NTERNATIONAL I IEWPOINT V News and analysis from the Fourth International IV378 - May 2006

USA - An Eruption in the Streets ESF - An Unquestionable Success Britain - Respect breakthrough International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

IV378 - May 2006

USA May Day - ESF - Britain

Iraq Why America wants endless war - Phil Hearse 3

Bolivia Nationalization of Gas! Bolivia's Historic May Day, 2006 - Jeffery R Webber 4

May Day International Manifesto Of The Undocumented 7 Which side are you on? - Sharon Smith 8

USA "The power to stop the system" - Nativo Lopez 9 USA - An Eruption in the Streets - Against the Current 10

Nepal This is no rah-rah revolt - Tariq Ali 12

European Social Forum An Unquestionable Success - Ingrid Hayes 13 News from the European Social Forum, Athens - ESF Press Release 14

Italy A dangerous situation for Rifondazione - Flavia d’Angeli 15 "The Project of Prodi's Centre-Left Union has failed" - Franco Turigliatto 16

France Marie-George, Arlette, José - what if we were to talk? - Olivier Besancenot 19 The mass movement has defeated the government - what now? - Murray Smith 20

Britain The crisis in working class representation - Greg Tucker 22 No renewal for New Labour - Piers Mostyn 23 Respect breakthrough in English local elections - Alan Thornett 24 Latin America: a continent in revolt - Socialist Resistance Dayschool 25

Cuba Fidel and Trotsky - Celia Hart 26

Mexico Zapatistas call Red Alert over state attacks 27 Marcos speech at rally in Plaza of the Three Cultures 28 Mexican miners and steelworkers on strike - Dan La Botz 29

Denmark Huge demonstration against government welfare cuts - Aage Skovrind 31

Fourth International Summer Camp July 2006 A new generation to build a new Europe! 32

2 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Iraq Why America wants endless war

Phil Hearse

In promoting his recently published Quadrennial Defence Review, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of a “generation-long war”, projecting thirty years of unceasing combat against radical Islam. The changes proposed to the US military This is where US, Russian and Chinese At the same time, overall the ‘war on terror’ plans involve more Special Forces and an interests intersect and this where the US is has little popular support in East Asia, except ability to simultaneously undertake extremely keen to stabilise a significant perhaps in Indonesia. South Korea, a numerous flexible ‘irregular warfare’ military presence - in countries like lynchpin for decades in the US order of missions. The message couldn’t be clearer; Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan - in all battle, has become a basket case for US the US will plough on with the use of of which the US has backed extremely influence. unbridled militarism as its key mechanism repressive regimes. for sustaining its world position. Anti-communist fear of the North has lost its In addition the massive US intervention into hold and indeed support for reunification of After three years since the start of the Iraq, the so-called ‘Orange Revolution’ in Ukraine North and South on a nationalist, anti- where is the US in this project? To answer is part of the process of bringing US-friendly American basis, is massive. that we have to look at why the war was regimes to all key parts of the Eurasian So much so that the line expressed by launched and what the neocon elite in landmass, and denying Russia influence. sections of the South Korean military top Washington wants. Their aim is very simple, brass is “a reunited Korea with its own and very hard to achieve - control of the Connected with the drive against Chinese nuclear bomb”! Korean trade links with world order. influence is the return of US soldiers to the Philippines, another part of the jigsaw of China are now pervasive; China is Korea’s That doesn’t mean the impossible Utopia of military encirclement. one indispensable economic partner. direct control of the internal affairs of every As in Latin America, the US is paying the country. What it means is that every Taking hits worldwide political price for neoliberal globalisation in significant country, and certainly every major its crudest form - “privatization by power, has to make relations with the United Focus on the Middle East has meant the US taking hits worldwide in terms of influence expropriation”. When the South Korean States determine everything else about their economy crashed in 1997 World Bank international economic-political relations. and ability to call the shots. Most stark is the case of Latin America, where the ‘war on president James Wolfenson declared “Now Then the US will continue to hold all the key there will be many opportunities for levers of power which give the United States terror’ has virtually no traction or popular appeal, and where the election of Evo globalisation!” - which meant, bluntly, now is unique access everywhere and enable it, the time for US finance capital to buy up Morales of the Movement Towards Socialism uniquely, to live well beyond its means by bankrupt Korean companies. This brutal (MAS) as president in Bolivia and above all sucking in vast loans and tribute from East approach has not been forgotten. Asia and elsewhere. the deepening of the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela are serious blow to Opinion is East Asia is also polarized by the For this the strike in Iraq was vital. The idea American plans. magnetic attraction exercised by China. The that the war was about oil is simplistic, but of Chinese government is engaged in Ideologically these developments are vitally course it contains an important element of exceptionally aggressive economic important. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and truth. diplomacy with countries like Thailand and the vast popular movement which led to the Vietnam, granting hugely favourable aid and Occupying Iraq and thus controlling the election of Evo Morales are giving for the trade deals which bring China little or no world’s largest proven reserves of oil, but first time in a generation an arithmetic economic reward in the short term, in an also vitally having strategic dominance of the content to the algebraic formula of’another attempt to tilt structural economic vital oil routes out of the Middle East gives world is possible’ - the only possible one, dependence towards China long-term. the United States an unparalleled power and socialism! massively reinforces US clout with East Asia This is not designed to force any kind of (especially Japan) and Europe. It’s true that Bolivia especially, but also political confrontation between these states Venezuela, don’t threaten US economic and the US or to break their many political But more than that, the strategic axis of US interests much. But the political impact of ties with the US system of alliances. Rather military-political policy is the domination of people calling themselves socialists being in the effort is longterm subversion of the US the Eurasian landmass. government is immense. It gives a greater position. political space for opposition movements, but This means pushing into central Asia, which also for moderate pro-capitalist governments To bolster its Asian position the US has been in turn is part of the long-term objective of like Lula’s in Brazil, to manoeuvre and defy vigorously courting India, appearing at one disrupting Chinese regional dominance or the US policies. point to promise the Indian government the re-emergence of Russia as a significant status of accepted and legitimate nuclear power. With the collapse of the Soviet Union And in the long term the regrowth of socialist power, in return ironically for Indian support a vast strategic void opened up in central movements in the region is really bad news over Iran’s nuclear weapons and the ‘war on Asia. for the US. terror’ in general. 3 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Bolivia

However the US position turned out to be so Nationalization of Gas! hedged round with demands for economic Bolivia’s Historic May Day, and political concessions from India that this rapprochement has faltered. 2006 Regime of accumulation Jeffery R Webber The basic thrust of Donald Rumsfeld’s military Quadrennial Review is easy to understand. Step up the ‘war against terror’, whip the US’s allies into line and demand they provide more resources for it, and Monday, May 1, 2006, amidst celebrations and marches commemorating the day of prepare for stepped up US military activism in the Horn of Africa and Central Asia. the working class internationally, the Bolivian government nationalized the country’s hydrocarbons sector (natural gas and oil). With presidential supreme decree 28701 - Despite all the political hits the Bush named Heroes of Chaco in memory of the overwhelmingly indigenous Bolivian administration is taking at home, including soldiers who died in defense of oil reserves in Bolivia’s Chaco War with Paraguay in George Bush’s falling popularity ratings and the 1930s - Evo Morales reversed the privatization of hydrocarbons instituted in 1996 the deepening unpopularity of the war, the by then-president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. truth is that no major strategic alternative to the Rumsfeld-Cheney endless war is Speaking from the balcony of the presidential months, will bring the country more revenue, emerging in mainstream politics. Democrats palace in La Paz, vice-president Álvaro to relieve unemployment, and make more and Republicans both have eyes fixed on the García Linera addressed tens of thousands of jobs available....” November 7 Senate and governor elections, supporters of the governing Movimiento al and the Democrats and Republican critics Socialismo (Movement Toward Socialism, Bolivia’s May Day like John McCain are running scared of being MAS) in the early afternoon. He declared the accused of being ‘soft on the war on terror’. measure, “the first nationalization of the 21st May Day promised to be fairly uneventful. century.... MAS was elected on December 18, 2005 This of course is the main strength of the with an historic 54% of the popular vote. neocon coalition - the near unanimous After today the hydrocarbons will belong to After starting to govern on January 22, 2006 support they get for the basic thrust from all Bolivians. Never again will they be in the the first three months of the administration mainstream politicians and the dire mass hands of transnational corporations. Today showed minimal ideological coherence or media in the US itself. the country - la patria - stands up.... This is a political direction. The rhetoric of leading patriotic and heroic decision that takes back figures in the government changed with the This is enabling them to rather easily ride the our soul and dignity. But it will be a measure direction of the wind, depending on the endless revelations about the brutality of their attacked by dinosaurs, conservatives, and audience. torture chambers and the deepening brutality traitors of the country.” of the war itself. Many observers proclaimed the Later that evening, addressing the same Despite the large and vibrant US antiwar revolutionary potential of the administration, crowd, president Morales told those but this spoke more to their hopes and movement, all this has long-term negative assembled how he couldn’t think of a better consequences. The war on terror is becoming aspirations than to a sober, grounded analysis gift to give the workers on May Day than the in the increasingly reformist history of the an organising principle of US politics long- surprise announcement of the nationalization party since Morales’s near-electoral victory term, like the anti-communist Cold War of the hydrocarbons sector. before it, a political regime, a “regime of in the 2002 elections. accumulation”. In fact, it was never his gift to give. The The MAS was largely a bystander in the workers, the informal indigenous proletariat Such regimes limit the discourse of official historic mobilizations that ousted two of the massive slum of El Alto, the Aymara politics, create new reactionary norms on neoliberal presidents in under two years: peasantry of the altiplano (high plateau), the surveillance and civil liberties, swivel the Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in October 2003 miners, among so many others, demanded economy to higher allocations to the military, and won the nationalization of gas in their and Carlos Mesa Gisbert in June 2005. baptise torture and murder as the defence of monumental street battles of October 2003 Worse, MAS tactically supported the Mesa freedom, heighten racism and xenophobia and May-June 2005. regime for several months in 2004 and early and bathe the whole of public life in a 2005, before being tossed from that informal reactionary atmosphere. As Edgar Patana, executive secretary of the coalition. Regional Workers’ Central of El Alto (COR- What the anti-war and other progressive El Alto) pointed out, “We are moved because The Morales administration proudly reminds movements in the United States need now is the nationalization of hydrocarbons has been Bolivians that in March this year it moved to that their struggle is boosted and magnified schedule a Constituent Assembly to rebuild 100 times on an international basis. one of the fundamental demands of the mobilizations of October 2003 and May and the foundations of the Bolivian state in the ------June 2005. For us, it’s homage to the fallen of name of the poor indigenous majority. Apart October. [While numbers cited by different from the nationalization of gas this had been v Phil Hearse, a veteran revolutionary socialist in sources ranges quite dramatically, many a key demand of the popular social Britain, writes for Socialist Resistance. agree that between 60 and 80 protesters were movements in recent years. They demanded ------killed in the October 2003 “Gas War”]. It’s an the unmediated, direct participation of historic act that, hopefully, in the following unions, social movement sectors, and 4 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

indigenous nations in the Constitutent breasts. Factory workers, retirees, indigenous crowd chanted for an “Iron Fist / Mano Dura! Assembly process. peasant groups from the altiplano, teachers, Death to Evo! Death to Abel! (in reference to informal workers of a thousand varieties, and a key leader of popular movements in El However, the Constituent Assembly thousands upon thousands of disciplined Alto, and now Minister of Water in the MAS envisioned by the MAS looks far more like marching women from various sectors, some administration). an institutionalization and taming of in indigenous dress, others in jeans and union revolutionary hopes through the formation of jackets. Restaurants and shops had their On this May Day afternoon it gradually “social pacts” with elite forces, channeled shutters closed. The only people working became apparent that Morales wouldn’t be through political parties and citizen groups. were the street vendors providing sustenance delivering his address to the Plaza Murillo to the marching masses and journalists any time soon. Vice-president Álvaro García Linera, taking recording the events. the old stagist line of the Bolivian Nationalization and Military Communist Party (PCB), believes that Signs of marchers read, “Death to Yankee Theatrics socialism is impossible for at least 50 to 100 Imperialism!,” “Out with the Looting years, and that the country first has to Transnational Corporations!” “The In fact, Morales was in the Southeastern traverse through a stage of “Andean- Nationalization of Hydrocarbons Now!” department of Tarija, home to the largest of Amazonian capitalism.” The government “Glory to the Martyrs of Chicago Who Bolivia’s gas deposits. More specifically, repressed mobilizations by striking airline Offered Their Lives for the 8 Hour Day!,” Morales was in the gas field of San Alberto, workers and their supporters in the city of among many, many others. Chants included in Caraparí, Tarija, a field operated by the Cochabamba in their fist months in office, “Death to the Cruceño Oligarchy” (in Brazilian state-owned gas giant, Petrobras. and reneged on a promise to increase the reference to the most reactionary sectors of There, at 12:30pm, flanked by various key minimum wage by between 50 and 100%. the Bolivian capitalist class, rooted in the ministers and the heads of the police and the armed forces, an uncharacteristically nervous The administration furthermore quickly department of Santa Cruz), “Long Live May president, reading from the shaking notes adopted the line that any part of the social 1,” and “Long Live Tupaj Katari” (in which contained the text to Decree 28701, movements that demanded autonomy from reference to the anti-colonial indigenous declared the nationalization of the the MAS, refused cooptation, or criticized the leader of the 1781 uprising against the hydrocarbons sector. government from the Left was “ultra-Leftist” Spaniards). by definition. The teachers, the healthcare Just before noon, the Plaza Murillo, where The theatrical flare to the day’s events was workers, important indigenous radical Felipe the presidential palace is situated, was nowhere more evident than in the Quispe, the Bolivian Workers Central (COB), already full with tens of thousands of MAS participation of the armed forces. 56 gas and the airline workers and their supporters, supporters. Marchers had descended from El installations throughout the country were such as the leading Cochabamba organizer Alto, a three-hour march to the La Paz’s city- occupied by the military simultaneously, as Oscar Olivera, have all been hung with this center. Bands were on stage playing Andean the president gave his speech from San label at various junctures. music, and entire families were dancing in Alberto. Troops accompanied government Leading up to May Day the government the streets. The blue-and-white colours of the representatives to the offices of Petrobras in announced that at the MAS-sponsored, MAS adorned the buildings of the Plaza and Cochabamba to announce the nationalization celebratory festival in the Plaza Murillo in La the banners of many in the crowd. Massive, decree. A bewildered looking office manager, Paz, Morales would deliver a speech which multicoloured wiphala flags were waving as totally taken aback by the video cameras, the would include a raise in the minimum salary symbols of indigenous resistance, and military, and the government officials, said - if not one of 50 or100%, perhaps at least of Bolivian flags as hopeful nationalism. A life- he’d let his bosses know the news. 15% - as well as the end to a certain piece of size Che placard stood out in the center of the Large banners were immediately strung up hated “labour flexibilization” legislation Plaza. Finally, symbolizing the recently outside gasfields, refineries, and various dating back to 1985, the start of the neoliberal singed Peoples’ Trade Agreement (TCP) petroleum related offices and sites: period. between Bolivia, Cuba, and Venezuela, thousands of smaller flags with one side “Nacionalizado: Propiedad de los Bolivianos In opposition to the first three months of the Bolivian and the other Cuban or Venezuelan / Nationalized: Property of Bolivians.” new government, the COB announced a were being waved over the heads of the On the one hand, the deployment of the separate assembly in a different part of town dancing crowds. armed forces was perfectly practical in for May Day, to be followed by a dissident nature. Offices of transnational gas March against the MAS-sponsored Whatever one’s analysis of the MAS as a companies were occupied by the army and festivities. In past years the COB marches party, the aspirations and sentiments of this have been legendary, huge demonstrative crowd were of anti-imperialist hope, military police with instructions to outpourings of workers’ strength in unity and indigenous pride, and popular sovereignty. circumvent the destruction or removal of numbers. This May Day, as foreshadowed by The physical, political occupation of this documents that will be necessary in a failed strike action by the COB in La Paz urban space - the Plaza Murillo - by forthcoming audits and preparation for newly two weeks ago, the alternative assembly was indigenous movements and the popular negotiated contracts in adherence to the abysmally small and subsequent COB march classes was in itself a measure of political nationalization decree. At the sites of natural quickly fizzled to an early death, just after victory, however limited and potentially gas deposits, the army’s presence ensured noon. compromised in its adherence to the MAS. that sabotage by any groups on the Right, opposed to nationalization, was averted Nonetheless, outside of the COB, and yet not I reflected on this as I remembered a very before it started. At the same time, the obviously at one with the MAS-sponsored different rally I attended in March 2005. In militarized presence was meant to reassure events, tens-of-thousands of proud workers, the months leading up to Mesa’s forced Bolivians that gas and oil supplies would be peasants, and indigenous marchers paraded resignation I went to a midnight, spontaneous accessible and the industry functioning as through the streets of the capital. I walked pro-Mesa assembly of primarily middle-class usual in the interim, even while fundamental past the coca-cola workers with their red protesters. As then-president Mesa stood on change to its structure would begin union jackets, Che emblazoned on the left the balcony waving and blowing kisses, the immediately. 5 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Beyond these practicalities, the role of the companies that are currently active in the reaction in their shares as the news of May armed forces served two important symbolic, production of gas or petroleum within the Day’s decree became public. political functions. First, it took the national territory are obliged to hand over to historically-savvy Bolivian populace back to the property of YPFB - the representative of Nonetheless, the pundits and relevant players the two earlier episodes of nationalizing the Bolivian state - the entire production of have hardly kept their silence. One Wall petroleum in the country’s history, both under hydrocarbons. During the period of Street energy analyst told the Financial Times military regimes. In 1936, the American transition, according to Article 4, the largest that “This sends a very negative signal to the multinational Standard Oil was expropriated gas deposits - those with average natural gas oil and gas market. It is a signal of rising - later compensated - and the Bolivian state production in 2005 over 100 million cubic nationalisation that could spread from oil company, Yacimientos Petrolíferos feet daily - will be subjected to the following Bolivia and Venezuela to Mexico and as far as Kuwait.” Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) created, all tax regime: 82% of the value of what is under General David Toro’s watch. More produced will go to the state, and 18% to the For Petrobras President Jose Sergio Gabrielli, recently, during the government of Alfredo gas company to recuperate costs and make a “These conditions make gas operations Ovando Candia in 1969, pushed forward profit. practically impossible in Bolivia.” specifically by the socialist Minister of Meanwhile, today (Tuesday) Brazil’s Petroleum and Mines, Marcelo Quiroga This measure will hit the two largest president Inácio Lula Da Silva convened an Santa Cruz, Gulf Oil was nationalized. gasfields, San Alberto and San Antonio, emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the Morales paid tribute to Quiroga Santa Cruz - currently owned and operated by Petrobras measure taken by Bolivia’s president. The who was assassinated in 1980 - during his (Brazil), Repsol YPF (Spain), and, to a lesser president of Spain has demanded authentic evening speech to the masses in the Plaza degree, Total (France). The state will negotiation where the interests of both sides - Murillo. generate an additional $320 million annually the capitalists and the masses - are taken into through this arrangement. The smaller camps consideration. The Spanish government has will continue with the current tax regime of expressed that the measures taken by the 50% to the company, 50% to the state. Bolivian government are worrying. Chairman of Repsol, Antoni Brufau, told an The gas refineries of Gualberto Villarroel in Argentine radio station that “The news is of Cochabamba, and Guillermo Elder Bell in great concern to us... it’s a matter which has Santa Cruz, owned and operated by Petrobras been taken right out of the logical business since 1999, will be brought under state framework which should guide relations control. The state will buy 51% of shares. between the state and companies.” In a period of 60 days the debilitated YPFB is The Future scheduled to be restructured such that it can assume the task of totally controlling the The depth and importance of May Day’s The second symbolic role of the armed forces exploration, production, commercialization, nationalization will only reveal itself fully in May Day’s nationalization was to indicate transport, storage, and industrialization of with the passage of time. State capitalist to the far right forces, primarily in the hydrocarbons. In a period of 180 days, control of industry has hardly been a means department of Santa Cruz, that a right-wing private companies operating in the sector in of human liberation and egalitarianism in the military coup against the Morales Bolivia will be obliged to sign new contracts past, in Bolivia or elsewhere. Nonetheless, government is impossible. This was surely in with the state along the guidelines set out in this is a popular victory borne from the days Morales’ mind as he stood next to the leader the presidential decree. If they do not, they of mass action in October 2003 and May- of the Armed Forces during his public will no longer be permitted to operate in the June 2005. It’s the beginnings of a break with declaration in Tarija, and when he praised the country. the “logical business framework.” The degree Armed Forces and the police for their to which this can be broken down more fully patriotism in protecting the natural resources The Reaction will not depend on gifts from the MAS of Bolivia in his evening speech in La Paz. administration, but rather the self-organized Petrobras (Brazil), Repsol (Spain), Total What Does Nationalization Mean? struggle of the popular classes and (France), and BG and BP of the UK are the indigenous nations. major players in the natural gas sector in All the fine details of the process are not yet Bolivia. Petrobras and Repsol are by far the It will also depend on the extent to which the apparent, and probably won’t be until months leading actors, controlling almost 70 percent deepening of radicalism regionally in Latin have passed. Still, we can safely say that of the gas reserves in Bolivia. America, and we hope internationally, can nationalization means less than the continue. Recognition of these possibilities expropriation without compensation of On the one hand the stakes are high for these and obstacles also places a heavy burden of transnational gas companies demanded by companies. According to Jorge Alvarado, responsibility on those in the international the most radical of the social movements, and president of YPFB, even when they start to Left rooted in the advanced capitalist more than the weakest of the MAS proposals receive only 18% of the value of the gas countries, to strengthen anti-imperialism and over the last two years (during the May-June being produced, these companies will enjoy forge new spaces for the Left at home. 2005 protests the MAS famously called only 20-25% profit rates. But the days of super- for an increase in taxes for transnationals to profits are finished. On the other, the ------50%, while most other sectors in the streets companies are so massive that their assets in called for 100% nationalization.) Bolivia make up only a small portion of their v Jeffery R. Webber is an editor of New Socialist and a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University Article 1 of the Heroes of Chaco decree overall asset base. This, in combination with of Toronto. He is currently in La Paz. asserts that, “The state reclaims the property, the fact that the companies had already the possession and the total and absolute downgraded the value of Bolivian barrels ------control of these resources.” Article 2 states given the Bolivian government’s that, as of May 1, 2006, all petroleum longstanding - if vague - calls for nationalization, meant that there was minimal 6 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

