~ Australasian ~
No 103 August/September 1983 30 cents Save the Tamils from JR's Genocide! • • I I In rl a a August 7 - In the following article whole, herded into concentration reprinted from the 29 July Workers camps and shipped by boat to the Vanguard, we write: "The bloody North. The holocaust has now shifted oppression of the Tamil minority in Sri to the upland plantations, where re Lanka is on the verge of turning into portedly around a thousand of the genocidal terror." Events have now stateless "Indian" Tamil plantation passed beyond this critical turning workers have already been killed and point. The UNP government of JR countless more again shipped to the .Tayewardene has unleashed a holo North where Jayewardene hopes to caust against the Tamils of Sri Lanka, squeeze the survivors of his holocaust turning the entire island into a hellish into a South African-like bantustan. inferno. An ABC correspondent who Around the globe the capitalist managed to get a line out of Colombo press has portrayed the carnage in reported on 28 July that in the capital Lanka as an "outbreak of racial alone "the number of deaths could strife", a "backlash against the Tamil be as high as two, three or even separatist movement". This is a grisly four hundred": lie. The genocide of the Tamil people "I was told that Tamils in the shops or is the work of JR Jayewardene, carried houses during the riots were given the out not only by government-incited choice of burning to death inside or mobs of Sinhalese racists, but directly coming out and being axed to death. by the army and police. In all ways Most I'm told chose to burn to death Jayewardene has become the Pinochet inside." or ~ti tanfa; choosing ,this moment to That was one week ago. Since then finally consolidate his naked dictator the death toll has multiplied. Trincom ship. The already bankrupt Lankan alee, the scene of repeated rampaging economy has now been devastated, Burned-out Tamll-owned truck, Colombo. by JR's navy, is a smoking· ruin. bringing even greater misery to the Scant reports from the sealed-off island's toiling masses who for years Vimukthi Peramuna and the Nawa Sovietism, reportedly barricading the Tamil-populated Northern Province have suffered under the savage Sama Samaja Party. Hundreds of East German Embassy in Colombo, tell of the firebombing from govern dictates of the International Monetary leftists have been imprisoned. To even expelIing en masse Soviet and Eastern ment helicopters of Jaffna, where Fund. Jayewardene has now extended advocate Tamil Eelam - the form bloc diplomatic staff (Australian, it is said some three to five thousand, his reign of terror to the left-wing ation of a separate Tamil state - is to August 2) and outrageously accusing mainly Tamil youth, have been parties of the Sinhala working class, become an outlaw, stripped of all civic the USSR of orchestrating the mass murdered. There are now one hundred banning not only the bourgeois rights and risking imprisonment murder and plunder which his bona thousand homeless in Colombo, Tamil United Liberation Front, the and even death. partist regime has executed. Major while today's Australian cites two main parliamentary opposition party, At the same time Jayewardene bourgeois newspapers internationally hundred thousand in the island as a but the Communist Party, the Janatha has launched an orgy of anti- continued on page six Protest Demonstrations Organised • Stop Javewardene's ~~F· "1• "There is going on in Ceylon at the Tamil People I JR's Troops out of the strated in New York City. In London pogroms: burning down houses, moment a lot of murder and rape, North and East - No US Base at the Spartacist League/Britain has hacking to death entire families as in burning of houses all over the island Trincomaleel For the Right of Self taken part in demonstrations of Kuthul Uthu and stopping buses in of Ceylon, where the government in Determination for the Tamil Peoplel" thousands of Tamils and on 29 July order to murder passengers .... Latest reports are that in Colombo power is using its army to commit and "Full Citizenship Rights for Tamil held a well-attended public meeting, racist thugs led by Buddhist priests genocide on the Tamil people", said a Plantation Workers I" drawing the participation of many and backed by JR's army have looted spokesman for the Tamil Association The Melbourne action was part of Tamils. and burned all the shops and in of Victoria to demonstrators outside a campaign of protest launched by the A Spartacist League statement dustries belonging to Tamils." the Ceylon Tea Centre in Melbourne international Spartacist tendency: in handed out at the Melbourne protest A Spartacist spokesman emphasised on 27 July. With only a day's notice Paris on 29 July, 400 mainly Tamil vividly described the escalating anti that "the genocide of the Tamils in over 60 protesters, overwhelmingly protesters joined a demonstration Tamil terror which has now become Sri Lanka is linked by many strings to a Tamil, answered the Spartacist initiated by the Ligue Trotskyste de a holocaust: war drive against the USSR" , in League's call for an emergency France; on the same day in Toronto "In the city of Trincomalee in the particular pointing to US imperialism's demonstration against JR Jayeward over 100 answered the call of the Tamil-populated Eastern Province, appetite to secure the strategically ene's slaughter of the Tamil people. Trotskyist League of Canada. On 28 600 to 700 Indian Tamil refugees were located harbour of Trincomalee for its Despite a heavy downpour protesters July in New York 100 protesters forcibly removed from the area in "counterrevolutionary designs to re vigorously chanted slogans one after picketed the Sri Lankan Mission to the truck loads, not to be seen again. conquer the workers states like the the other for over an hour, including: UN and the following day 200 Tamils Gangs of Sinhalese thugs and JR's "Smash JR's Genocide - Defend the from the American Northeast demon- murderous police are committing continued on page two For the Right of Tamil Eelam!
R'"Jo:"t("tt"d t>, AU'Halla p",! l'uhli,atl<'n ~(' ~BFO~ll) including against the "Indian" Tamil Australian participation in such a UN a brutal oppressor of the national, Stop JR ••• plantation workers, driving these force. The white racist Australian ethnic and religious minorities of stateless workers from the island's imperialists send their troops only India. "No faith in Indira Ghandi continued from page one southern region, posed "de facto where their US masters allow it Remember the Mukti Bahini!" warned Soviet Union and Vietnam" . The partition and the creation of a as in Vietnam - or where they tell a Spartacist placard. For it must not speaker also noted that, along with bantustan in the north". them to, as in the Sinai where be forgotten that when Ghandi went "Yankee Dickie" Jayewardene, the For generations the "Indian" Australian troops served as border to war with Pakistan in 1972, using the "Australian Prime Minister [is] a key Tamils have toiled in slave-like con guards for Israel's genocidal invasion just Bengali struggle for self anti-Soviet ally in this region". The ditions producing tea, rubber and of Lebanon as part of the US anti determination as the pretext, the Hawke government, which reneged on coconut for the international market, Soviet "Rapid Deployment Force". Indian army established an iron hold its promise to resume token economic constituting both the mainstay of the The truth is that Labor Prime Minister on the East Bengalis, disarming and aid to the Socialist Republic of Viet repressing the guerrillaist Mukti nam, gives up to $12 million in finan Bahini which had thrown itself into the cial aid to the monstrous Sri Lankan arms of the Indian bourgeoisie. UNP regime. Demonstrators chanted: Surely the young Tamil liberation "Stop All Australian Aid to JR's fighters and leftist defenders of the Butchers!" and "From Pine Gap to Tamil people - Sinhala and Tamil Trincomalee - No US Bases!" and alike - would not fare differently. Spartacist placards included the These militants represent the only slogan: "Defence of Vietnam, USSR hope for a just future for Lanka's begins at Pine Gap, Diego Garcia, oppressed and toiling masses, for it Trincomalee! " is from amongst this layer that the Interestingly, the Melbourne protest cadres of the revolutionary party was reported in the press of the Social of the Lankan proletariat - Tamil ist Workers Party (SWP) , a social and Sinhala, women and men democratic group notorious for its as will emerge. sociation with the Ustasha-linked It is the international working class Croatian Movement for Statehood (see and its allies which must urgently act article page 8). The SWP is tied to save the Tamil people from via Ernest Mandel's fake-Trotskyist Jayewardene's "final solution". The "United Secretariat" to the Sri Lankan lives of 3 million men, women and Revolutionary Marxist Party, formerly children - the fate of an entire led by the Sinhala-chauvinist, CIA people! - depends on this. Aust tainted, trade-union bureaucrat Bala ralian workers and workers of the Tampoe. In keeping with the SWP's SL protest in defence of Tamils, Sydney Square, 23 July. world: don't let the "Fuhrer" of virulent anti-Trotskyism and chronic Sri Lanka destroy the Tamil people! dishonesty, the tiny Direct Action Australian wharfies: black all cargo report (August 2) censors any mention Sri Lankan capitalist economy and a Hawke is a Reagan man and JR to and from Sri Lanka! of the Spartacist League organisers, vital bond to the Indian subcontinent. Jayewardene, like Begin and "Major In the burning hell of chauvinism describing the picket as "by Sri As a Spartacist spokesman at the Blowtorch" D' Aubuisson, one of that is Sri Lanka, the Spartacist Lankans and their supporters". Of demonstration stated: Reagan's favoured "Free World" League of Lanka. section of the course, the SWP has maintained only "We know, as does JR - and this butchers. international Spartacist tendency, the most token presence at recent fuels his genocidal intent - that only Above all Tamil leaders have looked seeks to forge a proletarian internat protest demonstrations. 