to the reeder Marshal Kim 11 Sung, leader of all Koreans, has on twa occasions made proposals for a solution fo Korea's division. "On the Reunification of Korea," in Starting Pointa, presents these views. The second section of this issue of Tricontinental, Experiences and Facts, start* with our title, "The White Plagne." The myth of race rules over South Africa in its most absurd and criminal extreme. The French iournalist Edouard Bailby shows objectively the hateful manner in which apartheid f-a-ndions. The section continues with "Conversations in the Northeast," by the Uruguayan writer Maria Esther Gilio. In her article, we are hit by the violent shock between the wealth exhibited from subcontinental Brazil and the extreme poverty in the Northeast, with its basic latijundism. Indonesia is the dream of big capital, which seeks a "democratic" Eden after the ferocious repression that accompanied the military coup and its criminal and inflexible control over the entire country. Proof of the gears of power in present-day Tridoncsia is the article by the Indonesian leader Ibrahim Isa, "Bloody Democracy," third in the section that ends with "Endemic Disease," by the Italian doctor Giovanni Berlinguer, whose well-documented evidence shows why

TRICONTINENTAU

Theoretical organ of the Executive Secretariat oi tl-*e Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa. Asia, and Latin America. Bimonthly, No. 31, July-August 197^. Central editorial office: LInea y D, Veaado, Havana, Cuba. Postal address: P.O. Box 4224, Havana, Cuba, Distributed by OSPAAAL. Edited In three languages: Spanish. English and French, Price per copy: $0.70. Annual subscription (6 issues): $3.60 pesos; $3.60 US; F 20; L 3OO0. Partial or total reproduction is freely permitted by Tricontinental magazine. Printed in Unidad OI of the Book Institute. Havana, Cuba. lerinlisni and colonialism must be considered the chief ailenccs that have afflicted humanity. US mass communications have accustomed us to the image of the Yankee soldier, proud of his rank, convinced of his invulnerability and of the grand destiny of his cause. Today the reality of Viet Nam presents a very different picture: demoralized troops, mass desertions, iefeat and escape, fruits of the vital and forceful reply of a people ready to sacrijice all for their independence and liberty, and of the propressive acquisition of consciousness among the best of the North American people who seek a pure and bright future for their country rather than that of an octopus sucking the world. "Soldier Against the War" in Man and His World is the result of an interview with ex-soldier David Dorey who paints the growth among GIs of a determined opposition to their country's agqressive present. This section concludes with an interview with Hayif Hauatmeh, leader of the Democratic People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DPFLP), entitled "Definitions of a Battle," which establishes important questions of principle concerning liberation in the Middle East.

The report by Amilcar Cabral, Secretary-General of PAIGC, on eight months of struggle, from January to contentB August 1971, is recorded, because of its significance, in TO THE READER Notes for History under the title "Fruits of a Struggle" and provides us with the rich result of the prodigious battle • STARTING POINTS for liberation and the gradual decay of decrepit Portuguese colonialism. And finally, with a panorama of his nation's subjugated condifiou, the leader of the On the Reuni-fication of Korea Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP) Juan Mari-Brds, Kim II Sung 4 sketches in "From the Colony to Socialism," the future perspectives for the independence struggle of his country, included in Tricontinental on the March. „ • EXPERIENCES AND FACTS The While Plague Edouard Bailby 15

Conversations in the Northeast Maria Esther Gilio 30

Bloody Democracy Ibrahim Isa 37

Endemic Disease Giovanni Berlinguer 46 • NOTES FOR HISTORY

Fruits of a Struggle Amilcar Cabral 60 • MAN AND HIS WORD

Soldiers Against the War David Dorey 78

Definitions of a Battle Nayif'Hauatmeh 94 m TRICONTINENTAL ON THE MARCH From the Colony to Socialism Juan Mari-Bras 111 I NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS 116

M»rr than a century ago, the US imperialists carried ou1 the first aggression •«ali»l the Korean people. In 1860 the armed ship USS General Sherman rearhrd the coasts of the Korean peninsula intending to occupy the territory • ml pnvc the way to converting Korea into a US colony. That Imperialist adventure failed. Nevertheless, the United States never • hnndoncd its project. At the end of the Second World War, under the banner of till- United Nations, it occupied the southern part of Korea militarily and iiiiiiiiilled its inhabitants to a regime of terror under the puppet Syngman Rhee. 'I'hi- Korean nation, made up of the same working people, the same language unit with profound historic roots, was artificially divided at the 38th parallel. Still not satisfied, the US imperialists hoped to fulfill their old dream, und In 1950 they initiated a war of aggression against the Democratic People's n<'public of Korea, Three years later they were defeated and obliged to sign the nrmi.stice of Panmunjon. Despite the Korean pe^-ple's struggle for reunification of their country, the Korean nation remains divided and US troops continue to occupy the southern pnrt of the country. The government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has always evidenced its desire for peaceful reunification of the country. The President of the Council of Ministers and Secretary-General of the Workers' Party of Korea, Kim II Sung, declared in a speech on August 6, 1971. that his government was On the Reunification prepared to discuss the peaceful reunification of the coxititry with all south Korean organisations and political parties, including the Democratic-Republican Party. The US Imperialists and the present puppet regime of Pali Chung Hee, rather of Korea than accepting the just and reasonable proposals of the Democratic People's Kim II Sung Republic of Korea ' which have the support of the Korean population, north and south, declared a state of national emergency last December on the pretext of a false threat of aggression from the north against the south. The false affirmation by the puppet Pak Chung Hee and the imperialists was revealed by the leader of the Korean people, Marshal Kim II Sung, in a New Years speech and in the interview published by the Japanese paper Yomlurl Shimbun last January 10. Tricontinental publishes here the basic part of the respective expo.sitions by Marshal Kim 11 Sung in which he reiterates his firm position concerning the problem of Korean reunification and analyzes the tense situation that exists in the zone and that could be the prelude to a new impe• rialist aggression against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

TODAY, THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE Korean nation, north and south, the aspiration to peaceful reunification of our homeland is increasing as never before. For the first time in 26 years of liberation, the representatives of the Red Cross organizations of north and south Korea have succeeded in meeting in Panmunjon to discuss important ques• tions that could mitigate to a certain extent the. suffering which the separation of north and south has caused our fellow country• men. The entire people of north and south Korea view with great joy these contacts which, however late, are now taking place between the two sides; and it is a unanimous desire that the conversations already initiated be influential in eliminating the barriers erected between north and south, and in the achievement of the peaceful reunification of the homeland. And this is the very moment in which the reactionaries and the government of south Korea proclaim the so-called "state of WLT of the dictatorship of the proletariat respond with emergency" on the pretext of a "threat of aggression from the I'lus is the general principle of Marxism-Leninism and north agamst the south" and unleash an hysterical wave of fascist action for the government of our republic, For this repression against the people. the ballyhoo by the south Korean puppet clique about Daily, these scoundrels invent every kind of infamous fascist- a 1 1 "threat of aggression from the north against the south" type law, ruthlessly repress even the most elementary democratic |g I. ...1.,; but absurd demagogy. freedoms of speech, press, assembly and association, and maintain IvetU-s demonstrate that no one is fooled by the south Korean south Korean society in a state of permanent yneasiness and pupp<^t clique. On the contrary, their demagogy and their cam- terror. A few days ago, despite the strong resistance of the fwlffn of fascist repression provoke great indignation and protest opposition parties and the different sectors of the population, they the south Korean people and the peoples of the world. fabricated a repugnant fascist law: the law of "extraordinary 1 icrtain ruling class circles of reaction and establishment measures for national defense." What the reactionaries of south publications in the United States and Japan point out that the Korea basically seek with their fascist machinations, is to repress proclamation of a "state of emergency" in south Korea is nothing the increasing aspirations of the south Korean people for peaceful but a cock and bull story invented more for internal purposes to reunification and cause the contacts and conversations between •me the social crisis than because of a real threat of aggres- north and south to fail, in opposition to the unanimous desire of .ijainst the south. A western publication reported that the the entire nation and against the course of the times. , oclamation of the state of emergency by the south Korean The present puppet government of south Korea is made up of iH)liticians, far from being motivated by a "threat of aggression the same military gang that usurped power at gunpoint under from the north against the south" is related to the many internal the sponsorship of the Yankee imperialists, in order to smash problems that must be solved and is designed to silence the dis• the peaceful unification aspirations which, following the popular content of the south Korean people who become more disgusted uprising of April 19, 1960, were reaching ever greater heights every day with the severe economic crisis, and to suppress student among the south Korean people. After assuming their puppet demonstrations, protests by intellectuals and the resistance of the power, they tried to deceive the south Korean people with appeal• opposition parties. ing slogans of "independence," "prosperity" and "modernization" The south Korean puppet clique must discard the stupid but their true nature has been known to the world for a long illusion that the US imperialists and Japanese militarists are time now. During the past ten years, south Korea has been going to save them from catastrophe. The times and circum• following not a "road of independence" but rather a more in• stances have changed. The period is past when the US imperial• flexible dependency, not a road of "prosperity" and "moderniza• ists can run the internal affairs of other countries at their whim, tion" but one of total ruin and destruction. and for a long time now their own collapse has prevented them The puppet clique of south Korea finds itself submerged in a from answering even for themselves. Now the US imperialists serious poUtical and economic crisis from which it wJl never be are facing a profound political and economic crisis within the able to emerge and so it debates with mounting uneasiness and country and are becoming completely isolated in the international desperation each day. With the proclamation of the so-called "state field. Sato's clique in Japan also finds itself confused by the of emergency" and the unleashing of a new repressive wave, it discord that has arisen within ruling class circles and the ener• seeks a way out of the pit it has fallen into, which is no more getic antigovernmental struggle by the great popular masses. than its final and desperate death rattle. The fact of having When all is said and done, the situation of the south Korean proclaimed the "state of emergency" and false "threat of aggres• puppet clique and that of its bosses is no different. Just as the sion from the north against the south" is an act of major depravity Yankee imperialists and Sato's clique in Japan were unable to on the part of the south Korean puppet clique by which it tries save the Taiwanese clique of Chiang Kai Shek from ruin or that to deceive the south Korean people and world public opinion and of Thieu in south Viet Nam, neither will they ever be able to get a few more arms and dollars from its boss. History will never save the puppet clique of south Korea. forgive this infamous betrayal of the fatherland and no one will Up until now and despite this situation, the south Korean be deceived by the stratagem. puppets have tried to maintain themselves in power by attaching In these days the puppet clique of south Korea, as is its custom, themselves to the US imperialists and the Japanese militarists. claims that we are about to launch an attack because we have They implore Yankee imperialism — which because of its own now completed our war preparations. It is true that we are straits proposes to "reduce," however formally, its armed forces strengthening our nation's defensive capacity. This does not mean of aggression in south Korea — not to "reduce" these forces and that we intend to resolve the problem of unification of the father• they even open new doors for aggressive Japanese militarism. land at gun point. If we are increasing defensive power it is to With these national betrayals, the south Korean puppet clique safeguard the country and the nation, to protect our socialist only precipitates its ruin. conquests from the aggression of the Yankee imperialists and the Besides, it is truly ridiculous that the south Korean puppet Japanese militarists. clique should dream of achieving "unification" by smashing com• Our armed forces are always devoted to self-defense. munism with the support of the Yankee imperialists and Jap• Only when the imperiahsts, the reactionary classes and the anese militarists. History has increasingly demonstrated that counterrevolutionaries resort to violence against the revolution communism cannot be liquidated. The communist movement now t, < ••, too, our party and the government of the republic has more than 100 years of history, beginning with the Paris *M I ) insist on the independent and peaceful reunifica- Commune. Up until now there has never been an imperialist nor land and will do everything in its power to see a lackey of'imperialism who didn't oppose communism. But none ,.,.111.1. But if despite our patient efforts, the south of them have been able to annihilate it. ippet clique fails to reach an agreement with us and Moreover, the successive puppet governments of south Korea, •.(d of national betrayal, it will wind up being over- without exception, have used every kind of desperate force it ever having been pardoned for its crimes against against communism under any slogan. But communism has not It- I been wiped out in our country and instead has spread and has me Yankee imperialists are lying low now, their become stronger day by day. In the no-rthem part of the republic, nature is the same as it always was and, unfortunately, communist ideas have been the prevalent ideology and have lue so. The mask of "peace" that the Yankee imperial- become a great material force in all areas: political, economic, t is nothing more than a smokescreen to deceive the cultural and military. Communist ideology has also planted deep 's perversity and cunning can outmatch anyone's, roots in the hearts of many revolutionaries and people in south mperialists have not given up their sinister plan to Korea, so that fortunately today the chances are nil for the the division of our country and convert south Korea puppet clique of south Korea to achieve its dream of "unifica• permanent colony and they pursue their machinations tion" by smashing communism. ition against the north of the republic, by inciting the Ivoiean puppet clique. The south Korean puppet clique must open its eyes to the realities of today. If it persists in its vilely traitorous acts against idition, the Japanese militarists, reborn thanks to the work the country and the nation, opposing the march of history, and Wee imperialism, openly manifest their ambition to attack failing to abandon its anachronistic way of thinking as it has -untry again. The Japanese militarists are making every up to now, there will be no escape for it. If the degraded south kin.I of preparation to act as "shock troops" for the Yankee Korean politicians want to find some way out, even at this late Imperialists in a war of aggression against our country and are date, they must frankly admit their crimes and stop prostituting just waiting for an opportunity to invade us. the country and the nation to the Yankee imperialists and Jap• Under these circumstances, the entire south and north Korean anese militarists, halt the vile maneuvers in which they are people must be increasingly vigilant against the aggressive engaged today, put an immediate end to the fascist repression machinations of the Yankee imperialists and the Japanese militar- against the south Korean people and reply sincerely to the appeal iats. By no means can our people permit the country to be cap• made by the government of our republic addressed to achieving tured by the Yankee imperialists and Japanese militarists to peaceful reunification by means of consultation among Koreans. become their slaves, nor can we repeat the ignominious history of 1910 that brought the country to ruin. Everyone in the Korean The government of the DPRK has repeatedly presented the nation, despite their political and religious differences, must most just and reasonable proposals for the independent and unite firmly under the banner of salvation of the fatherland and peaceful unification of the country. Just in the past year, the independent reunification and- must carry out an active struggle government of the republic presented ^eight points as one more to frustrate the aggressive maneuvers of the Yankee imperialists proposal for peaceful reunification, in the fifth session of the and Japanese militarists. Supreme Assembly of the People elected for the fourth period and, in particular, in the speech given last August 6, we made Even those who have committed crimes against the country clear our disposition to make contact at any moment with all and the nation must rise up courageously against the aggression political parties including the Democratic-Republican Party, and of the Yankee imperialists and the Japanese militarists, in this with south Korean social organizations and personalities.' All nationwide struggle for the independent reunification of the our plans and proposals for the independent and peaceful reunifi• fatherland, by which .they will be demonstrating their repentance. cation of the fatherland have the warm support and approval If the Pharisaical south Korean politicians also want to redeem not only of the people of the northern part of the republic but their crime of having, betrayed the nation, they will have to also of broad popular masses and personalities of diverse sectors respond by incorporating themselves into this struggle. They must of south Korea. The south Korean politicians should also have fight to expel the Yankee imperialists from south Korea instead the courage to reply to our just and impartial proposals, in of begging them to stay and fight to frustrate the machinations keeping with this great national current. Only in this way will of a new aggression by the Japanese militarists instead of opening they be acting justly as members of the Korean nation. And the doors of the south of the country to them. I believe that only by acting in this fashion could the south If the entire people of south and north Korea struggle to• Korean puppet government be pardoned, though late, for the gether as one man, we will surely be able to turn back any crimes they have committed against the fatherland and the imperialist aggression. If the US imperialists and the Japanese people, and find salvation. militarists finally unleash a war of aggression in our country, the If even at this stage the south Korean rulers decide to cut entire people of south and north Korea will join in one single their bonds of dependency with foreign forces and end their file in a life or death struggle against the enemy, and will com• national betrayal and conduct themselves like ajuthentic Koreans, pletely annihilate the aggressors and unify the divided fa• we would not question their past and we would solve with them therland. the problem of the fatherland's peaceful reunification. ' l»Bvrf)ll say in this connection that the proclamation of On the Problem of the Reunification of Our Country • mergency" in south Korea is not because of the TODAY THE GEKERAL SITUATION in our country is developing very thward aggression" but, rather, a political trick favorably for our people's struggle for the independent, peaceful a use of the internal situation. reunification of the country. ')rean rulers can deceive nobody and solve nothing The successes of socialist