with De­ 80 campaign supporters the previous Satur­ part of a volunteer work brigade, and why activist, a lie that helps cover up his anti- lgadillo were campaign stops at a Nicara- day. It confronted the socialists with an un­ we like Cuba. We distribute tens of usual question so early in a drive: should thousands of leaflets explaining the SWP we quit or keep going? program, and we let thousands of people Do you know someone who reads Spanish? Campaign supporters have already col­ know about our candidates, our newspa­ lected 28,000 signatures, 40 percent more per, our weekly public forums, and our than state law requires to place the socialist bookstore. 'PM': The U.S. escalates war ticket on the ballot. But given the history of "If we had a choice, we would never After the House of Representa- New York, where officials have often have tried to do all this in three weeks. But tives approved $100 million to fi­ twisted the legal technicalities to keep with the help and hard work of our support­ nance the U.S.-armed, -trained, Pets~•iva working-class· parties off the ballot, they ers, we've been able to tum a restrictive and -organized contra army, decided to go way over the top with one legal requirement into something the Dem­ which seeks to destroy the Nicara­ Mdi\dial more big week-long pqsh. ocratic and Republican lawmakers never guan revolution, there were more EU intensifica su guerra "The state may still try to throw us off dreamed of - a statewide socialist cam­ than 100 protests demanding, "No the ballot," said Delgadillo. "But the more paign blitz." aid to the contras." A poll was mercenaria en Nicaragua support we can show we have, the harder it The New York Socialist Workers cam­ paign headquarters is located at 79 Leonard published the day of the vote re­ will be for them to keep us, other working­ EUA class parties, and the issue of Nicaragua St. in New York City. vealing that 62 percent of the Corte Sup11!1N ataca derechos population is opposed to the de homosexu.iles mercenary war. ydetodos Also in response to the House Hebrew National meatpackers strike EUA vote, tens of thousands of Nicara­ Sindicalistas de Ia Honnel guans participated in protests auspidon 'Ciudad against takebacks; boss uses scabs throughout different regions of Solidaridad' that Central American country. SUDMRICA NEW YORK - Two hundred fourteen Efforts to herd scabs in were initially Obreros resisten Socialistas postulan Meanwhile the World Ccurt de­ esalada brutal candidatos obreros production workers at the Hebrew National turned back, Ralph Soriano, a 17-year vet­ clared the U.S. government guilty de represi6n por el regimen para Nueva York meatpacking plant here were forced out on eran of the plant, told the candidates. But of violating the national sov­ strike June 13 when management tried to now "we can't do anything," said Soriano, ereignty of Nicaragua. It called on unilaterally impose a takeback contract that referring to the substantial presence of the U.S. government to stop workers estimate would cost each one of cops. "We've got a wall of blue around us breaking international law and iSuscribete ahora! them $2,800 a year. Under the proposed every day." desist from trying to overthrow new contract, average pay would be cut $3 Workers, who had the facts and figures the Sandinista government. an hour. at their fingertips, were particularly angry at the fact that Hebrew National has made The current issue of Perspectiva Subscriptions: $16 for one Mundial has reports from our Ma­ The strikers, members of United Food no secret of its huge profits - $60 million year; $8 for six months; Intro­ and Commercial Workers Local 174, have nagua Bureau on terrorist attacks in 1980, $120 million in 1985, and a pro­ ductory offer, $3.00 for three been picketing the plant daily for more than jected $250 million in 1989. by the U.S.-sponsored counterrev­ months. five weeks. When socialist candidates olutionaries, as well as the ad­ "We gave our best years to the com­ Theresa Delgadillo and Jim Callahan visi­ pany," said Laura Schubert, a member of vances the Nicaraguan people D Begin my sub with current is- ted the picket line July 19 to show their the negotiating committee who has worked have made in fighting to retain sue. support, they were greeted warmly by at the plant 18 years. "Now they have their sovereignty. picket captain Leon Joseph, who has forced us out on strike even though we of­ Name ------Perspectiua Mundial is the worked at Hebrew National for 21 years, fered to continue working another two Spanish-language socialist maga­ Address and by the more than a dozen other workers years under the old contract." zine that every two weeks brings picketing. City/State/Zip "I'll tell you one thing,"' she said to Del­ you the truth about the struggles of The strike has received limited coverage gadillo. "I won't work for them for $7 an working people and the oppressed Clip and mail to PM, 408 West St., in the New York media, and workers were hour. The work is too hard." in the U.S. and around the world. New York, NY 10014. eager to get out their story. A support rally, A number of strikers signed the candi­ backed by other city unions, has been dates' petitions, and two bought subscrip­ scheduled for July 21. tions to Perspectiva Mundial.

8 The Militant August 1, 1986 The LaRouchites: anatoiDy of an AIDerican fascist outfit BY DOUG JENNESS Far from being undefinable in conven­ open to their demagogic appeals that only In the past several months the news tional terms, as the New York Times radical solutions could restore "security," media have substantially increased cover­ claims, there is precisely a conventional "order," and "prosperity" for the "little age of the National Democratic Policy term to define the LaRouchites: fascist. man." The fascists feasted both on the fail­ Committee (NDPC), headed by Lyndon Most currents in the workers' movement ure of the mainstream bourgeois liberals LaRouche. This attention has been sparked have for more than a decade pointed to evi­ and conservatives to provide any solutions by the results of the Illinois Democratic dence that the LaRouchite outfit is a fascist and on the refusal of the Social Democrats Party primary in March, in which NDPC organization that has emerged out of the to act decisively and provide a class-strug­ candidates won nomination for lieutenant particular features of U.S. political life in gle alternative to the capitalist parties. governor and secretary of state. These two recent years. candidates defeated the handpicked It is also one of the groups that is part of A conspiracy theory choices of gubernatorial nominee Adlai an incipient fascist movement in the United The fascists' demagogic explanation for Stevenson III. States today. (I'm making a distinction the social crisis was that it was caused by a The Illinois events were followed by the here in terminology between a fascist conspiracy of big bankers and Jews. The nomination of NDPC members as Demo­ group and an incipient fascist movement. fascists proposed radical remedies, often cratic Party candidates for Congress from The NDPC's positions and behavior show couched in anticapitalist rhetoric, to coun­ California's 40th District, Ohio's 4th Dis­ that it is fascist, but its size and influence, ter this "evil" combination. At the same trict, and Texas' 7th and 22nd districts. In like other contemporary fascist groups, is time, they presented themselves as the par­ all of these primary races the NDPC only part of an embryo, an incipient stage ties of order. The growing social, econom­ nominees ran unopposed. In many other of what could become a big fascist move­ ic, and political chaos, the fascists races NDPC candidates, while not win­ ment.) preached, resulted from strikes, demon­ ning, have obtained sizable vote totals. Al­ More than other small fascist outfits strations, and the general moral decay of together the NDPC has fielded more than today, the LaRouchites have succeeded in society. They attempted to pin the blame 750 candidates in the 1986 Democratic attracting public attention - even more for the evils of capitalism on labor mili­ primaries. than their relatively small numbers might tants, Jews, communists, homosexuals, Amid consternation in the upper eche­ indicate they could - because they have bohemian artists, and so forth. lons of the Democratic Party over the carved out a small niche in the mainstream Revolutionary communists argued that Lyndon LaRouche as 1984 presidential NDPC's primary victories, newspaper col­ of electoral politics in this country. this was no explanation, but rather a con­ candidate running on a fascist program in the Democratic Party primaries. His umnists, television commentators, and po­ The LaRouchites also have an interna­ coction of prejudices and false claims. political odyssey led from functioning in litical pundits of all varieties have been at­ tional following, with active groups in sev­ They offered a different evaluation of the radical left to establishment of fascist tempting to explain what the NDPC is and eral West European and Latin American origins of the social crisis; they explained that it originated in the capitalist system it­ grouping. what its recent showing in the electoral countries. arena represents. self. Editors have termed LaRouche's follow­ Fascism: 20th century This system is based on the exploitation people have intensified. Farm foreclosures ers "extremists," "far rightists," "whack­ movement of wage labor by capitalist employers. And are ruining tens of thousands of exploited os," "zombies," "totalitarians," "radicals," it is based on the exploitation of working farm families every year. and "anti-Semites." The NDPC has also Fascism first arose as a major force in farmers - as well as small shopkeepers As a result of this ruling-class offensive, been described as "lunacy rampant" and as Europe following the October 1917 Rus­ and other middle-class layers - by capitalist politics continues to shift to the an advocate of a "bizarre agenda." sian revolution, where the workers and capitalist landlords and bankers, that is, by right. This, along with general social dis­ While some of the labels aptly describe peasants for the first time took political the rents and mortgages system. content, which is in its initial stages, is en­ aspects of the NDPC's positions and its power, established a workers' and peas­ This capitalist profit system breeds with­ couraging outfits like the NDPC. supporters, these reporters generally pre­ ants' government, and expropriated the in itself the irreconcilable conflict between While a big hunk of the vote that NDPC sent the LaRouche-led organization as a landlords and capitalists. the exploited and exploiters, a conflict that candidates have received recently, includ­ fluke, as something outlandish and totally This historic conquest inspired working during gigantic social convulsions can ing in Illinois, undoubtedly resulted from aberrant. The New York Times editors go people and helped give them confidence to open the door to the exploited classes tak­ voter ignorance about the LaRouchites, a so far as to say the policies of the NDPC try to overturn capitalist rule in a number of ing political power and forming their own certain number of voters were attracted to "defy description in conventional political other European countries. Revolutionary government. one or more of the NDPC's "radical" posi­ terms." uprisings occurred in Germany and Italy. tions. This is one reflection of the deepen­ At the same time the media coverage re­ In both countries the workers and peasants Armed with a scientific understanding of the capitalist system and its crises, the ing class polarization in the country. flects an embarrassment in ruling circles could have taken power had they not been communist vanguard is the party of revolu­ This process, however, is still at an early about the LaRouchites and their inability to betrayed by the Social Democratic mis­ tionary hope for the working class. And stage. The LaRouchites and other outfits of simply brush them aside. Why is this? The leaderships, which the majority of workers when this hope embraces big sections of their ilk are still very much only an inci­ the working class, it will inevitably pull be­ pient fascist movement. They are not a hind it on the road to socialism the farmers mass force today, nor are they on the verge and sectors of the middle classes. of becoming one. Moreover, there is no Fascism, on the other hand, becomes a sign that any section of the U.S. ruling mass movement by appealing to despair, class is bankrolling them. obscurantism, irrationality, and conspiracy All indications are that the LaRouchites and presents itself as the party of counter­ receive most of their funds from their own revolutionary determination. members and supporters - many of whom Decisive sections of the capitalist ruling are highly paid professionals - and from classes of Italy and Germany, faced with business operations, sales of their publica­ the loss of their rule because of gigantic tions, and contributions from wealthy indi­ working-class struggles, found it necessary vidual capitalists. They also have collected at a certain stage to finance and support the hundreds of thousands of dollars from the fascists. They sought to use them as a bat­ federal government in election campaign tering ram against the combative workers matching funds. in order to take advantage of their character As the social and economic crisis wor­ as an extraparliamentary goon force. sens and working-class combativity in­ When the Italian Fascists and German creases, however, groups like the NDPC Nazis established their regimes they quick­ can pick up steam. The LaRouchites are al­ LaRouche's estate outside Washington; D.C., serves as his headquarters. Armed ly smashed the trade unions and working­ ready probing for openings and are trying guards defend 172-acre spread, showing violence-prone character of LaRouchites. class political parties, which they had been to insert themselves into arenas where they attempting to terrorize for several years. can be a political factor. NDPC certainly doesn't threaten their po­ still looked to. They imposed a brutal police dictatorship As will be shown more fully later in this litical rule nor their domination of the As the social crisis deepened and the in the interests of the big capitalist bankers, article, they have oriented to farm protests Democratic Party. possibility of workers' and peasants' industrialists, and landlords. They then in order to confuse and divert farmers into power seemed to be posed, growing sectors carried out bloody purges against the most thinking that as "small businessmen" their An ugly face of the capitalist ruling class - in the early "radical" wings of their own movements, interests lie with other businessmen, in­ The reason is that the LaRouchites ex­ 1920s in Italy, and increasingly in Ger­ including their paramilitary storm troopers, cluding big capitalists, rather than with pose the ugly face of a tendency that exists many throughout that decade and the early and integrated and subordinated the most wage workers. in the mainstream of capitalist politics, in 1930s - turned to fascist movements as a reliable forces into the regular military and For more than a decade they have also what is considered to be "legitimate" poli­ way to counter working-class combativity police apparatus. intervened in labor struggles, slandering tics, in this country. The NDPC grabs hold and crush the labor movement. In the era of socialist revolution opened unionists and attempting to disrupt strikes, of right-wing and reactionary positions and Fascist organizations were formed in by the Russian revolution, fascist move­ meetings, and other union activities. The attitudes that are held by both some Demo­ other countries as well. Their degree of ments will rear their ugly heads whenever list of unions targeted includes, among crats and some Republicans and takes them success in attracting a mass following and the capitalist system is wracked by crisis others, United Steelworkers, Teamsters, one or two steps further to the right. support from bourgeois layers was related and the working class begins engaging in and United Auto Workers. Most recently For example, when President Reagan to the depth of the social crisis of mass class combat that heads in a revolu­ the struggle of meatpackers against Geo. bombed Libyan cities in April, the NDPC capitalism in each country. Especially in tionary direction. A. Hormel & Co. in Austin, Minnesota, cheered this brutal action and called for those capitalist powers that had emerged has been added to the list. Class polarization today bombing Libyan oilfields and declaring the weakest out of World War I, fascist de­ "total war on terrorism." "Legitimate" con­ magogy was pitched at peasants and mid­ Today, in the United States, the workers Radical left origins servative William Buckley has proposed dle-class layers, feeding on their despair in are neither headed in a revolutionary direc­ LaRouche and the central core of his fol­ tatooing AIDS (acquired immune defi­ the face of seemingly unexplainable and tion nor engaged in mass class combat. lowers originated in the radical left. ciency syndrome) "suspects," a code word unstoppable ruin. But since the mid-1970s, deepening eco­ LaRouche was in or around the Communist for homosexuals; the NDPC goes further The fascist outfits especially attracted nomic stagnation has replaced the long Party for a while in the 1940s. In the late and presses for rounding up the "suspects" disillusioned and discontented middle­ post-World War II boom, and ruling-class 1940s he joined the Socialist Workers and placing them in detention centers. class and lumpen social layers, which were attacks on the standard of living of working Continued on next page