2S miles away to the north of Sri towards Indian military intervention. ionalist party to bring down Jaye Buried elsewhere in the same issue Lanka, across the narrow Palk straits. No doubt the presence of Indian army wardene's UNP dictatorship, a party is a small article crowned with a call tens of millions of Tamils live in the divisions on the island would act to that will reach out as brothers to the upon the Hawke Labor government south of India. We proletarian inter stay JR's butchery. Working class toilers and oppressed of India and all nationalists look to the Tamils as the "to break diplomatic ties with the Sri militants certainly long to see this South Asia, for only socialist revol Lankan government until it takes basis to forge the revolutionary link with Southern India, to the social mass murderer and rabidly anti ution led by the proletariat can bring emergency action to halt the racist revolution of all South Asia. Forward . Soviet US lackey crushed like a justice for the Tamils and all the attacks". This is something like calling to a South Asian Soviet Federation!" cockroach. But Indira Ghandi is herself peoples of South Asia .• on Hitler to take "emergency action" Six weeks earlier in Sydney a to stop the genocide of the Jews. demonstration of some 80 Tamils, Truly these hat-in-hand "socialists", about one third women, called by the entirely subservient to Australian Eelam Tamil Association marched "Black Sri Lankan Cargo!" imperialism's ruling Labor Party, have through the downtown area to Hyde nothing to offer the Tamil people. Park on 11 June to protest draconian Reprinted below are extracts from an 1945-48 to strike action in solidarity Australian imperialism has always new emergency regulations enacted SL leaflet (dated August 5) distributed with the workers and peasants of sought the closest relations with the by the government. Demonstrators on the Melbourne docks under the Vietnam during US and Australian Sri Lankan bourgeoisie, joining the US carried placards reading: "Taste heading "Stop Anti-Tamil genocide in imperialisms' dirty, losing war in Indo and Britain in rushing military aid to Tamil blood in Ceylon Tea, Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka! Black Sri Lankan Cargo!" china. Organised labour must again the "Sinhala-only" Popular Front Don't Destroy Eelam Tamils" and . . . The international working class use its power! Don't let JR regime of Mrs Bandaranaike in order "Foreign Aid Used to Kill Tamils in must act now to save the Tamil Jayewardene' destroy the Tamil to drown in blood the 1971 JVP-led Sri Lanka". The assembled protesters people from JR Jayewardene's people! Black all cargo to and from Sri youth uprising, thereby paving the heartily applauded a Spartacist "final solution" . Lanka! ... way for Jayewardene - the Pinochet speaker who denounced Jayeward of Sri Lanka. Australian wharfies have a perfect Reliance on the Hawke Labor ene's genocidal anti-Tamil terror and opportunity to score a blow against the government to act in defence of the On 23 July, 29 spirited protesters, 58 pieces of Spartacist literature, including several Tamils, demon butcher JR. On August 7 at Berth 24 Tamils is a sure way to seal their fate. including the Tamil-language Illangai Victoria Dock and days later in Sydney Hawke knows who his friends are and strated outside Sydney's Town Hall Spartacist published by the Spartacist chanting "Smash JR's Genocide an Indian ship, Vishva Kaumudi, will Reagan's anti-Soviet despot Jaye League/Lanka, and Women & Revol be off-loading and taking on Sri wardene is one of them. Hawke's anti Defend the Tamil people!" and ution were sold. "Bring down JR's UNP - US stay Lankan cargo. Waterside workers union government reneged on "its In Canberra on 2 August Spartacist together with the ship's Indian seamen promise to resume economic aid to out of Trincomalee!" The protest was supporters joined 150 Tamil protesters should see that the cargo on the dock Vietnam but gives at least $12 million called by the Spartacist League when who came by bus from Sydney and it first became clear outside the island stays there. And it would be a splendid annual financial aid to subsidise Melbourne to demonstrate outside Jayewardene's genocide. Now Hawke that Jayewardene was orchestrating'a act of working class solidarity if the Sri Parliament House and the Indian High has just thrown in an extra $100,000 dramatic escalation in his campaign Lankan cargo now on board stays right Commission. Spartacist placards in bonus! Waterside workers: it's up to of terror against the Tamil people. An where it is until it finds a resting place cluded the demands: "Down with at the bottom of the Pacific. Australian you to take action to save the Tamil SL press release pointed out that JR! Stop Australian Aid to UNP maritime unions have a long history of people. You've got the power - use Jayewardene's anti-Tamil pogroms, regime! " and "Asylum for victims of such action from the Black Armada of it! Don't load the Vishva Kaumudi!. anti-Tamil terror!" The protest was called jointly by the Eelam Tamil [SPAiTAQST J Association and the Tamil Association - ~ of Victoria. With the holocaust now Marxist monthly of the Spartacist League of ~: raging in Lanka, Tamil leaders have .-.-- . Australia and New Zealand, section of the ~=_,j ,~..-,fti--' .. - international Spartacist tendency. turned in desperation to the United EDITORIAL BOARD: Greg Blythe, Darlene Nations, calling for a UN-sponsored Lanka Spartacist no 6 Carlson, Doug Flynn, Andrew Giannakis, "peace-keeping" force. A Spartacist (Slnhala) and lIIangai Steve Hooper (editor) placard read: "No faith in the UN - Spartaclst no 3 (Tamil) CmCULATlON: Vicki Pearson Remember Lebanon!" There the US $1.00 PRODUCTION: Linda Brooke led imperialist "peacekeepers" en Printed by trade union labour. Registered forced only the "peace" of the at GPO, Sydney for posting as a publication - Category B. Subscription 53 for 11 issues; graveyard; by disarming the defenders ~"':1.J121.l LO:.,"!,;} .. '""j.u:..~""'''' '" overseas airmail 510 for 11 issues. Address of West Beirut they set up the horror order from/pay to U>-.' """...:.r.~~ August/September 1983 3 Anti -Trotskyist Exclusion Foiled Percys ~~Doves" in Hawke's MELBOURNE July 16: "No More demning" Hawke's praise for the SWP likewise pretends that there counterrevolution within the country. Vietnams" was the central slogan of Reagan's Central America policy, is no class line drawn - all the better We say: expropriate the bourgeoisie! an SWP conference organised here to Milton took objection to even the to cross it. ... Kill the invaders! Defend, com mark the 4th anniversary of the slightest public criticism of the top Clarke continued to "explain" his plete, extend the revolution!" Sandinista-Ied revolution in Nicar boss of,the imperialist state. Naturally, pro-imperialist line with an anti To anti-Soviet popular-frontism agua. Indeed, what could be a more the SWP complied and disappeared working class diatribe in defence of SWP style, the Trotskyists counter appropriate theme for "socialists" the motion, much the way they dis capitalism in Nicaragua, where he posed internationalist class struggle: who openly support their own imperi appeared the SWP itself into CISCAC. claimed "the masses would simply not for defence of the Soviet Union against alist government and treacherously Thanks to the SL this otherwise understand what the Sandinistas were imperialism; against Solidarnosc counsel Sandinista Nicaragua to tedious affair was