construction made in the northern ish tricks. half of the country under the banner of the Juche idea further il by the rapid and disadvantageous change in the consolidate the political and economic basis for the independent i| external situations, they seem to have gone on a reunification of the country, give great hope and confidence to '.ut they need to cool their heads and think matters the people of the southern half and vigorously rouse them to the struggle for the peaceful reunification of the country. . and situation have changed. Lately, a tendency toward peaceful reunification is rapidly I lion today is different from that of the 40s. when the growing and the struggle against the fascist rule and for the ilists could divide our country into the north and democratization of society is gaining momentum as never before ing the name of the "UN." The day has gone when the in south Korea. The massive advance of the student youth and lists can meddle in the affairs of other countries and people that has continued from before and after the "election" •ost. of the puppet president held last year, and brisk arguments ihe US imperialists and the Japanese militarists can about national reunification in public and political circles show attend to their own affairs. that the tendency of opposing the present ruling system and Wr think the time has come when the south Korean rulers demanding peaceful reunification is rising in south Korea with •» iild give up the antinational stand they have held, seeking an irresistible force. vay out by clinging to the sleeves of the US imperialist ag- As our policy for peaceful reunification enjoys the unanimous Miinsors and ushering in the Japanese aggressors, turning their support not only of the Korean people but of broad world public Mck on the compatriots. opinion, and as the tendency toward peaceful reunification grows If the south Korean rulers are to find a true way out, they in south Korea, even the south Korean authorities who had •hould accept the national stand, give up even now their absurd rejected any contact between the north and the south had to •Mcrtion that they would "build up strength" with the backing come out to the north-south Red Cross talks, pressed by the o( outside forces to overpower north Korea by force and attain trend of the times. Though rather late and limited in scope the "reunification by prevaiUng over communism," and accept our preliminary talks between the north and south Red Cross fur and aboveboard proposals to reunify the country in a peace- organizations now being held at Panmunjon are very significant . ,; way by joining the efforts of the Korean people themselves. since, at last, Koreans have gotten together to discuss the internal You asked me about our concrete program for the reunifica• affairs of the nation. It can be said that this is a step forward in tion of the country. Our program for national reunification is not the struggle of our people for reunifying the divided country different from the previous one. We have invariably maintained peacefully. that the question of our country's reunification, an internal Our stand on the talks between the north and south Red Cross affair of our nation, should be solved not by the interference of organizations is clear. We want to mitigate even by a day the outside forces but by the efforts of the Korean people them• sufferings our people are undergoing because of the division, by selves, not by war but in a peaceful way. bringing the talks to a success with all sincerity, and pave the We clarified the program for the independent, peaceful reunifi• way, with it as a stepping stone, to the peaceful reunification cation of the country in the eight-point proposals for national of the country. salvation advanced at a session of the Supreme People's As• But the stand of the south Korean authorities is quite opposite. sembly of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea held in From the first day they were compelled to come out to the talks, April last year, in the speech made on August 6 last year and in they dragged on the talks under this or that pretext and poured the New Year address this year. We will invariably make every cold water on the growing tendency toward peaceful reunification, effort in the future to realize the program. saying: "Don't get too excited" and "it is premature." Saying, The success of the talks now going on between the north and moreover, that we would soon "invade the south" because we south Red Cross organization amid great interest in the whole have already firiished war preparations, they proclamed a "state nation, will create a favorable atmosphere for the peaceful of national emergency" and are again trumping up various evil reunification of the country. fascist laws to buttress it and deliberately aggravating the situation. The south Korean authorities, talking about some sort of Such a racket kicked up by the south Korean puppet clique "stage," prattle that this can be done and that cannot be done cannot be interpreted other than as a design to prolong their and that only certain kinds of undertakings must be done first remaining days by putting down the ever-growing tendency to• and the other things be deferred. These are delaying tactics and ward peaceful reunification in south Korea, scuttling contacts not an attitude for solving problems. and negotiation between the north and the south and perpe• If the north-south Red Cross talks yield good results and tuating the division. It is not accidental that even some reaction• mutual and free exchange is established between the families, ary ruling circles of the United States and Japan and the press relatives and friends torn apart in the north and south, their suffering will be lessened and, at the same time, the frozen rela• tions between north and south will be thawed and mutual understanding deepened. It is a matter of vital importance for the peaceful reunification of the country as well as for peace in Asia and the rest of the world to remove tension in our country. In order to remove tension in Korea, it is necessary, first of all, to i-eplace the Korean Armistice Agreement with a peace agreement between the north and south. We hold that a peace agreement should be concluded between the north and south and the armed forces of north and south Korea be cut drastically under the condition that the US imperialist aggressor troops are withdrawn from south Korea. We have made it clear more than once that we have no inten• tion of "invading the south." If the south Korean rulers have no intention of "marching north for reunification," there will be BKpeneiiceB no reason for them to refuse to conclude a peace agreement between the north and south. If the, truly want peace in our ond FactB country and peaceful reunification, th^y should agree to conclude a peace agreement between the north and south, instead of clamoring about the fictitious "threat of southward aggresion." The White Plague We call for north-south political negotiation to strengthen con• Edouard Bailby tacts and ties between the north and south and solve the ques• tion of national reunification. Many problems arise in putting an end to the tragedy of the national split and reunifying the country peacefully. All these problems can be satisfactorily solved only through political negotiation between the north and south. We are ready to have negotiations with all the political parties of south Korea including the Democratic-Republican Party, the New Democratic Party and the Nationalist Party, at any time and at any place agreed upon. Now the south Korean authorities are talking this or that without having a meeting. It does not help solve the question of reunification peacefully to reject negotiations, talking about "peaceful reunification" only in words. In order to solve the question of the reunification of the country peacefully, various political parties of north and south Korea must hold intensive bilateral or multilateral negotiations to ex• change political views on national reunification and to find a reasonable way to peaceful reunification. We always keep our door open to anyone for negotiations and contacts between the north and the south. If anyone, though he committed crimes against the country and the people, sincerely On the African subcontinent a complex economic-social system that seeks to convert the Union of South Africa into a white Imperial power is bemg constructed. repents of his past doings and takes a road of patriotism for the It its expansionist policy, subimperialism in South Africa projects the control of the peaceful reunification of the country, we will not ask about his greatest possible number of countries south of the Sahara, and especially Malawi. crimes but gladly negotiate with him the question of the country's Rhodesia, Zambia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Angola, Mozambique and the bantustans reunification. '^A^^r'while South African tentacles try to seize neighboring territories, independent When all the Koreans unite and fight along the road for the or not, internally the racist regime of Pretoria imposes apartheid in an attempt to reunification of the country, we will surely be able to drive out maintain the status quo. . t3„ iu„ 41,= the US and Japanese aggressors, tide over the crisis of national We reprint the testimony collected by the French journalist Edouard Bailby on the ruin created in south Korea and achieve the peaceful reunifica• application of the theory of separate development of the races, and its consequences -without digging into the real reasons of economic cxploitatiori - in sex, education tion of the country without fail. We are sure that though the housing, work and sports, that is, in the daily life of the black, colored and Indian question cf Korean reunification is still complicated, there is a inhabitants of the extreme south of the African continent. prospect of peacefully solving it sooner or later in accordance with the will of our people and on the principle of national self- determination. o

