Iiyoucare... to El Salvador, After a Fit of Pique When 4 Actual American at an Extraordinary General Saturday, a New Method of Re Lecting‘ Citizens Were Killed
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I 30thJanuaI_')/.1981 anarchist B i Vol 42, No.2 THAT is the comment of J. Carter of Human Rights. This was c'alled after they had dropped their (Ex- President USA) on hearing ‘torture’. that some of the 52 Americans The,SundayWTimes prints a WeApr?d1%hat does Iran get out of re leased from Tehran had been comment fromian (uh-named) all this ? As President Bani-Sadr ill-treated. This involved things ‘Senior Official‘, that Carter said in his newspaper, they get like solitary confinement and instructed the State Department some of their own money back, sensory deprivation. Also, various ‘to focus all public attention on they get the lifting of sanctions, forms of psychological tnrture building up a wave of resentment which we re imposed only because such as blindfolding and then against the Iranians‘. A _ ' of the hostage-taking and they get clicking a rifle bolt. One was told And when all this disingen- a pledge that America will not that his mother had died (she uousness has been accounted for, interfere in Iran‘s affairs, which, hadn't). There was shoving and we ask ‘What do you expect ?‘ says the President, will satisfy hitting. Several had broken teeth. ‘Would all you spies please the ‘most naive and simple minded‘ R. Reagan (President USA) is come along and be our guests for And the Royal we alth, which helped ‘outraged’ at this treatment of a while ?' to start the whole thing ? They ‘prisoners of war‘ and ‘innocent haven't received a ‘dollar with a heroes‘. Howard Baker (Repub- It is wrong to hold hostages. hole in it‘ from the ex-Shahs lican Senate Leader) refers to It is wrong to mistreat them. It ‘degenerate family‘. ‘brutality, barbarism and is also wrong for these people to So Eni-Sadr gets some ammun- possibly even the atrocities. ‘ get sanctimonious about it. Why ition to use against his opponents. The western media is gene rally not leave that to the liberal press. And Iran gets to afford some real indignant. For example, those in Britain who ammunition for its war. These various people have not are now so shocked that the SAS And the Iranian people, what do giv en a definition to the treatment shot some of the Embassy seize rs they get ? t £1]-_ A given in Iranian prisons before the Revolution. This included whipping, electric shocks, burning, general mutilation and death. Before the Revolution, Iran was wk pmocmcywas//r A an ally of the USA. The American M 50/r/weAmy/we/an Embassy in Tehran was regional headquarters for the CIA. Ex- Ambassador Richard Helms used to be Director of the CIA, new Vice-President George Bush used /I/EVE’? em/aw wmx /r to be Director of the CIA. The /vz/M M!/527.5 techniques used by the CIA have 40rz/4¢g(/ been widely reported. William Daugherty, who was in solitary confinement in Tehran for 425 days, worked for the CIA . So did Malcolm Kalp (374 days). John Limbert (about nine months) <'__ says he didn't. His title was ‘Political Officer. ‘ L 41¢ The USA is currently supporting dictatorships in A rgentina, Bolivia, Chile, all sorts of places. It has just resumed military aid Iiyoucare... to El Salvador, after a fit of pique when 4 actual American AT an Extraordinary General Saturday, a new method of re lecting‘ citizens were killed. I> Meeting of the Labour Party at the leader of the Party was est- " The USA‘s ally, Great Britain, Wembley (more often the scene of -ablished. This meant the setting up has been found guilty of the use of important national events like the of an ‘Electoral College‘ rather sensory deprivation and similar football Cup Final, or visits from like that which elects a Pope, techniques by the European Court the Harlem Globe Trotters) last although it is not yet clearwhether a 2 FREEDOM smoke will emerge from anybody's There are therefore many nice jobs ary Party. This week's special nostrils or chimneys to indicate to be handed out - Ministers for meeting was arranged to settle the that a decision has been reached. This and Chancellors for That - in procedure by which the Leader is ~ There are three main, recog-I the course of which many profitable to be elected. -nised, G parts of the Labour Party, contacts are made and many jolly Several balances of power viz: the ‘Constituency Parties‘ - good sensible, practical and . between the three sections of the which are the local branches of the pragmatic ideas can be absorbed. Party were proposed, and of * party throughout the