No. 427, May 1, 1987
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WfJRIlIRS,,1N'(JI1R'25¢ No. 427 -.~)X'523 1 May 1987 Hisganics,- Refugees Targeted a or: mas aeist mmigration awl Full Citizenship Rights for Foreign-Born Workers! In Hispanic barrios from East Los southern neighbors are increasingly Angeles to Chicago's Pilsen to Long integrated economically with the influx Island towns newly populated by of several million undocumented work Salvadoran refugees, in border cities all ers, shutting off the escape valve to el along the 2,OOO-mile frontier with norte could produce a social explosion Mexico, panic is spreading as the in the poverty-wracked Caribbean "Immigration Reform and Control Act" basin. of 1986goes into effect May 5. Although In the U.S., anti-immigrant hysteria the "amnesty" provisions are first to be is fueling racist attacks against His implemented, already employers have' panics and Asians, foreign-born and begun wholesale firing of "illegal ali American-born alike. On successive ens." Thousands of Central Americans days last November, California voters fled to Canada early this year to escape approved a ballot referendum making expected deportation. The president of English the official state language and the Dominican Republic, the Mexican President Reagan signed the Simpson Congress and even U.S. puppet Duarte Rodino immigration bill making it in El Salvador have pleaded with illegal for employers to hire undocu WV Photo Washington to "go slow" on implemen mented foreign workers. Together this Central American refugees from death squad terror imprisoned in concen tation. For as the United States and its continued on page 8 tration camp, EI Centro, California. uncowed. Thousands of Soweto resi dents are staying away from work in --....-..-.South Africa------ protest against the eviction of rent strikers and in solidarity with the rail" strikers, as young activists set up roadblocks to turn back traffic out of the sprawling township that provides the muscle power for Johannesburg Black Rail Strikers industries. Buses and taxis as well as trains have stopped running, and students have closed the high schools. Mail delivery in the black township of two million hasstopped due to a strike of nearly 7,000 black postal workers Defy Apartheid Regime .which has also disrupted mail service in Johannesburg. With the social power to crush The Los Angeles Times (16 April) apartheid, the black fist of. workers reported the white supremacist govern power broke through the draconian ment was "apprehensive about a new censorship last week, announcing to the wave of civil unrest,that, this time, might world its courageous defiance of the involve workers rather than students." savage South African police state. A South African railways are strategic to six-week black railway workers strike in the economy, equivalent to rail and the financial capital of South Africa, trucking combined in the U.S., which is Johannesburg, suddenly escalated into why, despite the draconian police-state a major confrontation with the racist repression, apartheid rulers hesitated apartheid regime. before moving against the strikers, and On April 21 the government sent why they are now cracking down with a thousands of heavily armed troops and vengeance. The South African black police to patrol rail yards and stations, proletariat has the power to break the attempting to break the strike. The chains of apartheid slavery. What is following day, cops with whips broke up . desperately required to break those a union meeting in the Johannesburg chains is a revolutionary proletarian suburb of Germiston, killing one striker leadership. and seriously injuring another. A few Those Who Labor Must Rule hours later, police assaulted another group of strikers, killing five. But this The fact that thousands of black time the strikers, armed with axes and strikers on the railways were able to defy New Yorktimes clubs, fought back and the apartheid . Railway strikers battle cops in Johannesburg, April 22. the bloody apartheid butchers for six butchers 'took a few injuries for a weeks is testament to their growing change. The downtown Johannesburg ransacked by cops who beat up the of 16,000 rail workers who defied a strength and self-confidence. The strike headquarters of the black-centered unionists and arrested 400. The killings government back-to-work deadline. began in mid-March at the City Deep labor federation COSATU (Congress of occurred after South African Transport But in the Transvaal industrial heart rail station in Johannesburg after a 'South African Trade Unions) was Services (SATS) announced the firing land of South Africa, black labor is continued on page 11 x We encourage all WVreaders to send letters and telegrams to Judge Warren Parti§ftu Defeu8e Chan, King County Superior Court, £o......ittee Third and James, Seattle, WA 98104. * * * Federal agents in Los Angeles rounded up seven Palestinians and a Kenyan on January 26. This represented the intersection of "terrorism" hysteria Defense of FSP-Vital to the and anti-immigrant chauvinism. The