i and listened again, one road and the whites another. tned a door to get These are some of the visible ')arrassing, irritating, signs of apartheid immediately evi• . i.iliating, like wounds dent to the tourist or traveler. Even THE FIRST colonizers •who landed in serve the traditions, language and I scape. At times this ex- foreign sailors stopping over in South Africa more than three cen• interests of each of them. It is based <•! apartheid reaches gro- South African ports are subjected turies ago were the Dutch. They on one fundamental principle: a '•xtremes. For instance, in to these regulations. The only pub• settled in Cape province in the ex• nonwhite must never control a rt, on the Mozambique lic places where racial mixing is treme south. In the 19th century white. "We wish to preserve our ; e are six different toilet permitted are in the churches at they were joined by the British western and European way of life," • ituci: one for white men, Sunday mass, where men and who tried to impose domination the whites say, "and since we are •hrr for white women; one for women of all colors pray together. over the original colonizers but the in a minority, we are forced to pro• men, another for black That is, with the exception of the latter refused, to submit to the tect ourselves so the majority one for Indian men, another Dutch Reformed Church, which is crown and left by the thousands for doesn't swallow us." As self-justifi• .m women; but they've left precisely the church that most the unknown interior of the coun• cation, they point to the fact that colored. On the Cape penin- Afrikanders belong to and which try. This exodus — the Great the Union of South Africa is an 'iich extends some 40 miles does practice apartheid. Except on Trek — lasted some ten years, dur• industrialized country today with Indian and Atlantic oceans, this unique occasion, nonwhites can ing which time the Dutch fought an extensive network of ultra• rist bus crosses an animal only appear in the same public many fierce battles against the modern highways, skyscrapers, fac• in which some paths are places with whites if they are work• blacks whom they encountered tories, and an exceptional rate of . . il for whites and others for ing there. That is, racial segregation along their march. growth in the western world and notiwhites. is such that it is virtually impos• The Union of South Africa became unique on the African 'continent. The entire Union of South Africa sible for whites to have contact a part of the British Commonwealth "As a counterpart of the progress lives under the apartheid slogan. In with nonwhites outside of work long before it obtained its indepen• we achieve by means of hard work Johannesburg, as in the rest of the hours unless they invite each other dence in 1961. At present it is gov• and discipline," they add, "we give coimtry, there are two types of to their homes. For example, it is erned by descendentes of the the blacks and other ethnic groups hiisos: red for the Europeans and forbidden for a white and a non- Dutch colonizers, the Afrikanders, the opportunity to develop within urrcn for the non-Europeans. In the white to have a drink together in whose language, Afrikaans, is very the framework of their own tradi• parks, on the avenues, at the bus a public place. In South Africa, peo• similar to Dutch and who are Me• tions." This is what Prime Minister •tops, nonwhites cannot sit on the ple of different colors can't even thodists. Vorster says in a very simple for• •Ame benches as whites. The same walk together on the street, because The Afrikanders control the prin• mula: South Africa is a multination• •cf(regation applies to taxis. Post there's no place they can meet. cipal governmental and adminis• al state and will never be a multi• offices and liquor stores have sepa• trative posts through the Nation• racial state. rate doors, one for whites and the Numbers alist Party; the demands of apar• other for nonwhites. Movie houses, theid forced their coexistence with I saw for myself what this meant. theaters, restaurants, bars and night "We aren't citizens, we're simply the English-speaking descendents of Landing at Johannesburg airport clubs are almost all reserved for numbers. Slavery was supposed to the British colonizers, who repre• in the midst of gold mines whose whites. Blacks can't use the same have been abolished in the 19th sent less than 40% of the total of fine dust is piled in parallelepipeds, ' vator as whites; in sports cen- and hundreds of villas with private century but here we continue to live 4 000 000 whites living in the Union ii 1.;, the blacks are shunted into a of South Africa, including also some swimming pools. I saw in the wait• like slaves." The author of these corner, and in Johannesburg station words is James Mafuna, a black of 300 OOO descendents of French Hu• ing room the first warning: Euro• I saw entire corridors for whites peans only. The others — blacks, 30 and some years. For 18 months, guenots and certain other European only. In Durban, South Africa's he has been working as a journal• groups, compared to 14 000 000 colored or Indians — have to go Miami in the Indian Ocean, there ist for the Rand Daily iMail, one of blacks, 2 000 000 mestizos of various through another door into a sepa• are four beaches: one for whites, the most important English-lan• races and 650 0DO Indians. These rate room. This was my first en• one for blacks, one for Indians and guage newspapers in the Republic of groups live in an area twice the counter with apartheid. I was faced the other for colored. Nonwhites are size of France. with it throughout my stay in the absolutely prohibited from enter• South Africa and one of the few Union of South Africa, and even that has taken a liberal stand. Like Officially apartheid is a system ing or staying in a hotel for whites. when I would have liked to forget all blacks, Mafuna is classified designed to stimulate the separate Apartheid is lax only when it would it, events recalled its existence in administratively in a category, a development of the four ethnic com• be too costly to enforce it, as for the most unusual places. Whites, munities or, in other words, to pre- example in airplanes, where racial specific section, and his identity has Blankes, Europeans, these three s-egregation is not applied. But once words mean the same thing. White: on the ground, the nonwhites take o I saw, I saw again: I read, I read o ry a reference book, able with a jail sentence. It must be been reduced to a computer card. vegetable," he said. "I won't let them rard is somewhere pointed out, incidentally, that a Everyone who has worked for ten destroy me." He studies French at P'>rt and a police re- growing number of white South consecutive years in Johannesburg, night "in order to be able to read ' complete biogra- Africans take weekend excursions and for the same boss, belongs to the French-speaking African writ• I It gives him the to the Swaziland and Mozambique section 10-1-A. If you work for 15 ers"; he studies and submerges him• within a clearly de- brothels to enjoy the pleasures for• years in the same city with dif• self m reading. When I asked'him . .1 no other. If he should bidden in their own country. In• ferent bosses, you are in section if I could publish his name, he f away from work more terracial marriages have also been 10-1-B, and so it goes. Any breech, answered: "For us, blacks, our en• . • ^.ar or gets sick and has to prohibited since 1949 although it even after 20 or 30 years of work, tire existence is a permanent pro• ihc area specified for more should be noted that they have not can put you into an inferior cate• blem; if I have a few more difficul• all months, his permission been exactly stimulated by three gory which means an interminable ties, it doesn't matter... ." - ••••I ba withdrawn and he would centuries of racism. series of miserable administrative i( back to the rural zones. obstacles and job, housing, and tra• Implacable Laws A black teacher cannot give lec• < the bad luck of losing his vel problems. Mafuna, one of the tures in a white club and a black ird he must go from city eight black journalists who works Apartheid crystallized as a doc• cannot attend any type of meeting search of an identity, on the Rand Daily Mail, receives a trine in 1948, but in practice it was organized by whites. No black can of a job reservation law, relatively "exceptional" salary be• simply the culmination of three buy land in the Union of South innot hold posts reserved cause they pay him almost as much centuries of racism. Each law ap• Africa; in certain cases they are s nor receive the same as his white colleagues for doing proved reflects the systematic in• permitted at most to be proprietors for equal work. Employers the same work. However, as a black, tention of the white minority to of small shops. Blacks cannot par• (> prohibited from replacing he does not have the right to live maintain economic and political ticipate in strikes, organize trade workers with black workers. where he wants nor to move around supremacy over the rest of the pop• unions or political parties in the :h these drastic laws, whites freely. "Because I am black," he ulation. Certain examples will serve white zone, etc. >\n the best jobs and highest told me, "I can't even live with my to demonstrate this fact. A black The same laws, with few dif• i. According to available sta- wife." It is a fact that, according to cannot remain within the city for ferences in detail, are applicable to only 2% of them live below the law, a black citizen born and more than 72 hours without special colored and Indians. . ol of subsistence. As a result living in a city or district which is authorization, which can be with• 111.- privileges that apartheid con- part of the white area — which in• drawn at any moment and on any Absence of Conflict '•is on them, whites in the low- cludes more than 85% of the Union pretext. Neither are you permitted riomic categories have a class of South Africa — cannot change his to have under your roof for more which is not social but racial. "But how can you expect that, place of residence without specific than 72 hours, a married daughter, ;ation in the Union of South with one wave of a magic wand, we authorization. Since his wife lives a son more than 18 years old or any .S!i :i a has reached such proportions could overcome the natural antag• on one street and he on another, other relative. If declared "sur• ttmt restaurants and cafeterias pre- onisms among people of different they have to meet in the home of plus" at any moment, he can be f'-r to hire European tourists as races?" Piet Nel, top official in the their in-laws. "When my wife was forced to leave his house and live 1. tnporary employees before engag- Ministry of Information and de• pregnant, we talked for a long time some place designated by the gov• black employees, and don't hes- scendant of French Huguenots, said: about where the child should be ernment. '.ite to say so in the press. Look just at what is happening born. It was a sterile discussion: we Without judicial mandate and at in the rest of Africa, where quickly reached the conclusion that, "whatever reasonable hour of the No school for black children can blacks kill each other over tribal no matter what we did, our child day or night," the police have the function without government au• questions and coups d'etat occur would he subjected to the same right