May Day International Manifesto Of The Undocumented May 1st: International Mobilization For Regularization

On May 1st the undocumented have taken to the streets demanding RIGHTS, DIGNITY, and RESPECT. We publish here a Manifesto drawn up by migrant/undocumented organisations from across the world.

May 1st is Labour Day in most In Spain, a limited laws for immigrants all over the workers and impedes our unity. countries around the world, regularization process from a world also regulate the working This allows for the passing of celebrated in honour of those year ago has left hundreds of conditions, the quality of life laws as the New Labour Reform who lost their lives to gain the 8 thousands of workers without and residency of the immigrants in Europe, which attacks and hour work day. On this day, papers and many other with submitting them to a double reduces labour rights for all. demonstrations around the serious difficulties in standard, creating a second The first to be affected by these world will come together to reapplying. A few months ago, class of workers, and reforms are the immigrants. support the rights of the thousands undocumented developing situations of new working class and of the workers took to the streets of slavery. These are then, For this reason we call on all oppressed. It is a day of Madrid with the chant: "Nativa xenophobic laws (hate to the workers, with or without papers, struggle, commemoration, and o extranjera, la misma clase foreigner). The same way that to participate in the next pride. It is our day, no matter obrera” (“Native or foreign, Europe wants to “export” its mobilizations to defend where we come from, even if we’re the same working class"). borders South, to Libya, everyone’s rights. “Native or we’re born here or on the other Morocco, etc., the United State foreign, we’re all workers” part of the planet, we face the In other parts of Europe, the wants to export its border to the signifies the end of the division same injustices and struggles. masses rose to rally against the South of Mexico to stop the between workers, the unity dozens of undocumented flow of immigrants in the south against a system that favours In the United States, it is those workers who burned in cages of the country. The situation is slavery, and racism ... without papers that have taken like rats in Schiphol this past similar the struggle expands On May 1st we will take to the the date of May 1st to bring to October... In France, the through all the rich countries: light the cause that they have undocumented struggled for the streets demanding RIGHTS, France, the United States, DIGNITY, and RESPECT. been struggling for the past 6 last 10 years for the Belgium, England, Switzerland Native or Foreign, we’re the years. Today, over a million regularization for all, thousands ...that’s why the struggle of same working class. We call immigrant workers have taken of young people from the immigrants in one country upon everyone, documented or the streets to rally against the popular suburbs took to the reflect on the rest and should undocumented, to join us in terms in HR4437, which passed streets to protest discrimination, begin to be coordinated with subscribing to this international in the House of Representatives and today the undocumented, each other. declarations of the movements of the US Congress. On May the students and French workers of the undocumented. 1st, immigrants call for “a day joined in the struggle against All immigrant workers without immigrants” and for a the CPE. Their unity and contributing in receptor Signed on May 1, 2006 one-day consumer boycott to determination won the first step countries have the right to legal United States: Coalición demand the legal status of 12 in that battle. documentation that would allow Nacional por Dignidad y million undocumented workers them to work with dignity, and Residencia Permanente in the United States. May 1st is Unconditional legalization to fully enjoy full rights and Spain: Asociacion de not a holiday in the United for all human dignity. The use of the Trabajadores Inmigrantes States, the abstinence from the “immigrant status” allows En España ATRAIE immigrants will show just how It is a system based on the governments to keep a massive vital immigrants are to the unlimited search for profit and class of workers that cannot ask France: La Coordination economy of the United States. on the savage exploitation of for just working conditions, Nationale des Sans Papiers the earth and its people that has which in turn lowers the CNSP/France In Europe, the undocumented led to the displacement of working conditions and salaries Bélgium: Unión De Sans are rallying for the same causes. millions of workers from the of all the workers. Papiers UDEP In Belgium, 10,000 people took poorest to the richest countries Italy: Le Comitato to the streets to demand legal searching for work and a way to Native or foreign, we’re Immigrati in Italia status for immigrants and to say sustain their families. Facing the same working class NO to the prisons for children the phenomena of migration, ------born “in the wrong place.” the receptor countries arbitrate The division between native and Today, the undocumented have cruel laws that criminalize and foreign workers, between the held hunger strikes in six control immigrants. Different documented and the churches to demand legal status. “regularization” or “adjustment” undocumented, affects all 7 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

May Day Which side are you on? Renewing the traditions of May Day

Sharon Smith

FOR THE first time in six decades, International Workers Day will be celebrated on U.S. soil with mass working-class demonstrations on May 1. May Day, celebrated the world over, commemorates the seismic upheaval inside the U.S. that launched the struggle for the eight-hour workday in 1886, a difference has been the strength There is nothing new about the time when native-born workers had few rights and immigrants of the immigrant rights modern immigration debate had still fewer, yet both united in a class-wide battle. movement inside the working except the legal terminology. class and the growth of a Immigrants have not been The decision to organize a minions have done their best to committed left wing willing to welcomed in the “land of national day of protest for rein in workplace and school challenge the dominance of opportunity” since the first immigrant rights on May 1 this walkouts on May 1. strategies that rely on wave of Irish immigrants landed year is a conscious nod toward on U.S. shores in the late 1820s. Democrats have warned congressional Democrats. the traditions embodied by this No distinction existed between supporters that walkouts could working-class holiday, in which While the catalyst for this documented and undocumented create a “backlash,” while immigrants have played such a movement has been the immigrants before broad dangling the promise of vital role historically. Sensenbrenner Bill, HR 4437, immigration controls were “comprehensive immigration criminalizing undocumented imposed in the 1920s. All May 1, 2006, holds the potential reform”-a misleading term immigrants and anyone who immigrant labor was used to to begin to revive that tradition, denoting “legalization” rather assists them, the sentiment compete with white, native-born from America’s grassroots. The than “amnesty.” among millions of immigrants workers-as were disfranchised movement’s most powerful is for full rights and amnesty. African Americans. slogan, “a day without Thus far, Democratic-sponsored proposals for legalization And Democrats’ attempts at immigrants,” is based upon a Corporations have traditionally exclude the vast majority of sabotage have begun to strategy of social struggle tied used racism to encourage immigrants from the path to embolden a self-conscious left explicitly to the power of competition between workers, citizenship, instead promoting wing within the movement. workers to withhold their labor- in order to drive down wages guest-worker programs that which successfully built the New York City activists booed for the entire working class and offer immigrant workers no U.S. union movement in the Clinton’s proposals at an April weaken the labor movement. right to workplace first few decades of the 20th 22 planning meeting for a Yet all too often, union leaders representation, to the delight of century. human chain protest. Los have betrayed workers’ interests the U.S. Chamber of Angeles-based Nativo Lopez, by opposing the rights of For the labor movement, the Commerce. president of the Mexican immigrants while failing to lessons of this new struggle, American Political Association, champion the rights of African with traditions rooted in its own Moreover, Democrats are Americans. history, could finally begin to carefully playing to both sides argued, “So what’s the ruckus about a boycott? We need to put reverse decades of retreat and in the national immigration In 1867, when 10,000 Chinese setback. debate, as Sen. Hillary Clinton the focus of power with the worker and immigrants, not in workers staged one of the most demonstrated in a recent New important strikes of the 19th To be sure, there is a debate the hierarchies, to resolve the York Daily News interview, in century, they stood alone. They over strategy underway inside immigration reform debate.” which reporters described her demanded higher pay, shorter the immigrant rights movement. “embracing both conservative working hours (including an Last week, Time magazine The fates of both native- and and liberal goals.” eight hour-day for tunneling featured an article, “The foreign-born workers are workers), a ban on whipping Immigrants’ Dilemma: To In the interview, Clinton argued inextricably tied, despite and the right of workers to quit Boycott or Not to Boycott? A that U.S. borders should be widespread claims to the their jobs. Yet no unions came split is growing over how secured with a wall or “smart contrary. As Julio Huato argued to their defense, and within a militant the upcoming ‘Day fence” before legalization recently in Monthly Review, week the strike was crushed-a begins. “The working and living Without Immigrants’ should setback for the entire labor be.” conditions of U.S. workers In contrast to the moribund don’t have to be subject to a movement, which would not Since hundreds of thousands antiwar movement, however, zero-sum game played by win the right to unionize until turned out to protest in more Democrats have not natives versus immigrants (and the 1930s. this includes our thin and frayed than 100 cities on April 10, successfully derailed the Immigrant workers have spurring several days of student militant wing of the immigrant social safety net). But they will performed another service for walkouts from Dallas to Los rights movement-and plans for a be for as long as we treat the the U.S. working class, long Angeles, congressional May 1 boycott continue in interest of capital as immutable unacknowledged and broadly Democrats and their movement major U.S. cities. The and sacred.” 8 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

USA “The power to stop the system”

Nativo Lopez

At an April 22 meeting of organizers in Chicago, Nativo Lopez, unappreciated. Since 1886, In 1893, Illinois governor John president of the Mexican American Political Association, spoke when German immigrants Peter Altgeld finally issued a about the importance of the next step in the struggle against incorporated the politics of pardon, acknowledging that no vicious anti-immigrant legislation - the Great American anarchism and Marxism into the evidence incriminated any of Boycott on May 1. struggle for the eight-hour day, those convicted in the bombing. WE HAVEN’T seen anything as Immigrants” on May 1 and immigrant workers have Nonetheless, the Haymarket odious and hateful as the participate in the movement that brought radical politics with incident unleashed a wave of Sensenbrenner legislation since he is helping to create. them when they migrate, antiradical and anti-immigrant hysteria. Newspaper headlines the Fugitive Slave Act of 1857. pressuring the U.S. labor There are some people who are screamed for revenge against People should look it up— movement from within to criticizing the call to boycott, but “Dynamarchists” and “Red another law that asked citizens to challenge the conservative nevertheless, the call has been Ruffians.” participate in the persecution of ideology U.S. rulers seek to others and the returning of made, the word is out there, and impose. Because German immigrants escaped slaves to their former people are ready to pursue it. provided the largest base for masters. In 1886, anarchists from the I happened to be at a conference anarchism, the Chicago Times International Working People’s last Friday at the Catholic described America’s “enemy HR 4437 is the culmination of Association (IWPA) led the Cathedral of Los Angeles, right forces” as “rag-tag and bob-tail state and local legislation that we struggle for the eight-hour day, after Cardinal Mahoney made cutthroats from the Rhine, the have been faced with— and its ground troops were the announcement not to Danube, the Vuistukla and the persecution in different places overwhelmingly German boycott. I talked to the workers Elbe.” for the past 10 years. immigrants. Forty thousand who work at the Cathedral. They workers struck for the eight- Today, Mexicans, El It’s also the product of 10 years came up to me and told me hour day in Chicago, including Salvadorans and other Latinos of hate speech on right-wing excitedly, “Nativo, we’re not an altercation with police on have brought with them radio. The level of hate speech going to work on May 1!” May 3 alongside strikers at traditions of class struggle and hate-mongering coming This movement is based on the McCormick Harvester Works absent since McCarthyism from the Clear Channel and Ghandian principals of non- that killed four workers and excised radicals from the U.S. others is unprecedented. cooperation. It’s also based on labor movement in the 1950s. injured many more. the idea that the only power we These traditions hold the This is also globalization possess is our labor power. The A rally the next day at potential to revitalize the U.S. coming home to roost. There is a only power we have is the power Haymarket Square to protest the labor movement, if it welcomes dynamic with the economic that creates value in this society. police brutality attracted just them. powerhouses of Europe and When workers refuse to 1,200, dwindling to 300 when North America in relation to cooperate, they realize the power rain began to fall. Just as the Only in 2000 did the AFL-CIO developing countries. The they have to tinker with and stop speeches were concluding, finally reverse its longstanding powerhouses are extracting as the system. police entered the square and opposition to the rights of much wealth as they can from undocumented immigrants, ordered the rally to disperse. As those countries. Legal and The immigrant “problem,” as making possible a historic the speakers were leaving, a undocumented immigration is some call it, can only be opportunity for uniting workers bomb was thrown into the going to continue in a structural resolved when workers across racial and ethnic barriers. crowd, killing eight and injuring and profound way as long as this themselves refuse to cooperate But labor leaders must also 67 police. In response to the is the case. with the system until it fairly reverse their long-standing bomb, police opened fire on the remunerates them. And in this aversion to class struggle for the Our greatest fear is that the crowd, killing and wounding case, fair remuneration is full movement to succeed. Democratic Party is going to cut civilians and police alike. unconditional legalization for all a deal behind closed doors and Far from creating a backlash, workers past and present. Without evidence, eight contain the movement that has the return of struggle is the key Chicago anarchists were tried been born. (This article was first published by the US to U.S. labor’s survival. Socialist Worker - journal of the ISO) and convicted-not of actual Capital is creating for us a murder, but of “conspiracy to (This article was first published by the movement that we didn’t have ------US Socialist Worker - journal of the ISO) commit murder” and for 20 years ago. Capital has sent “inciting,” rather than v Nativo Lopez is president of the ------immigrants to every corner and committing, violence in Mexican American Political every town of the country, so Association and a leading organizer of Haymarket Square. The struggle v Sharon Smith is a leading member that mass demonstrations are the 1 million-strong March 25 2006 culminated in the trial and of the US International Socialist possible everywhere. demonstration in Los Angeles, called execution of four of the Organisation (ISO). to protest vicious anti-immigrant legislation movement’s leaders, including ------Therefore, I’m going to go to the anarchists August Spies and capital and invite George Bush ------Albert Parsons. to join us in “One Day Without 9 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