August 1, 1986 The Militant 9 -THE LaROUCHITES------Continued from previous page 1930s, Oswald Mosley, served seven years Threat to Reagan." The following issue ran tee. A transitional step to this move was Party, which he left in March 1966 with as a Labour Party Member of Parliament an editorial entitled, "If You Hate Dope LaRouche's presidential candidacy in the only one supporter, his wife at the time.* before breaking with that party and setting and Treason, Boycott NBC!" 1980 Democratic primary elections. LaRouche had tried hard to win a following . up the British Union of Fascists in 1932. The editors stated, "Clearly, we can't Previously the LaRouchites' electoral in the SWP but found that it is an inhospit­ In the United States, however, the cen­ rely on the State Department to prosecute activity had, for the most part, been con­ able place to build any kind of sect or cult. tral figures of fascist formations up until NBC, at least not right now. Patriotic citi­ ducted in the name of the U.S. Labor After a short time, LaRouche and his now have not come out of organized cur­ zens must come up with their own actions. Party, the designation it used for ballot pur­ wife entered the Students for a Democratic rents in the workers' movement. They in­ "It's time to begin a National Boycott of poses. Society (SDS) in New York City, where clude Father Charles Coughlin, Jersey City NBC-TV. NBC-TV must be taught a les­ Forming the NDPC was aimed at ap­ they drew some students around them. Ac­ Mayor Frank Hague, and Gerald L.K. son." pearing more legitimate and at getting a tive in an SDS task force known as the Smith in the 1930s and '40s and the groups The editorial added that "watching hearing from milieus in and around the Labor Committee, the LaRouchites were making up the incipient fascist movement NBC, the 'Nothing But Cocaine,' 'Na­ Democratic Party. expelled in 1968 for supporting the United that operated under the umbrella of the tional Bolshevik Corporation' network, is When the NCLC launched this new Federation of Teachers' bureaucracy 1950s witch-hunt spearheaded by Sen. the moral equivalent" of letting "your child course, LaRouche published a pamphlet headed by Albert Shanker in its New York Joseph McCarthy. walk into a local porn shop" or giving him entitled, "Rebuilding the Democratic Party strike against attempts by Black and Puerto "the okay to spend an hour or two with National Committee Around a Keystone Rican parents to gain greater control over Hooliganism prostitutes employed by organized crime." Posture of Proposing a Bipartisan Econom­ the schools in their communities. La­ The goon-squad attacks on working­ With this language blaring from the ic Policy." Rouche and his supporters subsequently set class political vanguard organizations that pages of their paper, it's not too surprising In this document LaRouche said the themselves up as the National Caucus of signaled the NCLC's shift to the right in that NDPC members would get the mes­ NDPC was part of the "American Whig LabOr Committees (NCLC). the early 1970s established a pattern of sage and take action themselves to "teach tradition, the tradition flowing from Benja­ Although the NCLC did not totally re­ physical intimidation and violent and pro­ NBC a lesson." And - on at least two re­ min Franklin's immediate circles through nounce its Marxist pretensions until the end vocative behavior that continue to charac­ ported occasions- they did. the Whig currents of both the Democratic of the 1970s, it soon began to be more and terize the LaRouche outfit. "Operation On May 11 NDPC member William Fer­ and Republican parties. more open about its shift to the right. Mop-up" subsequently branched out to in­ guson attacked NBC talk show host Phil "In its fully conscious expression," he A turning point was evident in 1973 clude disrupting meetings and news con­ Donahue and his wife Marlo Thomas as continued, '"American Whig' has meant when the NCLC launched "Operation ferences of liberal Democratic politicians they walked by an NDPC table at LaGuar­ identification with the American System of Mop-up," a series of violent thug attacks and union officials. Many instances have dia Airport in New York. Ferguson began political economy and has also come to against meetings and individual members been documented over the past decade of shouting obscenities and yelling, mean the notion of an underlying 'harmony of the Socialist Workers Party, Communist ,, ______of interest' among industrial entrepreneurs, Party, and Congress of African People, a farmers, and labor." Newark-based Black nationalist organiza­ It may appear paradoxical that a viru­ tion. In the course of these assaults with As social and economic crisis worsens and working-class lently right-wing organization such as the clubs, pipes, and other weapons, several combativity increases, groups such as LaRouchites pick NDPC should choose to orient to the Dem­ people were seriously injured and hos­ ocratic Party rather than the Republican pitalized. Anticommunist rhetoric accom­ ______up steam . ,, Party. Of the two parties over the past half panied this hooliganism. century, the Republican Party, outside the An article in the Nov. 28, 1975, Mili­ Deep South, has taken more wnservative tant, looking back over the previous half stands and has tended to be the one most decade, noted that the NCLC has "evolved the LaRouchites' thuggery. "Donahue and his wife ought to be mur­ likely to attract right-wingers. steadily to the right. Today it has been One example was recounted in the June dered." When Donahue went over to the But this orientation makes sense when transformed into an organization with 1986 Machinist, published by the Interna­ table, he was assaulted by Ferguson. we look at who the NDPC is trying to influ­ many of the characteristics of a fascist out­ tional Association of Machinists. The A few days later, an NDPC photo­ ence and win: the discontented and di<;il­ fit." Machinist article tells the story of labor grapher provoked an altercation with an lusioned, especially farmers and middle­ representatives and their families in York, NBC cameramen at the Dirksen Federal class layers who have mistakenly looked to Historical precedents Pennsylvania, who were harassed by Building in Chicago. the Democratic Party because of its claim While LaRouche's particular odyssey NCLC goons in 1975. Intimidation, threatening phone calls, to be the party of working people and the from the radical left to the radical right has Ed Clinch, then directing representative verbal abuse, harassing lawsuits, and other poor. its own peculiarities, this kind of crossover of lAM District 98 and president of the forms of provocative behavior are the is not unique. While neither the bulk of the York Central Labor Council, was a pri­ stock-in-trade of the NDPC. Today, for ex­ The Republican Party, on the other cadres of fascist organizations nor their mary target because the NCLC opposed his ample, their members often belligerently hand, has been winning support from sec­ mass followings have historically come participation in labor and community activ­ confront reporters and demand that they tors of society that are doing well. They in­ from the left or been workers, some fascist ities against unemployment. take a test for AIDS before being admitted clude better-off workers and farmers, small figures and initial cadres of fascist organi­ The NCLC members harassed Clinch's to NDPC news conferences. They accuse businessmen, professionals, and so on, zations have had experience in socialist, family with obscene phone calls and bomb reporters, TV hosts, questioners in audi­ who have not been adversely affected by communist, or anarchist organizations. threats for months. They threw a garbage ences, and others who express disagree­ the recessions and other crises of the past The Italian Fascist leader Benito Musso­ can through his front window and tried to ment with the NDPC of being dope decade. This is what is behind the NDPC's lini, for example, was a leader of the Ita­ set his house on fire. At one point the pushers, terrorists, mafia agents, homosex­ decision to wear the Democratic mantle in lian Socialist Party and from 1912 to 1914 LaRouchites held Clinch's two sons hos­ uals, and so forth. the electoral arena. was co-editor of its principal organ Avanti! tage for several hours when they attended a LaRouche's headquarters in Leesburg, This is not the first time fascists have op­ Virginia, gives an indication of the nature erated in the Democratic Party. In lhe In France, Jacques Doriot, a prominent meeting organized by supporters of the leader of the Communist Party and mayor NCLC. of this group. The NDPC operates a 172- 1930s Frank Hague, the Democratic mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey, turned to fas­ of a "red" suburb of Paris in the early While the LaRouche organization's acre complex with a publishing company, a cist methods to prevent union organizi11g. 1930s, broke with the CP and formed the physical attacks have decreased in the past printing plant, and what it describes as an fascist French People's Party in 1936. few years, the violent and provocative tone intelligence-gathering operation. It main­ Combining political pressure with ultrapat­ riotic, anticommunist demagogy, Hague A former French socialist, Marcel Deat, of its press, leaflets, TV interviews, and tains a heavily armed guard around the founded the fascist National Popular As­ speeches and its norms of physically in­ place, which LaRouche contends is neces­ mobilized mobs of cops, city employees, special deputies, war veterans, and others sembly in the 1930s and served as secretary timidating behavior have not changed. sary to keep out assassination teams. "If they come," he boasted in a leaflet, "there to smash union and socialist meetings. of state in the pro-Nazi Vichy regime dur­ A case in point is its vitriolic campaign ing World War II. will be many people dead or mutilated The Russian revolutionary leader Leon against the NBC television network. This Trotsky, while in exile in Mexico, fol­ The principal British fascist leader of the within as short an.interval as sixty seconds began in 1984 when LaRouche sued the of fire." lowed the activities of this fascist de­ network for libel. NBC replied with a magogue closely. In a discussion with * Biographical information on LaRouche pub­ countersuit to force the fascist leader to di­ Americanization of leaders of the SWP in 1938, he noted that lished in the 1970s by his own organization of vulge where his money came from. LaRouchite demagogy although Hague "has nothing to do with that time, the National Caucus of Labor Com­ Ever since then, the NDPC has kept up a Mussolini and Hitler ... he is an American mittees (NCLC), indicated that he had been a steady stream of attacks against NBC, try­ Ever since the LaRouchites made their fascist." Trotsky argued that, if the member of the Communist Party for a short ing to link it to an alleged international ter­ tum to the right, they have disassociated capitalist crisis in the United States deep­ while. Today LaRouche says that he was never rorist and drug conspiracy. In May, when themselves from previous fascist move­ in the CP. "I went there a few times, talked to ened, Hagueism could spread, and "in two NBC's "Today Show" interviewed Mo­ ments in other countries. (Although at or three years you can have a powerful fas­ them a few times, and when I found out what hammed Abbas, a Palestinian who Wash­ times they have shown an almost obsessive they were," left. cist movement of American charactcc." Regarding his membership in the Socialist ington accused of masterminding the fascination in writing about them.) The (The Transitional Program for Socialist Workers Party, LaRouche now states that he re­ hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship horrendous crimes of the Nazi regime in Revolution, New York: Pathfinder, 1977) mained a member only because an FBI agent in 1985, the LaRouchites' twice-weekly Germany and the Fascists in Italy are "wanted me to work for them [the FBI] under paper, New Solidarity, featured an article widely known and despised in the United Appeal to 'forgotten majority' cover" and "inform for them." headlined, "NBC-TV Poses Terrorist States. To defend these discredited and The NDPC orients to what LaRouche re­ hated movements would be an obstacle for fers to as the "unrepresented majority, the a U.S. -based fascist organization that is at­ forgotten majority." As is standard with tempting to appeal to people who are de­ fascist groups, the NDPC contends that this moralized by social crisis and the failures majority is the victim of a gigantic conspi­ of both the liberalism and conservatism of racy. the Democrats and Republicans. In an article in the Aug. 23, 1985, issue Instead the NDPC has wrapped itself in of New Solidarity LaRouche asserted that its own homespun American cloak. It has there is a "three-way connection among the created a scenario in which it roots its con­ drug-traffic, international terrorism, it­ ant interest rates, unemployment, famines, The NDPC is launched massive drug addiction, and most other so­ This Americanization took on its most cial afflictions. effective dimension in late 1980 when the Opposition to this conspiracy is the axis NCLC decided to orient toward the of the NDPC's propaganda, and it is the Article in Machinist described LaRouchite violence against unionists. Fascist group mainstream of U.S. politics by setting up framework in which it presents its de­ has history since 1973 of goon-squad actions against working-class and other groups. the National Democratic Policy Commit- magogic solutions to specific issues. It has

10 The Militant August 1, 1986 adjusted its themes and its emphases over holds-barred military dragnet to snag the the past decade, depending on what is culprits. Yet their economic schemes going on at the time and what it thinks will would keep the capitalist system, including help get it the best hearing. the capitalist market, intact. And it's pre­ In the 1970s, for example, when cam­ cisely this system that breeds the entire paigning against drugs and unemployment, traffic in illegal drugs and recycles and in­ the LaRouchites often did not disguise their vests its enormous profits. reactionary and racist hostility to Blacks Only by working people taking political and Puerto Ricans. power from the capitalist rulers and elimi­ In New Solidarity and in leaflets, they nating the ability to profit from the produc­ often labeled Black and Puerto Rican activ­ tion and trade of drugs will this scourge be ists as "cannibals," "jungle bunnies," eliminated. Moreover, this revolutionary "zombies," "faggots," and "rapists." They change will open important new oppor­ have more recently cleaned up their public tunities to young people, eliminating the language as part of their attempt to attract hopelessness and despair many feel in some Blacks and Latinos, especially today' s capitalist society. around the issue of drugs. In line with this they carried major arti­ Antihomosexual campaign cles last year hailing the achievements of Like most all fascist political organiza­ the civil rights movement and the leader­ tions, the NDPC wages a venomous cam­ ship of Martin Luther King, Jr. And a few paign against homosexuals and the right to of the NDPC public spokespersons and privacy. candidates are Black. Despite this tactical They vigorously campaigned against orientation, which has led to some Black passage of the gay rights bill adopted by recruits, it is out of the question that the the New York City Council in March of NDPC will establish a significant foothold this year. among Blacks. An article in the March 28, 1986, New The Black population is overwhelmingly Solidarity blasting adoption of this bill fa­ working class. Moreover, the political his­ vorably quoted former Manhattan Borough tory of Blacks the past quarter century has . President Hulan Jack. Jack, formerly one been marked more by progress, especially of the most prominent among those New the smashing of the Jim Crow form of legal York politicians who are Black, is now a segregation, than it has by big demoraliz­ member of LaRouche's Schiller Institute. ing defeats. He asserted that the gay rights bill was Militant/Peggy Winter Likewise, the NDPC's recruitment of a "contrary to the spirit of the traditional re­ A special target of LaRouchites is farm protest movement. While claiming to support small number of Jews is no sign that it will lations of family life." He added that it embattled farmers, outfit directs its tire at those in movement who demand, ''Farms, ever win much support from this sector of "promotes sexual habits which introduce not arms!" such as in this Minnesota Groundswell action against foreclosure. society. It links certain Jewish organiza­ homosexuality, resulting in contemptible tions, including the Anti-Defamation promiscuous behavior, often leadin_g to the League of B'nai B'rith, with its interna­ dreaded fatal disease AIDS." have abortions if they choose. However, at enterprise,' " the NDPC candidate for gov­ tional conspiracy of dope pushers, bank­ As to be expected, the NDPC also hailed the present time they are not waging a ernor of Pennsylvania wrote in the April ers, terrorists, and the Soviet government. the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision head-on attack on this issue. Instead, they 11 , 1986, issue of New Solidarity, "neces­ Jn this context, the NDPC's repeated claim June 30 that declared state antisodomy are trying to confuse their position on abor­ sarily, inexorably propel a society toward to be "anti-Zionist" is the opposite of sup­ laws to be constitutional. The court major­ tion with more complex and emotionally becoming Sodom and Gomorrah, no mat­ port for Palestinian self-determination ity "reasserted the link between morality charged questions such as euthanasia in ter how self-righteous and nominally moral through the replacement of the imperialist and law," New Solidarity cheered. order to avoid dealing directly with the a person might claim to be, who adheres to state of Israel by a democratic, secular Pal­ The NDPC is now utilizing the wide­ right of women to control their bodies. the dogma of 'free enterprise.' estine, but instead is a cover for anti­ spread and public concern over AIDS to One recent attack on abortion rights, The NDPC calls for government inter­ Semitism. Their usage turns the term press its attack on democratic rights in gen­ however, appeared in the May 19, 1986, vention against the banks. In a 1985 resolu­ "Zionist" into a code word for Jews in gen­ eral and the right to privacy in particular. It New Solidarity. The article protested a tion, it called on the president to use his eral. is attempting to do what it can to contribute court suit filed by "proabortion fanatics" emergency powers to "nationalize" the History has taught us that the capitalist to the general hysteria that other right-wing against the Catholic hierarchy for using Federal Reserve System. Specifically it rulers and reactionary movements in areas forces are whipping up around the AIDS tax-exempt church funds to lobby against proposed suspending the Federal Reserve of the world that were historically part of issue. abortion rights. Bank's powers over currency and interest Christendom have attempted to make Jews The NDPC approach is expressed in the rates and transferring them to the president. a scapegoat for the problems created by the headline of an April4, 1986, New Solidar­ Economic nostrums The president should set interest rates and social crises of capitalism in this century. ity editorial: "Time to Spread PANIC!" The LaRouchites present themselves as establish policies for lending to "approved LaRouche proposes that a formal decla­ PANIC is the acronym for the champions of the oppressed and downtrod­ categories of borrowers" through the na­ ration of war be called against drug traffic LaRouchites' newly created front group, den. They denounce the victimization of tional banking system. and that all necessary military steps be Prevent AIDS Now Initiative Committee. farmers. They rail against high unemploy­ This lending should be restricted to pur­ taken. His proposals include making sales This group spearheaded a drive to collect ment and the bad working conditions faced chase of machinery, tools, equipment, and of illegal drugs an act of "treason in time of more than 680,000 signatures to put a re- by wage workers. They call for a halt to research for production of goods in indus­ war." Anyone caught purchasing_ illegal try and agriculture and developing and drugs or advocating their legalization ,, ______maintaining transportation, the resolution would be tried under wartime measures for said. "giving aid and comfort to the enemy." Their economic schemes would keep capitalist system. Related to their various economic nos­ The U.S.-Mexico border should be "her­ trums, the LaRouchites promote a major metically sealed," he says, and a massive It's precisely this system that breeds entire traffic in expansion of nuclear power, despite the concentration of U.S. troops located there. illegal drugs . . • fact that there is currently no known way to Alliances with governments in Latin ______,, make it safe. Their enthusiasm was not at America and other regions should be made all dampened by the disastrous accident at 11nd joint military forces used to destroy the Chernobyl reactor in the Soviet Union drug-producing fields and processing ferendum on the November ballot in farm foreclosures, a moratorium on repay­ in April. plants. All businesses involved in the ille­ California that would impose rigid controls ment of all agricultural debt, and low-inter­ LaRouche issued a statement April 30 gal drug trade should be broken up and on anybody suspected of having AIDS. est credit. declaring, "The type of nuclear power­ their assets confiscated and used for eco­ The NDPC has also been campaigning to The biggest culprits facing all the "for­ plant failure which has occurred outside nomic development. impose mandatory testing for AIDS and es­ gotten majority," they say, are the big Kiev, in Russia, could never have hap­ The LaRouchites' presentation of drug tablish detention centers for all "suspects." bankers, whose policies lead to high inter­ pened to a nuclear generating facility in the trafficking as a conspiracy that involves est rates that stifle what the LaRouchites U.S.A., France, or West Germany. The Biological 'Star Wars' various banking interests, Jewish groups, call the productive sectors of the popula­ Soviet Russians have a different culture the Soviet and Cuban governments, and the The LaRouchites are also urging the fed­ tion- industrial capitalists, farmers, and and morality than we do ...." British monarchy reinforces the mystery eral government to develop a program for workers. The banks harm wage workers, and intrigue around the drug trade. the production of biological weapons - a they argue, because parasitic money inter­ 'Build 1,000 MX missiles' While there is certainly secrecy and plot­ biological counterpart to "Star Wars" - ests prevent industrialists from energeti­ Although the LaRouchites mouth a few ting in the drug trade, it is basically not that they claim would advance the medical cally applying science to industry, de­ platitudes about expanding production to very mysterious. Drugs are commodities research and scientific knowledge neces­ veloping new technology, and increasing provide for social needs, when they get that are produced, transported, whole­ sary to help fight the AIDS virus. economic output. This, the NDPC con­ down to specifics the heart of their propos­ saled, and retailed. As on other questions, the LaRouchites' tends, is responsible for "deindustrializ­ al is to massively increase arms produc­ Big capitalists make huge profits off the demagogy around AIDS is nourished by ing" U.S. society and for the huge layoffs tion. unpaid labor time of tens of thousands of the pitiful inaction of the government. that have led to high unemployment. This was highlighted in an article in the workers and peasants who are involved in AIDS is a serious problem, and millions of The NDPC also targets the banks for the June 17, 1985, New Solidarity headlined, growing and harvesting drug-producing people are justifiably concerned about its wrenching crisis that is driving farmers off "NDPC Demands: Reagan Reopen Auto plants and in processing and circulating continued spread. Precious little education, their farms and for the exorbitant debt bur­ Plants to Build I ,000 MX Missiles!" these commodities. The fact that the mar­ however, has been forthcoming from the den of most semicolonial countries. The NDPC proposes to retool the extra keting of many addictive drugs is illegal government to explain clearly to people on The Federal Reserve System is the capacity in the country's auto plants to only helps. to drive up the price and the a mass scale what the risks are, what pre­ agency most blamed for helping to per­ grind out I ,000 missiles a year, assembly­ profits of the capitalists engaged in this cautionary measures should be taken, and petuate high interest policies. line style. traffic. what steps are being made to combat this It calls for establishing a "defense eco­ Illegal drugs find a ready market because deadly disease. Against 'free enterprise' nomic mobilization authority," similar to the pushers prey on the misery, generated There is no question that a full-scale re­ Unlike most conservatives, who say that what was set up during World War II, to by capitalist society, of millions of people. search program, provided with all the what is needed is to restore the doctrine of oversee conversion and production. "The This not only victimizes many working­ funds and equipment it needs, should be a "free enterprise" and stop government in­ reasons for doing this should be obvious," dass youth, but has also become a hollow top priority. Such a program needs to be terference in the economy, the La­ New Solidarity stated. "The MX missile, pastime for self-indulgent individuals from coordinated on an international basis to Rouchites condemn "free enterprise" and now nearly 14 years under development, middle-class and professional layers. pool all efforts to fight AIDS. call for decisive government involvement. and still not available for deployment, is The LaRouchites propose tossing out the The NDPC also strongly opposes the This is essential for fascists. the only timely option available to the Bill of Rights in order to conduct a no- right of women to use birth control and "The philosophical foundations of 'free Continued on next page