to enter and register any spot thorization; this authorization can one after another. With our pol• restrictions and humiliations as we in which there is reason to believe be denied if the government con- icy of separate development, the are." Mafuna is a man whose dig• that a black man of more than 18 alders that the school is of little in• Union of South Africa is polit• nity has been trampled on and who years of age is committing the sin of terest to blacks. Worse still, it is ically one of the most stable cannot hide his rebeUion against living with his father without prior an offense for a black resident in countries in the world. Economic such injustice. His manner of speak• authorization. Moreover, a police• the city to teach any of his black progress goes ahead without any ing reflects the emotion of a tor• man has the ri^ht to register every friends to read and write; it is also problem and one practically nev• mented and morally wounded man. servant's room occupied by a black an offense for a white to teach his er hears of racial incidents. It But he still has courage. "I refuse in a white household. servants to read. is precisely to avoid them that to be reduced to the level of a At any moment it can be a crime Ever since 1927, sexual relations we maintain the special green for an African to be in the city at between persons of different "races" night without a written authoriza• have been strictly prohibited by tion. Every black more than 16 years law and the infractions are punish• buses for blacks and separate white; in the factories all the en• between whites and nonwhites was lines at the voting booths. gineers and technicians are white mean by apartheid. Let's say I am .mdalous that last September The same attitude was expressed and in the hospitals, all surgical against the policy of the present irry Oppenheimer, magnate of by the Minister of Sports, Frank operations are performed by white government." The only deputy of ituulh Afncan industry and Pres- Waring, when last September 12 he personnel. Nevertheless, according the Progressive Party, which op• Idtnt of the Anglo-American Cor• declared that multiracial sports to a study published recently in the posed apartheid, Helen Suzman, put poration, demanded equal salary for were unacceptable because they led South African press, out of a total it this way: "There are only hawks •qual work for all workers, inde• to "considerable racial conflict." of 525 white bus drivers on "whites and super-hawks in the vanguards pendently of their "races." The The strongest argument the only" buses in Johannesburgh, 78% of the government party and its ' • country shook with indigna- whites use on every occasion is that were prepared to accept black driv• legal opposition." the Financial Times of Johan- based on economic progress. ers "provided they could do the A glance at the daily press con• OMburg immediately published an In the Union of South Africa, they work." This reaction is truly notable firms this. Chipo Kachingwe, •dltorial stressing that the idea was point out blacks earn triple what in the Union of South Africa and daughter of the Ambassador of very generous but that the whites they can earn any place else in is discussed in the English lan• Malawi and black, of course, is in would inevitably feel obliged to Africa; they have their own guage press, which is more open to a Catholic college for white girls. reduce their own salaries if it was schools, three universities, their dialogue than the rest. The question was raised in a min• accepted that those of nonwhites own reservations and some day In the suburbs of Johannesburg, isterial meeting in September when •hould be raised. In other words, they will even have their own a modern city with 1300 000 in• it was asked: "Isn't this an infrac• Oppenheimer's idea would be ex- states within the Union of South habitants, where boredom reigns tion of apartheid?" "Absolutely not," • rcmely costly to put into practice. Africa. So why do the people of as soon as night falls, I knew the the Minister in charge replied, Europe hate us so consistently? director — a black man — of a sec• Therefore it seems that, unfortun• "because Miss Kachingwe is the We aren't criminals. ondary school for black children ately, only a few enterprises will daughter, of a foreign diplomat." A horrifying rationalization! The attended by 500 students. This man, continue — illegally — paying equal It also created a scandal in the whites are dishonest in their ra• 49 years old, has a university de• •alaries to whites and nonwhites for Union of South Africa when Prime cism. gree and a teaching experience of the same work. Minister Vorster permitted himself •26 years; he earns 270 rands a month to be photographed seated between When I told a young white woman White Opposition what I thought about all this she or approximately $130. The begin• two blacks at a banquet held during commented: "Separate buses and ning salary for a white teacher is the recent visit of Hastings Banda, 295 rands. Why this discrimination? It is Vorster's Nationalist Party President of Malawi. Other scandals benches are not important, the government that will remain in blacks don't even notice them. What Why is there a scale of values based were caused by the fact that the completely on racial criteria? Ac• powen in the Union of South Africa government authorized an African really counts are the schools, hos• up until the next elections within pitals and housing we construct for cording to 1967 official statistics, the diplomat to live in a white section average monthly salary of a white five years. With 127 seats in the Par• of the Cape; because Prince Pinda them." liament out of a total of 174, this Exploitation man in manufacturing was 232 rands Dhalamini, son of the King of compared to 64 for an Indian, 59 party holds an absolute majority. Swaziland, was operated on in a for a colored and 43 for. a black. The interests of the Afrikanders are hospital for whites in Johannesbung; Apartheid or separate develop• very solidly protected. ment is conceived so that it extracts In construction, the white earns an and because last September 11, for average of 237 rands while the black In his Capetown office, furnished the first time, colored were allowed the maximum profit from the sys• with books and newspapers, de Vil- tematic exploitation of the tremen• receives scarcely 41 rands. These in the Bloemfontein hippodrome. proportions have not changed sig• liers Graf, — leader of the United The slightest exception to the ab• dous work force supplied by non- Party, the principal opposition whites and no amount of housing, nificantly in recent years because solute taboos of apartheid, almost they are governed by very precise froup made up chiefly of white invariably causes a wave of pro• schools and hospitals constructed i^iiglish-speaking South Afrdcans — for blacks can alter this fact. The laws. It is also interesting to observe tests. If the government practically V plained his policy in detail. He laws are clear: under no circumstan• that the govennment invests 19 rands ignores this, it is simply due to beheves that blacks must have par• ces can a black be superior to a a year in the education of a black the need for labor or because it liamentarian representation, which white, except in the territories child and 270 rands in that of a has to make a distinction between icy don't now have, and that they specifically reserved for blacks, white child. foreign blacks with diplomatic must be allowed to elect eight however intelligent, industrious and Muriel Horrell has writen about status and the blacks of South white members to Parliament to efficient he may be. In the restau• this in an extraordinarily useful Africa. represent their interests. When I rants, the head waiter is invariably book: Introduction to South Africa, •alced him if he opposed apartheid he There has been tnemendous dis• published in Johannesburg by the answered me very gravely, playing cussion around the question of mul- South African Institute of Race Re• with his eyeglasses in his right lations. The difference in income bond: "This depends on what you tiracial teams. The whites are dis• * province and the Indians in the Dur-^ f Pretoria would permit these nose on which are mounted a pair gusted by the foreign boycott of .ban area, while the blacks remain' itates to be totally indepen- of dark glasses. He is over concerned their teams and increasingly inter• concentrated around the big indus-' it)d possibly to have relations with his measured words. He speaks ested in restricting the application trial cities. Soviet Union and the Peo- frankly: of apartheid in sports. TTiere is a In addition to the "black spots" l)lic of China, Prime Min• If we, the whites, weren't there suggestion in the air for authorizing in the white zones, eight Bantu or er made a marvelous re- to help the blacks of Transkei nonwhites to participate on white native land aneas have been created .. r will play fair, but of — the Xhosas — they would be teams at international meetings in various regions of the Union of we will advise them against dying of hunger. They are good held in South Africa; and that an South Africa outside Cape province It is not by chance that the people, very peaceful, but lazy "inter.national" stadium could be for the purpose of regrouping blacks of South Africa buys arms and careless without any sense . constructed for use by all "races." of different ethnic origin and thus, I"ranee and Great Britain. of discipline and organization., Perhaps nonwhites could be includ• favoring their separate develop• The same thing happens with all ed on teams that compete abroad. ment. These territories are very • Transkei the blacks. The women work in These are ideas suggested in the anbitrarily defined and are fre-i the field while the men live as >ress and over radio. "It is absolute- quently made up of innumerable', The Transkei is the most advanced beggars. Do you know of any fy grotesque," a black man said small properties because they were,l • f ihi' native lands. I took a forty- other country where you can rest to me indignantly. "They scorn us, extended little by little by state iimte flight in a Piper Comanche for four or five years? That's they humiliate us, they keep us out purchases of lands owned by whites' •m the port of East London to what happens in Transkei. of public life, and when there which were then handed over to ^ mtata, capital Of Transkei, 140 Abraham doesn't hate blacks but are international competitions they blacks. They are now semi-autono-i milea away, preferring this to the he considers them a permanent loss; •'want to take a few good black ath• mous areas that cover an approxi- 'crnative of a 17-hour train