USA An Eruption in the Streets Gran Marcha and Beyond

Against the Current MARCH, 2006 MARKED an eruption that hit the streets, showed its strength, and took everyone Marching in LA including its participants by surprise. Millions marched all over the country: 300,000 in Chicago, 50,000 in Denver, 10,000 in Detroit and Milwaukee, 10,000-20,000 in New York, 20,000 in born in America, while others Phoenix - and somewhere between 500,000 and a million in the Gran Marcha in Los Angeles on come to collect welfare. Not only is this false, but people March 25. As the U.S. Congress and Senate hold their wretched deliberations on “immigration know it: In fact most Americans reform,” the communities affected have shown they will not be passive objects, but active see undocumented workers as subjects, in this debate. As this issue goes to press, mass marches have continued and Congress very hard working (80% has recessed in deadlock on the issue. according to a Pew Hispanic On the day of the Gran Marcha California archdiocese of five The Realities of Research Center report) and the white liberal left seemed to million are Latino). Immigration only 4% of the population thinks have missed the mobilization “illegal” immigration is a and didn’t know to meet Student Walkout and There are persistent myths about pressing problem. The same downtown at Olympic and Tragedy “illegal immigration”: study reveals that the population Broadway at 10am. Why? As is seriously divided over what to Daniel Hernandez reported in On March 28 came the students’ v The debate focuses mainly on do - give the immigrants green the LA Weekly (reprinted turn. Forty thousand Los Mexican immigrants, but in fact cards (40%) or deport them only about half of all elsewhere in this issue), if you Angeles high school students (53%). In a CNN poll released undocumented workers are didn’t listen to mostly Spanish- walked out of their classrooms, on April 3, 70% said they feel Mexican. Another 10-15% are language media (but Korean too) continuing the wave of protest sympathetic toward the and didn’t read La Opinion, or other Latinos. It is estimated that undocumented. against measures to turn their there are 500,000 undocumented didn’t tune into Pacifica radio families into felons. If Spanish- Chinese living in the United KPFK all week, well, you Amnesty, Legalization and language media contributed to States, who tend to be more probably missed the news. Open Borders the gigantic turnout on March silent because of the fear and The non-English media and the 25, text-messaging and consequences of deportation. The Sensenbrenner bill (HR Catholic Church played a major MySpace helped create a The Gran Marcha was 4437) is about as pointless as it role in mobilizing people for collective walkout that overwhelmingly Latino, but is vicious - except as an these marches. Spanish- surpassed the Chicano walkout there were many other organizing tool for the far right. language media promoted the of 1968 as well as the walkouts contingents. One in five Koreans This backlash bill would further march continuously for ten days. of 1994 - and faced police is undocumented and they had a drive undocumented workers Cardinal Mahony, who heads the violence and suspension. contingent; Filipinos marched as underground and to the margins largest Catholic archdiocese in well as Irish. of society. It’s not only the nation (Los Angeles), came The LA Unified School District Californians who depend on the v We’re told that organized out against the Sensenbrenner imposed a lockdown that work and skills of these essential labor won’t support the workers. The Senate’s attempt to Bill [1] as a violation of afternoon, but the walkouts undocumented who, the come up with a more “moderate” Christian principles, affirming continued all week. Mayor Republicans keep telling us, bill (McCain-Kennedy) that that the mission of the church Antonio Villaraigosa - who undercut middle-class American creates a guest worker program, was to aid the poor. supported the Gran Marcha - living standards and access to favored by Bush, could be the disappointed students by urging jobs. Historically there’s some In the 1980s and 1990s Mahony carrot to Sensenbrenner’s stick. them to go back to their truth in this. But one of the opposed Padre Luis Olivares’ classrooms. KPFK broadcast strongest institutional supports The debate is a potential political work in providing refuge and live a four-hour town hall to the march in Los Angeles was disaster for the Republicans, sanctuary to the poor and Student Speakout on March 31st none other than the Service four of whom - Senators Sam undocumented. Olivares’ Employees (SEIU), whose Brownback, Mike DeWine, sermons regularly quoted from that featured passionate and spectacular growth in the last Lindsay Graham and Judiciary Leviticus 19:33-34, “And if a articulate students explaining their actions. decade was due to organizing Chairman Arlen Specter - sided stranger sojourn with thee in low-wage service workers, with Democrats on the issue. your land, ye shall not vex him. In a horrifying tragedy, 14-year- mostly undocumented, and Senator Frist forced the debate But the stranger that dwelleth old Anthony Soltero committed UNITE-HERE who have because he is currying favor with with you shall be unto you as suicide after an assistant organized hotel and restaurant the far right in the party for his one born among you, and thou workers. own presidential bid. shalt love him as thyself; for ye principal at De Anza middle were strangers in the land of school kicked him out of school, v Undocumented immigrants President Bush sits in the middle Egypt.” It took 15 years for banned him from eighth grade supposedly use public services because he knows that passing Cardinal Mahony to realize that graduation activities and told but contribute little to the the infamous anti-immigrant Latinos are the present and him he’d be sent to prison for economy and tax base. The most Proposition 187 [2] made the future of the Catholic Church in organizing a walkout on March pernicious myth is that women Republican Party radioactive in California (75% of the Southern 28. cross the border to have babies California and destroyed 10 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Governor Pete Wilson’s political “moderate” McCain-Kennedy and increase the diversity of the career. For Bush, who has bill is no answer - it work force, particularly by immigrants in his family, comes institutionalizes permanent hiring African-American from a border state and wants exclusion of part of the labor workers. The union pointed to Latinos in the Republican Party, force, and places huge financial statistics that Black employment a “guest worker” program is and bureaucratic burdens on in hotels has dropped below 6%. perfect because it answers the becoming legal. Globalizing Poverty need of employers for a UNITE-HERE hotel workers campaign contingent, low-wage labor But supporters of immigrant force that will be rotated out rights are all over the lot about Neoliberal economic policies The enforcement measures before it can organize. what kind of legislation to have increased poverty and being proposed in both bills - support. The only decent bill, desperation throughout Latin either more border police or a In fact, this is no solution at all. introduced by African-American America. NAFTA did not benefit wall - will only make the journey What’s needed is immediate Congresswoman Sheila Jackson impoverished Mexican workers. deadlier, not stop it. In the era of legal status for immigrant Lee (TX-D), grants legal status It depressed their wages - in globalization, capital moves workers, and a clear, to anyone living in the United particular, destroying Mexican freely and instantaneously uncomplicated and inexpensive States five years from the date of farming as low-cost food from across borders. Yet labor faces path to U.S. citizenship for those the bill’s passage. It builds in a subsidized U.S. agribusiness border patrols, police, super- who desire it. family reunification policy, flooded the market - and exploitation in the workplace enforces protection of immigrant accelerated the immigration and fear of deportation. The The racist anti-immigrant workers and requires that the wave. The wage differential drive for ever higher profits has campaign has been building. fees paid for those applying for between the US and Mexico is led to a higher level of One year ago the Minutemen legal status be used for job 11-1, and 20-1 in the agricultural exploitation of the American Vigilantes began their watch on training in communities sector (see Marc Cooper, “The worker, the increased use of the borders in California and suffering high unemployment. Great Immigration Debate: unprotected immigrant labor - Arizona. As Marc Cooper has Getting Beyond Denial,” and super-exploited workers reported in the LA Weekly and Too Many Silences Truthdig.com, March 14, 2006.) globally. The Nation, the Minutemen Initially civil rights leaders and vigilantes on the borders were Stanford historian David The realities of exploitation in the Black Congressional Caucus miniscule, outnumbered by the Kennedy notes that the income the United States create (as Earl Ofari Hutchinson media reporters, vans and gap between the United States openings for organizing. Unions commented in New American cameras hyping them to the and Mexico is the largest should follow the lead of SEIU Media, March 27, 2006) were public. Four hundred news between any two contiguous and UNITE-HERE, organize the MIA. A dirty secret of Prop 187 stories followed the “border countries in the world. That gap undocumented and the low-paid, in California in 1994 was that blockade’”by 30-200 produces massive demand for and press for reforms that are while polls showed Blacks Minutemen. labor in the United States, beneficial to all workers opposing the measure, 55% matched by a massive supply whatever their immigration voted for it. Hutchinson notes California’s number one from Mexico and Central status. that civil rights leaders “are loath immigrant, Governator Arnold America. Quoted in the to equate the immigrant rights This article is an editorial from the US Schwarzenegger joined the Washington Post, Kennedy movement with the civil rights radical socialist magazine Againt the debate with an op-ed in the LA noted that any attempt by Current (#122 May/June 2006). It was battles of the 1960s.” They were Times on March 28, positioning governments to come between drafted by editorial board member Susan a growing presence, however, in himself to the right of Bush but these two forces by increasing Weissman. the second round of mass still in the center on this debate. enforcement does not work - just marches on April 10. ------He wrote, “Criminalizing as it hasn’t with drug trafficking. immigrants for coming here is a There’s a danger of pitting low- v Against the Current is the magazine Socialists are clear on this issue. of Solidarity, a radical socialist slogan, not a solution,” yet waged African-American versus We are in favor of amnesty, regroupment in the United Staes. “granting citizenship to people undocumented workers. It’s legalization and open borders who are here illegally is not just particularly important for all ------with an efficient and transparent amnesty... it’s anarchy.” supporters of human and civil path to citizenship. Right now Republican leaders like National rights to wage a united fight for NOTES Committee Chairman Ken better wages, benefits and decent the borders are essentially open Mehlman, Congressman Dana jobs. Today immigrants are (to illegal traffic) but dangerous. [1] Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 Rohrabacher and others have targeted for “stealing American The trek to the North has increased since the passage of proposed by House Judiciary Committee suddenly discovered the jobs,” while the Black poor are Chairman James Sensenbrenner, which disappearing middle-class, low- often demonized as “lazy and NAFTA in 1994. Mexicans are would considerably tighten controls on wage jobs and loss of benefits - joined by Central American immigrants and make it more difficult to unproductive” in contrast with become a US citizen. and blamed the undocumented “hard-working immigrants.” workers and peasants who face a for taking “their” jobs. For the These racist labels don’t create harrowing and dangerous trip [2] A 1994 ballot initiative designed to record, Rohrabacher thinks jobs: rather they let corporations through Mexico and another deny illegal immigrants social services, perilous journey through the hot health care, and public education. It was prisoners should be put to work and the government off the supported by the republican governor of in the fields. hook. Arizona or California desert. California Pete Wilson. After a series of The U.S. Border Patrol reports legal challenges it was dropped by the The Democrats have been little One concrete example is that 1,954 people died between newly elected governor in 1998. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_P better, worrying that if they utter UNITE-HERE Local 2’s 1998-2004 attempting to cross roposition_187_(1994) the word “amnesty” they will bargaining proposal with hotels the southern border - more than lose all future elections. The to include contract language that ever died crossing the Berlin ------guest worker program in the both protects immigrant rights Wall. 11 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Nepal This is no rah-rah revolt

Tariq Ali

We reproduce here an article from Tariq Ali published in The Guardian on April 25.

Since this article was written events in Nepal have accelerated. Following King Gyanendra’s recall of Parliament, a new government has been formed, comprising most of the seven legal opposition parties. The government has promised that a Constituent Assembly will be convoked which would have the power to abolish the monarchy and make Nepal a republic.

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M) has declared a three-month ceasefire and has held open mass rallies in Kathmandu and other cities, addressed by party leaders newly emerged from clandestinity. The country’s second-biggest legal party, the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML) has echoed the Maoists’ call for a republic.

The government has now offered to hold talks with the Maoists, who apart from controlling most of the Nepalese countryside, clearly played a major role in the mass urban movement that forced King Gyanendra to give in. IV editors

There is something refreshingly old- culmination of decades of social, cultural and staggering. The sheer ferocity of his assault fashioned taking place in the Himalayan economic oppression. This is an old story. took the tiny middle class by surprise and kingdom of Nepal: a genuine revolution. In Nepal’s upper-caste Hindu rulers have isolated the politicians. recognition of this, the US has told citizens institutionalised ancient customs to preserve except for "essential diplomats" to leave the their own privileges. Only last year was the Will the triumvirate - the US, the EU and the country, usually a good sign. Since April 6, custom of locking up menstruating women in UN security council - try to keep the king in Nepal has been paralysed by a general strike cowsheds declared illegal. power? If it does, it will have to add called by the political parties and backed by Kathmandu to a growing list of disasters. Maoist guerrillas. Hundreds of thousands are The Nepalese monarchy, established more Recent newspaper editorials indicate that the out on the streets - several have been shot than two centuries ago, has held the country west fears the disease may spread to dead and more than 200 wounded. A curfew in an iron grip, usually by entering into neighbouring India. A top-level summit is in force and the army has been given shoot- alliances with dominant powers - Britain, the between the Naxalites and civil servants after to-kill orders. US and, lately, India - and keeping them the defeat of the BJP government revealed a supplied with cheap mercenaries. It is a two- remarkably pragmatic Maoist leadership: all But the people have lost their fear and it is way trade and ever since the declaration of it wanted was for the government to this that makes them invincible. If a single the "war on terror", the corrupt and brutal implement the constitution and pledges platoon refuses to obey orders, the Bastille royal apparatus has been supplied with contained in successive Congress manifestos. will fall and the palace will be stormed. weaponry by its friends: 20,000 M-16 rifles What the uprising in Nepal reveals is that Another crowned head will fall very soon. A from Washington, 20,000 rifles from Delhi while democracy is being hollowed out in the caretaker government will organise free and 100 helicopters from London. west, it means more than regular elections to elections to a constituent assembly, and this Meanwhile, half the country’s 28 million many people in the other continents. The will determine the future shape of the people have no access to electricity or Nepalese want a republic and an end to the country. running water, let alone healthcare and systemic poverty that breeds violence and to education, according to the UN. The lawyers, journalists, students and the achieve these moderate demands they are poor demonstrating in Kathmandu also know In 2005, King Gyanendra suspended all civil making a revolution. that if they are massacred, the armed liberties and outlawed politics. To deal with a reprinted from The Guardian, Tuesday April 25, 2006 guerrillas who control 80% of the problem that was essentially structural, but countryside will take the country. This is not which in the global context of neoliberalism ------one of those carefully orchestrated "orange" could not be solved through state affairs with its mass-produced placards, rah- intervention, he decided on mass repression: v Tariq Ali is a socialist writer and broadcaster who has been particularly active in anti-imperialist rah gals and giant PR firms to aid media physical attacks on the poor, concerted campaigns, from Vietnam to Iraq. Born and brought coverage, so loved by the "international attempts to stamp out dissident political up in Pakistan, he now lives in London. community". Nor does the turbulence have organisations and blanket social repression. anything to do with religion. What is taking The chronicle of shootings, beatings, ------place in Nepal is different: it is the imprisonments, purges and provocations is 12 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

ESF An Unquestionable Success

Ingrid Hayes

In spite of widespread apprehension beforehand in the global justice movement, the Athens forum did not show that the process of the European Social Forum (ESF) was running out of steam. The ESF, which took place from the 3rd to the 7th of May, was a success both for the Greek organizers and for the European global justice movement.