August 1, 1986 The Militant 11 -THE LaROUCHITES------Continued from previous page problems," "work and school-time losses," 1919 were directed against the banks and ment controlled by the ruling families and United States to reduce the crushing mili­ and "chaos," allegedly resulting from the loan capital: 'The dissolution of corpora­ replace it with a government of workers tary force the Russians are putting together strike, than it did for the demands of the tions; suppression of all sorts of banking and farmers. in their war mobilization." striking transit workers. and stock market speculation; state credit With political power in their hands, The NDPC also strongly pushes the de­ The same issue of New Solidarity carried through the creation of a national organiza­ working people will expropriate the velopment and expansion of other weapons an article on the breakdown of airline tion for credit distribution; confiscation of capitalist profit-makers. By taking over the systems, including President Reagan's safety. According to the NDPC, the idle income; a special graduated surtax on banks and industry and nationalizing the Strategic Defense Initiative, commonly heightened competition resulting from capital. ... ' " land, they can use the productive resources called "Star Wars." It promotes it with the government deregulation of the airlines a Guerin also quoted Gottfried Feder, the of society to serve the social needs of slogan, "Beam the Bomb." few years ago has driven the airlines to the Nazis' principal economic theoretician: working people. wall and forced them to cut costs. And When farm protest organizations have "We recognize clearly that the capitalist Workers and faimers will prove that debt-burdened airlines have come under in­ raised such slogans as "Cut Defense- Not system - capital itself - is not the every able-bodied person can be guaran­ creasing pressure from creditor banks. Deficiency [price supports]" and "Farms scourge of the human race; the insatiable teed a job without the massive arms build­ "Once upon a time," New Solidarity noted, thirst for interest of big loan capital is the Not Arms," the LaRouchites have savagely up advocated by LaRouche. Millions of "we used to invest our way out of such curse of all toiling humanity. denounced them. "That won't put a single jobs would be created by building new problems, paying the work force decent "Capital must exist, and Labor too, . .. " farmer back in business or as much as a tur­ housing, hospitals, schools, and recreation wages, and permitting companies to invest nip on a family's dinner table," New Sol­ Feder continued. "Bolshevism imagines it facilities. idarity reporters wrote after a February in capital improvements. Airline regulation can cure the malady by a surgical opera­ 1985 rally of protesting farmers in Ames, protected that kind of approach, and thus tion, whereas the real cause is the poison Moreover, a workers' and farmers' gov­ Iowa. protected people's lives." that should be eliminated .... To overturn ernment would put America's vast power It's not surprising then that the economy as in Russia is useless, but there and productive capacities to use in support­ LaRouchites have conducted a scurrilous Can capitalism be should be a united front of the whole pro­ ing the struggle by working people in other campaign against many of the most mili­ ducing population - from the manual countries to combat poverty, hunger, dis­ tant and uncompromising organizations made to work? worker crushed by indirect taxes, to the ease, and the underdevelopment caused by fighting farm foreclosures, including As the above examples show, the functionaries and office employees, arti­ centuries of colonial and imperialist ex­ Groundswell in Minnesota and the Iowa NDPC's objective is to fight to make the sans, peasants, inventors, and managers of ploitation and domination. It would emu­ Farm Unity Coalition. They have slan­ "American system" - that is, capitalism industrial enterprises, intellectuals, artists, late the example of revolutionary Cuba and dered these organizations for allegedly -work, to be more productive. This, it and scholars- against the slavery of inter­ send internationalist volunteers to every having connections with the international says, requires forging an "alliance" of in­ est." comer of the globe - skilled workers and grain monopolies, the food processing car­ dustrial capitalists, farmers, and workers As we've already seen, this "producers' farmers, technicians, teachers, doctors, tels, and even the Benedictine order of the against the big bankers. front" is also the touchstone of LaRouche's and nurses. Roman Catholic church. But this scheme covers up the key social demagogy. In their efforts to create an al­ As the ruling-class offensive deepens, LaRouche has also attacked Cuban Pres­ relation in U.S. capitalist society-the ex­ liance based on the "harmony of interests" we can anticipate further growth and prob­ ident Fidel Castro's proposal that the im­ ploitation of wage labor by capital. The of the "productive" sectors, the La­ ing of fascist and right-wing organizations. perialist governments finance the cancella­ wage that workers are paid for their hours Rouchites today particularly focus on debt­ But at the same time, this process will re­ tion of the huge debts in the Third World of labor amounts to only a fraction of the burdened farmers. They try to appeal to sult in a growing tendency for the irrecon­ countries by reducing military expenses 10 ,, ______cilable conflict between the capitalists and percent. In a 36-page attack on Castro's working people to find expression more proposal published in July 1985, openly in political life. It will be reflected LaRouche declared, "Castro faithfully fol­ LaRouchites' objective is to fight to make 'American in the unions being drawn into involvement lows the long-standing Soviet line: that the system' work, to be more productive. But this scheme in struggles such as that by the P-9 workers solution to all economic problems of the in Austin, who are fighting to win the right developing sector flows from U.S.A. and covers up key social relation in U.S. capitalist society­ to a certification election in the Hormel NATO general disarmament, redirecting plant where the workers- both those cur­ military expenditures into aid." He called ______exploitation of wage labor by capital . . . ,, rently employed and those who were for more military spending to help develop forced on strike - can choose the union the technologies needed for development they want to represent them. in Latin America. value they produce during that time. The working farmers as "businessmen" who Workers will fight to transform their unions into fighting instruments. This will Backstabbing policy remainder of their hours of labor actually face the same problems of credit, goes unpaid. The value produced during mortgages, taxes, and prices as other open up the possibility of establishing and The NDPC also tries to give the impres­ that unpaid labor time ends up as profits in businessmen, including capitalist farmers building an independent labor party based sion that it supports strikes by workers the coffers of the capitalists - the wealthy and industrial employers. on the union movement in alliance with the fighting against cuts in wages and benefits families that own industrial enterprises, But what their demagogy hides is the mass protest organizations of working and erosion of working conditions. Take, land, commercial businesses, and banks­ qualitative difference between, on the one farmers. A labor party could help lead the for example, the strike of United Food and who compete among themselves for the hand, independent farmers who exploit no struggles to defend the Bill of Rights; to Commercial Workers Local P-9 against the biggest shares. wage labor and are themselves exploited by win democratic and social rights for Hormel meatpacking company in Austin, capital, and, on the other hand, capitalist Blacks, Latinos, and women; to gain im­ This exploitation is the source of the ir­ Minnesota. farmers and industrialists who exploit mediate relief for unemployed workers and repressible class struggle between wage "Certainly, the intent of the strike, when wage labor and working farmers. to fight for a shorter workweek with no re­ workers and the capitalists. Even if it began," New Solidarity wrote May 19, The big majority of independent farmers duction in pay; to win cost-of-living es­ LaRouche's notion that the banks should 1986, "was coherent with the economic depend solely on their own labor and that calator clauses to give some protection policies advanced by LaRouche and the get off the backs of "productive capital" against the effects of inflation; and to op­ were realized, this would not do away with of other family members. Like wage work­ NDPC. The strike rejected a large wage cut ers, they create a product with their labor. pose U.S. military intervention in Nicara­ the exploitation of the working class and its by Hormel, and demanded adequate work­ But unlike wage workers, they own this gua and other countries. need to fight to advance its economic, so­ men's compensation and improved health product and they either consume it or sell it Mobilizing workers and farmers around and safety conditions in the plant. ... P-9's cial, and political interests. these demands would lay the basis for con­ In reality, however, it's false to counter­ on the market. Like wage workers, how­ opposition to the top AFL-CIO bureauc­ ever, working farmers do not end up with necting day-to-day struggles with a course racy's capitulationist policy was also com­ pose banking and industrial capitalists. For toward the fight for political power. nearly a century they have been intertwined the equivalent value of the labor time they mendable." have put into producing these com­ This is the road forward, not the After enumerating several supposed fail­ and interdependent. The country's few NDPC's crank schemes or its proposed al­ dozen ruling families dominate industrial, modities. This surplus labor, for which ings of the leadership of P-9, New Solidar­ they too go unpaid, is e.xpropriated- sto­ liance with big business. In the course of commercial, and banking capital. The ity raised its biggest complaint: the union len from them - by the owners of the this struggle, workers' and farmers' or­ Rockefeller and Mellon banking empires, recognized Hormel as its principal enemy banks, land, farm equipment and supply ganizations will have to fight to defend for example, grew out of and remain deep­ in this conflict instead of leading "the strike manufacturers, and food processing themselves against fascist outfits. ly involved in industry, including oil, coal, as part of an international fight against the monopolies. The joint action that unions and farmers austerity policies" of the AFL-CIO bu­ and steel. Moreover, the ruling families are have begun conducting, including in sup­ reaucracy and the International Monetary also by far the largest private landowners. port of the meatpackers' struggle in Min­ Fund. To pose the problem for working people Road forward for workers and farmers nesota and the expressions of solidarity "Hormel Meat Co. is no 'big, evil corpo­ as one of banking capital versus industrial This exploitation lays the foundation for with each others' struggles, help lay the ration,'" New Solidarity declared. "It is capital covers up the central cause of cycli­ a true harmony of interests between basis for the political alliance of workers one of the few unionized companies left in cal recessions and mass unemployment. exploited farmers and wage workers. The and farmers that is necessary. the meat-packing industry, and it is fight­ The real cause of recessions and depres­ entire system of rents and mortages is to­ As they advance along this road, work­ ing for survival against one of the biggest sions is the overproduction of industrial tally intertwined with and grew out of the ing people will discover the need to learn enemies of labor and of the United States and agricultural commodities - not in re­ rise and consolidation of the system of about the history of fascist movements and - Armand Hammer - whose Iowa Beef lation to what the majority of people need, wage-labor exploitation. Thus, the road to recognize the need for a revolutionary Co. is a notorious union-buster." but in relation to the ability of the forward for both workers and farmers is to socialist party to lead the fight to defeat the The point is clear: stop fighting the own­ capitalists to sell them at what they deem a join forces to organize their own mass, in­ fascists and the threat they pose to the con­ ers who directly profit from the exploita­ suitable profit. Upturns occur after the dependent struggle to overturn the govern- quests of workers and farmers. tion of wage labor at Hormel in Austin. stockpiles of goods are reduced and less ef­ They are not the real enemy. ficient productive capacity is eliminated. While the NDPC' s backstabbing policy More than 150 years of experience with toward the struggle against Hormel is par­ capitalist business cycles have proved that For further reading on fascism ... ticularly flagrant, it is not unique. no government fiscal or banking policies The LaRouchites' general stance toward can prevent them. That's why workers What Is American Fascism? Fascism: What It Is - strikes and other labor fights is to try to have no stake in such attempts to regulate Writings on Father Coughlin, How to Fight It • take the fire off the employers and direct it the business cycles, but rather fight to get Mayor Frank Hague, and By Leon Trotsky. $.95 somewhere else. When transit workers in the government to take measures that are Sen. Joseph McCarthy. $2.50 Philadelphia and Boston went on strike in possible to alleviate the effects of capitalist Fascism and Big Business March of this year, the NDPC accused the · crises. The Fight Against Fascism By Daniel Guerin. $8.95 unions of "fighting the cuts as though they in the USA Struggle Against Fascism were only victims of an unfair company. 'Capital must exist' 40 years of struggle described in Germany Indeed, the cuts are conditionalities, or­ The counterposing of bankers and indus­ by participants. $3.00 By Leon Trotsky. $10.95 dered by the banking houses .... The com­ trialists was a prominent theme in the de­ panies are merely carrying out orders, tak­ magogy of both the Italian Fascists and the Counter-mobilization. A Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 ing out the cost of paying their debt from German Nazis. Daniel Guerin wrote in Strategy to Fight Racist West St., New York, N.Y. 10014. the hides of their employees." Fascism and Big Business (New York: and Fascist Attacks Please include 75 cents for postage New Solidarity, in fact, expressed great­ Monad Press, 1973), "Most of the radical By Farrell Dobbs. $1.25 and handling. er concern over "traffic crises," "commuter demands of the [Italian] fascist program of