livened up with doing if they had attempted to ex counterrevolution; for military victory appease - not defeat - war-bent US some revolutionary politics. A Sparta propriate all the capitalists". The to the Salvadoran leftist guerrillas; imperialism? When the Spartacist cist speaker early on in the discussion Nicaraguan workers and peasants are for smashing the contras; for the League arrived at the conference the pointed out: paying with their lives for the "gener defence of the workers unions against reformist cowards of the SWP went "The line of CISCAC, the line of the osity" shown to the capitalists by the Reagan's man Hawke. "We take a into a p~lflic: "You're excluded!" SWP, is the line of imperialism. What petty-bourgeois bonapartist Sandinista side", a Spartacist speaker summed bleated local SWP honcho Coral does "No More Vietnams" mean? ... regime. As one Spartacist supporter up, "just like we took a side in Viet Channells, who vowed not to begin the Vietnam was a victory. It was a victory put it: nam where we say: Vietnam was a meeting until the Trotskyists left. For that the workers and peasants won "Maintaining the bourgeoisie is victory!" Two, three, many defeats for fully 15 minutes the SWP disrupted internationally. To say "No More simply maintaining a fifth column for imperialism!. their own conference (oops! - called Vietnams" is the line of an imperialist under the auspices of CISCAC, of power still smarting from that course). They even threatened to call it defeat." SWPer Renfrey Oarke responded that off altogether until it finally sunk in "it doesn't mean no more national that SLers were there to stay and, liberation struggles, it means no more moreover, prepared to ensure an open 500,000 US troops, no more fleets of political discussion. B-52 bombers". Clarke's concern for Outside of the Spartacist supporters the cost-effectiveness of the war for present, the conference attracted some US imperialism comes as no surprise 40 listless SWPers and a few MIRistas from the man who loved "The Deer with the hapless task of playing cheer Hunter" , lauding this profoundly leader for ALP MHR Peter Milton and reactionary and lying film as an "anti ATEA industrial officer Patrick war" flick because "we are compelled Mullane. Lewis Kent was also sched to hate the conflict [the Vietnam war] uled to speak, but the Victorian Labor for the tragedy it inflicts on the film's MP instead sent a telegram, with a heroes"; namely, the US imperialists copy to the SL, stating: "I feel the (Direct Action, April 26, 1979). fascist HDP's association with Our heroes are the workers and CISCAC prevents me from addressing peasants of Vietnam who defeated US you." It seems that, after all, crime imperialism and its Australian junior doesn't pay. As it turned out, the partners on the battlefield! Not so for SWP's HDP/Ustasha friends were the SWP. These traitors went so far as conspicuously absent that day. to organise an EI Salvador protest When SWPers weren't busy asking on July 4, American Independence the usual Dorothy Dix questions like Day - the very day that is celebrated how to get more "unity" or how to by Cuban gus an os and Vietnamese better pressure the government they dope-pushers! As for Oarke's portray were wringing their hands over Hawke al of the class civil war in Vietnam as a Sydney, July 16: SL picket held outside SWP/CISCAC conference co-sponsored and Hayden's failure to implement the "national liberation struggle", this is by RACLA. Slogans chanted by picketers Included: "Down with Reagan/Hawke SWP's program, ie, official Labor Cold War from Vietnam to EI Salvador! Vietnam was a Victory - 2, 3, Many De nothing new. In EI Salvador, where the feats for Imperialism! Smash the Samozalsts - Workers to Power! SWP: Suckers Party policy in Vietnam and EI Sal SWP supports Bowen/Ungo's line for for HOP - Smash Ustasha Fascists!" and "SWP Loves Solidarity - So Does vador, where Hawke/Hayden are a "negotiated solution" to stop the Hawke and the NCC!" SL-placards Included: "SWP Loves Walesa (Too Bad for doing their job running point for the "spread of communism" and cheat FideI!) SWP Supports 'Pax Americana' In West Beirut, San Salvador! Military US-led anti-Soviet war drive. But when the Salvadoran workers and peasants Victory to Salvadoran Leftists - Take San Salvador!" and "Smash Reagan's Bay the SWP suggested a motion "con- out ofthe victory they are fighting for, of Pigs - Nicaragua needs MIGs!" SWP Knife Attack Against Trotskyists Reprinted below is an SL leaflet dated were members of the Croatian Move imperialist anti-Sovietism while June 13 1983. ment for Statehood (HDP) , an outfit singing "solidarity with Solidarity" On Saturday, June 11 at the Melb which acts and talks like a Ustasha along with Reagan, Hawke and the ourne bookstore of the Socialist front, openly lauding the mass butcher Pope. Now with Reagan's man Hawke Workers Party (SWP), a potentially Ante Pavelic who turned the Axis in power the SWP is willing to pay any murderous assault was launched satellite state of Croatia into a price to prove their fealty to imperial against three Spartacist League vast slaughter-yard for hundreds of ist Australia's ruling party. They supporters. Moments after entering thousands of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and reckon it's open season on reds who the bookstore, SL supporter Andrew Croats. oppose Hawke's chauvinist, anti Georgiou was attacked by an SWP On behalf of its sinister Croatian working class Labor government, member. The assailant was pushed friends the SWP threw out an elderly that anything goes against the revol back; he rushed into an adjoining Polish Jew, Jacob Bilander, when utionaries who fight in defence of office and returned to thrust a surgical this survivor of the Nazi holocaust proletarian state power from Poland to scalpel concealed in his hand to the rose to denounce the Ustasha fascists Vietnam. These thugs badly need a throat of comrade Georgiou. The at the HDP's conference workshop. taste of their own medicine. The SWP would-be assassin was again repelled ] It was at this conference that the will take the consequences for their and then brandished the razor sharp Po. Po. SWP Big Liars - and bigots to boot actions. The Spartacist League is VI blade at all three SL supporters. < - got caught out when SWP cadre dedicated to building the Leninist Three SWPers - Chris Slee, John Knife-wielding Resistance Punk Andrew Jamieson told a woman he vanguard party that will lead our class Hall and GAF scab Maurice Sibelle thought was "just a Spart" but turned to victory. Our program is the - witnessed the attack and refused to use of deadly force by the SWP out to be the speaker at the conference precious weapon of the class conscious identify the assailant. against the Spartacists on June 11 has workshop on gays that he'd "like workers, and we will fight to defend it. Today the SWP uses the methods of been prepared by a long and rapidly to shoot NAMBLA", a small North Vietnamese gusanos, the remnants escalating practice of SWP violence, American gay activist group now Postscript: For the information of our of the Saigon puppet regime who fled political exclusionism and slander. viciously hounded by the FBI. readers, the knife-wielding Resistance to this imperialist outpost to escape This is the organisation which mobil The tremendous political gulf punk, reportedly known as Peter M, the wrath of the Vietnamese workers ised 30 goons to keep the Spartacists between the reformist SWP and the was sighted last month on Broadway in and peasants. These scum have many out oftheir April "Karl Marx Centen Trotskyist SL has further widened as downtown Sydney with no pants and a times turned their bloodied knives ary Conference" in Melbourne. On the SWP moves hard and fast to the yellow stripe down his back. SWP against the workers movement. The the goon squad barring the entrance right under the impact of heightened thugs: Beware!. 4 Australasian Spartaclst Stalinist Deal with the vatican? 