With all due respect to Liberation or Le unionists in Eastern and Western Europe and Romano Prodi, who is today heading the Monde (French daily newspapers), who are for the fight against job insecurity. government - introduced a “recentred” always prompt to proclaim the death of the political tone that we must learn to combat. social forums and the global justice Feminists were also able to renew the links of Furthermore, there remains uncertainty about movement, it has to be said that the reality European cooperation that were initiated at the place and the date of the next ESF. But and the experience of the militants who came Bobigny in 2003 during the Paris Saint Denis after the success of Athens edition, it is to participate in the European Social Forum ESF. On all these questions work absolutely certain that the next European assembly in (ESF) in Athens flatly contradicted them. has to continue, without waiting for the next September will give a positive answer to Before the forum we were insisting on the central meeting of the whole of the these questions. need to “find a second wind” and admitting movement, in order to be able to resist step The LCR and the Fourth International were some difficulties and fears. This Greek by step the liberal offensives. All that should convince us that the risk of running out of very much present in Athens, in particular edition of the ESF dissipated many of them. steam can be excluded for the moment and through the debates in which their representatives took part, along with other In announcing that more than 35,000 had that the usefulness of the process of forums political currents, but also with trade unions registered (as against 25,000 in London in has once again been demonstrated. and associations. These debates dealt with 2004) the Greek organizers themselves Among the questions that were posed in the Europe, ecology, the future of the anti- admitted that they were astonished by the forum was the participation of political capitalist left, international question and the numbers. Equally, the massive demonstration parties in social forums. In London the mobilisation against the CPE. Our visibility on Saturday afternoon showed that there was parties, in particular the British ones, didn’t was also ensured by a free newspaper that a contact between the global justice activists intervene as such in the debates, but occupied was massively distributed and by a and the population of Athens. On Saturday an unreasonably large space, provoking significant presence in the demonstration on evening the media were announcing 80,000 general irritation. This time the political Saturday. demonstrators, a record since the anti-war parties were able to intervene as such in the mobilisation on February 15, 2003. main debates, alongside trade unions and ------associations. The debates were directly related to the v Ingrid Hayes is a member of the National struggles that are taking place in various Leadership of the LCR (French section of the Fourth Up until now the barrier to this came International), with particular responsibility for work in European countries. The victories won in essentially from the French side. It is difficult the global justice movement. France against the European Constitutional not to think that this turn, if it is confirmed, is ------Treaty and against the CPE were at centre linked to the unitary campaigns conducted stage. This time, unlike in London, the over recent months, in particular against the European and social questions were at the European Constitutional Treaty. All the same, heart of the discussions. Of course the that doesn’t mean that the problem has been international dimension was not absent, resolved. We have to think in particular about whether it was the risk of imperialist war in the ways in which parties can intervene and Iran or the political situation in Latin of the limits that have to be set, in particular America. In addition, many debates dealt to avoid some of them using the forums as a with the strategy of the global justice platform, or considering them as just an arena movement on the European and world scale. of confrontation with rival parties.

Finally, and this is perhaps one of the But difficulties remain. On the political level essential aspects of its success, the Athens the Italian situation weighs heavily. The trade ESF enabled different networks to make union front seems today to be a bit paralysed. significant progress from the point of view The self-justifying interventions by the both of working out policies and of building majority of the Party of Communist solidarity and joint campaigns. This was the Refoundation - which supports the Union case in particular for public services, for the (centre-left coalition) presided over by the solidarity that needs to be built between trade ex-President of the European Commission, 13 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

ESF News from the European Social Forum, Athens

ESF Press Release

The success of the 4th European Social Forum (Athens 4-7th May) exceeded even the most policies of the EU based on the optimistic expectations. With 100, 000 people participating in the rally and with more than unending extension of 35,000 participants attending the seminars and workshops, the Forum proved both the potential competition within and outside of the Greek movements and the strength of the alterglobal movement. For four days, Athens Europe constitute an attack on was the European capital of resistance, for four days, tens of thousands of people have been employment, workers and welfare rights, public services, sending the message: Another world is possible! education, the health system and so on. The EU is planning Beside the mass participation originally planned by the Movements of opposition to the reduction of workers¹ wages we should also mention some organizing committee. neoliberalism are growing and qualitative characteristics of the are clashing against the power and employment benefits as 4th ESF: The groups that used the of trans-national corporations, well as the generalization of demonstrators as a protection the G8 and organizations such casualisation. 1. The participation of activists shield between them and the as the WTO, the IMF and the We reject this neo-liberal from Eastern Europe and police, showed with their World Bank, as well the neo- Europe and any efforts to re- Turkey was larger than ever actions that they consider the liberal policies of the states and launch the rejected (more than 2.000 people), Forum and its people as the European Union. showing that the Forum enemies. Their behavior during Constitutional Treaty; we are embraces the whole continent Saturday¹s rally is a sample of Important political changes fighting for another Europe, a and not just Western Europe. an extreme authoritarian have materialized in Latin feminist, ecological, open political behavior. America that have shaken the Europe, a Europe of peace, 2. There has been mass neo-liberal offensive, and in social justice, sustainable life, attendance in the seminars and With the closing of the 4th ESF, some of them popular food sovereignty and solidarity, workshops. People came to we have every reason to be mobilizations managed to respecting minorities¹ right and listen and discuss, not just to optimistic for the potential of reverse the privatization the self-determination of browse around. the alterglobal movement as process. peoples. well as for the forthcoming 3. For the first time in a struggles in Greece. All those of The current situation is full of We condemn the witch-hunts European Social Forum, trade us who were present in the opportunities but also dramatic and criminalization of unions had a significant role as events taking place in the 4th dangers. Opposition and alterglobal and other members of the organizing ESF, sensed the breath of a resistance to the war and progressive movements in committee. forthcoming Spring. occupation of Iraq have exposed Eastern and Western Europe. the British and US strategy as a 4. Art and culture had a central Declaration of the failure. The world is facing the We emerge from the ESF in place in the Forum, with more Assembly of the Social nightmare of a new war in Iran. Athens having made a step than 120 cultural events and Movements The arbitrary decision of the EU towards a better coordination with a participation of hundreds to cut funds to the National between Eastern and Western of artists. Declaration of the Assembly of the Palestinian Authority is movements, with a common Movements of the 4th European Social determination to fight for peace, The greek social forum Forum - Athens 7th May 2006 unacceptable and exacerbates jobs, and secure existence. We addresses its warmest greetings: the whole situation. The We, women and men from oppression of Kurdish people will promote our agenda of v To the thousands of citizens social movements across has still not come to an end. European campaigns and from all over Greece and abroad Europe, came to Athens after mobilization on the main issues who filled the streets of Athens years of common experiences, Conservative forces in the north of our common platform and marched with determination fighting against war, and the south are encouraging a developed in the ESF networks. despite the throw of tear-gas neoliberalism, all forms of ³clash of civilization² aimed at from the police imperialism, colonialism, dividing oppressed people, We need to coordinate our racism, discrimination and which is in turn producing work, to define an effective v To the hundreds of exploitation, against all the risks unacceptable violence, strategy for the next period, and volunteers of the Greek Social of an ecological catastrophy. barbarism and additional attacks to strengthen and enlarge our Forum, who did their best for on the rights and dignity of movements. the organization of the 4th ESF. This year has been significant in migrants and minorities. To them we owe the success of that a number of social We call on all the European the event. struggles and campaigns have Although the EU is one of the movements to open a large been successful in stopping richest areas of the world, tens debate in order to decide all v To the Greek Social Forum¹s neoliberal projects suck as the of millions of people are living together new common steps teams of safeguard that proposed European Constitution in poverty, either because of during the next months within contributed in the successful Treaty, the EU Ports Directive, mass unemployment or the the framework of the ESF finishing of the rally as it was and the CPE in France. casualization of labour. The process. 14 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Italy A dangerous situation for Rifondazione

Flavia d’Angeli Prodi declares victory

Some very important events are already on the agenda: v We will mobilize for a The Unione (Union) of Romano Prodi won the elections on 9- complete withdrawal of troops 10 April by a short head [1]. from Iraq and Afganistan, against the threat of a new war The alternative Left, which was party proposes, could turn out to immigration; addressing in Iran, against the occupation part of this centre-left coalition, be a very dangerous perspective. seriously the question of wages; of Palestine, for nuclear is now faced with a challenge: The PRC’s appeal to a sense of the refusal of any new disarmament, to eliminate how to block the road to social- responsibility and respect for the privatizations; a real policy of military bases in Europe and we liberalism, without, however, in discipline of the coalition will disarmament. call for a week of action from any way helping Berlusconi to exercise a formidable pressure The possibility of defeating the 23 to 30 September 2006. get back into power. on the party to submit to the decisions of the Union, since right-wing parties on a social v We appeal for an The elections of 9-10 April Berlusconi’s return to power will level, and no longer simply on international day of action and illustrate a very complicated weigh heavily in the balance. the political and institutional mobilization the 7th of October panorama of the Italian political The election of PRC Secretary levels, lies in the building of a 2006 in Europe and Africa, for a situation; The Union, Romano Fausto Bertinotti to the social alternative that goes European unconditional Prodi’s centre-left coalition, only presidency of the national beyond the schema of legalization and equal rights to just won a majority in the assembly is likely to increase governments changing without all migrants; for the closure of Chamber of Deputies, and got this pressure. anything really changing. Prodi, all detention centers in Europe, only two senators more than the on the other hand, wants to for the stop to externalization, Centre-Right. Although the As the Critical Left current, we situate his government in the for the stop to deportations; Union won more votes than put forward an alternative direct line of the old neo-liberal against the precariousness and Silvio Berlusconi’s House of hypothesis to the majority’s at policies which characterized his for the uncoupling of the link Liberties [2] and gained support the last central committee presidency of the European between resident permit and the among young people, it failed in meeting on 22-23 April. The Union. The participation of the labor contract, for a residence its objective of winning over other opposition currents PRC in this government will citizenship. right-wing electors. As a result, seemed to be avoiding the need only delay the perspective of a the victory had a bitter taste. for a battle in the party. So we strong anti-capitalist Left in v We will mobilize against the stressed that the conditions for Italy. casualization and the Prodi, by conducting a moderate the PRC to participate in the dismanting of public services electoral campaign, without government didn’t exist. But we ------and for the social rights denouncing the evils of neo- did not conceal the fact that our liberal policies, lost a whole v Flavia D’Angeli is a leader of the coordinating our struggles in the votes were necessary for the Bandiera Rossa current, which whole Europe in the next sector of his own electorate. The Prodi government to come into organises comrades identifying with months. good result of the Party of existence, and especially to the Fourth International within the Communist Refoundation (PRC) ensure the departure of Critical Left current of the Party of In January 2007, the WSF will in the Senate (7.5 per cent), even Berlusconi from the Palazzo Communist Refoundation (PRC). meet in Nairobi. The growth of though it was partly offset by a Chigi (the centre of ------the African social movements is less brilliant score in the government), a departure which crucial for the world. Building Chamber (5.8 per cent), is demanded by a big majority of NOTES for the WSF will be an demonstrates that there was a the electorate. opportunity to fight against broad space for a radical critique [1] The Unione encompasses among other European exploitation and neo- of the neo-liberal model. This This support “from the outside” forces the Left Democrats (DS) (ex- colonialism. space was not occupied by the would set Prodi on the only road Communists who have now been converted to social liberalism and are larger and more moderate forces that could give him a broad members of the Socialist International), In June 2007, there will be a of the alliance (the Left social base of support: the road Margarita (a centrist grouping), and the meeting of the European Union Democrats and Margarita): their of a clean break from the neo- Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC), Council and a meeting of the liberal and warlike policies of a party of the anti-liberal Left. Within the disappointing results weakened PRC there is the Critical Left current, in G8 at Rostock in Germany after the alliance. preceding governments. What which the members of the Fourth the one in St Petersburg in July would be the signs of such a International participate this year. We will seize the In this context, the situation is break? The immediate opportunity of these occasions [2] The principal forces in the House of looking very difficult for the withdrawal of Italian troops Liberties are Berlusconi’s party, Forza for a general convergence of PRC. The building of an from Iraq and Afghanistan; the Italia, the post-fascist National Alliance our struggles. alternative and anti-capitalist repeal of Law 30, which reforms and the populist Northern League Left in Italy is now at a decisive working conditions, and also the ------stage. Locking itself into the repeal of the education reform ------government, as a majority of the and of the Bossi-Fini law on 15 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Italy "The Project of Prodi’s Centre-Left Union has failed"

Franco Turigliatto

The recent election defeat of Berlusconi was not any kind of lasting defeat for the In the Union there is a whole sector of the old Italian right, which waged an agressive and mobilising campaign. By contrast the Christian Democracy which expresses itself centre-left "Union" waged a very defensive campaign and has resulted in a weak and through La Margherita. There is a sector divided government. It is far from being a tremendous victory for the left or the which directly represents capital, like workers movement, according to Franco Turigliatto, interviewed below. Lamberto Dini (who was Director General of the Bank of Italy, President of the Council of How do you explain the very close result of elections of April 2005, where Berlusconi’s Ministers from January 1995 to May 1996 the election of 9-10 April? party only held on to tow regions out of the and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1996 to thirteen that were up for re-election. The 2001, establishing excellent relation with the In spite of a deep economic and social crisis rhythm of the electoral calendar was United States: he went from Forza Italia to La which could have provoked strong opposition respected by the Union and no mobilization to the government, there is no sign in this Margherita in 2002, transiting via his own demanding the resignation of the Berlusconi electoral result of a victory of the Centre-left. movement, Rinnovamento Italiano). government was organized by the trade union Fundamentally, we can cite three main and political forces of the so-called Furthermore there is a whole sector of the reasons for this. opposition. Left Democrats (DS) which manages One is the capacity of the Right to reactivate capitalism and has completely gone over to The third reason relates to the very great all its potential electors, thanks to a campaign its side. DS has a relationship with the that was very wide ranging and very weakness of the Centre-left’s electoral organized workers’ movement, let’s say with aggressive, linked to domination of the campaign. The Centre-left waited for the ripe the CGIL, of the same kind that the American media. It articulated the use of fears (fear of fruit to fall into its hands. Whereas on the Democratic Party has with the AFL-CIO. increasing taxes, fear of the “Bolsheviks”, right the campaign was conducted in a radical fear of “oppressive bureaucracy”) - in a fashion and with a strong ideological content, Furthermore, the relationship that has been society that is traumatized - and of promises, the forces of the Centre-left didn’t know how established with the big daily newspapers is for example, concerning taxes and tax to - or didn’t want to - incorporate and set in only the cover for a more organic relationship evasion, which had an impact on a significant movement broad popular sectors around with factions of the big bourgeoisie. The sector of the so-called middle classes. simple proposals and demands which links with the banks are also very strong. respond to their needs. The second reason is the following: in spite We can cite for example the position taken by of the mobilisations, in spite of the struggles, For example, the Centre-left was completely the boss of Uni-Credit, Alessandro Profumo, the social recomposition of the workers’ defensive on the question of taxes, whereas it who was clearly to be seen - and he wasn’t movement remains very limited. As a result could have very concretely shown the the only one - taking part in the primary what can be described as the workers’ legitimacy of an offensive tax policy by elections within the Union which were movement cannot project its hegemony over demonstrating the plunder that was carried organized in October 2005. So he openly the whole of society. And that explains the out by the Berlusconi government. It could chose Prodi. That was a political act of some difficulty of not only winning the votes of have responded in this way, even just in the weight. The links with the BancaIntesa and those who are favourable to the Centre-left limited framework of redistributed justice. Giovanni Bazzoli are just as explicit. So we and the Left, but also of making a That was not done. In reality on all the can make a rather ironic remark. breakthrough in sectors of society which can important social and economic questions, the be the object of manipulation by populist Centre-left was on the defensive. This front which goes from the Confindustria propaganda. to the PRC via the main bourgeois It was forced to act in that way because at the newspapers only won 50% of the vote! The And on this terrain Berlusconi demonstrated heart of the Centre-left there was a conviction other 50% was also won by another part of all that he was capable of. During his term of that the Confindustria (the Italian employer’ the bourgeoisie, with the support of a whole office he had to face some difficult moments, moments of open crisis. He found himself organization) was going to facilitate or even spectrum of bosses of small and medium under the pressure of some mass movements. guarantee victory. So even from a purely enterprises, of fractions of what we could However, the trade union organizations and propagandistic point of view, the Union did describe as the lumpen bourgeoisie, and the parties of the Centre-left avoided building not want to sharpen its demands,; because it obviously of popular sectors. a solid and consistent anti-government didn’t want to endanger its relations with the And if the Union is making a compromise mobilization. Confindustria and with all the big press organs. Furthermore, the press provided with the Confindustria, which it is in the It is not just a question of the mobilization proof that in the present politico-mediatic process of doing, it is a sort of politico- against the war in 2003. I am also referring context it cannot guarantee electoral success. arithmetic compromise within 50% of the here to the electoral routs he suffered on the electorate. Which ought to provoke some occasion of the local and European elections How would you define the Union from a more serious thinking, to say the least, within in June 2004 and especially the regional socio-political point of view? the “radical Left”. 16 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