12 The Militant August 1, 1986 Miskito Indians demand reparations from U.S. gov't

"Notes from Nicaragua" is a total damage, not including the Countries (ANAPS) reported that column prepared by Cindy human lives lost, amounts to $800 the I 0 countries of the Council for Jaquith, Harvey McArthur, and million, which it is demanding Mutual Economic Assistance do­ Ruth Nebbia of the Militant's from the U.S. government. This nated $270 million in economic bureau in Managua. money would be used to benefit aid to Nicaragua during 1985. the indigenous communities of the Cuba led the list in 1985 with The Miskito Indian group MIS­ Atlantic Coast. $96.5 million in food, clothing, medicine, toys, and machinery. AT AN has condemned the $100 The approval of the $100 mil­ million approved by the U.S. lion for the mercenaries, the state­ Some $74 million of the Cuban aid House of Representatives for the ment continues, "endangers our was in the form of labor, mater­ mercenary war against Nicaragua. right to autonomy as a people of ials, and machinery for Nicara­ MISA TAN is an organization that the Atlantic Coast. This aid opens gua's new Victoria de Julio sugar the door to direct U.S. invasion to mill. reestablish the U.S. system of The Soviet Union donated domination. It is necessary for all $17.2 million. Czechoslovakia NOTES FROM the groups of the Atlantic Coast, donated $16.6 million; Bulgaria, regardless of our differences, to $14.9 million; and East Germany, NICARAGUA establish a common front against $10 million. intervention." Militant/Harvey McArthur * * * French aircraft maintenance workers, members of the Orly Com­ "A revolutionary is a poet who works within the Sandinista revo­ * * * mittee of Solidarity with Nicaragua at Orly international airport A New Song music festival was sings while he builds, a man with lution to achieve the demands of near Paris, give class to Nicaraguan airline workers. Miskito Indians. held in Managua July 12-15 as the right to dream and at the same In a statement condemning the part of celebrations of the seventh time the obligation to not pass war funds, MIS AT AN explains anniversary of the Nicaraguan rev­ ducer. Goldstein will be working the Orly committee has sent a away his life dreaming," states the that for decades the U.S. mining, olution. Participating in the festi­ on a film based on the book Fire group to Nicaragua. introduction to a new collection of fishing, and lumber companies val were Nicaraguan singer Luis from the Mountain by Omar "Most airline workers don't Nicaraguan poetry. Titled "Sow­ that operated on Nicaragua's At­ Enrique Mejia Godoy and the mu­ Cabezas, a leader of the Sandinista know anything about Nicaragua," ing Days and Nights for Peace," lantic Coast "plundered our most sical groups Mancotal, Pancasan, National Liberation Front. Grognet said. "But many want to the collection is published by the precious resources, including Igni-Tawanka, Pueblo, and hear more about our work with Political Directorate of the Nicara­ gold, silver, zinc, copper, bronze, others. * * * Nicaragua's airline, and we will guan Ministry of the Interior Seven French aircraft mainte­ use this professional interest as an (MINT). pine wood, carob, cedar, gum, Musical groups from Cuba, and banana, as well as marine life, nance workers are spending their opening to explain about the revo­ The poems are all written by Guatemala, Chile, and El Sal­ vacation this year working with lution as a whole." women and men in the police, such as lobsters, shrimp, fish, tur­ vador also participated and ex­ tle, and lizards." Aeronica, Nicaragua's airline. Last year, the Orly committee state security, special armed pressed their solidarity with the They are members of the Orly produced and distributed 250 forces, and other branches of the In the mining industry, "human Nicaraguan revolution. Committee of Solidarity with Nic­ copies of a pamphlet on Nicaragua MINT. The works deal with war, lives were destroyed by silicosis, From the United States, Thiago aragua at the Orly international and made presentations to union revolution, love, and fallen com­ tuberculosis, and mutilations," the de Mello, the Brazilian jazz musi­ airport near Paris. plant committees throughout the rades in the struggle. statement says. "[Families] of cian, and Roy Brown, the Puerto In an interview at Aeronica's airport. The "new poetry" of the San­ those who died in underground Rican singer, performed. maintenance facilities in Mana­ Luis Torres, general secretary dinista revolution, states the intro­ mines were never compensated. In the past month, several other gua, Air France mechanic Joel of the union at Aeronica, said that duction, means "being an excel­ Pollution upset the ecological bal­ artists from the United States have LeJeannic explained that they are Nicaraguan airlines workers are lent combatant in order to one day ance of the rivers and plains where toured Nicaragua and spoken out giving classes on electricity, hy­ trying to establish relations with be a good poet. The new poets are our indigenous people live. Fi­ against the U.S. -backed merce­ draulics and flight controls, en­ unions and solidarity committees obliged to unswervingly fight the nally, one of the last of these com­ nary war. These included the mu­ gines, and fuel. Eric Grognet, throughout the world. enemy, to shoot tirelessly at the panies, ATCHEMCO, vora­ sical trio Peter, Paul, and Mary; general secretary of the General past. But their sights must be set ciously tore up our forests, roots Ed Asner, the lead actor in the TV Federation of Workers (CGT) at * * * on the future, the future of the and all." show "Lou Grant"; and Martin Air Inter, France's domestic air­ The Nicaraguan Association of people, together with whom they MISA TAN calculates that the Goldstein, film director and pro- line, said that this is the first time Friendship with the Socialist write their poems." Workers prepare for harsher conditions due to war

BY CINDY JAQUITH this to lack of spare parts and raw materials MANAGUA, Nicaragua- When union due in large measure to the U.S. trade em­ leaders in the textile, clothing, and shoe in­ bargo, power blackouts, inadequate trans­ dustry met here July 12, the first point on portation for workers, and indiscipline and their agenda was the U.S.-organized war absenteeism in the workforce. against Nicaragua. The amount of clothing and shoes pro­ Special tribute was paid to two union duced in Nicaragua has increased steadily militants who had recently fallen in combat since the 1979 Sandinista revolution. But against the mercenaries financed by Wash­ the level of worker productivity in the in­ ington. A woman textile worker who had dustry remains lower than it was before just been wounded fighting at the front was 1979. Reaching and surpassing the pre- also honored. 1979 productivity levels has long been a About 100 workers from more than a goal of the CST. dozen plants met. All of them were leaders The union federation and the govern­ of unions affiliated to the Sandinista Work­ ment have been mapping out productivity ers Federation (CST). They assessed the norms for each branch of industry in order first three months of 1986 in terms of to correct the problem. Silva said the estab­ mobilization of union members for the lished norms in clothing and shoes were armed forces and factory production. still "too loose." In some cases, a worker can complete the norm for eight hours' Militant Textile, clothing, and shoe workers are Garment workers are central to Nicaragua's economy and defense. Textile, garment, central both to Nicaragua's economy and work in half that time. and shoe workers met to discuss how to increase production in face of U.S.-inspired its military defense. These are the women Silva called on the government to both military aggression and economic sabotage. and men who produce the clothing for the revise the norms and improve the incen­ nation's working people. They also make tive-pay program to stimulate workers to the uniforms and boots for the army, produce more. He criticized "the lack of in­ leave the Tricotextil plant winds up costing workers should expect in terms of the war Ministry of the Interior, and militias. And itiative of some functionaries of the revolu­ 300 cordobas in the government-run super­ and its effects on production and workers' they themselves are regularly mobilized to tionary State to make decisions on this." markets, where prices are supposed to be standard of Jiving for the coming year. serve in the armed forces. Despite the obstacles caused by the war, kept to a minimum. A towel that leaves the The U.S. government is trying to bring CST leader Do"nald Silva reported that in workers at several factories did an out­ Nicarao factory costing 700 cordobas ends about the "maximum destabilization" of the first three months of 1986, 371 yourig standing job in production. The Kikatex up at 4,000 cordobas in the supermarket. the Sandinista revolution, he said, not only workers from the industry entered the draf­ factory was awarded for having achieved Four thousand cordobas is more than many through outright military aggression but tee army, and another 462 workers signed its production goal, accomplished in part garment workers make in a week. also by bleeding the country economically. up for the reserves. There are about 12,000 by the workers putting in an hour and a half The government agency Dinatex is sup­ The goal is "to tum the people against the textile and clothing workers nationally. of voluntary overtime each day. posed to purchase textile and clothing revolution, using the economic and social The workers at the Cotexma plant also products and put them on the market at problems" that exist, he explained. Thus The textile unions, Silva continued, dis­ received an award. They were commended prices working people can afford. The increasing clothing and shoe production is patched another 61 workers to serve in spe­ for high productivity rates, the degree of agency was set up precisely to compete a vital part of national defense. cial combat battalions. This was an worker participation in production plans, with capitalist merchants who buy up Jimenez said there were no magical sol­ exemplary effort, he said, although he doing voluntary labor without pay, plant­ clothing and put it on the black market. utions to the economic crisis of the coun­ noted that "some of the comrades deserted ing a garden to supply the factory cafeteria, For some time, textile and clothing try. "The only solution is work," he em­ the front lines in the face of the natural and building a child-care center. workers have been protesting the fact that phasized, pointing to a productivity cam­ problems that are present at the war Union leaders shared a general concern the Dinatex-distributed products are often paign in the farm workers' union that has fronts." about the high price of clothing and shoes. just as expensive as black-market products. resulted in a 77 percent increase in produc­ The heart of the meeting was how to in­ There was agreement that the chief way to Silva called for both Dinatex and the tivity on farms in the recent months. crease factory production at a time when bring down prices is to increase the amount government supermarkets to lower their He also explained that even with higher U.S.-inspired military aggression and eco­ being produced. prices. "Dinatex must carry out its role as a production, workers should not have illu­ nomic sabotage have seriously disrupted But a related problem was also raised: regulator of the distribution of products, sions that their current low standard of liv­ the industry. the big jump in the price of clothing be­ not the role of one more speculator with a ing will improve in the short run. "We have Silva .announced that production in the tween the time it leaves the factory and business mentality," he said. to work very hard [but] we are not going to industry fell short of the projected goals for when it arrives in the stores. A pair of un­ At the close of the meeting, CST Gene feel the effects of our work this year," he the first trimester of this year. He attributed derpants that cost 180 cordobas when they era! Secretary Lucio Jimenez laid out what warned.

August 1, 1986 The Militant 13 Workers and peasants celebrate advances Seventh anniversary commemoration of Nicaraguan revolution

BY HARVEY McARTHUR "In selecting Region I as the site of the turned themselves in to the Sandinista gov­ At the beginning of the war, the FSLN ESTELl, Nicaragua- "Las Segovias. seventh anniversary, the FSLN National ernment in the region. Under an amnesty concentrated on military operations in re­ 320,000 patriots. 2,966 square miles of Directorate is recognizing that the people, program decreed by the government, they sponse to the growing mercenary attacks, free and sovereign land," reads a big sign the workers, peasants, teachers, profes­ were released to their families and com­ Morales said. However, the United States at the southern entrance to this city. sionals, and youths of this region are set­ munities to work and resume their lives was waging a war "on the military, eco­ Other colorful billboards highlighted the ting an example for all of Nicaragua," said here. During the last 18 months, 1,500 nomic, and political-ideological front." gains made by the people of Nicaragua's Carlos Manuel Morales in a July 18 press families that were kidnapped or that had The FSLN later corrected their one-sided Las Segovias region since the 1979 San­ conference here. Morales is FSLN coordi­ fled to Honduras have returned to Nicara­ approach and paid greater attention to dinista revolution: 210,165 acres of land nator and presidential delegate for Region gua. politically winning over peasants influ­ distributed to 5,759 peasant families; 53 I. In the press conference and in an inter: During the first years of the war, enced by the contras and the U.S. prop­ child-care centers and 4,003 new homes view printed in the July 18 issue of the Morales said, "the United States did man­ aganda. built; 3,602,600 medical checkups in 1985 FSLN daily Barricada, Morales reviewed age to find people who would take up arms Morales stressed the importance of this alone; 15,000 participating in adult literacy the progress of the revolution in this region - due to confusion, family relations, or political-ideological work, which he said and basic education courses. and the challenges that remain. for other reasons." meant "explaining to the people, discus­ This area, now known as Nicaragua's Contras driven back Many of those were peasants who had sing with the people about the origins of Region I, is where Augusto Cesar Sandino little contact with the revolutionary gov­ this war, of the consequences of this war, led a guerrilla army against U.S. Marines Region I shares a 190-mile border with ernment, he said. At first, the government and about who is causing this war." Honduras, where most of the U.S. -backed who occupied Nicaragua from 1926 to did not have a clear approach to organizing Strengthening the military defense and 1933. Since 1981 ithasbeenamajortarget mercenary forces are based. Estell itself is individual peasant farmers, especially advancing the land reform have helped win only 25 miles from Honduras. of the U.S.-backed counterrevolutionary those with medium-sized holdings. It fo­ more support for the revolution. "The rev­ terrorists (contras) attacking Nicaragua. Morales reported that in 1983 and 1984, cused instead on cooperatives and farm olution gives the peasant the secure oppor­ Two other billboards captured this his­ the contras maintained up to 1 ,500 fighters workers on state farms. This left many tunity to live, giving him land and the pos­ tory: "nothing will erase the hatred Las in a territory of Region I. Today, they have peasants, especially those in isolated areas, sibility that the contras will not shoot him Segovias has for the Yankee" and "Las no permanent bases and operate in small open to contra pressure and propaganda, or slit his throat," Morales said. Segovias will be the tomb of the counter­ units that enter from Honduras, attack, and Morales said. More than 46,000 peasant families in the revolution." then retreat to bases across the border. Morales reported that 9,000 peasant region are now affiliated with the National In 1985, he said, there were 107 com­ Union of Farmers and Ranchers (UNAG). families in the region have been forced to On July 19 the city of Estell was the site munities under contra influence in the re­ flee their land because of contra attacks. Of Of these, 19,000 are organized in coopera­ of the national celebration of the seventh gion. Only four remain today. tives and 27,000 are individual farmers. anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. these, 3,000 have received land and have The government has armed the coopera­ On July 19, 1979, a popular insurrection, In 1984 the mercenaries kidnapped 500 been organized into 46 new settlements. peasants in Region I. In 1985 there were They are among the 5, 700 families that tives and organized peasant militias to fight led by the Sandinista National Liberation against contra attacks. Front (FSLN) overthrew the U.S.-backed only 35 such victims. have received land under the agrarian re­ At the same time, an average of 300 foJ;lll program. About 9,000 more families The Isiqui Cooperative, for instance, lo­ Somoza dictatorship and established a cated in the mountains 15 miles east of Es­ mercenaries have deserted each year and are still waiting for land in the region. workers' and peasants' government. tell, has had four battles with the contras since it was organized in 1983. Jose Fran­ cisco Parrilla proudly showed the M-79 grenade launcher they had captured from 'Number one task is military defense' the mercenaries in the first fight. He explained that they coordinate observation and defense posts with nearby cooperatives Continued from front page will be pursued in terms of providing basic necessities - especially food - to the and have a radio to call for army reinforce­ ing to '~breathe life into the internal oppos­ ments as soon as any attack begins. ition" in Nicaragua. population. Food will go "in the first place, to the Fourth, U.S. strategists want to provoke Increasing production despite war "fissures in the Sandinista leadership. They combatants of the armed forces," he said. think they can bring about division in the "Second, to those who are producing in the "In choosing Region I for the celebra­ FSLN." countryside and in the cities - in produc­ tion," Morales told the July 18 press con­ Fifth, they hope to "reduce aid toNica­ tion centers, in factories, , in [farm] ference, "the National Directorate wants to ragua from what they call the Soviet bloc." cooperatives, in state enterprises. show that it is possible to defeat the enemy militarily and economically .... The work­ In light of this escalation, Ortega con­ "After that, food will go to the other ers, the peasants of this region have dem­ tinued, the number one task of Nicaraguans comrades who are in the service sector, onstrated that they can both fight and work remains military defense. "Defense means who play an important supporting role." -and fight and work well." guns in the hands of the people, in the By defending the Nicaraguan revolu­ While agricultural production has been hands of peasants, workers, toilers, tion, the president said, "we are defending hurt by the war, the region is now produc­ women, all the Nicaraguans ready to de­ a bastion of democracy in Latin America." ing more of some important crops than it fend their revolution," he said. Elections, he explained, are not what de­ did before the war. Com production is up fine democracy in Nicaragua or anywhere from 30 million pounds in 1980 to 120 mil­ State of emergency else. "What good would it do to talk about lion this year. Bean production this year is Defense also requires taking special democracy here, if we had elections every projected at twice last year's. legal measures, he continued, to prevent year or every two years but didn't take any Coffee production fell by 50 percent as the development of an internal front for other concrete measures in favor of the the mercenary attacks escalated and many Washington's mercenaries. He said Nica­ people?" he asked. farms were abandoned. This year, how­ ragua's state of emergency measures, "Here we are carrying out an integral de­ ever, coffee production is expected to in­ which restrict freedom of press, speech, mocracy, which is not just holding elec­ crease 40 percent over last year. and organization, have "been implemented Barrie ada tions every few years, but is giving educa­ This increase reflects Nicaragua's suc­ to confront the aggression coming from the President Daniel Ortega (right) at an­ tion to the people; giving health care to the cess in driving back the contras and re­ United States." He said that they were "not niversary congratulates a vanguard people; giving .housing to the people; giv­ claiming land for production. "Workers to radicalize the process [here]. The state worker who received an award for out­ ing land to the people. That's democracy." used to be afraid to go to many areas for of emergency has been imposed to preserve standing work. fear of being kidnapped," Morales said. political pluralism and the mixed econ­ Land reform "But from 1984 and 1985 on, in line with omy, within the institutional framework." have not and we will not commit the bar­ In the 1960s, after the triumph of the our military victories, we have reestab­ In Nicaragua, said Ortega, "you can barities that are committed in the United Cuban revolution, he explained, the gov­ lished the confidence of the workers and think what you want, you can have differ­ States. ernments of Central America rushed to their willingness to return to work." ences with the government, with the "In Nicaragua, the maximum sentence is carry out fake land--reform programs. The As thousands of men were mobilized for FSLN. This is not a crime. But if someone 30 years," he said. "We can't impose the total amount of land they distributed from defense, women stepped forward to fill departs from the institutional framework sentences that the United States imposes on the 1960s to today - much of which was their places in the fields and processing and goes and allies himself with those at­ traitors and spies." Nevertheless, he con­ later stolen back- amounted to 3.5 mil­ plants. "Women are now incorporated in tacking Nicaragua, that's another ques­ tinued, the owners of La Prensa and lion acres, Ortega said. tasks that used to be exclusively for men," tion." Bishop Vega "ought to be in jail, and for 30 In the seven years of the Nicaraguan rev­ Morales said. "They used to have a lower Ortega said this was the crime of the years." olution, by contrast, 4.8 million acres have [production] norm than men. Today, the capitalist daily La Prensa, which has been The measures that Nicaragua has taken gone to peasants. Today large landlords women are meeting the higher norms." temporarily shut down, and of Bishop against promoters of the aggression have own about 10 percent of the country's land. Region I farm workers have also set an Pablo Antonio Vega, who the Nicaraguan nothing to do with persecution of religion "This is democracy," Ortega declared. example for the rest of Nicaragua by work­ government expelled to Honduras, denying or of freedom of expression, the president "I would issue an invitation to President ing a minimum of six hours a day, Morales him the right to return to Nicaragua as long emphasized. "We have never persecuted Azcona of Honduras: Let's compete to see said. This is the norm the government and as the U.S. aggression lasts. the church nor will we persecute the who can give out more land to the peas­ unions are trying to establish throughout During World War II, said Ortega, the church," he said. ants. Let President Azcona give land to the the country to raise production. U.S. government "put all the Japanese liv­ peasants. Let him hit the pocketbooks of ing in the United States in jail. They built Coping with economic problems the latifundists, who own 28 percent [of the Workers and peasants celebrate enormous concentration camps with The president also took up the need to land] in Honduras. The enthusiasm and pride felt here in barbed-wire fences and put all the Japanese increase farm and factory production to "Let the government of Costa Rica, these achievements were evident in the in there solely because they were Japanese offset Washington's economic sabotage. _ President Arias, do the same. There, 41 days leading up to July 19. and because Japan had formed an alliance Ortega said that the Sandinista Assem­ percent of the land is in the hands of the Many buildings in Estell displayed the with Germany. It was a truly brutal action, bly, the highest consultative leadership latifundists. Let them give it to the poor red-and-black seven, the symbol of the an­ but they justified it because, well, there body of the FSLN, has been meeting with peasants. To the squatters who are demon­ niversary, or were decorated with FSLN was a war." the party's National Directorate to discuss strating, demanding land. What he does is and Nicaraguan flags. Many had hand­ A few days before July 19 of this year, how to increase production and organize tum them over to the Costa Rican Guard or made signs or banners hanging in front: he added, the U.S. government sentenced the distribution of scarce consumer goods. beat them or even kill them. "After seven years, we will keep fighting Richard Miller to two life terms plus 50 While he did not report any concrete "Let's compete in that field, and in the for peace," "The revolution means land for years in prison on charges of spying. measures coming out of these meetings, field of health, education, housing. And the peasants," "People power," "Sandino "In Nicaragua," Ortega explained, "we Ortega did outline the general policy that then we will be making democracy." lives," and "Wherever the Yankees come,