country; the Not only, therefore, is a job in the course there was a lot of horse- Parliamentary Party -- the number Cabinet valuable in itself in terms dealing in smoke-filled hotel room of Labour Members of Parliament of salary, expenses, privilege and rooms. The one that carried the in the House of Commons at any power, but it opens doors to a safe day was immediately hailed by the one time; and the Trade Unions, future in the event of not winning a Press (which has had a jamboree which originally founded the Labour seat in an election. - lately about the extreme left Party in 1906 to represent the This is how it was in the good capturing the Party and that devil workers in Parliament (oh do stop old days before last Saturday. Tony Benn, etc, etc) with a part- laughing Z) which remain the main Now things are vastly different, icularly loud shriek about a Ieft source of money for the Party and so we are told. It had been decided triumph. which to this day still have the at the usual Annual Conference Do you know what it was ? It privilege of nominating candidates last A utumn that changes must be was a decision that gave 40 per for election, who almost certainly made in the procedure for electing cent of the votes in the Electoral go through on the nod, both for the Party's Leader and that the College to the Trades Unions, 30 nomination and in an election - for power to do that should be taken per cent to the constituency they are usually candidates in out of the hands of the Parliamen- partbs, and 30 per cent to the industrial areas offering safe Lab- -tary Party. This decision in itself Parliamentary Party. -our sea_ts. was enough to raise howls of pain The only way in which this can It is thus assumed that all A from the extreme mode rates of be construed as a victory for the members of trades unions are . the party who saw the move to Left is if you think of the Unions members of the Labour Party and - give greater control of their Mem- as leftish .‘ New it is true that so at party conferences union -be rs of Parliament to the rank and the structure of most unions and delegates are allowed to vote by file of the Party as a deep laid the apathy of most of their rank the block vote system, whereby plot by extreme extremists to and file membership makes it they simply raise their tmion card introduce Trotskyist dictatorship possible for ‘militants’ to sway and something like 1, 284, 976 by the back door. re solutions, just as the Trots votes may be recorded. You may Part of the joke of course is have been able to do in the const- think this gives the unions imm- that this is precisely what it is. ituency parties. But in the -ense power, but since they are Since the four-way split in the old _ Unions, the Communist Party themselves as divided as any Revolutionary Communist Party in (Stalinist) have their infiltrators other family, their immense in the late forties (was it 19 48 ?) and ‘militants’ and there's no way block votes often cancel each other there has been a faction practising they will collaborate with the out. 'entryism‘ boring from within. You T rots in the local parties - so Party Conferences have the task cannot be a member of the Labour they cancel each other out. of drafting the Party Programme Party and any Bolshevik party as Anybody who proclaims the for the following year and, we ll, but the Trots are. careful Trades Union Cotmcil as ‘left’ together with the unions, as (unlike the Communist Party, for either wants their head examined aforesaid, this is where the instance) not to be a party. Trots or is looking for bogeymen. So, constituency parties come in. They love tendencies, so what they are really, the right of the party is pass motions, discuss, accept or is the Militant Tendency. still safe. But having shot their reject amen dments, go in for ln's1de the Party, general mouths off so strongly, the ‘Gang horse-dealing, etc, and vote dissatisfaction with increasingly of Four‘ (Shirley Williams, David according to the number of reactionary leaderships and the Owen, William Rodgers - joined members in their branches. Pot- patently undemocratic structure now by Roy Jenkins, fresh back from ential candidates will certainly of the party have given the Mili- a cushy job in Brussels) have got vote along with their contituency -tants their opportunity to bring to make their own arguments stand parties - but actual Members of pressure to bear from below in up - so they are in process of Parliament are not so likely to do favour of changes giving the rank ‘(forming another ‘Centre’ party. so because: and file more control of their MPs.