The leaders of the Union thought that the addition the Confindustria wants a reduction possibility of being able to take some plebeian and vulgar tone used by Berlusconi of the taxes paid by companies. independent positions in relation to the in his campaign was the sign either of loss of government. self-control or of obvious excess. In reality All this with the aim of “facing up to the this type of propaganda was very well international competition”, according to a This last aspect could only be concretized studied. And when he used the term credo that is repeated in all countries. The insofar as different kinds of mobilisations “imbecile” he was not only employing a way program of the Union suits the employers’ developed, with a certain continuity. This of speaking that is very widespread, but organization. It would even be willing to was supposed to have an influence, in a first placing himself within a dominant allow some social elements to be introduced stage, on the content of the programme, and ideological framework. In reality, on the Left in order to better push through the then in the second stage on its too, themes such as individualism, the fundamental counter-reforms. implementation by the government. domination of the market, the centrality of the enterprise are dominant. Which means As far as the Church is concerned, it certainly Given the election results and the that calling those who are opposed to these played an important role through its ultra- institutional situation, this orientation was themes “imbeciles” appears as quiet natural. reactionary campaign around all the themes way off the mark. Obviously this failure has concerning “the question of Life”. not been admitted by the leadership, even Besides, Berlusconi succeeded in mobilizing though in the ranks of the party a certain against the Confindustria a large section of This time the PRC is entering the governmental coalition, with all the number of doubts are being expressed on the small and medium employers for whom, in subject. order to survive, the only solution is to constraints that flow from that ... exploit their workers to the maximum. They In fact, in this context, once it is in The official version is as follows: it’s a fine are far from the kind of collaboration with the government, the PRC in its turn will be victory; we escaped a real danger (a victory unions advocated by the Confindustria. So subjected to strong pressures demanding of Berlusconi); the government must go that is the overall socio-political framework; greater moderation from it. These pressures forward; it must implement its programme it is very negative. will be all the stronger in that, faced with the because the danger is the establishment of a So, how do you see the framework within Berlusconian front, the feeling that we have “grand coalition” (by analogy with the CDU- which the Union should act? to maintain a “united bloc” is very SPD Grand Coalition in Germany). widespread among a broad layer of workers. The project of the Union has failed. Many Face with this “grand coalition danger”, the people thought that the Union was going to I am already hearing workers saying to me, leadership of the PRC affirms that we have to break up the Berlusconian front. We can when they know that I have just been elected support the change of government at any discuss to what extent that happened. What is to the Senate, where the Union only has a price. You have to understand that by change certain is that Berlusconi succeeded in majority of two seats: “Careful, you will of government is meant a centre-right mobilizing all his bases of support to go out always have to be present. Of course we government followed by a centre-left and vote. Now we can discuss whether this won’t be able to demand a whole series of government; which has nothing to do with a cohesion of the Berlusconian front can be things. But we will have to be satisfied with real alternative. The leadership of the PRC maintained now that he is no longer in power. what we can win in this period”. has always denied that taking part in an alliance in the framework of the Union only Many people say to me: “You’ll have to be But we are in a situation where the social and implied this kind of change of government. It present, faced with Berlusconi, and parliamentary relationships of forces are as I always said either that it meant a real immediately propose a law on conflict of have outlined them above. Berlusconi and the alternative or to be more precise, a transition interest”. In other words a law dealing with section of the bourgeoisie that he represents towards a real alternative. can exert permanent pressure, exert the mixing up of the private interests of the blackmail over the new Prodi government. big businessman Berlusconi with those of the Throughout the whole recent period the This Berlusconian Right is still solid enough politician Berlusconi. Now this theme is not leadership has nonetheless been clearer on to have an effect on the action of the at the centre of the coming social the subject. It announced: in the present confrontations. But for many people, dealing government’s. To which should be added the circumstances we absolutely have to support with the conflict of interest appears as an more than serious influence of the a change of government, against the danger urgent task, if only because of past debates. Confindustria and also the pressures exerted of a “grand coalition”. To put the cherry on by the Church. If the Union’s project has failed, the PRC’s the cake it added: because it is the only way The Confindustria has already said what it project has met the same fate. In reality, for to keep open the road to a real alternative. wants. It wants none of the measures which the leadership of the PRC the perspective that Which is nothing more than a statement and have created job insecurity to be touched. It was at least suggested should have been a obviously not a political orientation. The wants that to be accompanied by a reform of massive victory of the union, accompanied leadership made maximum use of a the Cassa Integrazione (a mechanism which by mass movements, therefore with the widespread feeling - which many people took allows a layer of workers who have lost their possibility of establishing a relationship of it upon themselves to spread widely - the jobs to maintain a substitute salary as if they forces that would allow the implementation feeling of “anything but Berlusconi”, echoing were in a sense just technically unemployed; of the so-called positive points of the Union’s the “anything but Bush” during the last it is something that was won in the 1970s). In programme and also provide the slight American election. 17 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

What is the essence of your immediate In reality the degree of job insecurity that which would make it possible to consolidate, response in the present situation? there is today in Italy is not a product of Law step by step, forms of organization, of 30 which, besides, has not yet manifested all struggles, of consciousness, which would The orientation that we are adopting can be its negative effects. We have to start from the have a more dynamic potential. Which described as follows. First of all, to reject any “Treu Package” - so called from the name of would, in other words, make it possible to kind of triumphalism and to underline the the minister, Tiziano Treu, who is at present a draw in new sectors of workers and to build difficulties, for example the difficulties that member of the Margherita. “a classist hegemony”. I don’t want to say flow from the inability of the Union’s that elements of that don’t exist. But the real orientation to break up the Berlusconian In 1995, Treu was Minister of Labour and process of rebuilding the workers’ movement front. Social Provision in the government presided - to use a formula that to some people may over by an authentic representative of the sound old-fashioned - remains in a certain Next, we must insist on the fact that the bourgeoisie, Lamberto Dini. Subsequently, in sense hanging in the air, “in waiting”. government will not be able to carry out its 1996, Prodi kept him in this job. He was also task, at least the task that is hoped for by a a minister in 1998 in the government of There have been important movements, but very large part of those who voted for it, Massimo D’Alema. From this first Treu they were episodic, which reduces their because the pressure on it will be very strong. reform there followed a whole series of cumulative dynamics. The last mobilisation Starting from there, to resist it is necessary to measures which increased job insecurity. of metalworkers (in the broadest sense of the term) did not have the same repercussions on organize a mobilization of workers to Onto these measures was grafted Law 30 (the other sectors as in the past. Even though demand the implementation of measures Biagi Law, enforced by Berlusconi). quantitatively this sector of workers remains favourable to them. This law opens the door to a multitude of more or less the same, although the struggles fixed term contracts: in this case the very Only such a dialectic between mobilizations that have been led and the forms that they name of contract loses its meaning. In the and concrete gains can make it possible also have taken recall historical moments of acute Union’s programmatic documents the social confrontation, even though the to win back a certain political influence over proposition is basically to modify Law 30 metalworkers succeeded in winning on sectors of the working class and popular and go back to its first version, which implied certain points that are symbolically sectors who voted for Berlusconi. That is the using fixed term contracts and temporary important, that didn’t have the same effect on way that we are countering the “common work for fewer categories of workers. Even society as in the past. And what was won, in sense”, as I explained it before which is symbolically such a going back does not its material dimension, remains more than tending to become an element of correspond to the expectations of those who limited. legitimisation of the present policies of the are today suffering from job insecurity. PRC leadership. The refusal to support Prodi, In addition, for someone who follows the as was the case in 1998, is not likely to be The following confrontations seem to me to situation in the workplaces, these repeated, at least there is no sign that it will. be on the agenda. First of all on deregulation, mobilisations didn’t lead to a change in the in other words on Law 30, because on its concrete relationships of forces in the We can’t separate the dynamic of the Union essential points the Confindustria doesn’t workplace itself. Starting from there, instead from its relations with the trade unions: what want to give it up. The outcome of this of discussing, as many people in the PRC are can you tell us about that? “confrontation” is another question. doing, whether the social bloc behind Berlusconi is going to maintain itself or fall To understand the situation you have to Next, the question of the fiscal corner will be apart, it seems to me much more important to remember that the last congress of the CGIL debated. This is an invention of Prodi’s. The be discussing the limits - and why there are (General Confederation of Italian Workers, fiscal corner is the difference between the these limits - to the rebuilding of an anti- the main union confederation) which was direct salary, the indirect salary, the neoliberal, anti-capitalist social bloc. Without held from 1st-4th March 2006 was very contributions for retirement pension, and the that, society will find itself without real negative. The leadership completely adapted net salary of the worker, in other words what defences in the face of operations of plunder, itself to the Union and to Prodi. Furthermore, he really receives at the end of the month. in the face of demagogical populist the left around the FIOM (Federation of Prodi has proposed to reduce this fiscal operations, or in the face of counter-reforms Metalworkers) was defeated. It was put corner by 5 points. If the problem was to which advance in a concealed fashion. completely on the defensive. reduce the taxes paid by workers, the amount of contributions paid by workers, that could For me the main responsibility of the PRC The centre of gravity of the congress was one be discussed and it could be positive. But if leadership is to have canalised the various of complete support for Prodi. The the reduction of this gap is operated by social mobilizations into the framework of declarations of Guglielmo Epifani, reducing the employer’s contributions - the Union. And in this way it has created an immediately after the election, on the need to which are in fact a part of the salary that obstacle to this recomposition of an anti- neoliberal and anti-capitalist social bloc. repeal Law 30 (the Biagi Law on belongs to the worker - that quite simply deregulation of the labour market) were amounts to a big swindle. Not only is the redistribution taking place in favour of the This interview with him was published in La Brèche, circumstantial. He simply had to take account newspaper of the Movement for Socialism (MPS) in employers, but the future pensions of momentarily of the pressures exerted by Switzerland. workers are being put into question. Giorgio Cremaschi, national secretary of the ------FIOM. The Italian political situation, as in other countries, is related to the state and the v Franco Turigliatto was elected as a Senator for But Epifani will find a way out, that’s quite Piedmont on the PRC list in last month’s elections. dynamics of the workers’ movement: how do certain. We have to be clear - there is no He is a member of the Critical Left current within the you see this question? PRC, and of the Italian section of the Fourth willingness to fight on the part of the CGIL. International. In fact if the leadership of the CGIL had The fundamental problem that I see could be wanted to build a movement against Law 30, described as follows. The struggles of recent ------it would have had the time to do it long ago. years, which have certainly been important, But it wasn’t the case. have not resulted in a cumulative effect 18 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

France Marie-George, Arlette, José - what if we were to talk?

Olivier Besancenot

The anti-liberal left has demonstrated its strength over the last year. It must be present Jose (left), Marie-Georges (second left), Olivier and united at the presidential election. (second right) Our names appear in the opinion polls about would enable millions of people to keep their affect our daily lives, are constructed in such the next presidential election - four names heads above water. a way that on the left it is in reality François which came out, together or separately, for an Hollande who sets the tone and not Marie- anti-liberal and internationalist rejection of In order to really contest the hegemony of George Buffet, Segolène Royal rather than the European Constitution and Treaty. social liberalism on the left, we have to make Arlette Laguiller, Dominique Strauss-Kahn another left emerge, a left that refuses the rather Olivier Besancenot and Pascal Lamy In less than a year, on the terrain of the dictates of finance and of liberal Europe. We rather than José Bové. referendum on May 29, 2005 and on the have no other choice if we want to keep our terrain of struggle in this April, liberalism rights, or to win new ones, than to challenge So yes to a unitary candidacy if it is anti- suffered two setbacks, with the rejection of the privileges of the strongest. Countering the capitalist. We are more concerned with the the Constitution and the withdrawal of the stranglehold of the multinationals over the scenario and the content than with the First Employment Contract (CPE). These economy and over our lives means opposing casting. Two scenarios can be envisaged. One victories have given rise to great hopes the growing appropriation of the fruits of starts with the European referendum among those who suffer every day the effects everyone’s labour by a few big firms. campaign, continues with support for social of capitalist exploitation. struggles, unveils a plan of emergency It is unimaginable to legislate effectively to measure for the popular classes and youth Our four names do not on their own sum up ban sackings as long as the authorities do not and leads to the coming together of anti- all the diversity that was expressed on the take back from the “sackers” the subsidies liberal and anti-capitalist, internationalist, campaign for a “No” from the left. However, that were so generously accorded them. feminist, and ecologist forces. The other ends we have joint responsibilities. Many people Again, it is unimaginable to increase income up giving a left cover to a new change of want to know if a united candidacy is or give an autonomy allowance to all young government under the wing of the Socialist possible and necessary. Necessary, it people who are in education without taking Party. We won’t be in the second scenario. certainly is, if only to respond to the unitary money from profits. And finally it is aspiration which has been expressed since unimaginable to win a measure which is With a good scenario the casting will be easy to sort out. Between the eight left candidacies May 29, particularly in the collectives of the however free, like the moratorium on GM on April 21st 2002 and a single one in 2007, same name. crops, without facing up to the agricultural there must be a happy medium. A plural Left multinationals. A left which does not propose But possible? The conditions for going number 2, scarcely spruced up, seems to be to redistribute the wealth by giving the further still don’t seem to have been met. being reconstituted. That’s its problem. The population the means of controlling it is a left However, the obstacles to be surmounted to struggles of today and tomorrow deserve that is full of fine promises, but which once in bring us together are known by everyone: better than that. So, I think we need to meet power will not implement left policies. defeat the right and its policies; reject social and have a little chat. We will soon be liberalism; do not reproduce the strategy of Finally to be convinced that the Left doesn’t meeting up in various struggles, that’s for the plural Left [1]. have the right to get it wrong in a new sure...but why not over dinner for four? It’s on me! To defeat the right in a lasting way is a fine experience of the plural Left is not in itself a thing to promise, but it is better to fight it guarantee. The “plural Left” is not a formula This article appeared in the April 28 edition of the Paris right away. Today, we have to build a broad but a political strategy which is still the daily Le Monde movement, with the widest possible unity strategy of the Socialist Party: to satellise ------and without sectarianism, against other left parties around electoral agreements in order to get them to take responsibility for unemployment and job insecurity, because v Olivier Besancenot was candidate for the Ligue the law “on equal opportunity” and the CPE,s the main lines of its policies. Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR - French section big brother, the new employment contract of the Fourth International) at the French presidential So hope lies in opposing the Right and elections in 2002. (CNE) are still in force [2]. So it’s true that to resisting social liberalism, by refusing for fight resolutely against the Right without ------putting off till tomorrow direct confrontation example governmental and parliamentary alliances with the Socialist Party. That would with it, means undertaking to undo in the NOTES future what it has done since it came to not marginalise us. The idea that we could power. convert the leadership of the Socialist Party [1] The plural Left was the name given to the to anti-liberalism or exert significant governmental alliance, dominated by the Socialist Party And to get rid of once and for all the evils influence on the summit meeting of the Left, and including the Communist Party and the Greens, under the premiership of Lionel Jospin between 1997 and 2002 which have rained down on us, we have to thinking that it could give birth to a real put an end to all the liberal policies, even alternative, is an illusion. There is no [2] The CNE (New Employment Contract) allows those which were implemented by the Left synthesis possible between anti-liberalism employers in companies with less than 20 employees to sack workers without reason during the first two years of when it was in power. In short, to defeat the and social liberalism. All the more so as the their employment - exactly as the CPE did for young Right and not let it come back in five years’ institution of the Fifth Republic, which people under 26 time means implementing a plan of social prevent universal suffrage having an and democratic emergency measures which influence over the economic decisions that ------19 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

France The mass movement has defeated the government - what now?

Murray Smith

After two months of a mass campaign against the CPE (First Employment Contract), Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) on the morning of April 10 the French government finally caved in and withdrew the and Lutte Ouvrière. measure. The CPE would have enabled employers to sack young workers under the Thirdly, the demand for the withdrawal of the age of 26 in the first two years of their employment, without having to give a reason. CPE had mass support. As people understood Its defeat was the first time a mass movement had blocked one of the government’s what was at stake, opposition to it rose to neo-liberal measures since the Right came back to power in 2002. The government around 70 per cent of the population - 80 per forced through a reform of pensions in 2003 in spite of months of demonstrations and cent among young people. And more and strikes. The following year it imposed a reform of health insurance. Why did it fail this more of them were ready to take to the time? streets. The first day of action on February 7 mobilised 400,000 demonstrators, which in In the first place, the CPE was aimed at a compensated for that, and it wasn’t French terms was only a modest success. The very specific part of the population, young forthcoming. next one a month later had a million, then 1.5 people. And those young people who would million on March 18, three million on March What was different this time was that the have been directly affected, university and 28 and even more on April 4. Particularly on initiative was not with the union leaderships high school students, mobilized massively the last two days the number of those on against it. There is a tradition of powerful but with the students. And the student strike was significant but not really massive - student mobilizations in France, and this is mobilization, which started off slowly, not as big as the biggest strikes in 2003. not the first time one has been successful. steadily expanded. By the end of the movement three-quarters of universities were The bitter experience of the movement In 1986 the government was forced to occupied or blockaded and over a quarter of against pension reform three years ago withdraw an education reform and in 1994 a high schools. demonstrated that a series of one-day strikes measure similar to the CPE was defeated. was not enough to make the government back Last year there was a four-month long And it really was a movement that involved down. This time it was the combination of the movement of high school students, not the mass of students. General assemblies of massive nature of the protests and the fact always massive but very militant. The fact several hundred were daily occurrences, and that the higher education system was that there are regularly movements among mass meetings of several thousand students progressively paralysed that brought victory. students, sometimes national, sometimes just took place in the most militant universities. As the movement grew, usually conservative local, means that there is a frequently In the latter stages of the movement, students university presidents were calling for the renewed layer of activists. engaged in forms of direct action - blocking CPE to be withdrawn and splits developed in train stations and motorways, occupying the governing UMP party, with Prime Secondly, there was broad unity against the offices of employers’ organisations and the Minister Dominique de Villepin, who had CPE. The trade unions - all of them - government party. It is worth noting that introduced the CPE, becoming more and supported the movement from start to finish. many of the most militant contingents of the more isolated. One reason for the defeat in 2003 was that high school movement came from schools in one of the main unions, the CFDT, defected the suburbs which were at the centre of the Underlying the whole movement is an early on and accepted the government revolt of mainly immigrant youth last ongoing refusal of French public opinion to measure in exchange for insignificant November. accept the inevitability of neo-liberal concessions. It lost many members as a capitalism. In an editorial in its March 31 result. This time everyone stayed on board The support of the unions was a key factor in edition, the London-based Economist throughout the movement. Only a few the victory - there was throughout the informed its readers, in a tone of months ago a measure similar to the CPE, the movement a united front, the Intersyndicale, exasperation, that only 36 per cent of French CNE, went through with little opposition. of eight trade union organisations and four people thought the “free market” was the best student unions. But it was the youth who possible economic system, as against around The CNE (New Employment Contract) were the locomotive, the driving force of the two-thirds of people in Britain, Germany and allows employers in companies with les than movement. the US. This is a reflection of a deep-rooted 20 employees to sack workers in the first two attachment to the ideas of equality and years of their employment without giving a Unions representing both university and high solidarity among wide layers in French reason. A day of strikes and mass school students were actively involved in the society. demonstrations against the CNE last October movement, but its leadership was the Student 4 was not followed up and the measure went Coordination, comprising representatives The degree of resistance to the neo-liberal through. The workers most directly affected, elected by mass meetings, which met every agenda was demonstrated at the polls when those working in small companies, are poorly weekend in a different university and which the projected European Constitution was organised and in an unfavourable relationship was dominated by left-wing militants. The defeated in the referendum on May 29 last of forces with their employers. Only a movement was supported by the entire year after a dynamic campaign for a ‘No’ national campaign by the unions that French Left, from the reformist Socialist from the left. It has just been demonstrated in mobilised stronger sectors could have Party to revolutionary organizations like the the streets, and the activists who built the 20 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