14 The Militant August 1, 1986 North American people do not agree. Tell them to support us, to demonstrate to show their solidarity." ' 50,000 at rally At the rally site, more than 50,000 filled the plaza, waving FSLN and. Nicaraguan flags. Many groups had their own banner iden!ifying their village or cooperative. ' Ntcaraguan President Daniel Ortega began the rally by presenting awards to outstanding workers, cooperatives, and farms. Julian Salinas, a tobacco worker who spoke for these vanguard workers called on "Nicaraguan workers to follow'the ex­ ample of the workers of the Segovias­ vanguard in production, in defense, and because we are working 7.5 hours a day [in the fields]." The crowd listened carefully to Ortega's speech and broke into applause when he denounced U.S. aggression and reaffirmed Seventh anniversary celebration took place in Esteli in Las Segovias region. City is 25 miles fr m H d bo d s· th~ measures taken against the right-wing "Peoples of the world, welcome to the grave of imperialism. Las Segovias greets you." o on uran r er. •gn reads, dad~ La Prensa and Bishop Vega for sup­ portmg U.S. intervention in Nicaragua. The crowd also applauded Ortega's ex­ they will die." the UNAG and in the militias and reserves Another popular chant was: "This is my planation that, given the economic Games said. ' The same was true at small farms and land. This is my water. No Yankee SOB is h~dships ~au~ed by the war, they would When asked about their reaction to the cooperatives along the winding mountain going to trample it underfoot!" gtve top pnonty to soldiers, peasants, and recent expulsion of Bishop Vega, he re­ road outside of EstelL "Women salute the A contingent from the Rene Barrante workers in the distribution of scarce goods. plied that "most here didn't understand the seventh anniversary by joining the neighborhood in Esteli marched by chant­ They cheered when Ortega challenged question at first. They did not follow the cooperatives," read one banner. ing, "We tell the Yankees: We're dot war­ other Central American presidents to see question closely. Most are peasants who do July 16 was the anniversary of the liber­ mongers here. We fight for peace and for a who could distribute the most land to peas­ not know how to read, or have just learned ation of Estell - the date when the dictator socialist nation." ants. a little. So we organized assemblies and SomOza's National Guard was driven out . One ~f the leaders of this group, Aura Juan ~olanca LOpez, secretary of a small meetings in the different com­ Lila Sohs, a school teacher, said that they cooperattve, had come to the rally with a o_f town. Thousands turned out for a spi­ munities, and now the peasants under­ nted parade and country music festival to had _spent the previous day meeting with group of peasants from Telpaneca. He said stand." mark the occasion. soldters from the army "to give them our that "the revolution brought us many bene­ support. They are part of the people." They ~ts: health care, education, land, fmanc­ Several hundred peasants, mounted on Contras threaten celebration horseback, led off the parade. At their head also organized housing for hundreds of mg. Now we don't have to work for the rode Julio Ramos, an FSLN leader who Contra radio stations broadcasting from peasants who arrived a day early for the rich landlords. All because of the help of helped organize the insurrection in EstelL Honduras warned people not to go to the rally. the FSLN." July 19 celebration, saying that they would ~easants proudly pointed him out, explain­ Solis said she had recently seen a copy Asked if he had a message for U.S. mg that they had collaborated with him and be attacked, and calling the Sandinistas ir­ of the New York Times "and the lies they workers and farmers, Lopez replied: "Tell other FSLN leaders during the fight against responsible for holding the rally in EstelL printed about repression and persecution them that we do not want war. Without it the dictatorship. Others noted the relaxed These threats were taken seriously since, here. Tell the North American people the we would have made much more progress. discussions and joking between the FSLN despite their military defeats, the mer­ truth about our revolution," she insisted. "But tell them that if the Yankee marines cenaries were still able to mount bloody leaders and the peasants - something that "We know that it is the Reagan administra­ com~," Lopez added, "we are ready to give terrorist attacks. Earlier this year, they had never happened with leaders of the Somoza tion that is the aggressor, and that the our hves to defend our revolution." regime, they said. attacked cooperatives and travelers in the Next in the parade were two dozen floats region and bombed the electric power lines prepared by the neighborhood committees to EstelL throughout EstelL The elaborate and color­ Extra units of army and Ministry of the Cuban President Fidel Castro ful displays showed gains won through the Interior troops were deployed to block pos­ revolution: a school class, a health clinic, sible contra attacks. The bulk of the defen­ an adult literacy course, a meeting to dis­ ders were workers and peasants however. sends IIJessage of solidarity cuss a new constitution for Nicaragua. One Organized in the militias and reserves, they float portrayed the International Court of turned out to guard roads and bridges, can shamelessly approve. farms, cooperatives, and villages through­ ESTELl, Nicaragua - Cuban President Justice, with the nations of the world con­ Fidel Castro saluted the seventh anniver­ "~either ~ill th~y be able to liquidate it demning an arrogant Uncle Sam for his at­ out the region. by d1rect IDlhtary mtervention the danger On July 20 the Ministry of the Interior sary of the Sandinista revolution in a mes­ tacks on Nicaragua. sage sent to Nicaraguan President Daniel of which increases to the sam~ degree that reported that they had intercepted and cap­ the Yankee government blocks a political tured three contra terror teams: one as­ Ortega and the National Directorate of the 'Bishop Vega kills our people' Sandinista National Liberation Front solution to the conflict. Many of the floats caricatured Bishop signed to assassinate Nicaraguan President . "A people, a vanguard, and a leadership Daniel Ortega, one sent to attack economic (FSLN). Pablo Antonio Vega, who was recently ex­ "The bands of Somozaist assassins have ttghtly ~mted, plus the solidarity of all the pelled from Nicaragua for his actions in targets in Managua, and another group of revolutiOnary and progressive peoples of 1_8 caught with 90 pounds of C-4 explo­ no_t been a~le to destroy the revolution," support of the contras. One float had Vega satd Castro s message. "Neither have the !he world, will be the guarantee that noth­ standing in front of three coffins. The cof­ stves. mg and no one can divert the Sandinista The security measures and popular mercenaries paid by the Yimkees nor the fins were labeled "12 women, 12 children, internal reactionaries who are pl~ying the revolution from its historic course " Castro and 8 workers" -all victims of a recent mobilization proved successful: tens of said. ' thousands of people traveled from war game of the imperialist aggressor, nor the mercenary attack. A big sign behind Vega other accomplices and agents of Reagan in R~present~ng Cuba at the July 19 rally read, "Judas killed our Master. Vega kills zones to the rally and returned home with­ here m Esteh was Jorge Risquet, a member out any reported incidents. Central America, nor the slander cam­ our people." paigns, nor the terror, nor all the millions of the Political Bureau of the Cuban Com­ Another float, built on a long flatbed 'Demonstrate against U.S. war' of dollars that the Congress, the CIA, and munist Party. trailer, depicted Vega at the White House, the executive branch of the United States Risquet was interviewed by Barricada drinking whiskey and passing dollar bills Smoldering ruins of old tires, left over the daily pape~ of the FSLN. He pointed back and forth with President Reagan and from neighborhood bonfire rallies the night out that the Ntcaraguan people are going prominent contra leaders. before, lay in the streets of Esteli the morn­ through "hard years" right now, just as the i~g of July 19. Shortly after sunrise, con­ Cuban people went through difficulties "in July 17 was the national Day of Happi­ tmgents formed up from each neighbor­ ness - the anniversary of the day the dic­ the sevent~, eighth, ninth, tenth years of hood and began making their way to the our revolution. And now in the 27th year tator Somoza fled Nicaragua in 1979. It is new stadium south of the city. The city celebrated with parties and festivals we still suffer the [U.S.] blockade and contingents were joined by large groups of Yankee aggressions. throughout the country. peasants, who arrived in long caravans of "We~ twin peoples in the struggle, in In San Nicolas, a small rural town 22 trucks and buses. miles southwest of Esteli, there was a the hermsm, and the unbreakable decision lively party with prizes and candy for the A group of farm workers from La Mia, to fight to the last man and woman in de­ local children. Nearby, a dozen peasants, mostly women, said that they had traveled fense of our right to create our own de­ members of the Evangelical church, for eight hours standing up in the back of stiny," said Risquet. "Cuba is at Nicara­ worked as volunteer laborers to build a dump trucks to get to the rally. The La Mia gua's side as more than just a brother. bridge. farm (whose name in Spanish means "It's Cuba is a friend who is sincere, loyal, and Saul Sala Games, head of the municipal Mine") used to belong to the dictator completely identified with [Nicaragua's] government, proudly showed off the Somoza. "Now it is ours," said the women, cause, which is ours." municipal building they have almost as they marched off waving FSLN flags ~e sai~ tJ:tat "in spite of the war imposed finished, and listed the health clinics, and carrying a banner that read, "We will by tmpenaltsm and the criminal U.S. eco­ schools, and drinking-water projects that continue forward in defense and produc­ nomi~ _blockade, the social project of the have been built since the revolution. tion." S~dtmsta revolution is advancing. In the San Nicolas is the center of a rural area Peasants from San Juan del Rio Coco mtdst of all these difficulties, you can see of 8,000 inhabitants. Many people there marched by, chanting, "In Nicaragua it the gains and the fruits ... which would be had collaborated with the FSLN before the will always be the 19th of July" and "Lis­ 10 times greater if they weren't blocked by insurrection, and many were now active in ten! Listen! San Juan is in the struggle." Fidel Castro Yankee ambition."

August 1, 1986 The Militant 15 -THE GREAT SOCIETY------

A radiant idea- "With mil­ Washington-educated offi- training attack dogs for the various but a Boston-area neighborhood is net income, after all expenses, lions of Americans forgoing for­ cials? - According to the Seattle branches of the military. A train­ paper headlined an article, "Im­ including malpractice insurance. eign vacations this year and travel­ Post-Intelligencer, the Mexican ing officer says they get a ba­ proved health services for Viet­ ing in the United States, the government built a wall to hide a lanced diet, good medical atten­ nam veterans." The story an­ Answer to obesity - Samuel slum from tourists attending tion, and lots of affection. "Mili­ nounced a military open house Salmasian, M.D., invented a plas­ World Cup soccer games at a tary dogs," she said, "get better at­ featuring the U.S. Navy Flight tic bubble that assertedly dulls nearby stadium. People living in tention than 90 percent of the pets Demonstration Squadron. your appetite by pressing uncom­ the slum were billed for the wall. in the United States." fortably against your gut. The doc Supply-and-demand dep't - opines: "If we ate only four times a And avoiding sociology profs A steal- Spending on the civil Doctors' income more than dou­ week, we wouldn't have any - A University of Louisiana pro­ and criminal justice system totaled bled from the 1950s to the 1970s, weight problem in the world." Harry fessor is said to be the first to study $39.7 billion in 1983. Per capita, and then stabilized at a mere aver­ Sure. And if we stopped al­ Ring boredom, including discovering we pay $37 for judicial services, age $108,400. To remedy that together, we wouldn't have prob­ how assembly line workers deal $44 for correctional services critical situation, the medical in­ lems of any kind. with the problem. According to (slammers, etc.), and $88 for dustry has organized to limit the the prof, said workers cope by police protection (?). growth of the annual crop of new Thought for the week - "It Atomic Industrial Forum has a daydreaming, whistling, and hum­ doctors. isn't both cruel and unusual be­ suggestion: Take an energy break ming. cause it's taking place every during your trip and visit a nuclear Pretty clever - We don't Down to their last Jaguar­ week." - Supreme Court Chief power plant." - A nuke industry And a lot of the people - The know if it was a variant of the old That $108,400 annual take for Justice Warren Burger on capital press release. air force is working overtime "bait and switch" advertising ploy, M.D.s, highest of any profession, punishment. -CALENDAR------