01 • JUNE 28 - Pope John Paul Wojtyla's ago. Altogether, an estimated ten eight-day "pilgrimage" to his million people filled the churches, the Polish "homeland" unleashed an parks, the soccer stadiums dominated orgy of anti-Communist and anti by monstrous altars and Crosses. Soviet demonstrations, as all knew it Solidarnosc activists brandished their would. He reignited the forces of crosses and banners, wore their Black Pope stirs the spirit of clerical counterrevolution In Nowa Huta - town of the clerical-nationalist counterrevolution Madonna pins, flashed their V-signs Stakhanovlte "Man of Marble", now a Solldarnosc stronghold. which were temporarily checked by and marched through the streets pro General Jaruzelski's December 1981 claiming, "The priests are with us. whether or not people continue to socialist class struggle is the way. But countercoup against Solidarnosc' bid The pope is with us." believe in an afterlife. maybe others in Poland will learn from for power. Everyone has been asking, It was a week-long orgy of anti But Wojtyla is making a bid to his contemptible fate. why did Warsaw allow it? What did Russian Polish nationalism: every enhance the already enormous politi cal weight of the Catholic church in the beleaguered Polish Stalinists hope religious image made political, every Stalinists Conciliate Clerlcal to gain from the pope's inflammatory "sacred" site chosen to further the Polish society. (In fact, the Italian visit? chilling appeal: the pilgrimage to wing of the Vatican is clearly upset Nationalist Reaction As we go to press there are sen the icon of the Black Madonna of that the Polish pope has become so For decades the Polish Stalinists sational and increasingly detailed Czestochowa, credited with having deeply embroiled in the political life of have conciliated the Catholic church in reports of a deal between the Vatican broken the siege of the "foreign his homeland.) After his second a vain effort to secure social stability. pontiff and the Polish general. Alleg invaders" (Swedish Protestants in meeting with Jaruzelski, a son of the After the 1956 "thaw" the church was edly martial law would be lifted in 1655). "Before your altars, we entreat Polish upper classes educated by the allowed to become the only voice of exchange for the disappearance of you, oh lord, deign to restore to us a Jesuits, reports began circulating political opposition. At the same time, Solidarnosc and a return to oblivion free homeland", intoned the pope, about a deal, most of them emanating the Polish Stalinists abandoned for its leader, Lech Walesa. A new dressed in royal crown and red cape from Rome. agricultural collectivization and so "union" would be sanctioned under emblazoned with the Polish eagle Lech Walesa is reportedly being perpetuated a class of priest-ridden the direct control of the Catholic and the cross. Home Army songs are dumped as the church's favorite son in peasant smaIlholders hostile to church hierarchy. In addition, the sung at mass, along with "Oh God, Poland. Since the general strike on the socialism. When Karol Wojtyla, then church would establish a bank pro Who Has Defended Poland" and Baltic coast in August 1980, the archbishop of Krakow, was elected the viding loans for Poland's several "March, March Dombrowski", ode Vatican has constantly praised him for first Polish pope in 1978, we warned: million peasant smallholders and petty to the emigre general who fought the having uncompromisingly and uncon "To the Stalinist~ Pope John Paul II entrepreneurs. Ttl tum, Western Russians under Napoleon. And every ditionally foIlowed the directives 'of the imperialist powers - Wojtyla's mas church. This, of course, led him to may seem a prince of peace and where Wojtyla warns about the detente, a man of the post-Helsinki ters - would lift sactions to ease the "arrogance of power" . become a front man for Western period. Domestically the Gierek economic pressure on Poland. The beleaguered Stalinist official imperialism, financiaIly for the West regime portrays him as a symbol of Weare not in a position to know if dom is dismayed by it all. "The pope is Germans, militarily for the Americans. Communist-Catholic coexistence. But such a deal were made. But we warn: the only authority .. in the country", His proud boast was that he had never he now stands at the head of many this would threaten the very foun one of them exclaimed (Los Angeles read a book - which is how he got millions of practicing Catholics in dations of proletarian state power in Times, 20 June). A genuinely com invited to lecture at Harvard. He is a East Europe, a tremendous potential Poland, endangering the entire Soviet munist regime, as opposed to this Polish version of Father Gapon, who force for counterrevolution. And it is bloc. The Catholic hierarchy seeks wretched bureaucracy, would have a was finaIly murdered by the Social precisely the Stalinists who are institutionalized control over the base in the population to pursue the Revolutionaries as a tsarist agent. responsible for the existence of this economic life ofthe nation, interposing Well, now the Vatican paper, grave threat to the social conquests struggle against clericalism. What is of the degenerated and deformed itself as an intermediary between the involved is not a religious issue, a L 'Osservatore Romano, observes, workers states. " regime and the petty bourgeoisie matter of personal faith in god. "Officially Lech Walesa once more - "The President's Pope?" and working class. We Trotskyists, Marxists do not go around burning leaves the scene" because "he has Workers Vanguard no 217, who in late 1981 proclaimed "Stop crucifixes and knocking down lost his battle". Walesa is undoubt 20 October 1978 Solidarnosc Counterrevolution!" insist churches. If the church stays out of edly too far gone to have learned from Behind Pope W ojtyla stands the that only through proletarian political political life, then social development what is happening to him, so we will power of Western imperialism, now in revolution in the bureaucratically over the generations will determine not lecture to him that the path of the continued on page six degenerated/ deformed workers states and socialist revolution in the capitalist West can the forces of counterrevol ution be defeated. SWP Calls for Marshall Plan in Vietnam Pilgrimage for the Cold War Hawke's foreign emissary Hayden is doing, having secured the reluctant "He goes right in there and stops vows to "free" Vietnam from approval of Shultz. These days the just short of stirring up rebellion", "stifling dependency" on the Soviet SWP has made the bourgeois RepUblican Senator Charles Percy Union, so out pops the Socialist defeatist slogan "No More Viet observed approvingly (New York Workers Party's model for economic nams" one of its "3 Whales" of Times, 24 June). And indeed Wojtyla "aid" to Vietnam: the post-war US recruitment, along with support to whipped up anti-Communist hysteria, Marshall Plan! In a back page feature Vatican-inspired capitalist counter exhibiting his authority in Poland in article headed "What we did to revolution in Poland and defence order to increase his bargaining Vietnam" in order to emphasise its of Ustasha barbarism in wartime power. For more than a week he shameless identification with the Croatia (see article page 8). roamed the country, preaching the crimes of predatory Australian While the SWP was diving for gospel according to NATO, demanding imperialism, Direct Action (July 5) cover behind ALP policy in face of the Polish "sovereignty" and "freedom" writes: recent US-orchestrated Chinese and from Russian "domination": Thai provocations against Vietnam, "After World War n, the US pro the Spartacist League raised the call: • "The fate of Poland in 1983 can vided aid under the Marshall Plan not be a matter of indifference to the to restore devastated Europe. The "Australian workers: black all aid nations ofthe world, especially Europe same generosity has not been shown to the Thai generals and Son Sann and America" (Warsaw). to Vietnam." economies of capitalist Europe, guerrillas! ' , We were there to protest principally West Germany, as a when Wran feted Chinese Premier • "Solidarity" was a time "when Shades of Lech Walesa! - on tour the Polish worker stood up for himself to Japan in the heyday of Solidarnosc bulwark against Soviet Commun Zhao Ziyang at Sydney's State Office with the gospel in hand and a prayer this son of the Polish Pope (and the ism. In its self-appointed role as the Block last April, raising aloft our on his lips" (Czestochowa). IMF) lauded the mad bombers of true "conscience" of Hawke's banner reading: "US/China: Hands Off Vietnam! Down with Hawke, • "Do not be swallowed up by Hiroshima and Nagasaki for their role ruling Labor Party, the SWP has immorality and indifference.... The in the reconstruction of Japanese embraced as its own ALP policy Reagan's Man in Southeast Asia!" nation is called to victory" (Krakow). imperialism. stipulating "strenuous diplomatic The SWP "social-imperialists" ad Pope Wojtyla was the imperialists' Quite simply, the SWP's "aid" efforts to promote regional solutions vocate economic aid as an instrument man in Poland. His visit gave a program amounts to a call for bloody to Indo Chinese problems and ... for imperialist anti-Sovietism. But we "legitimate" cover for massive anti capitalist counterrevolution in Indo attempt to decrease the involvement Trotskyists demand: Smash the imperialist economic blockade of Communist demonstrations, far and china. Every high school student of the superpowers", ie the Soviet Vietnam! Not one Australian bullet away the largest since W alesa' s power knows that the US Marshall Plan Union (see Labor