mass mobilisations were often the same who pensions, education. Periodically mass year’s presidential and parliamentary campaigned against the European mobilisations slow the process or block elections would in any way challenge the Constitution. In fact, there is now in particular measures, though sometimes even neo-liberal consensus. practically every town a network of militants, massive mobilisations are defeated, as in who come from different unions and political 2003. That presents the anti-capitalist Left with a organisations, from the global justice challenge. It has to move from campaigns movement ATTAC, who are used to working But they do not stop the process. Of course and even victories on single issues to with each other. the union leaderships bear considerable providing a political alternative. Following responsibility for defeats. Particularly in on the victories over the European Some politicians and commentators in France 2003, it was their refusal to call an all-out Constitution and the CPE, the next step could and abroad have argued that it is general strike that gave victory to the be united candidacies of the forces to the left “undemocratic” for mass protests to be able government. The experience of 2003 has of the Socialist Party in next year’s elections. to over-rule the decisions of elected made many workers sceptical about the Both the Communist Party and the LCR have representatives. This reveals a touching faith utility of repeated days of action. And if come out in principle in favour of such in France’s democratic institutions opposition to the CPE had been limited to candidacies. that, it is unlikely that victory would have It is worth recalling that the UMP, which been won. What made the difference was the The basis could be a programme that broke thanks to the peculiarities of the French permanent mass mobilisation of the students. with the left-right neo-liberal consensus and a electoral system has an absolute and indeed refusal to participate in an SP-led substantial majority in Parliament, won just Where do we go from here? Symbolic as it government. On this latter point the 33 per cent of the vote in the 2002 elections - was, the CPE was only one component of the Communist Party still has to completely a figure that goes down to 22 per cent of ironically named “Law on Equal clarify its position - though it is clearly wary registered voters when you take into account Opportunities” which has been adopted by of repeating the experience of 1997-2002, the 35 per cent of electors who abstained. Parliament, and which provides among other when it participated in the SP-dominated Representatives elected under those things for 14-year-olds to start work as government of Lionel Jospin, serving merely conditions and subject to no kind of control apprentices, whereas up to now there was as a left cover for neo-liberal policies and or recall by their electors are ill placed to give compulsory schooling till the age of 16. And paying the price in the 2002 elections. There lessons in democracy. In 2003, then Prime the CNE is still in force. But to follow up the would also have to be agreement on the Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin famously victory over the CPE by defeating these programme of any alliance. But if the declared: “It is not the street that governs”. measures too would require continued unity obstacles can be overcome and agreement On that occasion he won. and leadership from the unions and the left reached, a united campaign could begin to parties, and it would provoke a political crisis give directly political expression to the Three years later, if the street did not exactly which most of them do not want. widespread rejection of neo-liberalism and govern, it showed that it could block a mobilise many activists from the social measure that the government was trying to There is also the problem of the lack of a movements. impose against overwhelming public credible political alternative. A defeat of the opinion. The victory over the CPE has left an Right in the 2007 presidential and legislative ------arrogant right-wing government in disarray a elections is possible, though not certain. But year before next year’s presidential and as has been repeatedly shown over the last 25 v Murray Smith, formerly international organiser for the Scottish Socialist Party, is an active member of legislative elections. Calls for De Villepin’s years, a return to power by the Socialist Party the LCR. resignation are mounting. He is now would not mean the end of neo-liberal becoming mired in the Clearstream scandal, policies. Since 1981, there has been a change ------where it appears that there was an elaborate of government from right to left and left to conspiracy to smear leading politicians, right at every legislative election. including the main right-wing contender (and De Villepin’s rival) for next year’s Perhaps it would be more accurate to speak presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy, with of centre-right and centre-left. Because over accusations of corruption. and above differences on details, there is a broad consensus in defence of neo-liberal This victory is worth celebrating, but there is policies. The Socialist Party, under pressure no room for triumphalism. In spite of often from the student movement and public widespread opposition to their policies, opinion, was prepared to oppose the CPE. On successive governments of right and left over the much more fundamental issue of the the past fifteen years have been steadily European Constitution, the party fell into line pushing forward the neo-liberal agenda - and supported it (though a minority privatisations, labour flexibility, job campaigned against it). And nothing insecurity, counter-reforms in health, indicates that a Socialist victory in next 21 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Britain showed that in practice it was They were able to present possible to combine both Respect as the serious party of strategic tasks - building a united the left, going places after its The crisis in working class left in struggle whilst building a breakthrough general election representation new left party. The key was open results. Whilst Respect National comradely discussion. Secretary John Rees was somewhat triumphalist and fell British trade union opens a historic debate Whilst John Marek from flat, other Respect speakers Forward Wales, Jean Lambert addressed the need to engage Greg Tucker from the Greens and Liz Greene with Bob Crow’s call to rebuild a from the Socialist Labour Party rank and file movement in the The Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT), which (the organisation set up by trade unions, whilst also actually organizes transport workers, has long played a pivotal role in miners’ leader Arthur Scargill) building a new party of the left British politics. It was one of the trade unions involved in had little if anything to say, Dave by building Respect. launching the Labour Party in Britain at the beginning of the Nellist from the Socialist Party The conference finished with a twentieth century. Since the rise of New Labour, it has been an (SP, British section of the pledge from the RMT leadership increasingly strident critic at the political as well as the Committee for a Workers’ that they would take seriously industrial level. International) argued for support what had been said in for the SP’s campaign for a new But while the trade union has have agreed resolutions calling considering whether to proceed workers party. Arguing for such backed the Scottish Socialist for a wider debate about the with any other actions. Party in Scotland and the problem of political a party to have a clear anti-war, Attendance on the day had maverick Forward Wales in that representation. This conference anti-privatisation programme mainly been drawn from the far country, in England the union was the result. Somewhat half- and plugging their conference in left. RMT members were in a has not supported Respect. hearted in its implementation, March. his call seemed to have small minority and other but nevertheless a historic step moved beyond mere self-serving independent trade unionists not Nevertheless, the union forward. Committed to taking no propaganda to be something the present in large numbers. This organised an important decisions, the meeting was SP see as practically necessary. meant among other things that conference in January this year always going to be limited. However suspicious one might the audience was largely white, to discuss the question of be based on their past record, it ageing, and male. working class representation. A long list of platform speakers is clearly necessary to engage Nevertheless, the fact of the While it was not a delegate threatened to crowd out a real with their arguments. event being called by a serious conference, and mainly attended debate from the floor, but in the trade union had a disciplining by far left activists, never the end an impressive number of The other platform speaker, left effect on all speakers and the less it was a significant event. people got to speak, and a real Labour MP John McDonnell discussion, apart from a handful Greg Tucker reports: debate did take place. Almost (secretary of the Socialist of veiled references to Big unanimously the debate rejected Campaign Group of MPs) might Brother, was conducted in a They were turning people Labourism in any form. have been expected to defend comradely fashion seriously away at the RMT’s work through the Labour Party. RMT General Secretary Bob engaging each other’s conference on the crisis of He did not. Instead he talked of arguments. There is clearly a working class representation. Crow opened the meeting by the need to build united fronts to refusing to commit the RMT to potential for further meetings to Yes, the RMT had booked the confront capitalism. Rubbishing launching a new political party address the problem of how to small hall at Friends’ debate about organisational proceed to fill the vacuum left by but did argue for a new national forms, he urged that we Meeting House but it was shop stewards’ movement to Labour. RMT activists will be concentrate on working together still impressive. Three rebuild a fighting trade union calling on the union’s Executive in practical campaigns. New to set in train such a process. hundred people packed into movement. forms might emerge from the the hall whilst another But if we are to go forward the By his logic the emergence of struggle, he argued, but you got hundred were left outside. RMT leadership needs to be such a shop stewards’’ the impression that as long as he more serious, getting movement would be a necessary was allowed his space in Those who did get in were able commitments from other union prerequisite for the building of a Parliament he would not be in a to take part in a useful, if limited, forces, preparing itself before serious new party to the left of hurry to create them himself. discussion on the future of the hand, involving all forces left in Britain. The failure to Labour. In contrast, SSP There was a big vacuum on the including Respect. If it were to renationalise the railways, the convenor Colin Fox, speaking platform. Respect had not been do so then it would be possible part-privatisation of London next, outlining the development invited to speak. Whatever the to progress to a higher level than Underground and Labour’s of the Scottish Socialist Party, reasons for this sectarian error has been possible up to now. continuation of the Tories’ anti- the absence of a key Respect trade union legislation have long ------speaker was at least ameliorated caused RMT members to by the choice of speakers from question their relationship with v Greg Tucker is an long-standing activist in the RMT, a former member the Labour Party. the floor. Alongside a number of Socialist Party members who of its National Executive. He is a leading member of the International Labour resolved the question by spoke of the need for the RMT to Socialist Group, British Section of the expelling the RMT because of its take the step in joining with Fourth International and a member of the IV editorial board. support for the Scottish Socialist them in calling a new party into Party. So at the last two RMT being, a series of Respect ------annual conferences delegates RMT workers demonstrate in London members were called. 22 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Britain No renewal for New Labour

Piers Mostyn

Blair and Brown

The local government election results in England on May 6 saw Labour’s worst local May 4 a string of scandals on precisely these government vote on record. Twenty six per cent support on a 36 per cent turnout meant issues provided the crunch point: less than one in ten electors could be bothered to vote for them. The three major v political parties are converging in the so-called ’centre’, which is in fact on the The “cash for peerages” scandal in which it became clear that Labour was raising neoliberal right. The major response to Labour unpopularity was a very low turnout at money from business people in exchange for the election, but also a rise in support for the far-right British National Party, for the making them Lords or Sirs. Greens and or the left wing alliance Respect, which won 12 councillors in the London municipality Tower Hamlets, 3 in Newham and one councillor in two other v The health crisis: thousands of nursing municipalities. jobs have been destroyed in hospitals, while private contractors made hundreds of The decline in Labour support has been across a range of issues and enveloping millions of pounds from the so-called apparent for at least five years. Electoral nearly all its leading players. ’Private Finance Initiative’ in which private support in local government dropped from 38 companies take over the provision of public The theme tune to Labour’s 1997 victory, per cent in 2000 to 26 per cent in 2006. With infrastructure. lower turnout this time, no amount of ’spin’ "Things can only get better", turned into a can put a gloss on this pummelling. fallacy - with inequality growing, education v The education revolt: massive opposition standards stubbornly low, unemployment to a proposed law that would see the ending Last year’s (2005) general election victory rising, pensions cut and social alienation of ’comprehensive schools’ which include for New Labour did not amount to a reversal growing rapidly. children from all abilities and different social in the downward trend in support.. With a backgrounds, and the return of selection at In practice this means the demise of what has poor result on a low turn out, Labour’s return the age of 11, which would inevitably see a been described as the New Labour "project". to government owed everything to the deepening of privilege for middle class and A recovery would be difficult without peculiarities of the British ’first past the post’ upper class children. polling system, and the disarray of the fundamental change. But this is absolutely opposition Conservative Party. excluded in today’s New Labour party. No v “Sleaze”: salacious sex and corruption significant section of the party is organising stories that ensnared a string of top Labour Media commentary has focused almost for it or even presenting any real alternative. ministers - former interior minister David exclusively on the question of the leadership Blunkett, Culture Minister Tessa Jowell and of the party, and the seemingly endless saga New Labour’s project of hegemonising deputy prime minister John Prescott. of when and if British economics minister British politics for a generation or more - (’Chancellor’) Gordon Brown will take over claiming the mantle of "natural party of Party managers responded to this crisis, with from Tony Blair. It’s true that Blair has long government" - is now looking like history. the elections approaching fast, by cranking been seen inside and outside New Labour as Once this aura of power crumbles it cannot up the authoritarianism. Critics of Labour ’on the way out’. And with this election his be easily rebuilt. who defended civil liberties were labeled authority has further drained to near "poisoners". But the exposure of Home invisibility. Labour’s response at these elections was to Office incompetence in the management of play on the supposed efficiency of local released prisoners exploded this in a second - But while a Brown takeover might boost Labour councils(municipalities) - something like a pinprick to an over-inflated balloon - as Labour fortunes, the revival would be small few outside the party seemed aware of - hypocritical cant. scale and brief. If "renewal" - Gordon spiced up with a heavy dose of "law and Brown’s insistent slogan - had any chance of order" authoritarian populism. This strategy Not only did these scandals wreck Labour’s success it was needed in 2001 or 2002. And blew apart under it’s own internal self-description as the party of competence to really “renew” Labour, even modestly, he contradictions. and integrity, but in erupting so spectacularly would have had to break with Blair’s Iraq during an election campaign highlighted policy and his welfare state "modernisation" The revolt against Blair’s Iraq crusade Labour’s loss of political control. This was a (read: privatisation) policies that have caused formed the backcloth of the electoral fiasco - devastating blow to supporters for whom at such disenchantment on the street. a simmering catalyst for radical discontent, least some semblance of authority was the driving away thousands of New Labour bottom line, having long said “goodbye” to Instead Brown has oriented to the right - members and hundreds of thousands of principle. wrapping himself in the Union Jack, voters. Blair has spent three years vainly emphasising "security" and spearheading the trying to stem this drift by a phony sales- How things have changed. In 1997 Blair rode private sector take-over of public services. pitch focusing on his personal "integrity" and to power pledging to end the corruption, What has changed this year has been the Labour’s purported delivery on "bread and sleaze, maladministration and individualism systemic character of Labour’s failure - butter" policies. But in the months prior to of the Tory years. 23 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

In the preceding two decades there were few Britain major conurbations that weren’t solidly pro- Labour. A prime example was London. The Greater London Council and nearly all the Respect breakthrough inner city municipalities were ruled by a in English local Labour Party at its most left wing. Now they run barely a handful. elections How ironic, given the 2006 results, that the party is nationally incoherent and in some Alan Thornett shift to the right from the mid-80s was sold as areas locally opportunist. necessary to win back support. To achieve The election results achieved by Respect this, Labour collaborated with Conservative Respect, confounding critics on left and right, in the English local elections on May 4th attacks on local government - savage cuts, performed impressively - well into double - with the election of 16 local councillors "parental choice" in education, council house numbers of councillors. There has been a - were qualitatively better than anything genuine breakthrough in two East London sales and so-on. A decade later with Labour achieved for many years by any party of in government it was full steam ahead - assets boroughs and most of the 150 candidates performed strongly - with many coming the left. Previously Respect only had were sold , services privatised, education three councillors (two in Preston in taken out of effective democratic local second or third. authority control and local accountability and north-west England and one in Tower But new problems are now posed. Respect democracy dismantled through the Hamlets in London) it now has a total of cannot continue as an ad hoc coalition. It introduction of mayoral and cabinet 18 (two of the existing councillors was needs the democratic machinery of a political government for councils. not up for re-election this year). party to ensure its representatives are The approach of Respect to the elections was For the past decade Britain’s third party the accountable, policies are developed and its profile and campaigning is developed. To to target the two East London Boroughs Liberal Democrats - with a ruthless and (London local council electoral districts) of opportunistic local party machine - has build a serious base it must draw thousands of the new voters into active participation - Newham and Tower Hamlets where it did reaped the benefit. The Conservative revival best in the general election last year. appears now to have put a stop to that. The not just rallies and leafleting. question is how far this will go? Secondly, in countless wards, Respect These are large Boroughs, each covering two councillors were running neck and neck with parliamentary constituencies. Newham has A full swing of the pendulum back to popular 240,000 inhabitants and Tower Hamlets endorsement for the Conservatives seems the Greens - the combined vote of the two sufficient to allow one to win or come very 196,000. They are both deprived working unlikely. The ’deferential vote’ (working class inner city areas. Tower Hamlets has a class people voting for the Conservatives) is close second. This has to be addressed. Respect need to push the environmental large Bangladeshi population (though not a a fading memory and New Labour is wearing agenda to the fore and try to make local majority) and quite big Afro Caribbean and Thatcherite clothes. agreements with the Greens where possible. Somali communities. Newham has a much bigger white population (a substantial Nonetheless, the peculiarities of the voting Last but not least, fighting for a proportional majority) with a diverse mix of migrant system can allow a party with barely one representation voting system has to become a communities. third of the popular vote to form a central concern. government, making new conservative leader Tower Hamlets contains the Parliamentary David Cameron a possible future prime More broadly, the loosening of Labour’s constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow - minister in what would be little more than a links to the unions will continue. State which was won by George Galloway for lottery on a three-way split, with the funding for political parties is a real Respect in the general election. Respect abstention rate probably being the decisive possibility. After all, Blair and Cameron’s stood candidates in all 51 seats in Tower factor. only alternative is continuing corruption Hamlets and all 62 seats in Newham. scandals or rebuilding mass individual As the three main parties converge into the memberships. This calls for a decisive new Respect also stood in a small number (14) same political territory - barely orientation by Respect. other seats in London and a small number of distinguishable on a left-right continuum - a seats (25) in the rest of the country. This continuing cycle of public disillusion seems With Labour poised to go through a period of made 153 candidates in all. almost inevitable. Whereas most voters have instability, signified by Blair’s panicked expressed this by not voting, a growing reorganisation of his government in which It was a strategy both designed to tackle the minority are clearly turning to the small several senior ministers a were sacked, the hugely undemocratic first-past-the-post parties. Most worryingly this includes the dream of a ’smooth transition’ from Blair to electoral system in these elections - which BNP - which is carving out a dangerous space Brown and then endless Labour government discriminates heavily against small parties with a doubling of its councillors. Labour’s has all but disappeared. since you have to get somewhere between complete abandonment of depressed working 30% and 40% of the vote to get elected class communities is the primary dynamic Respect - having established itself as the only (depending on the number of candidates) - behind this fascist resurgence. serious left alternative - must seize these and also to build on the general election opportunities. results. This proved to be an effective The Greens did well, showing an emergent strategy. new strength in some inner city areas. But the ------fact that Green councillors have been in the The results in Newham and Tower Hamlets local administration in the major northern v Piers Mostyn is a supporter of Socialist were remarkable by any standards for a left Resistance, a socialist newspaper produced by city of Leeds in coalition with Conservatives British supporters of the Fourth International in party. Respect won three seats in Newham and Liberal Democrats for the past four years conjuction with other marxists. and 12 in Tower Hamlets. To get these seats shows that there are problems. While many it polled a massive 86,000 votes across the voted Green to punish Blair from the left, the ------two Boroughs - 23% of the vote. 24 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