GEORGIA Women. A presentation and discussion by a Local 325 at (314) 731-0490; IFFA, 731-7922; No More Hiroshimas; Commemorate the Atlanta panel of feminists and socialists who are active Teamsters Local 600 at 388-4400. Victims of U.S. Atomic Bombing of Japan. in the struggle for women's rights and the labor Protest the Change in the U.S.-British Ex­ Sun., Aug. 3, 7 p.m. 2219 E Market St. Dona­ Let Nicaragua Live! A Celebration of the movement. Sat., Aug. 2. Social, 7 p.m.; pro­ tradition Treaty. Picket U.S. Sen. Thomas tion: $2. Ausp: Militant Labor Forum. For more Nicaraguan Revolution. Report and slide gram, 7:30p.m. 508 N Snelling Ave. Donation: Eagleton. Mon., Aug. 4, 6:30 to 8 p.m. Adam's information call (919) 272-5996. show by Kate Daher, member of Amalgamated $2. Ausp: Militant Forum. For more informa­ Mark Hotel, 12 N 4th St. Ausp: St. Louis Com­ Clothing and Textile Workers Union Local 365 tion call (612) 644-6325. mittee for a Free Ireland. For more information and Socialist Workers Party. Sat., July 26. Din­ Labor's Turning Point: Minneapolis call (314) 776-0539. WASHINGTON ner, 6 p.m.; presentation, 7:30p.m. 132 Cone Teamsters Strike of 1934. Film by John de St. NW, 2nd floor. Donation: program, $2; din­ Seattle Graaf depicts upheaval created by strike of With Babies and Banners. Film showing. ner, $4. Ausp: Militant Labor Forum. For more Local 574 of International Brotherhood of NEW YORK information call (404) 577-4065. Sun., July 27, 7:30p.m. 5517 Rainier Ave. S. Teamsters. Presentation to follow by Maggie Manhattan Donation: $2. Ausp: Young Socialist Alliance. McCraw, reporter for the Militant newspaper Festival to Celebrate the 33rd Anniversary of For more information call (206) 723-5330. LOUISIANA during the Local P-9 fight for justice against the Attack on Moncada Barracks in Cuba, July New Orleans Hormel Co. Sat., Aug. 23, 7 p.m. 508 N Snel­ 26, 1953. Sat., July 26, 9 p.m. 104 W 14 St. Fidel Castro and Religion. Speaker: Brett ling Ave. Donation: $2. Ausp: Militant Forum. Donation: $7. Ausp: Casa de las Americas. For WISCONSIN Merkey, member Oil, Chemical and Atomic For more information call (612) 644-6325. more information call (212) 675-2584. Milwaukee Workers union Loca14-447 and Socialist Work­ Celebrate 27 Years of the Cuban Revolution. ers Party. Translation to Spanish. Sat., July 26, Two classes by Mark Curtis, National Chairper­ 7:30 p.m. 3207 Dublin. Donation: $2. Ausp: MISSOURI NORTH CAROLINA son of Young Socialist Alliance. Militant Forum. For more information call St. Louis Greensboro I. "History of the Cuban Revolution." Sat., (504) 486-8048. Socialist Workers Party Campaign Kick-ofT Celebrate and Defend the Cuban Revolution. July 26, I p.m. 2. "Revolutionary Cuba MINNESOTA Rally. Speaker: Bob Miller, 1986 Missouri See video of interview with Fidel Castro. Sun., Today." Sat., July 26, 3 p.m. Barbecue and SWP candidate for U.S. Senate, member July 27, 7 p.m. 2219 E Market St. Donation: party to follow. 4707 W Lisbon Ave. Donation: St. Paul United Auto Workers Local 2250. Sat., July $2. Ausp: Militant Labor Forum. For more in­ $1 per class. Ausp: YSA. For more information Everything You Wanted to Know About the 26. Reception 5-7 p.m.; program, 7 p.m. 4907 formation call (919) 272-5996. call (414) 445-2076. Cuban Revolution- But the U.S. Govern­ Martin Luther King Dr. Donation: $2. Ausp: ment Was Afraid to Tell You. Discussion, 1986 Missouri Socialist Workers Campaign celebration, and showing of Cuban film The Committee. For more information call ( 314) Moncada Program, which documents the goals 361-0250. Aug. 4-7 nat'l antiwar actions set of the Cuban revolution. Sat., July 26. Open house, 7 p.m.; program, 7:30p.m., party to fol­ Farming in Revolutionary Nicaragua. Report Continued from front page from a participant in Nicaragua's National tinuing nuclear testing in Nevada, to apart­ low. 508 N Snelling Ave. Donation: $3. Ausp: the arms budget. heid in South Africa, to domestic issues, Militant Forum. For more information call Union of Farmers and Ranchers conference. Speaker: Kathie Fitzgerald, member of United Initial supporters of the October 25 ac­ particularly attacks on civil liberties." (612) 644-6325. tions include CISPES, Washington Office The next meeting of the national coali­ Fashions, Cosmetics, and the Exploitation of Auto Workers and Socialist Workers Party. ac­ tive in Missouri farm protest movement. Sat., on Africa, Mobilization for Survival, Nica­ tion for Peace, Jobs, and Justice is July 30 Aug. 2, 7:30p.m. 4907 Martin Luther King Dr. ragua Network, U.S. Peace Council, Dem­ at 11:00-3:00 p.m. at the Women's Inter­ New from Pathfinder Donation: $2. Ausp: Militant Labor Forum. For ocratic Socialists of America, American national League for Peace and Freedom of­ more information call (314) 361-0250. The German Revolution Committee on Africa, Young Socialist Al­ fice, 1213 Race Street, Philadelphia. To A Rally for Labor Fighting Back! Hear Hor­ liance, and the Guardian newspaper. list your organization as an endorser or for and the Debate mel workers, TWA flight attendants, and fam­ "In response to Congress's support for more information call (212) 533-0008. on Soviet Power ily farmers explain their fightbacks and their war in Nicaragua and on the seventh an­ Coalitions have begun to meet to discuss importance for all workers. Speakers: Jim plans for regional antiwar actions this fall Documents 191S-1919 niversary of Nicaragua's revolution. we all Guyette, leader of Hormel strike; . Larry need to rededicate ourselves to peace and in a number of areas: Washington, D.C. Preparing the Founding Congress McClurg, member, United Food and Commer­ (Mid-Atlantic area), meeting on July 27, cial Workers Loca1431; Jerry Parks, Farm Al­ solidarity," said a July 23 Guardian edito­ Second volume in the series rial endorsing the Actions for Peace, Jobs, 1:00--6:00 p.m. at the Washington Peace liance of Rural Missouri; Vicki Frankovich, Center, 2111 Florida Avenue NW, (202) The Communist International president, Independent Federation of Flight At­ and Justice. · in Lenin's Time. tendants; Larry Bastain, recording secretary, Judy Freiwirth from Mobilization for 234-2000; New York-New Jersey, meeting on July 31 at 6:30p.m. at 225 Lafayette $12.95 United Auto Workers Local 325; Tim Barnes, Survival reports that a mailing has gone out president, Teamsters Local 600; Lew Moye, to hundreds of national organizations and Street, New York City, (212) 673-1808; Available at Pathfinder Book­ president, St. Louis Coalition of Black Trade the response to the call has been good. Los Angeles, meeting on July 28 at 7:00 stores (see directory on this page for Unionists; Pam Ross, president, St. Louis Cen­ "Local organizers see a real need for na­ p.m. at Mount Hollywood Congregational one nearest you), or order from tral National Organization for Women; Richard tionally coordinated actions and see a real Church, 4603 Prospect Avenue, (213) 558- Pathfinder Press, 410 West St., Docket!, National Black United Front; and an 3511. anti-apartheid fighter from South Africa. Sun., need to be part of a national movement," New York, N.Y. 10014. Please add she told the Militant. She said the protests 75 cents for postage and handling. Aug. 3, I to 6 p.m. 9144 Pershall Rd. (east of Lisa Ahlberg is the Young Socialist Al­ Lindbergh, south of 270 near the airport), can be a "bridge between the issues - be­ liance's representative on the October 25 Hazelwood. For more information call UA W tween opposition to the contra vote, to con- actions steering committee. -IF YOU LIKE THIS PAPER, LOOK US UP'------

Where to find the Socialist Workers Party, GEORGIA: Atlanta: SWP, YSA. 132 Cone NEW JERSEY: Newark: SWP. YSA, 141 Dallas: SWP, YSA, 336 W. Jefferson. Zip: Young Socialist Alliance, and Pathfinder St. NW. 2nd Floor. Zip: 30303. Tel: (404) 577- Halsey. Zip: 07102. Tel: (201) 643-3341. 75208. Tel: (214) 943-5195. Houston: SWP, bookstores. 4065. NEW YORK: Capital District (Albany): YSA, 4806 Almeda. Zip: 77004. Tel: (713) ILLINOIS: Chicago: SWP. YSA, 3455 S. SWP. YSA. 114 E Quail St. Zip: 12706. Tel: 522-8054. ALABAMA: Birmingham: SWP, YSA. Michigan Ave. Zip: 60616. Tel: (312) 326- (518) 434-3247. New York: SWP, YSA, 79 UTAH: Price: SWP, YSA, 23 S. Carbon 205 18th St. S Zip: 35233. Tel: (205) 323- 5853 or 326-5453. Leonard St. Zip: 10013. Tel: (212) 219-3679 or Ave .. Suite 19, P.O. Box 758. Zip: 84501. Tel: 3079. KENTUCKY: Louisville: SWP, YSA, 809 925-1668. Socialist Books, 226-8445. (801) 637-6294. Salt Lake City: SWP, YSA, ARIZONA: Phoenix: SWP. YSA. 3750 E. Broadway. Zip: 40204. Tel: (502) 587-8418. NORTH CAROLINA: Greensboro: SWP, 767 S. State, 3rd floor. Zip: 84111. Tel: (801) West McDowell Road #3. Zip: 85009. Tel: LOUISIANA: New Orleans: SWP. YSA, YSA, 2219 E Market. Zip: 27401. Tel: (919) 355-1124. (602) 272-4026. 3207 Dublin St. Zip: 70118. Tel: (504) 486- 272-5996. VIRGINIA: Tidewater Area (Newport CALIFORNIA: Los Angeles: SWP, YSA. 8048. OHIO: Cincinnati: SWP. YSA, 4945 Pad­ News): SWP, YSA, 5412 Jefferson Ave. Zip 2546 W. Pico Blvd. Zip: 90006. Tel: (213) 380- MARYLAND: Baltimore: SWP, YSA, dock Rd. Zip: 45237. Tel: (513) 242-7161. 23605. Tel: (804) 380-0133. 9460. Oakland: SWP. YSA. 3808 E 14th St. 2913 Greenmount Ave. Zip: 21218. Tel: (301) Cleveland: SWP, YSA, 2521 Market Ave. Zip: WASHINGTON, D.C.: SWP, YSA, 3106 Zip: 94601. Tel: (415) 261-3014. San Diego: 235-0013. 44113. Tel: (216) 861-6150. Columbus: YSA, Mt. Pleasant St. NW. Zip: 20010. Tel: (202) SWP. YSA, 2803 B St. Zip: 92102. Tel: (619) MASSACHUSETTS: Boston: SWP, YSA, P.O. Box 02097. Zip: 43202. Toledo: SWP, 797-7699,797-7021. 234-4630. San Francisco: SWP, YSA, 3284 107 Brighton Ave., 2nd floor, Allston. Zip: YSA, 1701 W Bancroft St. Zip: 43606. Tel: WASHINGTON: Seattle: SWP, YSA, 23rd St. Zip: 94110. Tel: (415) 282-6255. San 02134. Tel: (617) 787-0275. (419) 536-0383. 5517 Rainier Ave. South. Zip: 98118. Tel: Jose: SWP. YSA. 46 1h Race St. Zip: 95126. MICHIGAN: Detroit: S\YP, YSA. 2135 OREGON: Portland: SWP, YSA. 2732 NE (206) 723-5330. Tel: (408) 998-4007. Woodward Ave. Zip: 48201. Tel: (313)961-0395. Union. Zip: 97212. Tel: (503) 287-7416. WEST VIRGINIA: Charleston: SWP, COLORADO: Denver: SWP. YSA, 25 MINNESOTA: Twin Cities: SWP. YSA. PENNSYLVANIA: Philadelphia: SWP, YSA. 611A Tennessee. Zip: 25302. Tel: (304) W.3rd Ave. Zip: 80223. Tel: (303) 698-2550. 508 N. Snelling Ave., St. Paul. Zip: 55!04. Tel: YSA, 2744 Germantown Ave. Zip: 19133. Tel: 345-3040. Morgantown: SWP. YSA, 221 FLORIDA: Miami: SWP, YSA, 137 NE (612) 644-6325. (215) 225-0213. Pittsburgh: SWP. YSA. 402 Pleasant St. Zip: 26505. Tel: (304) 296- 54th St. Mailing address: P.O. Box 370486. MISSOURI: Kansas City: SWP. YSA. N. Highland Ave. Zip: 15206. Tel: (412) 362- 0055 Zip: 33137. Tel: (305) 756-1020. Tallahassee: 4725 Troost. Zip: 64110. Tel: (816) 753- 6767. WISCONSIN: Milwaukee: SWP, YSA, YSA. P.O. Box 20715. Zip: 32316. Tel: (904) 0404. St. Louis: SWP. YSA. 4907 Martin Luther TEXAS: Austin: YSA. c/o Mike Rose, 7409 4707 W Lisbon Ave. Zip: 53208. Tel: (414) 222-4434. King Dr. Zip: 63113. Tel: (314) 361-0250. Berkman Dr. Zip: 78752. Tel. (512) 452-3923. 445-2076.

16 The Militant August 1, 1986 S. Africa: rural revolt sweeps Bantustans

Continued from Page 6 port for the UDF and ANC remains strong The political turbulence in Lebowa and organize any recognized trade unions. But KaNyamazane township to bury three in the urban townships around Durban. other Bantustans in the Transvaal has when the half-million-member Congress of youths killed by the police. ANC flags Nor have other parts of K waZulu been spilled over into nearby farming regions South African Trade Unions (COSA TU) were unfurled. immune from political ferment. where white-owned farms dominate. In was launched late last year, one of the tasks This funeral reflected one of the differ­ Steelpoort, across the river from Lebowa's it set for itself was to begin organizing In Sibongile, in the heart of KwaZulu, Sekhukhuneland, white capitalist farmers Black farm workers. ences between KaN gwane and the other residents have been refusing to pay rent have been hit by a trade boycott and by fre­ In an interview in the May 18 Johannes­ Bantustans. Sharing the platform with sev­ since April 1985. According to the Johan­ quent work stoppages by agricultural burg Sunday Star, COSATU General Sec­ eral prominent UDF leaders was nesburg City Press, "The unrest in Sibon­ KaNgwane's chief minister, Enos Mabuza, laborers recruited from Lebowa. During a retary Jay Naidoo vowed that the union gile shocked many observers, who thought national general strike on May Day, virtu­ federation would "fight tooth and nail" to the only Bantustan leader thus far to openly Natal would not be affected by unrest be­ ally all African farm workers in Steelpoort eliminate the widespread use of child labor align himself with the anti-apartheid strug­ cause of the 'strong leadership' of In­ stayed away from work. and to expose the "feudal conditions and gle. katha' s Chief Gatsha B uthelezi." That same month, Mabuza, who also Pietie du Plessis, a cabinet minister slave labour" on white-owned farms. The heads the 100,000-member Inyandza Farm workers strike, organize whose parliamentary constituency includes newspaper reported that already "thousands of workers in South Africa's movement, traveled to Lusaka, Zambia, to The rural revolt has not been confined to Steelpoort, accused ANC and UDF last bastion of conservatism - the farm­ meet with Oliver Tambo and other exiled the Bantustans alone. Blacks are also be­ "agitators" of seeking to destabilize the lands - have been quietly recruited into leaders of the ANC. In a joint com­ ginning to conduct political and social pro­ Bantustans and of fomenting unrest among trade unions outside the official collective munique with the ANC, Mabuza pledged tests in other areas of the countryside. agricultural laborers. ANC pamphlets were to campaign for the release of imprisoned said to have been distributed in the area de­ bargaining framework." Thousands of landless African squatters ANC leader Nelson Mandela and to sup­ manding a R5 minimum daily wage for The extension of the anti-apartheid have in recent years poured into the Upper port the struggle for "majority rule in a farm workers (1 rand = US$0.40). The mobilizations to the countryside, on a scale united, democratic nonracial South Af­ Kubusie area in the narrow strip of white­ not seen since the 1950s, is adding a pow­ owned land between the Transkei and Cis­ average wage for agricultural laborers in rica." Steelpoort is now R2 a day. erful new social force to the revolutionary Since then, Mabuza has called for the kei. They are living there illegally. Hun­ struggle to bring down the apartheid state. withdrawal of South African troops from dreds have vented their anger at the wealth Because of the isolated and repressive As the oppressed of the towns and coun­ KaNgwane and has criticized the repres­ of the white capitalist farmers in the area conditions in the countryside, farm work­ tryside are drawn closer together, the apart­ sive policies of the South African police. by attacking white farming businesses and ers are among the few sectors of the Black heid authorities will face an even greater working class that have not yet been able to In an interview in the Johannesburg Star farmhouses. challenge to their continued rule. in early May, Mabuza indicated support for international economic sanctions against Pretoria. He also declared that among the people of KaNgwane "there is latent as FBI frantes proindependence Puerto Ricans well as overt support for the ANC. ... There is no doubt in my mind that the ANC BY TOM O'BRIEN were initially held without bail. Following 1985.) has majority black support today." CHICAGO- The movement for Puerto a hearing on July 7, however, they were re­ The immediate political response of the Mabuza's stance has brought him into Rican independence came under attack leased on bail. Oscar Lopez has been trans­ accused activists and their supporters to the conflict with a former ally, Chief Gatsha here July 3 when the FBI arrested three ferred from Ft. Leavenworth federal prison attack on the independence movement will Buthelezi, who heads the KwaZulu Bantu­ · Puerto Rican activists, charging them with to the infamous maximum-security U.S. be threefold, Delgado said. First, they will stan in Natal Province. conspiracy to assist in a prison escape and prison at Marion, Illinois. participate in preparations for hearings on Although Buthelezi seeks to portray to transport explosives across state lines. In a telephone interview July 12, Del­ Puerto Rico sponsored by the UN Commis­ himself as an opponent of the apartheid gado told the Militant that he sees these The accused are Jaime Delgado, a coun­ sion on Decolonization. These hearings are system, he has emerged as one of Pre­ charges as part of a "broader and bigger" selor at Northeastern Illinois University; to take place August 11-13. toria's most valuable African col­ attack on the movement for Puerto Rican Dora Garcia Lopez, a social worker at Second, they will continue working in laborators. His speeches are filled with at­ independence. No matter how incredible Cathedral Shelter; and Viola Salgado, a the campaign for political asylum for Wil­ tacks against the UDF and ANC, as well as the charges, he said, the government will paralegal at West Town Community Law liam Morales in Mexico. The U.S. govern­ condemnations of those who call for inter­ go ahead with further indictments and pos­ Office. They are accused of plotting to free ment has been trying for the last three years national economic sanctions. Armed thugs sibly convene a grand jury. Oscar Lopez, who has been serving a 55- to extradite Morales, an independence ac­ from Buthelezi's Inkatha movement have year sentence for "seditious conspiracy" Grand juries have been used to victimize tivist who is now imprisoned in Mexico. beaten and killed scores of UDF support­ since 1981. The FBI claimed that he was Puerto Rican activists and others; anyone Third, they will build and participate in ers, particularly in the African townships the leader of the Armed Forces of National can be subpoenaed to testify and then jailed the international conference and mobiliza­ around Durban, some of which are within Liberation (F ALN). for contempt of court if the prosecutor tion that will take place in Puerto Rico Au­ or near KwaZulu. claims he or she is not cooperating. The jail gust 27-30 to protest the arrest of the 13 Following Mabuza's talks with the A 23-page FBI affidavit sought to sen­ sentence runs for the life of the grand jury Hartford defendants. ANC, Buthelezi launched a stinging attack sationalize the charges, describing a plot and is imposed without trial. on him. He hit Mabuza's refusal to con­ The conference, called by former politi­ involving hand grenades, plastic explo­ This government attack, Delgado said, cal prisoner Rafael Cancel Miranda, will demn "the terror tactics now being employ­ sives, automatic rifles, and a helicopter. ed by the ANC," as Buthelezi terms the is connected to the jailings of 13 Puerto include delegates from the Dominican Re­ The escape attempt that was allegedly plot­ Rican activists charged with an armored­ public, Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and ANC's armed struggle. ted never occurred; it was supposedly Buthelezi's strong-arm methods, com­ car robbery in Hartford, Connecticut. seven other countries. It will culminate in a planned for August of last year. Another (These 13 were arrested on Aug. 30, mass demonstration on August 30. bined with anti-apartheid demagogy, have six people, all from California, were also succeeded so far in heading off the supposedly involved in the plot. They have emergence of the same kind of massive op­ not yet been arrested. position within K waZulu that most other Bantustan leaders now confront. But sup- Delgado, Garcia Lopez, and Salgado U.S. officials won't act to stop kidnappers ofimn1igrants Invaluable for a~ti-apartheid activists! BY BARRY FATLAND The armed gang, a unit of the ultrarightist In Nelson l'f.andela: The Struggle Is AND DAVID ZILLY Civilian Materiel Assistance (CMA), l'f.y Life the imprisoned leader of the PHOENIX, Ariz.- Harold Ezell, west­ which participates in the U.S. wars against struggle against apartheid in South Af­ ern regional director of the Immigration Nicaragua and El Salvador, earlier set up rica explains the goals of the African Na­ and Naturalization Service, once said of infrared night vision devices inside Mexico C). tional Congress (AN 280 pages, $6. 95. the many people who attempt to immigrate to spot refugees and other immigrants as Habla Nelson l'f.andela. Contains in into this country without documents, "If they approached the border from Mexico. Spanish the Freedom Charter and Nel­ you catch 'em, you should skin 'em and eat But many people in this region are out­ son .M.andela's statements before the 'em." raged. Forty people picketed the Federal court in a 1962 trial and in the famous Building in Phoenix carrying signs that Given this brutal anti-immigrant at­ Rivonia Trial of 1963-64. 100 pages. $3. 95. read, "The border patrol is criminal" and titude, it was no surprise when he indicated "Uncle Sam: what about terrorism in Apartheid's Great Land Theft: The that the armed vigilantes who trapped, kid­ Struggle for the Right to Farm in Arizona." Chants included, "Vigilantes got napped, and mistreated 16 Mexican and to go" and "Raza sf, migra no." South Africa by Ernest Harsch. Tells Central American immigrants and refugees the story of the fight over land. which Oscar Moran, president of the League of July 5 would not be prosecuted. United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), has been at the center of the struggle which was having its national convention between South Africa's white rulers U.S. Attorney Daniel Knauss cynically and its subjugated Black majority. 56 added that there were no witnesses to the in Las Vegas when the attack took place, pages. $1.25. crime since the victims, who had been condemned the vigilante action and said seized by the U.S. Border Patrol after the LULAC was considering legal action to The dynamics of revolution in South kidnapping, had been deported. prevent a repetition. Africa is the featured subject of the Fall Since then, several of the victims who These reporters visited the church of 1985 issue of New International, a escaped back into Mexico or were deported Rev. Dagoberto Quinones, one of the re­ magazine of Marxist politics and have described their experiences in inter­ cently convicted sanctuary activists. theory. Articles and speeches by Jack vtews. Quinones, though he could speak only Barnes. a leader of the Socialist Work­ Some were chased by the vigilantes, briefly, expressed his grave concern over ers Party; Oliver Tambo. president of who were dressed in camouflage uniforms the operations of the CMA goons, but re­ the ANC. Reprints South Africa's Free­ and carried AK-47 and M-16 rifles, into mains determined to continue aiding refu­ dom Charter. 198 pages. $5.00. Mexico. Thinking they were safe when gees. All available at Pathfinder bookstores they got over the fence, the victims quickly One of the people we spoke to at the (see directory on p. 16). Or. for mail realized that the gunmen had not stopped at church was an 18-year-old Guatemalan orders write New International. 14 the border fence. The vigilantes chased who had been picked up in the United Charles Lane. New York. N.Y. 10014 them deeper into Mexico for 15 minutes. States by a vigilante-type group in an inci­ for the magazine. For books and pam­ One of the fleeing people heard one vig­ dent that has not yet been reported in the phlets: Pathfinder Press. 410 West St .. ilante ask another if they should kill the es­ media. After being held in the basement of New York. N.Y. 10014. For all orders. capees. a house for several hours, he was driven please include 75 cents for handling. This invasion was the second violation across the border into a remote desert re­ of Mexican sovereignty by the vigilantes. gion and dumped.