victims-well-established businessmen, Workers Movement! students and working people-were shackled hand and foot and charged The Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) D.C. SL/PDC lit tables carried their under the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act has been pushed to the wall in a lawsuit petition to the Seattle court. Last week for allegedly "advocating world com by a vindictive ex-member, Richard we sent the following statement to the munism." Along with the American Snedigar, suing to take back a 1979 court: Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee donation of $22,500. In December the and assisted by the ACLU, the eight "The .default judgment against the Washington State Supreme Court Freedom Socialist Party in Snedigar v, have filed a lawsuit challenging the refused to hear. the appeal of a lower wee Times Hoddersen, etal.for refusing-todisclose constitutionality of the "advocating Witchhunt, USA: Julie Nuangugl court order that the FSP disclose their internal organizational minutes and world communism" exclusionaryprovi- . records vitiates First Amendment rights Mungat and<husband Khader Musa internal party minutes and other inter sion of this McCarthyite law. Hamlde face deportation. nal documents. On April 10, King of freedom of association and speech. It is a dangerous attack on the right of After the case drew nationalattention County Superior Court Judge Warren voluntary groups to organize for every and protest, on April 23 the Justice over an hour. Two Aboriginal elders Chan ruled against the FSP, giving the kind of non-commercial purpose by Department withdrew its charges of were also beaten that night. After blacks case to Snedigar by default-punishing exposing such organizations to govern political subversion against. five of the taught a needed lesson to three of the the FSP for its principled refusal to ment intimidation and blacklisting. It Palestinians and the Kenyan woman. punks the following day, the racist cops establishes a precedent for disgruntled comply with this disclosure order. The ex-members to paralyze the very exis Yet they hl)d been jailed in solitary for launched a dragnet "investigation." FSP is now threatened with the seizure tence of such organizations and submits two and a half weeks, and deportation Seventeen Aboriginals turned them of its funds a-nd party property by the their finances to government control. proceedings are still being pressed selves in to spare their community from state and the possible jailing of' Particularly for civil rights, civil liber against them for technical violations of a threatened cop'invasion and violence, members! ties, labor and left-wing political organ izations and minority religious groups, their visa status. Khader Musa Hamide and now face charges of "riotous Defense of the FSP is critically im the right 'of association has meaning and Michel Shedhadeh are still being behavior." On April 6 the court ordered portant to -the workers movement and only insofar as members can participate prosecuted under the McCarran-Walter their extradition to the Goondiwindi any defender of democratic rights. The and financially contribute to their ac Act and the government has said that racist enclave. The PDC sent a telegram Partisan Defense Committee has con tivities in confidentiality, additional charges will be filed against to the Aboriginal Legal Services of "We urge you to reconsider your deci tributed to the FSP defense, and sent sion, vacate this default order and deny them. Moree, New South Wales, with our letters of protest on its behalf. At the Snedigar's motion for disclosure of this The PDC has contributed to their message of solidarity: "World's workers April 25 demonstration in Washington, constitutionally protected material." defense and sent a telegram protesting must lead fight against racist and cop this Gestapo-like seizure. We encourage (error from Harlem to Soweto to all WV readers to also send protests to Queensland." the Commissioner of the Immigration Barcelona May Days and Naturalization Service (INS), 425 *** Eye Street NW, Washington, D.e. The fight ·to defend workers and In the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, the 20536. Contributions can be sent to: Stalinists justified their Popular Front oppressed from the capitalists' whole Committee for Justice, P.O. Box 4631, sale attacks on democratic rights is alliance with the Republican bourgeoisie Los Angeles, CA 90051. by claiming that first the war against urgent. We urge WVreaders to continue to support and build the PDe. Become Franco must be won, and later-i.e., *. never-for revolution. But bourgeois re * * a sustaining contributor. Send a dona action can only be defeated through revo Seventeen Australian"'black Aborigi tion of $5 or more and receive a lutionary class struggle. Revolutionary nals are facing frame-up charges for subscription to Class-Struggle Defense leadership was key. When the workers of their courageous struggle against racist Notes. For a single copy send $.75 to: TRO:rSKY Barcelona rose up in the heroic May Days LENIN terror.