The highest percentage vote for a Respect In fact the platform on which Respect stood Britain candidate in Tower Hamlets was 46%. in these elections was a socialist/anti- neoliberal platform not significantly different The only seat Respect won outside of London to that of other left organisations that stood - Latin America: a was in Birmingham Sparkbrook - a deprived including that of the Socialist Party. It was continent in revolt inner city working class area with big against the war and the occupation, against Pakistani and Kashmiri communities - where privatisation and liberalisation, against Socialist Resistance Dayschool Salma Yaqoob (a remarkable young Pakistani racism and in defence of asylum seekers, for woman who is a leader of the anti-war the renationalisation of the railways and the movement as well as Respect) won with a public utilities etc. massive 55% of the vote. The full results for her ward was: Respect 4,339, Labour 2,700, It should also be remembered that most of the Liberal Democrats 990, Conservatives 343, Asians who vote for Respect were previously Greens 309, BNP (fascist) 109. Labour voters. And people from a Muslim background are a natural constituency for Respect also came close to winning in a Respect because Respect came out of the number of other seats as well - Bristol and anti-war movement and is seen and the most Sheffield for example. In Preston it missed consistent and effective anti-war party. Saturday 24 June, Celia Hart, Michael winning another seat by only seven votes. Winning such a big Asian vote, however, Löwy and Zbigniew Kowalewski will be The only other left party to make any gains at does pose a challenge for Respect. Not in that the main speakers in London at a all (or win any seats) was the Socialist Party it has too many Asian voters - Respect wants Socialist Resistance Dayschool (ex-Militant/CWI) - which increased its to win every Asian vote it can get - but analysing events in Latin America today. number of councillors by 1 from 4 to 5. because it needs to increase its appeal to sections of the community where it has not Details from www.socialistresistance.net. There has been some scurrilous comment been so successful. This includes the Afro- from some on the left about the fact that all Caribbean and African community, the trade Celia Hart is the daughter of two historic the new Respect Councillors are from an unions and sections of the white working leaders of the Cuban Revolution, Armando Asian and Muslim background - referring to class. Steps are being taken to address this Hart and the late Haydée Santamaria. A Respect as a Muslim party. Respect rightly problem. physicist, writer and member of the Cuban rejects such comments, which verge on Communist Party, she describes herself as a racism. Respect is extremely proud of its At the same time Respect needs to improve “freelance Trotskyist”. She has published Asian candidates and its Asian councillors. If its geographical spread. And there will soon many articles on Trotsky and on the they had all been from a Christian be an opportunity to do this as well. In Britain Permanent Revolution. background there would be no such a proportion of local Councils are up for Michael Löwy was born in Brazil and is comments. election every year on a rolling basis. In next years local elections London will not be Research Director in Sociology at the CNRS In fact a number of the non-Asian candidates involved - and Respect will attempt to (National Centre for Scientific Research) in got very good votes but none were actually strengthen its position in other parts of the Paris. His many books include: The Marxism elected. John Rees, the National Secretary of country. of Che Guevara; Marxism and Liberation Respect, got 974 votes in Tower Hamlets, Theology; Fatherland or Mother Earth? and which was only just below the vote for the Having a much larger group of councillors - The War of Gods: Religion and Politics in Respect Asian candidates and which beat all and being the "official opposition" on Tower Latin America. other parties except Labour. The Tories top hamlets Council, which is what it is (Labour Zbigniew Kowalewski is a Polish Marxist vote was 264, the Liberal Democrats 876, has 26 seats, Respect 12, Tories 7 and Liberal who has lived in Cuba and has written and the Greens 253. The candidate who came democrats 6) - also means that Respect will extensively on Latin American politics. He second in Sheffield with 1208 votes was a have to tighten its structures and its was a leader of Solidarnosc in the Lodz non-Asian woman and the Bristol candidate accountability procedures if it is to develop region (1980-1) and is a member of the who came second was a non-Asian man. its local Council work successfully - and there are already signs that this is being done Fourth International. There was, therefore, an element of chance as well. The Dayschool will look at Latin America that it came out as it did, though where today and the new challenges set by the new constituencies were chosen with big Asian These election results are a big step forward struggles; learning from history it will populations there was, to one degree or for Respect. They have opened up a new stage in the development for Respect with the examine the Cuban and Nicaraguan another, an advantage for an Asian candidate revolutions and the Chilean experience; and built into the situation. new councillors creating a new political focus - making it harder for the media to looking forward it will consider strategic It should not be assumed, however, that the present it as George Galloway’s party. The questions of permanent revolution, votes for Asian candidates were all from future of Respect will depend on how democracy and the state, and the role of parties and social movements. More details, Asian voters - or even predominantly so in successfully it builds on them. and how to register for this important some cases. It was more diverse than that. discussion at Socialist Resistance. This was clear when the new councillors ------attended a meeting the Respect National v Alan Thornett is a leading member of the ISG, ------Council soon after the election. One of them, British Section of the Fourth International, and sits on for example, who is a nurse, was able to the Executive Committee of Respect. v Socialist Resistance is a socialist newspaper demonstrate how she had made the defence produced by British supporters of the Fourth the Health Service the centrepiece of her ------International in conjuction with other marxists. campaign and how she has drawn support for ------all sections of the community as a result. 25 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Cuba a rational kernel, because they were oriented towards the permanent revolution even Fidel and Trotsky without having read Trotsky. The permanence of the Cuban Celia Hart revolution is in the ideas of the The following interview with Rouge, weekly paper of the LCR Celia Hart Left Opposition. (French section of the Fourth International) was conducted limitation to avoid Cuba being In Cuba anti-Stalinist feeling has when Celia Hart recently visited France for a colloquium on accused of interfering. always existed, because people Pierre Broué, the French Marxist historian who died last year. But the freshness of the thought that communism was For fifteen years now the can destroy itself all alone, and Venezuelan process, the voyages the Stalinism of the Communist definitive collapse of Cuban the only ones who can’t manage there, the possibility of Party. And the Communist Party society has been announced at to destroy it are them” [the US, experiencing other realities and was one of the last to join the regular intervals. Fidel Castro imperialism]. “But we can intervening there are an revolution...But when Fidel himself has stressed the destroy it and it would be our enriching experience and it is announced in 1961 the socialist development of inequality in fault”. And he said that while important that Cubans, in character of the Cuban Cuba. Can we preserve and stressing that: “several tens of particular young people - and not revolution, people said: “If Fidel develop these conquests or are thousands of parasites produce the Cuban government or state is a communist, you can sign me they condemned to disappear? nothing and earn everything...” of course - can take part in the up too”. Venezuelan revolution, not only I identify totally with the Cuban Similarly, the Minister of I always felt that there was as doctors or teachers, but in the revolution but I don’t represent Foreign Affairs, Felipe Perez something missing in my factories, the neighbourhood it. What I say is my personal Roque, insisted at the United thinking about the revolution. meetings etc. opinion. The social conquests of Nations that the danger for Cuba That’s what I’ve found through the socialist revolution in Cuba was the creation of a bourgeois In any case it has to be stressed reading Trotsky: I discovered are obvious: great social class. The interpenetration of the that the links that have been that social justice and individual equality, a system of education bureaucracy and the market established between Cuba and freedom were not contradictory which is accessible to everyone economy, that’s where the Venezuela are different from and that we weren’t condemned and on a level comparable to the danger lies. We have to demolish those that existed with the to choose between them, that United States or Europe - in the foundations of the USSR. Because it is a question socialism could only be built by other words to much richer bureaucracy, because it is on of links between two walking on both feet. countries - a health system these foundations that the revolutionary processes, one superior to any other country in Celia Hart is speaking at the Socialist bourgeois class can develop - we which is already consolidated Latin America and which, Resistance Day School on Latin America, saw in the USSR, in Poland, and and another which is beginning. 24 June, contrary to what is happening in elsewhere how the bureaucrats, Both of them are authentic Europe, is not being privatised who were managers, men of revolutions. With the USSR, on ------or dismantled. power, became owners, became the contrary, it was a question of v Celia Hart, who is a physicist, a But if the Cuban revolution has capitalists. relations between states, and of writer, and a member of the Cuban been able to overcome the unequal relations. Communist Party, has described herself as a “freelance Trotskyist” difficulties of the “special In Cuba, unlike in the GDR of The dynamic of the Venezuela- since discovering Trotsky’s writings period” [1]- power cuts, the 1980s, “Lenin is alive”: the when she was studying physics in Cuba tandem, the possible breakdowns of public transport, bureaucratic counterrevolution East Germany in the 1980s. At that integration of Bolivia into the time she could see at first hand to minimal rations of food, etc. - has not been carried through. We process that is under way, what extent this so-called “really the result of Cuban trade must take advantage of that to existing socialism” was a society in actualises the permanent agreements with the countries of demolish the remaining decadence and without a future. revolution and enables us to lay the so-called “socialist camp” foundations of the bureaucracy. Daughter of two historic leaders of the the foundations of a relationship Cuban revolution, Haydée Santamaria and of the continuing imperialist Because it is from there that the that is going in the direction of and Armando Hart, Celia Hart was blockade - it is because the danger of capitalist restoration lucky enough on returning from the building a real united front. Cuban population as a whole can come. GDR to be able to find the writings of Isaac Deutscher in her father’s library defended the revolution and not The Venezuelan revolutionary Why does Trotsky’s theoretical social advantages. contribution seems so important ------process is making it possible to to you? The difficulties that we are now loosen the imperialist NOTES experiencing are not related to stranglehold around Cuba. And In Cuba we have been living material needs. The even if this process is only through a process of permanent [1] The “special period” is the term used liberalisation of trade and of beginning and the parallels to describe the difficult situation that Cuba revolution since the Moncada found itself in after the collapse of the possession of foreign currency - between the two revolutions are [2]. Soviet Union, from which it is only now capitalist mechanisms that were deceptive, can we speak today of emerging introduced, and that some people reciprocal influences? The continuity of the revolution, justify by comparing them to the the question of its deepening, [2] On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro was arrested after the failure of the attack Russian NEP of the 1920s - led Cuban doctors, paramedics, and were at the centre of the thinking against the Moncada barracks. Defending to social differentiation and the teachers, are working in of Cuban revolutionaries, and himself in court, he made a speech which appearance of “the new rich”. In Venezuela. But they don’t take especially of the July 26 has gone down in history under the name any part in the political life of of “History will absolve me”, in which he a speech on November 17 last Movement. First of all Mella, outlined the perspective of a revolutionary year the commander [Fidel the country, a choice with which then Guevara, were accused of struggle against the Batista dictatorship Castro] formulated it in the I disagree, even though you can being “Trotskyists”. They following way “this revolution understand that there is a self- weren’t, but the accusations had ------26 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Mexico Zapatistas call Red Alert over state attacks

The leadership of the EZLN (Zapatistas) have suspended their ‘Other Campaign’ and masked officer walked slightly behind, called a new ‘red alert’ in response to massive state repression against the grabbing Del Valle’s back. communities of San Salvador Atenco and Texcoco (both in the Valley of Mexico, "The two masked officers walk Del Valle about 28 kms outside Mexico City - just beyond the city’s huge rubbish dump). The through a gauntlet of a hundred riot police red alert calls for the closure of the Zapatista community centres in Chiapas and a raft with helmets and shields. Del Valle’s head is of other security measures, including putting the EZLN fighters on maximum alert. covered with a towel in the pictures, but his The red alert follows the clashes in on beatings were published on the internet and face, swollen and bloody is partially visible. Wednesday May 3, when more than 200 shown on national television. Local and Also visible is a blood stain the size of a fist people were arrested and one killed, as police international news articles however, have not on the groin of his jeans, evidence of repeated brutally prevented flower sellers from Atenco mentioned the systematic police violence strikes to his testicles." setting up stalls on the building site which is against reporters." to become a new Walmart shopping mall. Subcommandante Marcos reappeared in According to local people, the police will Why is this heavy-handed repression taking Atenco at a rally on Friday 5 May, holding up only acknowledge 109 people arrested, nine place? It is about much more than stopping empty cartridge case which he said police people have completely disappeared and local peasants from selling their flowers had used live ammunition when 14-year old Javier Cortés was killed on 3 May. Marcos women have been raped by police, in where Walmart wants to be. This district is an called on the commercial media to stop their addition to the 14-year old boy murdered. area with a long history of militancy, where ‘smear campaign’ against the people, who local people in 2002 stopped the building of have been accused by TV and newspapers of An eyewitness report at Upsidedown World an airport on peasant land around Atenco. reports the events as follows: supporting the EPRI [1] Marcos also This campaign reached near-uprising announced at a protest rally in Plaza de la proportions. Moreover Atenco has "At 7am this past Wednesday, May 3, state Tres Culturas [2] that the Other Campaign police blocked 60 flower vendors from symbolically declared itself an ‘autonomous was being suspended and that in the light of setting up their stands at the Texcoco local municipality’, like the Zapatista communities the situation in the Texcoco valley he would market.The police beat and arrested those in Chiapas. remain in Mexico City ‘indefinitely’. who resisted. Local popular leaders invited As a response to Marcos’ campaign, the "The flower vendors called to the residents of Subcommandante Marcos, in nearby Mexico government and media are ominously neighbouring San Salvador Atenco for help City for ‘Other campaign’ meetings, to vist arguing that Marcos has violated the nine- and the Atenco residents blocked the Atenco as part of his tour. It was in the wake year old amnesty law that officially brought highway that borders their town and leads to of his visit that the repression took place. armed conflict to a temporary end. Texcoco. During his visit, Marcos promised to align the Zapatista Army of National Liberation On Saturday 6 May a judge committed "The police response was overwhelming: with Atenco’s struggle. The Atenco Front, peasant leaders Ignacio del Valle and Felipe hundreds of state and federal police, most with machetes in hand, was in charge of Alvarez to jail for the crimed of ‘armed clad in riot gear, arrived to lift the blockade. providing security for Marcos during the kidnap’. Fourty-four prisoners also Atenco resisted, with machetes, clubs, May first Labor Day march to Mexico City’s announced the same day a hunger strike for Molotov cocktails and bottle rockets. The main plaza where the Front’s leader, Ignacio their release. police tried to lift the blockade five times Del Valle, spoke before tens of thousands throughout the day, and five times they were At Friday’s Atenco rally Marcos said: “To the gathered in the plaza. repelled. media and its workers; I have seen you in Upsidedown World reports, "Two days later Chiapas, risking your lives, suffering hunger, "The violence was extreme. Photographs riot police stormed the house where he and I have seen how your bosses change published in local papers show Atenco (Ignacio del Valle) had been hiding since the everything. I’ve seen how your photos, your protestors beating a fallen policemen, police attack in Texcoco. At that moment the videos, are disappeared into the desk drawers beating tens of fallen protestors. Severe of your editors.” beatings. Protesters kicking one fallen police Televisa cameraman was outside the house officer in the face, groups of police filming the police operation when some five pulverizing tens of protestors with rocks and police officers approached and repeatedly batons. beat him with clubs. As a result there is no film coverage of the police raid. "Police also attacked photographers from both the national and the international press. "Several newspaper photographers, however, Photographers and television cameramen photographed Del Valle’s arrival to prison from Associated Press, Reuters, Milenio, several hours later that night. He was carried Jornada and Televisa all reported beatings in a headlock by a masked police officer, and attempts to confiscate cameras. who, in the photographs, is pointing for the Photographs and film coverage of the photographers to leave the area. Another Mass resistance in the streets 27 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