August 1, 1986 The Militant 17 -EDITORIALS------July 26 marks 33rd anniversary of Moncada attack No extradition of Irish patriots On July 26, 1953, a small group of Cuban revolu­ tionaries led by Fidel Castro launched an attack on The U.S. Senate vote in favor of a revised extradition over Irish freedom fighters to Thatcher would be an af­ the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba. treaty with Britain is a blow to the right of political front to her government, which "stood shoulder to shoul­ Though defeated, that attack marked the opening of asylum and to all democratic rights in this country. der with us during operations against Qaddafi's ter­ the Cuban revolution. The 87-10 vote July 17 dealt a blow to democratic rorism." Led by the July 26 Movement, Cuba's workers and peasants came to power in January 1959. They began rights in British-occupied Northern Ireland as well. It He denounced efforts by some senators to exempt will make it easier for the British government's assassins, to shape the economic, social, and political needs of those accused of killing British soldiers and cops in mil­ the country to meet the needs of the majority instead secret police, informers, and kangaroo courts to strike at itary clashes from the treaty. Reagan insisted that anyone Irish freedom fighters. of the tiny handful of millionaires who had dominated accused of armed resistance to British rule must be extra­ the island previously in partnership with U.S. corpo­ The new treaty virtually eliminates the political-of­ dited as a terrorist. rations and the U.S. government. fense exemption that allowed the courts to refuse to ex­ To sweeten the package, the Reagan administration Excerpted below is a speech delivered by Castro in tradite those charged with political actions carried out linked the treaty to a proposal to provide $250 million in Santiago in 1967 on the 14th anniversary of the Moo- during civil wars or popular insurrections. U.S. economic aid for Northern Ireland. Both have a According to the New York weekly Irish People, this single purpose - to help the British rulers put down re­ provision led "judges like John Sprizzo to conclude that sistance to their oppression of the Irish population. given the nature of the Irish conflict, when Joseph Doh­ The new treaty is part of the campaign by Washington OUR erty fought against British crown forces in his native Bel­ and its imperialist allies to outlaw struggle against their fast, he did so as a soldier in a civil insurrection. Theca­ domination as terrorism. REVOLUTIONARY sualties in that battle were the tragic casualties of war." A The pact won strong backing from both Democrats and similar ruling also blocked the extradition of Liam Republicans. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) gave a typical HERITAGE Quinn. justification for gutting the political exemption from ex­ The new treaty provides for virtual automatic extradi­ tradition. "Violence should never be deemed part of the political process," intoned Lugar. "You can bring about cada assault. The speech is taken from the book Fidel tion of anyone charged with murder, kidnapping, or other Castro, M14ior Speeches published by Stage I press. violent acts- regardless of the circumstances. Among change through the ballot box. The bomb and the bullet have no place." other things, this gives free rein to the use of informers by The attack on Moncada can be said to have been the British occupation authorities to trump up charges against But the British conquest of Ireland was not accom­ first attack on one of the many fortresses to be taken. opponents of the occupation who seek refuge in this plished through the ballot box, nor do the British rulers There were many Moncadas to be stormed. Among them country. maintain their occupation by the ballot box. The Palestin­ were the Moncada of illiteracy, which our people lost no ians were not driven out of their homes by the Israeli oc­ time in attacking -they stormed and took it-the Mon­ The governments of West Germany, Belgium, France, cupiers through the ballot box, but with bombs and bul­ Italy, Spain, and Israel are now negotiating similar cada of ignorance, the Moncada of inexperience, the lets. It was bombs and bullets and other violent means, Moncada of underdevelopment, the Moncada of a shor­ treaties. The result would be a massive gutting of the not ballots, that were used to rob South African Blacks of right of political asylum. tage of technicians, the Moncada of a shortage of re­ their human rights. sources in all fields. One of the antidemocratic features of the new treaty is Yet the U.S. rulers place the terrorist label on the Irish And our people have not hesitated to storm those for­ that it is retroactive. It applies to cases like those of Doh­ Republican Army, the Palestine Liberation Organization, tresses. But another and more difficult Moncada was left erty and Quinn where the courts have already ruled and the African National Congress - but never on the to be taken- that was the Moncada of old ideas. And against extradition under the former treaty. It is expected British, Israeli, and South African governments. that Moncada of old ideas, of old, selfish feelings, of old that the British government will seek the rapid extradition As an editorial in the Irish People stated in reference to ways of thinking and looking at things and solving prob­ of these opponents of colonial rule in Northern Ireland. the new treaty, "All resistance has been criminalized as lems has still not been completely taken. Following the terror bombing of Libya last April, the terrorism." There is a vanguard that has entered victoriously, that Reagan administration pressed harder for Senate adop­ The implementation of this imperialist treaty against is taking the first outpost and is advancing unswervingly tion of the treaty. British Prime Minister Margaret human rights must be opposed. The right of asylum for along that road. And that vanguard is made up, without Thatcher allowed U.S. air bases in Britain to be used for Irish freedom fighters and other victims of oppression doubt, of our youth, our young workers, our students, the attack, which took the lives of dozens of Libyan civil­ and persecution must be defended. those who have joined the ranks of our growing youthful ians, including many children. The threatened extradition of Joseph Doherty and "agricultural columns," those who are taking part in pro­ Reagan said that refusal to adopt this treaty and tum Liam Quinn must be vigorously protested. ductive tasks for part of the year, in larger and larger groups, through the School Goes to the C.ountryside pro­ gram, the young people in our workers' technological in­ stitutes, who, like many men in our glorious Rebel Army, pitched into the sugar harvest for 90 days. That ever-growing legion is without doubt in the van­ Protest 'English only' campaign guard of the struggle against old ideas. There is no doubt - and we can proclaim it on this 26th of July- that our young people are worthy followers of the combatants of The labor movement should take the lead in opposing United States from Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Moncada, the combatants of the Sierra Maestra and th~ the reactionary campaign under way in many U.S. states and Africa in recent years. They are forced here to escape combatants of Playa Giron. They are proving this to have English declared the official language. grinding poverty and exploitation and to find jobs. Many through their attitude toward life, their attitude toward Supporters of an organization called U.S. English are are political refugees fleeing U.S.-backed regimes. work, their attitude toward the Revolution. heading the drive aimed at restricting the rights of The responsibility for the misery endured by millions And it is incumbent upon us to add that just behind that Latinos, Asians, and others who do not speak English as of workers and peasants around the world each day lies at vanguard, also advancing on that fortress, is the female their first language. the doorstep of the tiny handful of billionaires who own sector of our population, the Cuban women, who in ever­ A million signatures were collected in California re­ the U.S. corporations. Those corporations plunder the increasing numbers are joining in the creative tasks of the cently to put a measure on the ballot requiring state legis­ globe for superprofits and are backed up by the u.s:mil­ Revolution. lators to "take all steps necessary to insure that the role of itary arsenal. Some people may ask, "What? You're talking about English as the common language of the State of Califor­ Once in this country immigrants are preyed upon by age; aren't you talking about classes?" There'll be those nia is preserved and enhanced." the same employers who view them as a ready source of very learned in Marxism who will ask why it is that we cheap labor. This in tum helps the bosses drive down the talk about age. We sincerely believe that to talk about age Backers of these measures cannot conceal the racist, standard of living and expectations of the entire working is very Marxist; to talk about age as well as class. anti-immigrant sentiment that is propelling the drive. class. One must not forget that many generations - includ­ "We have Hispanic politicians who have an unstated or Measures such as "English only" are carefully de­ ing the whole generation that was living in our country at hidden agenda to tum California into a bilingual, bicul­ signed by the employers and their mouthpieces to help the time of the triumph of the Revolution - were com­ tural state," said Stanley Diamond, chairperson of the them deepen divisions in the working class. pletely formed under the influence of capitalist ideas, California ballot drive. The bosses want workers born in the United States to methods, and attitudes. And even within our working­ "Communities are changing very, very quickly, and 1 blame their problems on people who come here from class sectors many of these vices existed, many of these think that what has happened is that there is a great deal abroad looking for work. concepts were deep-rooted. of frustration about it," Gerda Bickales, executive direc­ The basic right to function in your first language in Of course what Marx said was that in the historic proc­ tor of U.S. English, stated. order to get a job, participate in politics, or to be eligible ess the workers and the exploited are pitted against their "America can accept additional immigrants, but we for social service benefits should be defended by all exploiters, that the working class is the class whose so­ must be sure that they become American," says Colorado working people. cial function makes it standard-bearer and enables it to Gov. Richard Lamm. "We can teach English through What's really needed in this country is not a chauvinist understand socialism and put it into practice. This is ab­ bilingual education," he added, "but we should take great "English only" drive but a nationwide push to expand a solutely true, but it is also absolutely true that the exploit­ care not to become a bilingual society." totally inadequate program of bilingual and bicultural ers and ruling class exert influence over the minds of all Forces that have joined together to oppose the "English educktion. People must not be stripped of their language the people. only" drive in California include the American Civil and heritage in order to live and function in this country. And the Revolution has eradicated a great number of Liberties Union, the Mexican-American Legal Defense It is in the interest of the organized labor movement to these ideas from the minds of all the people, but it is spe­ and Educational Fund, and several Latino and Asian or­ take the lead in overcoming the divisions the bosses seek cifically in the virgin minds of the new generation grow­ ganizations. to sow among working people. It is by joining with civil ing up with the Revolution where we find less of the Opponents of "English only" correctly point out that rights and civil liberties organizations and others whoop­ thinking of the past, where we most clearly perceive rev­ the passage of such measures will be used to deepen the pose measures such as "English only" that the labor olutionary ideas. drive to gut bilingual education programs, bilingual elec­ movement can attract into its ranks millions of working There are many who wondered what would become of tion ballots, and social services offered in languages people new to the United States. In doing so it will help our young people. Many were worried as to whether other than English. strengthen the overall fight against the employers' offen­ these young people, who never suffered the horrors of the Millions of working people have flocked into the sive. past, who never knew the sacrifices of the past, would be capable of understanding the Revolution, of being revo­ lutionary, of working and sacrificing. And through our Cuban experience we can say with deep satisfaction that we are seeing how an even more revolutionary youth is growing and developing here.