Militant, June 1983). Which is exactly what Hayden or plane to the ASEAN butchers! • grab was spiked two and a half years was designed to bolster the ruined August/September 1983 5 leadership's refusal two years ago to world imperialism. A Trotskyist the formation of an independent state Rail ••• fight Wran's destruction of hundreds leadership in the USSR would make of Eelam in the north. The formation of of conductors jobs. Mass picketing short shrift ofthe mess in Poland. such a state in the barren north, out continued from page three by transport workers can shut down Wojtyla's anti-Communist pilgrim of the ashes of Jayewardene's holo strike in NSW since 1917! For 14 days tight the scab bus-depots! If city age and the reported deal to establish caust, will not bring justice to the Australia's financial centre has been transport stops, then Sydney stops. a church-run "union" in Poland Tamil people of Sri Lanka. Lasting crippled, millions of dollars have been Plus Wran is in lots of trouble at the demonstrate anew that the Stalinist national and class justice for the lost. The bosses and their Labor moment having been caught out over bureaucracy acts as a transmission Tamils will be secured only through government lackeys are starting to the Humphreys' case. Government belt for the imperialist pressures on socialist revolution extending through hurt, so Labour Council acting sec workers have bled for years to bail the Soviet bloc. There can be no out South Asia. Forward to a Soviet retary MacBean walks out of the bar out his union-hating Labor govern "peaceful coexistence" with the Federation of South Asia! ber shop and comes up with this gem: ment - now is the time to hit back! Vatican, the International Monetary ------In war you have to know who your Fund, Ronald Reagan, NATO and JULY 26 - The bloody oppression of keep the three operational XPT trains the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka is on off the rails until Wran's hatchetmen friends are and who your enemies are. other agencies of global counter Railworkers had better know that revolstion. The social gains of the 1917 the verge of turning into genocidal are ready to finish the job against rail terror. Sri Lankan strongman Presi workers. The plan is already in place, behind Wran stands Hawke, pushing Bolshevik Revolution and their ex the union leadership have pledged in the same program of ALP austerity tension to East Europe after World dent JR Jayewardene, emboldened advance to accept the SRA's Arbi and strikebreaking as top boss of the War II can be defended only by by his phony referendum - "an elec tration Court "investigation" that Australian imperialist state. Bradford, proletarian political revolution which tion to end all elections" - last will try and enforce one-man rosters WilIingale etc have shown whose side ousts the Stalinist bureaucracy and Oecember appears to be moving on the XPTs. The union tops are trying they are on. When the bureaucrats restores the Soviet Union, land of the toward the "final solution" to the to sell this betrayal as a standoff with called off last January's strike in the October Revolution, as a bastion of Tamil problem. As we go to press, the government. Bullshit! Rail midst of the federal elections, they world communism .• racist Sinhalese mobs, incited and workers: don't throwaway your were fighting for Hawke's job, not the - Reprinted from Workers Vanguard protected by the government, are on power! The fight is on now, and now jobs of railway workers. AFULE no 333, 1 July 1983 the rampage from Colombo to Trin is the time to go for victory. No faith members weren't defeated then, they comalee. The Tamil-populated North in Arbitration! Vote MacBean's sellout were sold out. Today the AFULE tops ern Province, long under military down! want to do the same, hoping to exhaust Holocaust ••• occupation, has been sealed off from the union's militancy by backing down the rest of the country. Tamil leaders The XPTs are only the tip of the again. What's necessary now is a continued from page one and religious activists being held iceberg; Wran and Hill are talking united strike around a fighting prog under the semi-bonapartist regime's about 10,000 jobs going in the SRA. reported that Jayewardene has called ram to win: Prevention of Terrorism Act are daily The bosses and their Labor govern on the US, Britain, Pakistan and being arrested, tortured and killed. ment are conceding nothing, threaten • For a joint AFULE-ARU strike! Bangladesh to provide military All class-conscious workers, socialists ing not only massive stand-downs, but Break down the craft lines, for in assistance against the threat of wholesale destruction of the railway dustrial unionism! Bring out the rail "foreign invasion" by the USSR's and defenders of democratic rights must demand: Stop the terror against workforce. That's what the Herald's clerks, the ferry workers, the bus Indian client state, vowing "if India Tamils in Sri Lanka! "example" of Comeng (where the drivers, all state transport workers by some chance decided to invade us, This drastic turn of events, setting XPTs were built) means. There's lots for an all-out fight against Wran! we will fight" (Sydney Morning the stage for a pogrom, incited and of people - bankers, industrialists • Smash the SRA's job-cutting Herald, August 2). For now the organized by the government, of the etc - paying big money to see this "rationalisation" plans! Restore all brutal Ghandi has rejected appeals Tamil population in Sri Lanka, was strike lose. They know that if the job cuts, 30 hours work at no loss in for military intervention, instead triggered last week in the northern city AFULE is beaten, they'll have a free pay, and massive new hiring! using her army to shoot into crowds of of Jaffna, when a group of soldiers hand to ram their job-slashing, wage • Smash Hawke's wage freeze, pro-Tamil demonstrators in the Indian cutting program down the throat of state of Tamil Nadu. As the follow invaded a women's teacher-training screw the ALP-ACTU "prices and school, raping several young women. every union. But the allies of the rail incomes accord", for a big pay rise ing article points out, a direct inter workers are plenty powerful too. If Reportedly, two of the women com across the board with an ironclad cost vention by India, while it would stop mitted suicide the next day. Outraged the AFULE takes a determined of-living allowance Clause! the genocide of the Tamils, would stand, workers all over the state and by this atrocity, Tamil youth erected tend to result in reversing the terms barricades: two army patrol vehicles across the country can be rallied to • For massive funding to restore of oppression between Lanka's the railways! For free public transport, were ambushed, touching off a gun its cause. nationalities. abolish the fares! battle in which 12 soldiers and one Every working man and woman who In the midst of the slaughter in Sri rides the trains in this city knows how • For a class-struggle leadership: army officer were killed. The govern Lanka, the Hawke Labor government, ment's reaction was to clamp a important safety is. And there isn't a no more sellouts to Wtan/Hawke's loyal junior partner of Reaganite section of the labour movement in Labor government! Break with the stranglehold on the Northern Province US imperialism, supplemented its preparatory to unleashing a reign of NSW that hasn't had its jobs and hard ALP labour traitors - build a class annual grant of $12 million to the UNP won wages stolen by Wran - bus struggle workers party! For elected bloody terror. On July 25 in Colombo's regime with a gift to JR of $100,000, Welikada Prison, where most of the workers, oilworkers, printers, dock strike committees and regular mass announcing with fiendish cynicism yard workers, hospital workers, meetings to run the negotiations and prominent Tamil political prisoners that this was to help "victims of the are held, 35 Tamil fighters were teachers; you name it. All these make sure that this strike wins! violence". The working class and its murdered at the hands of raging workers have a score to settle with Railworkers: They may have you by allies must raise a mighty outcry Sinhalese prisoners, who were clearly Wran. A hard rail strike can provide the throat, but you've got them by against Jayewardene's genocide the opportunity of winning a big incited and probably armed by the the balls! Vote MacBean's sell bringing the formidable power of prison authorities. victory for all of labour. This means out down! • organised labour to bear through con breaking through the back-stabbing J affna is now reportedly a ghost crete union action to halt all Australian town, as terrified residents huddle in craft lines fostered by the government aid to the UNP butchers and to secure and union tops alike by bringing their homes, merchants chain