trip, nevertheless, like a good white, ac• letes to exhibit them among the,, mate 13% of the Union of South rics are extremely scarce and cording to his words, he kills him• whites. I decline." Africa. "The majority were created I here is no regular airline. In Um- self working to put them on the out of nothing on extremely poor Furious because the white cricket • tta I saw Hans Abraham, General lught road. land. In theory, the blacks of the team was recently unable to play in inmissioner of the white South A white government official told native lands are owners of their Australia, Vorster gave a hot speech -Vfrican government who has there• ,;me: "Oh, Mr. Bailby, the blacks individual ground and have their accusing an Australian "minority" fore been supervising the develop- like Mr. Abraham a lot. He's very own schools, hospitals and stores; of having sabotaged the trip. "That's •nt of political structures in the good to them, you know, very ded• they enjoy a certain grade of auton• I the joke of the year," a black in ritory as well as its economic icated ..." omy in the management of their Johannesburg told me. "For 300 progress over the past 11 years. With own affairs under the vigilant eyes Umtata is a city with a provin• years a minority has been imposing a population of 2 000 000, the Trans• of white "assistants" placed there cial air in which the women carry its laws here." kei covers approximately an area their children around the waist in by Pretoria, of course. Blacks in the size of Denmark; legislative these areas can only enter the white multicolored blankets. There is very The Homelands power is in the hands of an assem• little to indicate that Transkei is the zone with special authorization; in bly of 109 blacks of whom less than any case the great majority of them key to "one of the most dynamic For purposes of "separate develop• half wer.e elected by universal suf• do so only in onder to go to work political experiments of all times." ment" the whites have divided frage. The Cabinet selects this as• in a city or a specific factory where The gap between employment and South Africa into zones and reser• sembly by secret ballot and it con• they are employed under a contract population rate increases every year. vations. More than 85% of the terv- sists of a Prime Minister (the pre• that obliges them to return to their Such is the present situation that ritory is the white zone where only sent Primer Minister is the black native land after a year. In otherl some 300 000 inhabitants of Transkei whites can be proprietors. Within conservative leader Kaiser Matan- words, the whites have created a have to work elsewhere. The aver• this zone, there are well defined iia) and six ministers, supported labor reserve on which they can age earnings for a black teacher "black spot" sectors, cities or dis• a white Secretary of State. Al- draw any time they consider it nec-1 are about lOO rands a month; less tricts for nonwhites. "The inhabitants >ugh Transkei has its own flag, essary. According to official state-l than 4V/c of the children of Trans• of these areas make up the work own national hymn and its own ments, "when these native lands! kei'attend school and out of every force of the white zone and are izenship, its autonomy is never- have stable institutions and a viable hundred that receive primary edu• therefore authorized to enter the less somewhat limited by the economy, they will be able to ob• cation, not more than 30 finish their white sector daily to work there. I that it cannot revise the Cons- tain their independence and become studies. Van Zyl, an impontant white Under apartheid, the colored are ution given it by the all-white a part of a South African Union official in Umtata, gave me the grouped together mainly in Cape . .uth African Pardiament in May answer: "All this takes time, as you with a political and economic com-^ 1063. mon market." In reply to a journal-I ist who asked whether the govern-! Abraham is a robust man with ears almost doubled over and a father of seven children; his reli^ know. Maybe there will be work for • •HKiMible situation. In sum, that ities have built schools, clinics, gion is Anglican. At first acquain• everyone in the world within 50 houses, stores and service stations. tance he seems timid and when I I'ti Africa is the hottest spot in years." With an annual budget of They have even built an attractive visited him we remained standing «!.. ,,rld after Viet Nam. 32 COO 000 rands, 12 000 000 collected restaurant and a tower from which for several minutes in front of his from local taxes and contributions, •e^reom Cities one can admire the panorama of the leopard-skin covered sofa, simply Transkei lives poorly. Last year city. From all appearances, Soweto smiling. When our two-hour con^ 180 000 Xhosas received permission Hiithelezi is hostile to the idea is a clean, well-designed working- versation ended, however, we un• to work for a year in the white zone. .irate development on the class city. derstood each other perfectly. Bu• "In the Republic," as the whites Is that "culture can't be pre- thelezi is a frank man, warm, open I went back there later and got say. . in a jar." His chief preoc- and subtle in his replies. He closes to know some well-off blacks who .pelion is the future of the town- his eyes for a long time before told me just what hell it really was The Zulus . ps. the bedroom cities for blacks answering. The Zulus — and many to live there. When the black work• •(•the big cities like Johan- other blacks as well — are identi• ers return to their homes with their North of Durban with its 690 000 fied with him; when he returned pay on Friday night, bands of young• inhabitants of whom 270 000 are In• from a visit to the United States ,e people have no executive sters of undetermined origin, their dians, is Zululand, a territory of thousands of blacks traveled lonj tower; they are completely sub- faces covered with bandannas, at• undulating hills and valleys, con• distances to welcome him enthusias (ected to the laws of apartheid tack them with bicycle chains and ceded to the Zulus by the whites. tically at the Durban airport. and live in a horrible state of iron bars. Twenty cr.-mes every There are a total of 200 parcels ir• I 'v<^rty. They are exploited to weekend. There are 20 003 youths in regularly distributed over 22 000 "Do you believe that the cause maximum and aren't even the streets, half of whom stay all km 2 on which some 2 500 000 Zulus of the blacks is helped by visits to H^^-n the right to return to their night in the unlighted streets. More live. The government of Pretoria tfie Union of South Africa of heads native land if they want to. They than 70% of the inhabitants of the has constructed a few dirt roads of African states?" I asked him. are no longer Zulus or Xhosas; city live below subsistence level and which permit them to move around That doesn't cause any essentia Ihey are exiled workers, driven are forbidden to leave the place to within their territory, but the rail• change, but when the President o out of the white zone. If some• try CO earn a living elsewhere.' The road and asphault roads with good, Malawi was here recently, thou• thing isn't done to improve the only acceptable reason for a black to well-kept restaurants, follow the sands of blacks went to see him at lot of these people, there's going leave Soweto is to go to work in the white corridors that still cross the his hotel. They couldn't believe that to be a revolution in the urban white industrial zones during the country. a black like themselves could be areas that will eat us all up. day. In theory the black population Some 250 km northwest of Dur• received with the same equality as With a population of 700 000, of Soweto and all the othen town• ban, in a small hamlet five km from a white. They were deeply moved Soweto, a black city 20 kilometers ships elects a municipal council to Mahalbatini, I met Gatsha Buthele- to see that he was really treated from Johannesburg, is the third administer its affairs. But blacks zi, Prime Minister of Zululand since with respect and dignity. "This stim^ largest city in the Republic of South have no property rights. Mr. Ma- his election in June 1970. He has ulated them. Africa. But since it is a black city, ponya is the richest businessman in his house, his garden full of flowers Buthelezi condemns apartheid, but It doesn't appear on any map. "To the city and is well known in Johan• in a region where the harvests be• he is a moderate man and was cau go there, you have to have permis• nesburg because he is presented as long to the tribal community. Bu- tious when I asked him what he sion from the authorities that is a brilliant example of the benefits thelezi is a black who is more and thought of the movement "Black is valid for only a few hours. The of apartheid, but he isn't allowed more discussed in the Republic of beautiful," which is gaining strength city is constructed on a circular plan to open a supermarket. He is now South Africa. Although he is of• among the South African blacks divided into eight neighborhoods manager of one or two small food ficially accepted by the white au• "No," he said, "the black is also In which blacks are distributed ac• stores but he is only permitted to thorities, he sometimes says cer• beautiful. I detest racism no matter cording to their ethnic origin; it sell consumer supplies of strictly tain disagreeable truths about where it comes from but the fact is consists of rows of small houses basic daily need. No black in So• them. Nevertheless, the Pretoria that whites create such a situation with three rooms, bath and a garden. weto is permitted to sell furniture, government is caught in its own trap here that blacks are completely A government official showed me clothing, household goods, gasoline, and finds itself forced to continue hopeless and are creating more anc the last of the indigent neighbor- automobiles. The sale of these items the game for the moment. more children with the idea of tak• horrible and m-serable, is confined exclusively to whites, Buthelezi was born in a Swedish ing by force pieces of the bastions ing with children. "We have which clearly illustrates the econ• hospital in the Union of South of the white empire." Buthelezi does •d the indigent neighbor- omic use of apartheid. "They treat not try to hide the limitations oi us as if we were baboons," a 30- Africa; he is 43 years old and the with these houses," he told his power or the fact that the major u, part of the best lands belong to me. "You can see for yourself that whites, or that apartheid creates an we aren't oppressors nor pigs." It IS a fact that in Soweto the author• year-old black told me bitterly while urban districts for the Indians, so