“There is a lynch mob campaign against the MARCOS SPEECH AT RALLY IN PLAZA OF THE THREE CULTURES FPDT (Peoples’ Front in Defense of Land, the Atenco organisation that stopped the "Companeros and companeras, multi-billion dollar international airport project in 2002) and its leaders. A few moments ago we were watching and listening to the media and the manipulation “Your bosses are putting themselves at the of what was happening, the informational service of lies. They are paid by those who manipulation about what was occurring [in have money, and we don’t have it. Well, they Atenco]. We listened to the commentators on are not in the streets. They are not in the Television Azteca imploring that law be factories. They are not out planting the fields. restored, that the military enter to restore The Mass Media... is dedicated to order and end what was taking place there. discrediting the good and noble people who Marcos (centre front, back to camera) addresses We also listened to the indignation of the protest rally in Atenco, 5 May fight. viewers who sent letters to the station stating that the commentators pleading for greater by region, as you all see fit. As the Sixth “I am going to remain for an indefinite period public force were idiots. Commission we are canceling all of our of time in Mexico City to participate in the participation in programmed activities and mobilisations.” Marcos also announced that Years ago here, in the Plaza of Three Cultures we are waiting for the cue from the Frente de Zapatista supporters would launch a [Tlatelolco] there was a massacre and in Los Pueblos en Defensa de La Tierra. If it nationwide campaign for the arrested and response to this the government claimed that needs our presence there, we will go there. If brutalised on Atenco and Texcoco. the army had been attacked. And much time not, we will participate directly in the actions passed until someone asked what the army that you all program tomorrow beginning at In a statement on 4 May, the Political had been doing at a student meeting in the 0800, eight in the morning. Committee of the PRT [3], declared the first place. And now over those same means events at Atenco to be "a deliberate of communication, including radio, it does Close the highways, close the streets, fly, provocation against the Other Campaign" not occur to reporters to ask what the public paint, whatever occurs to you, in a civil and saying that "without a shadow of doubt" the peaceful manner. Atenco cannot be left all to forces were doing in San Salvador Atenco. police attacks has been designed to coincide itself. We will not cease these actions and this with Marcos’ visit, and to impede the And what they were doing there was situation until the companeros of the Frente progress of his campaign. After finishing the enforcing this alliance that was made de Los Pueblos en Defensa de La Tierra Valley of Mexico part of his trip Marcos was between the PRD and the PRI in order to oust indicate so to us. due to travel to San Luis Potosí, were an a few flower vendors because the municipal We are not going to pay attention to any piece important rally for the release of political president of Texcoco thinks they deface the of information that doesn’t arrive directly prisoners was due to take place. city; because he wants to put a shopping from them. For us, they, those who comprise center there, a Wal-Mart in Texcoco and the Latest News: Brutal beatings in the Frente de Los Pueblos en Defensa de La small merchants bother him and because the Tierra are the Other campaign in those lands. Santiaguito jail PRD aligned there with the PRI at the state We will respect their decisions. We will go level and with the PAN at the national level, According to the left-liberal paper La Jornada wherever they tell us to go. They have been and now they will have to be accountable for (7 May), the detainees held in Mexico State’s clear in their demands: immediate liberation this death. Santiaguito prison have been systematically of those detained and total withdrawal of the brutalised and threatened with death since As the 6th Commission of the Zapatista government forces that are invading their their arrest. Army of National Liberation, signatory to the lands. Other Campaign, we are asking, soliciting Also according to La Jornada, two more This is our message companeros and respectfully the regional and sub-regional gunshot victims in Atenco have been companeras. Not only for the Other coordinators throughout the entire country to discovered. The paper also reports that the Campaign in this Other Mexico, in this Other execute actions and mobilizations in support house of Ignacio del Valle has been broken Mexico City that is rising up. It is our of the Frente de Los Pueblos en Defensa de into by state forces, clothes torn, furniture message to the Other Campaign in the entire La Tierra [Salvador Atenco] beginning at wrecked and electrical appliances trashed. country. From Chiapas, Quintana Roo, 0800, eight in the morning tomorrow, the Yucatan, Campeche, until the two Baja fourth of May, 2006. ------Californias, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon. From the north to the south, NOTES As the Sixth Commission we are declaring a red alert. The troops of the Zapatista Army of from the east to the west so that the Other [1] Independent Revolutionary Army of the Poor. Since National Liberation have already been Campaign echoes in Atenco and let there be the arrest of their major leaders in 1999 it has not been declared under red alert and from that point justice for those that have fallen!! Thank you clear whether this organisation really exists. onwards the Caracoles and Autonomous companeros, thank you companeras." [2] site of the 1968 student massacre Zapatista Rebel Municipalities will be closed. Beginning at that moment, from that [3] Revolutionary Workers Party, Mexican supporters of moment on, the new chain of command of the the 4th International Zapatista Army of National Liberation will ------be in place. Whatever may happen to me, there is now someone else in place to make decisions. We don’t know about everyone else, but today, we, the Zapatistas, are Atenco!

We are going to be attentive to their demands. We call for the holding of meetings by sector, Vienna protest at Euro-Latino government summit 28 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Mexico Mexican miners and steelworkers on strike Fighting for Union Autonomy

Dan La Botz

ON APRIL 20 EIGHT hundred state and federal police launched an assault on 500 real general secretary was Elías Morales striking workers who had been occupying a steel mill in Lázaro Cárdenas. Two were Hernández. The government’s action was killed, five seriously injured and 40 wounded. A video released to the press shows based on part of Mexican labor law known as Michoacán police taking aim at the strikers. “taking note” (toma de nota), under which the government recognizes the legally elected Union members and townspeople retook the The strike resulted from an attempt by the officers of labor unions. plant while representatives from unions and government to remove the Mexican Miners human rights organizations converged on the Union’s top officer, General Secretary Six years earlier Morales Hernández had scene. Meanwhile, Villacero Corporation, Napleón Gómez Urrutia, and replace him appealed to the Secretary of Labor, arguing which owns the plant, accused the strikers of with Elías Morales Hernández, a union that he had actually been elected and should being “terrorists.” This is the latest incident dissident who is reportedly backed by the be the new head of the union. The in a months-long struggle. Grupo Mexico mining company. government had rejected the appeal by Morales Hernández, and in 2002 then At the beginning of April, after a brief The coup in their union led miners to strike Secretary of Labor Carlos Abascal Carranza national widcat, miners and steel workers insisting that the government recognize recognized Gómez Urrutia as the general launched a series of strikes for union Gómez Urrutia. In many mining towns and secretary. Why had the Mexican government autonomy. If successful, these would cities the miners also marched and rallied suddenly opted to overturn its own earlier transform both Mexico’s labor movement demanding not only the restitution of their decision, recognize the dissident, and bring and its political system. leader but also safer conditions. him out of retirement to assume leadership of At first the mining and steel companies, the The strike by members of the National Union the Miners Union? The answer has partly to employers association, and the Mexican of Mining and Metallurgical Workers of do with the Miners Union and the recent government stood together against the Mexico (SNTMMRM) resulted from both accident, but just as much to do with the strikers, whose backers include the labor union and political causes. The Congress of Labor (CT), the umbrella independent National Union of Workers explosion and cave in at the Pasta de organization that brings together most of the (UNT), a Catholic Bishop, and other mining Conchos mine in San Juan de Las Sabinas, largest Mexican labor federations and and metal workers unions around the world. Coahuila in northern Mexico on Febuary 19 industrial unions. killed 65 miners. The Miners Union leader Then, on April 10, Altos Hornos de Mexico Gómez Urrutia blamed the employer, Grupo Official Labor Movement in Crisis SA, the nation’s largest steelmaker, broke Mexico, calling the deaths “industrial In mid-February 2006, Miners Union leader ranks with Groupo Mexico, stating in a fulll- homicide.” The Pasta de Conchos cave-in set Gómez Urrutia joined together with Isaías page ad in a local daily, that Labor Secretary off a storm. Throughout Mexico politicians, González, head of the Revolutionary Francisco Salazar is causing “chaos.” academics, intellectuals, and ordinary people Confederation of Workers and Peasants criticized the mining company. Mexican courts declared the strikes illegal, (CROC), to challenge the election of Victor but the strikes continued with labor leaders Grupo Mexico stock fell. Copper and other Flores Morales, head of the Mexican calling for a nationwide one-hour strike on commodity prices rose. The Mexican Railroad Workers Union (STFRM), for April 28. At stake in this contest is a system Catholic Bishops Conference criticized the control of the Congress of Labor (CT). of state and employer control of unions that employer’s negligence and called for an Gómez Urrutia was trying to position himself has lasted over 80 years. If Mexican workers international investigation, expressing their should ever achieve genuinely independent lack of confidence in the government. to become the top leader of the numerically unions, not only would they have more most important Mexican labor organization. economic strength, but they could become a The Ousting of Gómez Urrutia His ambitions troubled many. The CT, which social force and a political power. brings together most of the “official” unions While miners throughout the country of Mexico, historically formed part of the Background to the Battle mourned the death of their brothers and Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the complained of health and safety conditions in ruling party of Mexico. The CT had The battle began with a big bang. More than their own mines, there was no official or historically backed the PRI’s candidates, a quarter of a million miners and wildcat strike in the immediate aftermath of supported the PRI’s policies, and served in steelworkers walked off the job between the accident. the Mexican Congress as PRI senators and March 1-3 in wildcat strikes at 70 companies congressmen. in at least eight states from central to northern Then, on February 28 the Mexican Secretary Mexico, virtually paralyzing the mining of Labor announced that Gómez Urrutia was More recently the CT had worked out a industry. not actually the head of the union, but that the modus viviendi with Mexican president 29 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Vicente Fox, collaborating with his National The protest was organized by the United While these might seem like particularly Action Party (PAN). Napoleón Gómez Steel Workers of America (USW) in the original and creative moves on the part of the Urrutia’s attempt to take over the CT not only United States, the Federation of Metal government, they are in fact all rather challenged Railroad Workers Union leader Workers of Peru (FETIMAP), and the standard measures. Victor Flores, it also worried the PRI and National union of Miners and Metal Workers PAN. (SNTMM) of Mexico. The international Gómez Urrutia refused to accept Morales solidarity against the Mexican mining Hernández’s usurpation of the union Rival Leaders company was backed by the International leadership, and local unions throughout the Metalworkers Federation (IMF). country - infuriated by the attempt to appoint Victor Flores had been the ideal labor union a man backed by Grupo Mexico - voted to leader under both PRI and PAN governments. Then in September 2005, Mexican Miners back Gómez Urrutia. He also categorically He had worked closely with the government and Metal Workers Union won a 46-day denied the charges of embezzlement, saying to carry out the privatization of the Mexican strike against two steel companies in Lázaro the money had been paid out to union railroads, leading to their sale to the Union Cárdenas, Michoacan, in one of the most members. His supporters filed a charge of Pacific and the Kansas City railroads. important strikes in Mexico in a decade. The industrial homicide against Secretary of local union and its 2,400 members succeeded Labor Francisco Salazar and two mine When rank-and-file railroad workers in winning an 8% wage gain, 34% in new inspectors. protested, Victor Flores cooperated with the benefits, and a 7,250 peso one-time only Meanwhile miners keep walking out on strike government to have them fired - easy enough bonus. with some 100,000 railroad workers losing at mines throughout the country. The work their jobs in the privatization - and if that did The union had broken the government- stoppage is costing Group Mexico about $2.5 not work he had sent his thugs to beat them employer-imposed wage ceiling. The million a day in lost production at La and threaten them with murder. Mexican Miners Union also had an impact on Caridad, the country’s second-largest cooper domestic politics, playing a critical role in the mine. While somewhat volatile - as a PRI union bloc that opposed the Fox The Larger Context Congressman Victor Flores had once tried to administration’s labor law reform package. strangle another representative - he was loyal The struggle over the Congress of Labor and to the government’s program of All these actions, economic and political, now over the Miners Union takes place at a neoliberalism. threatened to upset the Mexican system of crucial time: Mexico is in the midst of a labor control by which the governmental national election campaign, in which the Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, on the other hand, labor authorities, the employers, and the conservative National Action Party’s seemed, from the government’s point of “official” unions of the CT collude to channel candidate Felipe Calderón and the view, to be becoming a loose cannon. and suppress workers. Institutional Revolutionary Party’s candidate Gómez Urrutia had inherited the leadership Then in February, Gómez Urrutia made his Roberto Madrazo are being challenged by of the mine from his father Napoleón Gómez bid to take over the CT, raising the prospect Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the center- Sada. Both had been typical charros, that is, that he would lead labor struggles at a left Party of the Democratic Revolution. union bureaucrats absolutely loyal to the PRI. national level. Clearly at that point the Fox López Obrador is running on a populist They had turned out the vote for the party, government must have already been looking platform calling for putting “the poor first.” collaborated with the employers, and for a way to get rid of him. Then his remarks He is leading in the polls, and while expelled union activists or leaders who on Grupo Mexico’s “industrial homicide” international bankers and Mexican opposed them or supported other political made him persona non grata with the PRI and industrialists have said they can live with parties. Doing all of those things, they with the employers. him, some fear the poor make take his slogan enjoyed the wealth, power and privilege to seriously. which their loyalty entitled them. Lately, Government Repression however Gómez Urrutia had begun to At the same time, Subcomandante Marcos, challenge both the employers and the President Vicente Fox’s administration took leader of the Zapatista Army of National Congress of Labor/ PRI leadership. swift action to defend itself and support Liberation (EZLN), has left the Lacandon Grupo Mexico. First, as already mentioned Forest in Chiapas to organize the “other The Miners’ Union in Struggle the government brought Elías Morales campaign.” This is not an attempt to win Hernández out of retirement and declared election, but rather an effort to organize the In June 2005, Mexican miners joined their him to be the legitimate head of the union. anti-capitalist forces of Mexico into a social compañeros in Peru and the United States as Second, the government indicted Gómez movement with the power to overturn the more than 10,000 miners carried out a Urrutia for allegedly embezzling $55 million government, call a constituent assembly, and simultaneous protest against Grupo Mexico given to the union during the privatization of write a new constitution for an egalitarian to demand that the company stop violating the Cananea copper mine under the (and, though he hardly ever uses the word, workers’ rights. The three unions accused presidency of Carlos Salinas de Gortari. socialist) Mexico. Grupo Mexico of having a policy of Third, labor boards and courts declared the repression, exploitation and unwanted strikes illegal for various reasons, but often Marcos has recently gone out of his way to involvement in union affairs. because they were inter-union conflicts. speak to Mexican workers and union 30 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Denmark Huge demonstration against government welfare cuts

Aage Skovrind members, blue-collar laborers in private industry and white-collar workers in government agencies, suggesting that they have to turn against their union leaders, the bosses, and the politicians. Most of the people Marcos speaks to - the poor, Indian communities, the unemployed - don’t have much economic leverage. Now the miners’ strike has shown what real economic power and potential political power could be.

The Miners Union’s nationwide wildcat strike showed Mexican industrial workers’ taking center stage for the first time in decades. Twice in the past there have been such strikes against the Mexican government: first in 1959 when the Mexican Railroad Workers union called a nationwide strike, and More than 100,000 - organizers say up to 140,000 - joined again in 1976 when Electrical Workers and demonstrations in Copenhagen and four other cities on May their allies in the Democratic Tendency 17. The demonstrations were the largest for more than 20 carried out a national strike. years and reflect a growing alliance between trade unions and Both those strikes were crushed by the student organizations. Mexican government - the PRI’s one-party- state - using the army, police and massive Protests are against the "welfare arguing that there is money firings. The Mexican government of that era, reform", launched by the enough for more and better the era of the PRI, had the political and social government in early April and welfare - now as well as in the power to carry out such military and police currently negotiated in future. The Alliance is taking actions to put down a national labor walkout. Parliament. The ruling Liberal active part in the current and Conservative Parties need mobilizations. The Fox government, as demonstrated by six support either from the far right years of political failure, economic doldrums Danish Peoples Party or Social In Parliament, the Alliance and social disintegration, does not have the Democracy to get the laws together with the Socialist force to face down the labor movement. A passed. Peoples Party are against the number of movements with different political "reforms", while Social leaderships and goals - López Obrador and The plan includes attacks on Democracy is divided on the the Party of the Democratic Revolution, several welfare issues, including issue. Although the party Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatistas, later retirement age (pension president joined the rally in and Gómez Urrutia and the Miners Union - age up from 65 to 67), Copenhagen, she is working for appear to be aligning in ways that could turn obligatory employment training a deal with the government. Mexico upside down. programs for elderly unemployed workers (now The Red-Green Alliance puts Whether that happens depends on three benefiting from an exemption), forward as a key demand, that things: 1) whether the government continues cuts in unemplyment benefits Social Democracy abstains from to make mistakes that inadvertently for young workers and reduced an agreement with the bourgeois government. advantage and encourage its enemies; 2) public study grant. whether the leaders of these movements prove willing to and capable of setting Overall, the goal is to get more ------people to work more (by broader forces in motion; 3) whether v Aage Skovrind is press secretary of workers, feeling and seeing their strength, making their present conditions the Red-Green Alliance. move to build their own independent force. worse), in order to ensure "welfare in the future". ------The Red-Green Alliance is v Dan La Botz is the author of several books on refusing the general premises, Mexican labor unions, social movements and politics. He also edits Mexican Labor News and Analysis, an on-line publication of the United Electrical Workers Union (UE) and the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), at: www.ueinternational.org/. ------

31 International Viewpoint - IV378 - May 2006

Fourth International Summer Camp July 2006 A new generation to build a new Europe!

The 23rd youth camp of the Fourth International will take place near Perugia in Italy from 29th July to 5th August.

Over 500 young people from all over Europe are expected to come together for a week of political discussion, exchange of experience, self- organisation and having a good time. They will discuss the neoliberal offensive in all its forms - from the war in Iraq to the war on the right to free education- plan the fightback and map out the strategy necessary to gain another Europe, another world while at the same time finding out at first hand what’s the same and what’s differnt in the politics and partying of each country.

For more information visit the website or write to International Viewpoint PO Box 112, Manchester M12 5DW, Britain.

Delegates at last year’s camp

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