down asylum for their victims (see box page their doors, and heavily armed police out the ARU, the largest rail union, Poland ••• 2, "Black Sri Lankan Cargo!"). and all public transport unions, backed and army jeeps patrol the city and its up with strike action by other govern continued from page five The international Spartacist tend outskirts. Since late June, two main ment workers and a joint strike of ency and the Spartacist League/Lanka Tamil papers, Suthanthiran and the in all rail unions nationwide. NSW bus particular its capacity for economic have consistently upheld the right of ternationally respected English drivers have a special stake in this blackmail. Poland owes $25 billion or the minority Tamils to form their own language Saturday Review have been battle - every day they pay for their more to Western bankers and govern state if they so choose. However, we banned, their offices sealed and ments. The Jaruzelski regime hoped have counseled against separation, editors detained. Now rail and bus that allowing the pope's visit would understanding that a revolutionary transport between Jaffna and CONTACT THE SPARTACIST ease Reagan's economic sanctions and policy for the emancipation of the Colombo have been cut off. LEAGUE: perhaps open the way for additional oppressed Tamils must be based on And most ominously, the government MELBOURNE ...... (03)654-4315 Western credits or, at least, easier the Tamil estate proletariat - up is calling upon all Sinhalese to leave SYDNEY ...... (02)264-8195 repayment terms. The minister of till now the heart of the Sri Lankan the Northern Province to clear the way religion and atheism, Adam Lopatka, export economy. These super for the army's bloodletting. The same explained this disastrous maneuver: exploited and horribly downtrodden thing happened just before the anti "The trip by the head of the Vatican agricultural workers have been central Tamil massacre in 1981, when the state and the church will make the to our perspective for a united struggle Jaffna public library, cultural and SUBSCRIBE continuation of this unfriendly policy for a workers and peasants govern historical repository for the Tamil toward Poland more difficult." Not a ment of Sri Lanka, representing also people, was burned to the ground. AUltralallan Spartacllt chance. Reagan & Co will stop being the basis to forge the revolutionary In the capital city of Colombo, gangs 011 IIIU88 for $3 "unfriendly" toward Poland only link with southern India and the social of racist youth, trucked in, aided and (Includes Spartaclst, theoretical when Wojtyla is in power in the abetted by the government, are journal of the international revolution of all South Asia. But Belvedere Palace and Jaruzelski is in roaming the streets engaging in Spartaclst tendency) Jayewardene is now destroying the prison or dead. systematic, massive burning and overseas rates: Tamil estate proletariat, driving those o surface mail - $3 for 11 issues While the Moscow Stalinists have who have not been killed into the o airmail - $10 for 11 issues taken a harder line on Poland than North and perhaps even to India. This mall to/ make cheques payable to: their Warsaw counterparts, they very is a catastrophe for the proletariat of SL Lanka Fund Drive Spartaclst Publications, much want to cut down their present all South Asia. Moreover, the genocide GPO Box 3473, massive subsidies to the Polish kulaks of the Tamils almost certainly necessi We would like to thank supporters Sydney, NSW, 2001 and neo-Pilsudskiite scum. So the tates the formation of an independent and friends who contributed to the Name Kremlin, too, is under pressure to Tamil state as a precondition to Spartacist League/Lanka fund drive. Address City ______accept a deal with the Vatican. The proletarian unity with the now deeply The fund drive ended successfully on State Postcode ___ Polish crisis is the product of decades chauvinist Sinhala working class. 30 June, exceeding by 72 percent its Phone Donation __ of capitulation by the Stalinists to What is now posed is the call for a target of 5000 rupees. capitalist restorationist forces and plebiscite of the Tamils to decide on 6 Australasian Spartacist looting of hundreds of Tamil stores, upside down from hooks, beating • Full citizenship rights for state capitulate to Tito's brand of "objec houses and vehicles. At press time them with metal bars and driving less Tamil plantation workers! tively revolutionary" Stalinism that scores had reportedly been killed. needles under the toenails and • US imperialism, hands off Trin Mandel first broke from Trotskyism As the [London] Guardian (25 July) fingernails. " comalee! Out of Diego Garcia and towards Pabloist liquidation, and wrote: But that was last month, today many of the Indian Ocean! (b) why would any ostensible socialist "Pillars of smoke and flame rose over the torture victims have been butch • Forward to a workers and want to rub shoulders with fascist the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, ered. peasants government in Sri Lanka butchers like the Ustasha? But then, yesterday as mobs attacked the min In desperation the leaders of the Sri as part of a Socialist Federation who knows; maybe International ority Tamil community and burned Lankan Tamil community have ap of South Asia! • Viewpoint will start running articles on and looted their homes and stores. pealed to Indian head of state Indira Witnesses claimed counting at least "exciting new developments" in the Gandhi to intervene on their behalf. Australian "Croatian Community". 12 corpses on the streets. Hundreds of Gandhi draws significant electoral shops and scores of vehicles were SWP ••• The SWP pretends they can't destroyed .... support from the tens of millions of continued from page eight figure out why everyone is making "But all over the city by mid-morning, Tamils in southern India. Indian such a fuss over screwing around with lorries jammed with young men shout diplomatic staff in Colombo suffered things inside have got to be bad when some "leftward moving" Ustasha ing anti-Tamil slogans were moving attacks and arson against their homes second-rate hacks like Sol Salby and supporters: following a Sri Lankan press campaign into Tamil areas and into shopping Roger Miles (who?) are left to write "For 'Tribune,' the Spartacist centres, picking out Tamil stores .... against. Indian "meddling" in Sri Direct Action, while long-time cadre League, the Socialist Labor League "By noon, Colombo resembled a city Lanka's affairs last week. New Delhi like Nita Kieg or Jamie Doughney and [which having long ago sold its soul to after a bombing raid. Smoke obscured had expressed concern over UNP anti so many others have disappeared from Qaddafi has jumped in to peddle its the sun, main roads were blocked by Tamil measures. And in India's state its turgid pages, save an occasional old FBI slanders - ASp], and the burnt-out vehicles and thousands of of Tamil Nadu an opposition party has article on the housing crisis - though ALP 'lefts,' the HDP question pro city workers, most on foot streamed vides them with an opportunity to back to their homes to avoid the called for a half-day general strike for those two in particular probably got tomorrow in the state capital of axed over Poland (see "SWP 'Third attack the Socialist Workers Party. violence .... " "They are worried by the gains made JR Jayewardene's United National Madras, protesting the atrocities Campists' Fall Out Over Poland", against Tamils in Lanka. JR has by the SWP in the past year or so, in Party (UNP) government, prostrate Australasian Spartacist, June/July size and political influence. and a before the International Monetary rejected all protests by the Indians, 1983). Of course, no one in the SWP drive against a 'Ustasha front' sup Fund, has introduced drastic austerity Amnesty International and others as uttered a word of complaint until the ported by the SWP seems a measures and schemes such as the "internal meddling" and/or spread CPA and associated Labor Party convenient opportunity to get at the "Free Trade Zones" in order to shore ing false accusations. Certainly the milieus started to turn the heat on. SWP." up the bankrupt economy. In exchange presence of several divisions of the An important factor that must be - Direct Action supplement for access to US markets for the cheap Indian army just across the narrow kept in mind is the enormous insta Sure. goods produced by the super-exploited straits of Palk would act to restrain bility generated in the SWP by its Basically the SWP wishes the whole Sinhalese women in these zones, JR Jayewardene's blood lust against the break from Jack Barnes' American thing would just go away. Repeatedly is willing to trade the strategically Tamils. But the fate of Lanka's Tamil SWP, which for years did all the they "apologise to readers for having