patiently and modestly forging links The Awaltening he served me a drink in a friend's they can advance by separate devel• among the various communities. "We can hope for nothing- more house. At the same time he told opment. Nevertheless, although au• They publish some extremely use• from the whites and so we must fall me that a black can serve alcoholic tonomous territories for the blacks ful pamphlets and organize lectures back on ourselves, we must open beverages to a white, but a white are contemplated, nothing has been and meetings. They have to watch our own schools, create our own who serves drinks to a black can set aside for the Indians and colored. their step because of the law against organizations and develop our own be fined for. doing so. "One day The solution to this problem is one communism which imposes severe culture and traditions. We have to when I was abroad, I had to go to of the foremost questions of the penalties on all attempts to intro• convent ourselves into a brave and the Embassy of the Republic of Union of South Afr.ica at this mo• duce social changes. These two pri• hardworking people and we must South Africa for a document. The ment. Disputes have arisen within vate organizations carry out ad• be ready to defend our cause to the secretary of the Embassy had the Prime Minister Vorster's majority mirable but limited work. end." effrontery to ask me: 'How are party concerning whether native Occasionally individual actions The young man speaking, like things at home?' What a farce!" The land should also be created for the against apartheid take place. In many of his comrades, has become black told me this anecdote to dem• colored. Where should they be put? September, a 47-year-old Anglican aware of what it is to be black. onstrate the hypocrisy of "these, Should they be definitively assimi• pastor. Rev. Bernie Wrankmore, "For s6me months," according to people" but he immediately started lated by the white community? In started a 40-day hunger strike on a M. Moerane, editor of a daily paper to laugh. Despite apartheid, blacks Capetown, the only white city in hill overlooking Capetown, in pro• almost exclusively for blacks, with still maintain their sense of humor. the Republic of South Africa where test against racial segr.3gation and the fourth largest circulation in the one can sense a growing feeling of torture in the prisons. He seated Union of South Africa," an im• The Race of Sirs liberalism, I met several people who himself under an umbrella, among mense movement has been growing, did not reject the idea of including the trees, and was visited by hun• among the blacks. "Black is beauti• Whites only, Europeans only. Indians and coloned within the white dreds of South Africans of all colors ful," these are the words that no• Whites, Blankes, Whites, Whites... community, possibly excluding who came to demonstrate their sup• body had the couuage to utter in they've kept all the best for them• blacks, but with a liberalized form port. I myself saw them, seated on public two or three years ago." selves. I saw them in Durban, on of apartheid. tree trunks and looking out across Growing numbers of blacks are the avenue that runs along the sea, In this gigantic, dynamic and the sea to the prison on Robben reaching the conclusion that if bowling on their manicured lawns. industrialized country, modern in so Island where Nelson Mandela, a whites impose separate development The women with their white skirts many respects, where blacks, lions 53-year-old black, is sentenced to on them, they should follow that and hats, the men with their short and elephants are separated and life imprisonment for having dared line to the letter of the law: "We white pants and colonial helmets. placed on their own reservations, to demand an end to apartheid. On will see who wins then..." Various They bend lightly, watching each are there whites who really and the fortieth day of his hunger strike, more or less clandestine move• movement of the game, enigmatic, sincerely oppose apartheid? There various tens of thousands of per• ments are now taking form; Saso, indifferent to the exterior world, are, but only a handful. They admit sons — white, black and colored — with a racial tendency, has some presumptious, and very satisfied to that there aren't more than a few gathered on the hillside to make influence among black students. belong to the "white race," the race thousand. There are others who their presence felt in support of This group's activities must be ad• of sirs. would be prepared to join them Rev. Wrankmore. "Each individual ded to those of the African Nation• Above all, Dunban is a city of were it not for the question they must discover the truth anew for al Congress (ANC), which was Indians, descendants of slaves ask themselves: "What can we do? himself," he told me, "fon the good banned inmediately after the brought less than a century ago by We reject racism but we are a lin• of all the" men and women of this Sharpeville massacre in March of the British to work on the sugar guistic, traditional and cultural mi-' country." 1930 (69 blacks dead and 178 wound• plantations. "You should know," a nority; how can we avoid disap• ed) and which continues to be the local merchant, white of course, told pearing in the mass of Africans?" With his actions. Rev. Wrank• major clandestine movement in me, "that the Indians are not dis• more succeeded in bringing together South Africa. If the white South contented with apartheid. They Organizations in a public place South Africans of African community persists in its know very well that the blacks Against Apartheid all colors and religions, something racist posture, it is very possible would maltreat them just as they In Johannesburg I met some of never before seen in this country that it is preparing the road to are doing in East Africa, if we didn't these valiant white fighters who feel where racism reaches such extremes future bloodshed and the disintegra• protect them." For this reason they profoundly distressed in the face of that, at the farthest point of the tion of its empire. One's own cul• reserve a certain number of jobs such incomprehension and injustice. Cape of Good Hope, where the ture can't be saved by destroying — the worst paid — and certain They belong to two organizations: oceans come together, at the en• others'. the South African Institute of Race trance of a public lavatory the final Relations and the Christian Insti• announcement on the African con- tute of Southern Africa, which are .tinent is: White ladies only.

tically devoured everything they dusty beds of ancient rivers; now found. and again it goes through an empty A train was held up by hungry village with a skinny cow sleeping peasants in the outskirts of ... . in the square in the shadow of a The dilapidated old bus moves cement obelisk. And suddenly, sur• along the dusty road toward the prisingly, at a turn in the road, ap• heart of the dry Northeast. The pear the trucks filled with people tender green of the banana leaves in search of the fertile rich south has disappeared from the landscape. of their imaginations, fertile but The plantations of papaya and cot• actually not so rich for them. Old Conversations ton become more scarce and finally men, pregnant women, children disappear totally. The damp orange huddled in vehicles that bounce in the Northeast earth crops out in small patches along tiie holes in the road. All of them standing, clutching a pole Maria Esther Gilio but with less frequency. A grayish brown covers the countryside, the stretched from one side of the truck houses, the people, the roads. It is to the other. They have sold every• the color of drought, a dull dead thing they had and are now bound color that settles over the earth. for the golden south. The rocks begin to crop out among And those who had nothing had the low, sparse, thorny scrub. It to stay and accept the nothing; the reminds one of an avid, insatiable handout the government offered Since 1964 the fascist regime of Brazil has received more than $2 000 000 000 from private fire that had passed, devouring them: the work fronts. US credit and investment organizations. In his recent annual report to Congress on "Washington's foreign policy, Secretary of everything. And with it all the sun, In the very heart of the wasteland State William Rogers affirmed that Brazil offers optimum possibilities for the operation so close that it seems one could at the end of the highway, are the of US investments. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce and the Central touch it, impassible, almost white barracks made of long dry branches, Bank of Brazil, of the 679 large enterprises in the country, 520 are industries that are in a molten-lead sky, almost white that serve as housing for the men niore than 70% controlled by foreign capital. In its Latin-American economic supplement. The New York Times last year pointed after the fire. with contracts and their families. to the growth of the Brazilian steel and electric industries, stressing that the Brazilian Everything is still. The few ani• Fifteen to twenty people sleep in work force is abundant and relatively cheap in comparison to that of Japan and western mals fixed, immobile, as immutable each one. Europe, and therefore, Brazil is viewed by foreign partnerships as a gigantic factory for supplyng their own markets. as if death had frozen them there. At one end a fireplace; a few tree According to the study carried out by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and No sign of life anywhere. Not a trunks on the floor to sit on, no Statistics, out of ten working Brazilians, six earn less than $37 a month. Sixty per cent bird, not a man breaking earth witK place for clothing since each one of the active population receives these hunger wages while only 1% of employed earn hoe in hand, nor a woman bleach• has on everything he possesses. It more than $360 a month. ing her laundry beneath the sun. isn't easy to approach the barracks, The increase in the exploitation of the working mass, fundamental basis for the false economic miracle, is demonstrated by a comparison of the minimum salary established On the porch of the ranch, a child They are watched by the army by Getulio Vargas, $64 dollars a month, with the $44 dollars decreed by Garrastazti sleeps on his back, arms and legs which takes great care to see that Medici in 1971. outstretched. No flies bother him. no foreign journalist gets in. In the Northeast, where there is abundant vegetation during the rains and famine Two kilometers from the small durmg the drought, where wages of 500 a day are paid, 30 000 000 hectares of landjie idle But still the landscape changes m the hands of the latifundists. Daily, legions