18 The Militant August 1, 1986 Documentaries on S. African anti-apartheid fighters

BY PAT HUNT Recently PBS-TV in New York showed three related documentaries on the South African anti-apartheid move­ ment. If they're shown in your area, make sure you see them. The feature film is entitled Winnie and Nelson Man­ de/a. It's mainly a fascinating presentation by Winnie Mandela, a central leader of the South African freedom struggle, who is married to imprisoned liberation fighter Nelson Mandela. In her discussion, Winnie Mandela covers much of the ground she goes over in her wonderful book Part of My TELEVISION REVIEW

Soul Went With Him. But that doesn't make it any less fascinating. Winnie first met Nelson Mandela when he asked her to help raise funds for the defense in the notorious Treason Trial, which ran through the last half of the 1950s. A total of 156 people were charged with trying to overthrow the Demonstration against passes for women, Johannesburg City Hall, 1957. Anti-apartheid leader Winnie Mandela government and being inspired by "international com­ describes her participation in movement against passes in documentary Winnie and Nelson Mandela. munism." Eventually they were acquitted. At the same time that she became active in the fight as an effective tool for building the ANC there for the "They have organized themselves into the South Afri­ against apartheid, Winnie got involved in the fight for first time. can Domestic Workers Association with the hope that if women's rights. It was in the struggle that she met and Because he has been jailed or underground most of his they can come together and speak with one voice, they married Nelson. political life, there isn't too much film footage of Nelson could overcome their grievances." Until the 1950s only Black men were required to carry Mandela. But this documentary includes a rare piece of In the film we hear some of these women speak the hated apartheid passes. Then the government moved footage in which he eloquently explains why the South eloquently. to make women carry them too. Winnie jumped into the African regime has closed the door on any possible In South Africa Under Siege the leadership role of the big fight that broke out against this. peaceful road to abolishing apartheid. ANC is the topic. It goes back to 1912 when the ANC, She and 21 other women went to jail for refusing to The second film, Maids and Madams, is a very effec­ South Africa's oldest anti-apartheid organization, was carry passes. In taking their stand, Winnie felt, they were tive presentation about the situation of the many Black founded. striking a double blow. The struggle of African women, South African women who are compelled to work long It began as a nonviolent civil rights organization, in she says, is twofold. They fight against the oppression of and hard, for almost nothing, as housemaids. These some ways like the NAACP. the apartheid regime, and, as prisoners of their own cul­ women are forced to leave their own children unattended In a historic meeting in 1955, the ANC and three other ture, they battle all the way against the traditional belief while they take care of the children of white women. anti-apartheid organizations adopted the Freedom Char­ that women's place is in the home. The film is introduced by the noted white South Afri­ ter, which stands today as the ANC's program for the lib­ Winnie first emerged as a leader of the Women's can writer Nadine Gordimer. Her introduction offers an eration of South Africa. League, an arm of the African National Congress (ANC). excellent summary, and it's worth quoting: Key moments in South African history like the Sharpe­ The League worked on the issues of high rents, bus fares, "Even if white women were to begin cleaning their ville massacre of 1960 and the Soweto uprising of 1976 and other bread-and-butter issues. own homes and taking care of their own children, they are shown as events that propelled the ANC further into In the days since, she's been thrown in jail so many would still not be absolved of their responsibilities for the the leadership of the struggle. Its ranks grew, and it de­ times she's lost count. oppression of Black women. veloped a younger, revitalized leadership. One of the most compelling parts of her narrative is a "If they really are to be sisters, white women must They come as young as 14, and ready to fight, says description of the 16 months she was once held in solitary struggle wi.th Black women to bring about the breaking Ruth Mophati of the ANC executive committee. She confinement. up of apartheid. cites one youth who told her, "I'm not too young to die." She says the South African police's attempt to break "The hardships of Black women can be seen by the The ANC is a powerful unifying force, says Thabo her once and for all hardened her into the soldier she is types of jobs available to them. One third of all Black Mbeki. While the regime works to divide the races and today. women work as domestic servants. It's the largest source pit them against one another, the ANC works to unite all Testimony to her stature as a political leader, as well as of employment for women besides agriculture. races around the· goal of the Freedom Charter- a nonra­ soldier, is the account of what she did when the govern­ "Sixty percent of all white families have at least one cial, democratic South Africa. ment banished her to the isolated, bitterly impoverished domestic servant. The Black domestic worker has little or These are three powerful films. Seeing the commit­ town of Brandfort. no rights. They get no unemployment benefits, no medi­ ment of these fighters and the strength they demonstrate She immediately set to work organizing desperately cal benefits, and can be instantly dismissed, sometimes is a wonderful assurance that apartheid hasn't got much needed food and medical care projects, which also served without getting paid. time left. -LETTERS------Philippines were better funded and more mount a write-in campaign for sub. The Militant is a necessary stitutional right to privacy" and I recently returned from the media conscious. The middle class her. tool in helping to raise socialist has broad implications. Philippines and would like to re­ was making common cause with I think it would be far more ef­ consciousness. However, I believe this law will spond to a letter by Stansfield the labor and student movements. fective to run a candidate who A prisoner be used specifically against gays Smith criticizing a Militant article The murder investigation further meets the age requirement. A can­ and the ruling is a specific attack on that country. exposed the dictatorship's incom­ didate who is on the ballot gets far Ghana on gays. It will have the overall ef­ First, it is not Marxist petence and desperation. Even the more coverage and exposure than A few weeks ago, news reports fect, just as the AIDS hysteria has, "idealism" to note that the 1983 cronies were trying to forge links a write-in candidate. The views of in several big-business newspa­ of driving gays and lesbians back [Benigno] Aquino assassination with the opposition. To ignore this the SWP on the critical issues of pers cited ousted Philippine dic­ into the closet. brought the middle class into the process is to misunderstand the Nicaragua and South Africa will tator Ferdinand Marcos claiming These laws and propaganda, of "parliament of the streets." A unfolding Philippines revolution. thus be better heard. that three African governments - course, are used by the ruling similar event occurred with the On a lighter note, Smith won­ Diverting the focus of the cam­ those of Ghana, the Ivory Coast, capitalist class not only to promote murder of Pedro Joaquin Cham­ ders if Gen. Ramos and President paign to the age requirement issue and Gabon- had offered to give prejudice in society, but to intro­ orro in Nicaragua in 1978. Cory Aquino really gritted their is unwise and not of paramount him asylum if he would help them duce an element of fear of deviat­ Smith also objects to the vague teeth during the singing of the importance. Of course I do not build their economies. ing from the "norm." Attacks on term "middle class." Although this communist anthem "The Interna­ imply any personal criticism of Harry Ring, in his "Great Soci­ gays and lesbians are aimed at up­ term is vague, it is more under­ tional" at May Day. I, alas, Delgadillo who is, I am sure, an ety" column, referred to this in the holding the institution of the fam­ standable to many readers than the couldn't see their faces but the otherwise excellent candidate. July 25 Militant. ily - homosexuals violate this term "petty bourgeoisie." daily Malaya said Ramos re­ Concerned reader Whatever Marcos may or may "normal way of life" by not par­ The Philippines is much weal­ mained silent, his eyes fixed on New York, New York not have said, the Ghanaian gov­ ticipating in the reproduction of thier than the countries of Central the sea of red flags and banners. ernment, which has often taken the species. America to which it is compared; Aquino sat quietly. There was a Major difference anti-imperialist stands on interna­ In the sense that an injury to one there are many businessmen, mer­ full-scaie war in the northern prov­ tional questions, issued a prompt is an injury to all, our class, the inces with gunships and bombers. The real major difference I have working class, and its allies have chants, landowners, and others with the Militant line is the view­ denial. Its United Nations mission who were caught between the mil­ The NPA (New Peoples Army)' declared "that the Republic of been injured greatly by this ruling. has 20,000 regular troops,operat­ ing of labor or the U.S. labor This is indeed a setback to the itant opposition of the National movement as central to social Ghana has neither been requested ing in most of the 73 provinces. nor will she consider granting po­ progress that has been made in the Democratic Front and the "crony change. The essence of labor and capitalism" of Marcos. [Benigno] Ramos and Aquino probably were litical asylum to deposed President past period in combating discrimi­ gritting their teeth. Keep up the the ownership of the means of pro­ nation. But again, I think the focus Aquino was especially appealing duction is of great importance, but Marcos of the Philippines." It de­ to these sectors. As the nationalist excellent coverage. scribed the claim as "false, ab­ of this ruling is to attack gays and Eric Huffman for now it has moved into a secon­ lesbians primarily. writer Leticia Constantino notes, dary contradiction. surd, and a ridiculous fabrica­ Aquino was "orthodox politically Chicago, Illinois tion." Sonja Franeta The primary contradiction is the New York, New York and a bonafide member of the po­ neocolonial strategy, even inside Ernest Harsch litical elite." He had been an of­ New York campaign of the U.S. borders. The National New York, New York ficeholder since his early 20s, a The July 11th issue of the Mili­ Rainbow Coalition (NRC) is an The letters column is an open political prisoner and exile, and tant states that the Socialist Work­ example of this. It is like offering Antigay ruling forum for all viewpoints on sub­ had married into one of the largest ers Party candidate for governor of up the Revolutionary Democratic I was very glad to see the edito­ jects of general interest to our !andholding families in the coun­ New York State, Theresa Del­ Front of El Salvador without the rial on the Supreme Court antigay readers. Please keep your letters try. gadillo, will be barred from the Farabundo Marti National Libera­ ruling on the front page of the Mil­ brief. Where necessary they will In fact there was a change in the ballot since she is under 30 years tiDn Front. The NRC is simply the itant dated July 11. I also think the be abridged. Please indicate if opposition movement when this old, the age required by New York left wing or will act as the left editorial is correct in saying that you prefer that your initials hope of the middle class was mur­ State law. Also it states that the wing of lJ..S. imperialism. upholding the Georgia anti sodomy be used rather than your full dered. The demonstrations grew, Socialist Workers Party will Thanks again for my prisoner law is "a blow to everyone's con- name.

August 1, 1986 The Militant 19 THE MILITANT 'Solidarity is not a crime' Hundreds at Minnesota rally protest frame-up of meatpackers

BY MAREA HIMELGRIN "It is a fight that people will look back ST. PAUL, Minn. -On July 13 more upon and hopefully say that this was the than 300 people gathered at the United turning point for the labor movement to be­ Auto Workers Local 879 hall here at a rally come a movement again," Guyette stated. to defend labor rights and free speech in Other speakers at the rally included Dick Austin, Minnesota. Blin, editor of the Duluth Labor World; As they entered the hall, rally partici­ Pete Kelly, president of United Auto pants signed a 20-foot-Iong petition that Workers Local 160 in Warren, Michigan; began, "Drop the charges! Solidarity is not Tony Mazzocchi, former health and safety a crime!" director of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic The petition will be presented to officials Workers Union; and Twin Cities Support ofMowerCounty, where Jim Guyette, sus­ Committee members Cynthia Burke and pended president of Local P-9; Ray Ro­ Jake Cooper. gers, former consultant to P-9; 16 other The audience recognized the presence of members of P-9; and unionists from around Guillermo De Paz, a representative of the the country who responded to P-9's call for Revolutionary Democratic Front-Fara­ solidarity face "felony riot" charges. They bundo Marti National Liberation Front of all face jail sentences. El Salvador, with applause. The defendants were arrested after Ray Rogers concluded the rally with an peaceful demonstrations at the Hormel update on the situation in Austin and plans plant in Austin were attacked and tear­ for the future. gassed by police on April 11. He outlined the campaign to go door-to­ The St. Paul rally kicked off a national door in Minnesota raising money and emergency fund drive for the legal defense spreading the word on the new union-the of the accused unionists. North American Meatpackers Union - Endorsements for the appeal are being Rally in St. Paul protests attack on free speech. Prosecutors charge union backers with being organized at the Austin Hormel collected from national and local union and organizing march and rally, holding news conferences, and other so-called crimes. plant. civil liberties leaders. Along with many members of P-9 and Endorsers already include: former Min­ their families, a wide range of other union­ news releases to various news media 1960s. ists and supporters came to the rally from nesota Judge Miles Lord; former U.S. Sen. throughout the country and the defendant Eugene McCarthy; entertainer Pete Seeger; The felony arrests are not an isolated Minnesota and nearby states. has made speeches throughout the country abuse of constitutional rights in Austin. About a dozen people from Madison, retired UA W official Victor Reuther; actor urging people to come to Austin to demon­ David Soul; and former Watergate Pro­ Peter Rachleff, chairperson of the Twin Wisconsin, brought with them a resolution strate against the Hormel company on the Cities Hormel Strikers Support Group, recently passed by the executive board of secutor Richard Ben-Veniste. days above stated. At the rally attorney Kenneth Tilsen began the rally with a long list of civil the Dane County Central Labor Council "That it was reasonably foreseeable drew attention to the fact that Jim Guyette rights violations that have occurred in Au­ endorsing the Austin Emergency appeal. from past demonstrations by P-9 at the stin. There were United Food and Commer­ is charged with asking for solidarity. Hormel plant that law violations would The actual charge against Guyette reads, cial Workers members at the rally from occur and that possibly injuries to partici­ Jim Guyette told the rally, with cheers Fremont, Nebraska. "That Local P-9 and defendant have or­ pants, Hormel employees, and law en­ from the audience, "There are many people ganized and promoted a 'Shut-down' Hor­ Organizers of the Austin Emergency forcement personnel would result." who are saying 'enough is enough, but it's Fund expect the fund to grow rapidly and mel national march and rally urging per­ time that the labor movement stood up for Tilsen entered a motion with the court on plan to expand their activities to defend the sons from throughout the country to come what's right.' And certainly one can never July 7 asking that all the felony charges be members and families of P-9 facing hun­ to Austin on April 9, 10, 11, 12, for the determine who's right until one determines dismissed. It will probably be a month be­ dreds of charges. purpose of demonstrating at the Hormel fore action is taken on the motion. what's right. company. All funds will be used solely for legal Tilsen told the press before the rally that "The fight in Austin is a fight that needs defense purposes. "The defendant has mailed posters to he had not seen charges filed with such to be fought, a fight that needs to be won. Endorsements and contributions can be people throughout the country. The defen­ complete disregard for the constitution And it is a fight that is going to be won be­ mailed to Austin Emergency Appeal, P.O. dant has held press conferences and made since the civil rights movement in the cause a lot of people are involved in it. Box 65673, St. Paul, Minn. 55165. U.S. operation in Bolivia: a phony war on drugs

BY HARRY RING In this situation, coca, from which site example. to their national sovereignty. When the government announced it was cocaine is extracted, has become Bolivia's In revolutionary Cuba, where imperialist It is also hypocritical. A few weeks ago sending 160 Gls to Bolivia to deal with principal cash crop, with an estimated domination was ended more than 25 years President Reagan met in the White House drug traffickers, it emphasized it was act­ 90,000 acres devoted to growing it. ago and where capitalist profit-making and with leaders of the reactionary insurgents ing at the request of the Bolivian govern­ Bolivia's income from the export of capitalist corruption are increasingly a part in Afghanistan and promised them more ment. legal commodities is $500 million a year. of the past, there is no significant drug guns and money. But now the Bolivian government has Meanwhile, according to President Paz Es­ problem. Genuinely committed to promot­ A major source of financing for these bluntly declared it did not ask for troops. tenssoro, cocaine brings in $600 million a ing the health and welfare of the Cuban outfits is the international heroin trade. The "We would have liked assistance of a year. people, the government there has made it State Department told Congress that the different nature, entirely run by the Boli­ Last winter, under U.S. pressure to curb clear that drug-trafficking is off-limits and, poppy fields of the rightist Afghan land­ vians," said Jacobo Liebermann, principal cocaine exports, the Bolivian government with no great difficulty, has kept it that lords are "the world's leading source of il­ adviser to Bolivian President Victor Paz offered farmers $350 for every hectare way. licit heroin exports to the United States and Estenssoro. "But instead we got the inva­ (about 2.5 acres) of coca they took out of The steadily expanding market for ad­ Europe." sion of Normandy." production. According to the New York dictive drugs - so debilitating to health One effect of the hoopla about the sup­ At the White House, an unidentified Times, farmers can make up to $10,000 a and well-being - in the United States and posed drive against cocaine in Bolivia is to "senior official" conceded the Bolivians year for every hectare of coca sold to drug other capitalist countries marks the extent obscure Washington's ties to the heroin had not "specifically asked for military traffickers. of the decay of capitalist society and the trade in Afghanistan. help." terrible alienation and frustration it breeds. The U.S. military operation in Bolivia But it is not the peasants and workers in­ In mid-June the U.S. government with­ has implications for the working people of volved in growing and harvesting coca who The current show-the-flag operation "in held $7.2 million in economic aid until the this country. The use of the military as a make huge profits. It's the big-time Bolivia cannot do anything meaningful Bolivian government agreed to its "anti­ law-enforcement agency is a reactionary capitalists in the imperialist countries who about that problem. The real purpose of the drug" campaign. violation of a federal statute that has been reap the super-profits. They exploit the Bolivian operation was expressed in the Liebermann candidly explained what in force since 1878. workers and peasants. They are the ones phrase conjured up by a White House offi­ happened. "We in Latin America, espe­ Immediately after the troops were sent to who process and market cocaine and other cial who spoke of the administration's cially Bolivia with all its weaknesses, have Bolivia, New York's Mayor Koch, a parti­ illegal drugs. The fact that the drugs are il­ drive against "narco-terrorism." to accept certain things from the north that san of "law and order" like Reagan, has­ legal only ups the price and increases the we might not accept if we were stronger." "Terrorism" is the prevailing code word tened into print demanding that the 1878 profit level. During this decade, Bolivia's Gross Na­ for any kind of rebellion against capitalist statute "be modified so that the military can tional Product has fallen by as much as 10 Meanwhile, more than half the Bolivian authority, at home or abroad. In establish­ be used for narcotics control." percent a year, and its inflation rate has people suffer malnutrition. Close to 50 per­ ing its rights to deploy troops in other The capitalist rulers of this country will been astronomical. cent of the workforce is unemployed or un­ countries, Washington does not intend to not do anything meaningful about drug With poverty endemic throughout Latin deremployed. be limited to "narco-terrorists." control. But they are on the prod to tighten America and the Caribbean, Bolivia is the To see how much escalating drug abuse The present move is an arrogant slap in their political control - in Bolivia, second-poorest nation in the Western is tied up with the capitalist system one the face of the Bolivian people, who recog­ throughout the hemisphere, and here at hemisphere. Only Haiti is worse off. need only look 90 miles away for an oppo- nize the presence of U.S. troops as a blow home.

20 The Militant August 1, 1986