important deep-water harbor of Trin masses must not be left to Indira thinking for its Australian namesake. to take up this issue at such length", comalee, a previously Tamil area. Gandhi, the brutal oppressor of her Which is not to suggest that the vindic adding that "it is not the central issue Possession of this port once decided own national, ethnic, religious min tive, eccentric Barnes, now caught facing workers in Australia right the fate of all India. Here, over the orities in India. Indeed, a direct between State Department socialism now". What the SWP really means is: last several years, a conscious pro intervention by India, while it would and his own brand of sycophantic look, we support the Hawke govern gram of Sinhalese colonization has stop the anti-Tamil terror, would tend Castroism, has any special claims to ment; we support Solidarnosc; we're been implemented by the government. to result (like the Turkish invasion of sanity. Following this traumatic for "No More Vietnams" - can't you Cyprus) in reversing the terms of US imperialism's appetite to secure breach the SWP engaged in some just forgive us this one little indul oppression between Lanka's national hegemony over the Indian Ocean as a heavy petting sessions with Barnes' gence? But alas, for Percy that is, the ities. staging area for control of the Indian arch enemy Ernest Mandel, even HDP affair signals a bizarre form of This urgent task - a question of life subcontinent and Persian Gulf and as bringing the leader of international political suicide. Seeing that the SWP and death for three million people - part of its encirclement of the Soviet fake-Trotskyism (the "United" appears so intent on politically self falls squarely upon the international Union is thus integrally tied to the Secretariat) to Melbourne for the destructing, it is the duty of revol working class and its allies. The inter preparation for an anti-Tamil pogrom. "Karl Marx Centenary Conference" utionists and all decent opponents of national Spartacist tendency is organ Currently, Trincomalee has become where Mandel maintained a stony fascist barbarism to do what they can izing a campaign of protest to stop the an arena of escalating communal (public) silence on the company the to help it on its way .• violence. Last month Sinhalese gangs terror against the Tamils in Lanka. The SWP has been keeping. set fire to a bus carrying Tamils from defense of the' Tamils, 'now facing The basis for this tentative conver Jaffna to Trincomalee. Some 20 people genocide, must be linked to a revolu gence is/was Poland, over which were cremated in the blaze and 60 tionary socialist perspective, which Mandel has definitively passed from Correction seriously i.njured. A young Tamil alone can secure national justice for all centrism to the camp of social In our article "Ernest Mandel on couple who helped rescue the sur the peoples of South Asia. This is the democratic reformism as an outspoken Tour for Cold War Social Democracy" proletarian internationalist perspec vivors were found hacked to death the fan of Francois Mitterrand's ruling (liustralasian Spartacist no 102, tive of the Spartacist League/Lanka. next day along with their young child. Socialist Party. This must have June/July 1983) on the SWP's "Karl On July 5, an Amnesty International • Army and police out of Tamil seemed like a pretty good bet for a Marx Centenary Conference" , we news release documented the hideous areas! factional bloc, all the more so since the wrote: "The SWP even threw out of systematic torture of Tamil activists: • Free all victims of UNP terror! SWP is itself internally torn over the HDP's workshop a Polish Jew who "In some cases detainees have been • Down with the Bonapartist JR "tactics" on "solidarity with Soli had survived the Nazi holocaust, kept in solitary confinement for more regime! Restore democratic rights darity", but we wouldn't be at all an ex-CPer in his 60s by the name of than eight months after arrest. Tor and elections! surprised if the HDP got in the way. To ture is said to include hanging victims Jacob Bilander." It has come to our • For the right of self-determination be sure, Mandel's opportunism is attention that Jacob Bilander was for the Tamils in Sri Lanka! boundless, but (a) it was in part to .J never actually a member of the CP . WfJl/ltEI/S 'ANGUAI//) "'" ",."," Look Who's Defending Workers Democracy Now! Reagan's Racist C~r~O i~e~i ~;ai i~ ~:~:g~:b,,~;L',~dgr:~l ~~s n~~d b~~{!~p Ht~s~ s:~ !"<>t db,lomClcy" and arr. c>enrlinq t'Jpm a copy of Iptt8r to mp alc;(). Immigration Scare Socialist Workers Party___ _ ro A716, ~ 5y South NS# 20nc i tJ National Office' PO Box K208, Haymarket. 2000 Tel. (02) 2112332 20 J 981 Q@iQ: wIW "''''I.iIji.ij'.1.fiq ..:'tll.¥ 15, q8) , -f; orqani"er. 1"r-enp'I, De.Jr David, For general you tor your letter of lui.,. 15 propo,>in 1 a debate on the Information and Df"·tr Jt"nL, 'Jr.1 CU)'lti"l. I never T"'fuse chall 'nqes to deb1te an is,>ufls that are of some amusement, we re I'm w~ltin3 to 'llev!te rr.V3PU', f'.- thp ~mDOltclnc,'. HO'l'ever ~ dlso insi"t on the foll'J,,,inq points. 'n;ri ,VO'l, for t~,,,, 0n to" ton, c "t'Je produce here an I) Topic: I bellevp tt," topic st'''Iuld be 5:::lf'l",t'ling like . "The ~ :'0;:> -- U"tdsna. terrorrc,ts or Sp>.)tian natLloJlists 7" or sometlu IJ exchange of letters wnich includes both sides of thp dispute. ~~~~~; ~~:;~' '~;~~~m:: :~~; ;~~:: '~F~:';:~u!~~F;;~,H :t,r, ,t between CPA antl 2) Titles; I do not «~~~ wis\j t') speak offlClally 41n behalf of tr,p ctjAi~ We an' cl democrdtic organisation and I do not wish every commen: I Trotskyist A deb'lt'" WJu.~<1 hplp cl'tr:fv th'" rr',tter 'lnd ,",O'..l: 1 ce~t"lpl~Y r1ight make to be attrioutable to the CPA. As you will be aWdre. .~" att.r"lct '1 wlde ~tldlenc"' . however, wf!o hilV', beE'n fighting th," Ustasha.,exposing their activiti,-s. "expert" Denis over decades and we continue to 00 so. My ~eneral position ~s 'Jeeently the 3W? df'o'lteJ the :nt~rr,jtlona~ SOC1311st:3 undoubt.edly that of thp CI"'A. Howc'ver I wiL 0nly speak as a TriounE> Freney and the 10 :3. we Ll-conQ>Jcted 'lnd we,d-'lttende,j evP'lt. i: belleve Journalist. thIS D:,oposeJ. Lleb'-t.t" wo",::'d uP 'j "lffi:J.l i1" :;,clCC€ilS. SWP. 3) Exclusions: I fine] it extraordinary that YOll propose that the' I wou::'d 31. lest th~t 1. t be -l ~ub-,-';'c event Wl tt: the exceJtion 3"jNl[rti: 5partacists and the SLL be excluded,but presumably you tn'lt It OJt bE' oper. to members of elther the SIJ'lrtacls"t League will encourage your Ustasha fr:iends to come along. I have the d"o.'pf'st or the SJciallst Labour Lfl~f,,J.e. Toe flrst 'ire chronlc·llly political disagreements with both the Sparts and the SLL, as. th~y anJ aggreSSIvely dlsrU.ptIvP '3.nd the second ch'lrge us, on every have with me. I regdrd both as politically irrelevant. But I ar possibifl occaSIon, with tleln/,\: cops. not afraid to have them present and certainly totally reject an.,.. exclusions of 'anyone' from the mpeting 8. If anyone was to be E'xcludt>d I'd 11Ke to he"3.r your re890nse to thl» p""oposal. If you thlnk ~t would be the HDP. that 1 t would be a useful event, we COUld ,l:;et In touch to discuss a d'ltf', "3. ven:.le, '1.0d 3. precise format. 4) Format of the meeting: I was not present at the 5WP-IS debate, but from independent people who were I was disturbed to hear thE' ~ vours sincerely, way it was managed to exclude any real debate from the floor. I w:)uld therefore propose the usual meeting format: perhaps 30 minutes j~61~ for you and I to present our views.~estions for a further 30 Marxist working class biweekly minutes, S~peeches from the floor,with representation of all ten(1encies present for another 30 minutes and 10 minutes each at the ,"nd for us of the Spartaclst League/US D,we W:olmf's to reply. I S"dnev District Org'lniser (includes Spartaclst) 5) Independent chairperson: A person who is independent and eXPf'riE'nce and who is mutually acceptable. I havent mentioned it to Hall Gr" ... nland $20 Airmail (24 Issues) but I was thinking of someone like him. 6) Finance: I would propose a charge of ,say, 81 ~ntry for •• p\leryone, $5 Seamall profits to be divided equally after cost of hall paid. Each c;ide to Order from/pay to: pay for whatever publicity they produce. As far as I am concerned,only point one is opf"n to Spartaclst Publishing Co, negotiations, as well as times mentioned in point 4 Box 1377 GPO, :~: ~~~~~e i~f p~~n~n~:ie~~~a},~:r~~a~ ~:rt>(L New York, NY, 10116, Yours, Denis :r~_~;:-.2-=- /. USA August/September 1983 7 ~ Australasian------..... SPARTACIST I Ustasha Jim Percy's Socialist Workers Party ran a debate between Tribune's Denis According to Rooted in Secrecy by confront the wartime experience of the (SWP) has gone off the deep end. This Freneyand SWP leader Dave Holmes. Victorian Labor MP Joan Coxsedge et regime ofPavelic and the Ustasha": kinky social-democratic operation has Given the history of Ustasha terror in aI, Rolovic visited Australia in 1970 "This may mean interviews with been thrown into crisis thanks to the Australia, the SWP should hardly be to deliver a secret aide memoire former Ustasha leaders who for many notoriety it so rightly deserves as a surprised that Labor Party doors documenting Ustasha activities in the Croatian community represent a defender of Ustasha fascism. For over across the political spectrum have in Australia. Coxsedge charges the militant nationalist tradition and who a year now the SWP has pursued re been slamming in their face, like ex McMahon Liberal government and may be changing politically" (our lations with the Croatian Movement Senator Mulvihill who adorned the ASIO with complicity in Rolovic's emphasis). - Direct Action supplement for Statehood (HDP), which in terms of SWP's "solidarity with Solidarity" murder, pointing out that the aide organisational continuity and political platform in December 1981, but who memoire must have been revealed to All of which brings us to the HDP identification acts and talks like a now writes to Direct Action (19 July) the Ustasha because the killers itself. As acknowledged by Dedic on Ustasha front, openly proclaiming as defending Yugoslav anti-Soviet "non claimed their bloody deed as an act of Background Briefing, the major com its goal the dismemberment of the alignment", or Victorian Labor MP reprisal for Rolovic's exposure of the ponent of the HDP came from the Yugoslav workers state and hailing in Lewis Kent who telegrammed a 16 clandestine, terrorist HRB. The SWP's Croatian National Resistance (HNO), its press, Hrvatski Tjednik, some of July SWP/CISCAC conference (see July supplement, however, repeats in which in tum was founded by the the most bloodthirsty of the Ustasha's article page 4): "I feel the fascist butchers. These are the remnants of HDP's association with CISCAC pre Ante PaveJic's "Independent State vents me from addressing you". 't.. \; of Croatia", brought to power in In response the SWP devoted a ~,'" 1941 on the bayonets of the invading special issue of Socialist Worker ",t "', German and Italian armies. Under the (August 1983) to "Croatian national watchful eye of the Axis occupiers, ism and the fight for socialism" and in Pavelic turned the satellite state of July produced a 4-page Direct Action Croatia into a vast slaughter-yard for supplement about "the Croatian Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and many national struggle" which announces: Croats. It took social revolution by "The SWP and the HDP are going on a Tito's all-Yugoslav Partisans, en campaign to get out the truth." And compassing Communist fighters of all what is the "truth"? This is what the nationalities, to defeat the Ustasha supplement says: (1) "the Ustasha fascists and their Nazi overlords. It is was not a fascist movement"; ~.. this social revolution that the losers of (2) "Pavelic's real betrayal of the the Yugoslav civil war long to overturn Croatian national cause was his ~~.-:.-:~ ... through bloody counterrevolution. subordination of that struggle to the .. ~ The SWP's alliance with the HDP interests of German and Italian Tlto (fourth from left) and Partisan leaders In their underground headquarters on has exploded into a first-rate public imperialism"; (3) "Even the scale of the Island of Vis. Partisan-forged all-Yugoslav resistance triumphed over the scandal, first ignited by the Spartacist the Ustasha crimes, real and hor Ustasha fascists and their Nazi overlords through social revolution. League's forceful intervention outside rifying as they were, has been deliber print Holmes' statement, further Ustasha chief of concentration camps, the SWP's "Karl Marx Centenary ately and massively exaggerated"; defending this act of fascist terror with General Luburic, and for years led in Conference " in Melbourne last April (4) "it is the Belgrade regime that the claim that Rolovic was an agent of Australia by Srecko Rover, who is where Jacob Bilander, a Jewish sur must answer to the charge of the Yugoslav secret police - so he wanted for war crimes in Yugoslavia. vivor of the Nazi holocaust, was 'terrorism' " (emphasis in original). deserved it. The HDP's current international thrown out after denouncing the This is the kind of trash that usually Assassin Miro Baresic's photo is president is Nikola Stedul, from 1974 Ustasha's monstrous crimes at a comes from the mouths of Nazi apolo featured on the front-page of the 19 the international secretary of the special HDP workshop. The SWP/ gists who claim the holocaust July Hrvatski Tjednik, which just HNO; earlier Stedul was a member of HDP affair has been splashed across never happened. From a supposed happens to include a lengthy interview Pavelic's rival HOP. The West the pages of the Communist Party of "socialist" grouping such statements in Croatian with Jimom Percijem, aka German leader of the HDP, Stipe Australia's (CPA) Tribune and even are unprecedented, amazing, utterly Jim Percy. In the same issue is an Bilandzic was jailed for an armed made the big bourgeois press with an degenerate. interview with Danijel Crljen, de- attack on the Yugoslav consulate in article in Murdoch's Australian (12 The SWP has now reached the point scribed in an earlier edition as "a Bad Godesberg while a leader of the July). Headed "How the ultra-Right of openly defending specific acts of great son of the Croats" who "wor- HNO. According to anti-Ustasha may have finally suckered the ultra Ustasha terror against the Yugoslav shipped the Poglavnik Ante Pavelic". fighter Marijan Jurjevic in his book Left", Australian journalist David workers state. For years these cow A Ustasha leader for SO years, Crljen Ustasha under the Southern Cross, Hirst notes that "egg seems to be ardly reformists have painstakingly was in charge of propaganda under HNO branches in Australia were sticking on the faces of the SWP-Direct sought to establish an image as peace Pavelic, ie, the Croatian Goebbels named after notorious war criminals. Action" and reports rumours of "an loving folk with a deep respect for all (Background Briefing). Then there is Thus the Geelong branch bore anti-Croat faction emerging within the that is legal, but an exception is made the 19 April Hrvatski Tjednik which Francetic's name, the Sydney branch SWP". On 19 June the issue was aired for Miro Baresic, now in a Swedish ran an article by Dinko Dedic - the that of Ante Vrban. The commander of on ABC radio in Sydney on its Back prison for the 1971 assassination of HDP speaker at the SWP's "Karl of the Stara Gradiska concentration ground Briefing program presented by Yugoslav ambassador Rolovic. On Marx Conference" - commemorat- camp, Vrban was accused at a War Mark Aarons, the son of former CPA 2SER-FM SWP spokesman Holmes ing the 10 April anniversary of Crimes trial of massacring 3000 chil- leader Laurie Aarons. Then on 11 July lauds this murder as an "act of Pavelic's rise to power. Accompanying dren, some by bashing their brains a Sydney campus station, 2SER-FM, struggle against national oppression" . the article is a large photo of Jure a~ainst a wall. His defence was that he Francetic, commander of the infamous ktlled only 63. Such are the roots of the Black Legion, with a caption extolling HDP which, says Direct Action (21 this butcher as a "symbol of June), "cannot be held responsible for the Croatian people's will for freedom the crimes ofthe Ustasha" committed Sto su Hrvati liberated from all ideologies and "almost 40 years ago" I collaboration". Francetic, we might Why is the SWP doing what it is dobili za One of many examples: HOP add, was "liberated" from "collabor- doing, you might ask? Several possi- 10.. t rav3I,j paper Hrvatski ation" when the Nazis disarmed his bilities come to mind: (1) for money; Tjednik Black Legion for fear that its bestial (2) someone who hates the SWP gave (April 19, 1983) atrocities would fuel support for the Percy a prefrontal lobotomy; (3) the glorifies as a Partisans. But then such company SWP is so factionally polarised over "symbol of the should please "Jimom Percijem" their links with the HDP that their Croatian will for since the SWP's major complaint, present leadership has no option of freedom" against Pavelic was his failure to backing down; (4) aU of the above. Ustasha butcher . "break" from German imperialism to Certainly there is no lack of SWP/ Jure Francetlc, "travel the Cuban road" I This rogues Resistance members who intimate on leader of the Black Legion. gallery of fascist butchers paid tribute the sly their discomfort with the whole in the HDP's "Croatian Weekly" is squalid business to supporters of the actually cited by the SWP as an Spartacist League. And one knows that example of how the HDP "is forced to continued on page seven 8 August/September 1983