of Northeasterners abandon their lands every few kilometers: the green airport of Crateus, under surveil• and emigrate to the industrialized cities of the southeast, mainly Sao Paulo, where more plots of fertile land crowded to• lance by the fourth battalion, there than 75% of the country's factories are located. There they enter the ranks of the gether with the rich vegetation of was one of these encampments. It army of the unemployed, which now includes more than 70% of the labor force and then become beggars or delinquents. thick branched trees whose glisten• was Sunday and the place was quiet, In this special article for Tricontinental, our collaborator, the well-known Uruguayan ing leafage is densely intertwined, without overseers or soldiers. journalist Maria Esther Gilio — known above all to the reaction, which recently made as if the tropical vegetation of the In one of the barracks, a young an attempt on her life in her own home — describes the stagnant scene in the Brazilian coast, traveling underground, had woman was cooking with the pot Northeast and, in a frank and open conversation with Northeasterners, shows the hunger and misery the people in this area suffer. suddenly emerged triumphantly in mounted on three rocks, an old man the surrounding waste. But gradual• was sleeping in a hammock, several with rice and beans in the out- ly these flashes of life become more children were playing with stones Two-HUNDRED hungry peasants skirts of Iguatu. They unloaded widely spaced and disappear alto• near the door; in a comer, a woman Stopped an army truck loaded the food and distributed it. gether. For hundreds and hundreds was mending her sandals with Driven by hunger, 500 peasants of kilometers, the bus travels over seized Piedra Blanca. They en• the roads of a dead planet^ across tered the food stores and prac- long iron bridges over thd dried-up thick strands of straw. All this was house to house and talking to peo• "They're not going to give us half who was mending her sandals, caught and held by the sun whose ple." of what they have." "were not done on a typewriter." rays entered in parallel shafts. "Talking about the rain." "How many people sleep in this "Nobody says they have to give it The woman cooking, who was 24 "Yes, always talking about the barracks?" to us; we have to take it." or 25 years old, with frank eyes rain." "He always talks like that," Nilsa "With the children we're 18," said and a full and direct attitude, an• the mother. ' j "Here the rainy season is one little said looking at me. swered my questions without inter• shower," said the old man without "How many know how to read?" ; "Do you think he's wrong?" rupting her work. Moving with looking at us. "He and my husband," said Nilsa i "I don't know." precision and certainty between "And what do people say?" indicating the old man. "He can read "They can kill one," said the old pots and cans, she attended to the "Ah, if it would only rain. Ah, if the newspaper." man, "they can kill 100, 1000, but children, tasted the cocido adding we had a little rain so we could they can't kill 10 000 000." "Didn't you ever hear of the Peas• salt or water, and arranged a lock plant something. And some of them "That's what the leaflets say," said ant Leagues?," asked the old man. of black hair that had escaped from pray and make promises. It's all "Yes, I knew about them." Nilsa. hairpins and fell across her fore• mixed up." "What are they doing now?" head. "What leaflets?" "You came on June 25th then." "Nothing. The Rcdentera put an "The ones they said they threw in "We got here on June 25th. We "Yes, on June 25th we closed the end to all that. They killed the the barracks." had a little field but this year it house and came because there was leaders. Others disappeared." "Who says?" didn't produce anything." nothing left... nothing ... nothing." "The police?" "My husband saw them." "Didn't it rain in January and The old man turned again and, "The police, the bosses and the peo• "Who threw them?" ' February?" with an ironic smile, said they still ple the bosses paid to kill them." "I don't know, they never threw "In January it rained a few had the children left, crying from "Were there Leagues in this zone?" them in this barracks." drops ... we all planted. Then there hunger. "Those I knew about were on the "What did they say?" was a little rain in February and a Nilsa looked at me with an air coast, in the cane region." "I never saw them and anyhow I little in March and then it stopped. of complicity and said: "More than one was drowned or don't know how to read. They Nowhere near enough." "He always says those things." ground up in the sugar mill ma• "But you planted." "Don't people try to find a solution showed my husband some; he said chines." they talked about everybody unit• "Yes, after the first rain every• to the lack of rainfall?" "And what's to be done now?" ing to fight, and that we were starv• one planted. But then there wasn't "Yes, they think about it a lot but "Everything is very difficult. When ing. A lieutenant came around to enough rain for things to grow." they don't have any way to change the people are starving they don't ask if we had seen the leaflets and "I've heard this storj' many times," it." think of anything except food." who threw them. But we didn't see said the old man, turning his back The old man had come over and "That's true, but those who assault and closing his eyes. was listening to us. Nilsa continued anyone. It's no one from here. trains and towns are hungry too." Nilsa smiled. saying: "What can we do . . . lots They're typewritten and nobody "Yes, but I don't know, I don't "He's very rebellious," she said of times we don't even have seeds; around here has a typewriter. Nor think that's very important." shrugging her shoulders. "There and then my husband looks for an enough money to send them to be "Would it be more important if the wasn't enough rain for what we employer to give him work and done in the city. They kept asking attack was made without the pres• planted to grow there in the sierra. necessities. He works for a while and asking who had done it." sure of hunger?" Some people who lived in the low• and buys." "Yes," said the old man, "now you "Yes it would. I say the Northeast- lands had some growth but we had "People are soft here," said the old see that what I say is true; the leaf• erner is soft but I only say it to nothing, almost nothing." man fixing me with round, bright, lets scared them, made them very annoy Nilsa. The Northeasterner is "If the land yielded nothing why did nervous eyes. The people here don't nervous." brave but that isn't enough. He you wait until June to com^ here?" know what strength they have." "Why were they so alarmed?" needs people who can explain things "Well, there were a few things . . . "You say they're soft and you say "Because they also spoke against to him and guide him." a few beans, a little corn, some• they have strength." "People from the church come here," thing." the army, saying that they didn't "The people have strength but they distribute the food properly, that said the woman with the sandals, "What do the people do while don't know it." they kept some for themselves," "and give us guidance. But if they're they're waiting for the rain?" "What strength do the people have?" said Nilsa. "And that they defend seen coming they are turned away. "What?" Nilsa asked. "The strength to work those who keep us in starvation." They've talked to us about commun• "Do they look at the sky, pray?" and work." • "Is that true?" ities, about neighbors uniting and "They spend all day walking from working together. But this is just "The strength to get what they "And what's the army for," said the want, to make demands on those old man. who have and those who run o things." "And we are starving," said Nilsa. "Those papers," said the woman o a dream to us. You know how we drought, mortality, high prices and peasants are. We're like pigs with lots of sickness." our noses to the ground. Everything "Where is the prophet from?" said is very difficult for us because we the women with the sandals. aren't very intelligent." "From Joaceiro do Norte." "Why do you say that? You're intel• "Joaceiro do Norte is the land of ligent." many saints and prophets. Pray God "If I were intelligent I'd be able no such disasters occur." to read and write." "There's no use waiting for God to "That's something you learn." intervene," said the man, "because "He is intelligent and so he learned," people who talk about God don't she said pointing to the old man. do what God orders. This is a pun• Bloody Democracy "I learned because I went to school," ishment." Ibrahim Isa said the old man irritably. "Have you been very wicked then?" "Maybe," said the old woman I asked him. doubtfully. "We are sinners and we don't know "How much do you earn per day what we do." here?" "If we don't know what we do, "Two cruceiros. They pay us on perhaps God won't want to punish Fridays, almost always in food: two us," said the woman. kilos of beans a week, two of manioc "He's going to punish us for sure flour, one of rice, two of rapadura because we talk a lot about him but (sugar candy) and four cruceiros, don't obey him." more or less, in hand." "In what way don't you obey The 3000 islands scattered in the Indian Ocean that make up Indonesia are like a capricious "Is that enough?" him?" braid running from Sumatra — separated from Malaya, which is continental territory — "If you're alone, yes, but if you "By not saving when we have, for up to Irian, separated from Australia only by the width of the Arafura Sea. The land have two or three children you the times we don't have. When is bountiful both in green vegetation and in the rich mineral deposits that make it the begin to get hungry by Wednesday. third country in the world in natural resources. It is th« second largest world producer' people have something, they eat it of rubber; its spice Islands are prodigious for their cloves and nutmeg and attracted There are people here who have all up and don't save anything for intrepid navigators who circled the known world some SCO years ago. In any anthro• twelve children. By Monday they tomorrow." pological treatise one can read of the man of Java, the pithecantropus erectos, who don't have anything left." "I have known people who ate pork, according to scientists existed many millenniums before man's famous antecedent. People had been arriving at the Neanderthal man. Up to there everything seems very interesting and suggestive, "exciting", and beef, and chicken and bacon and the Holljrwood documentary film narrator would add, if there didn't exist in the midst barracks from the village laden with beans and rice all at the same meal of all this the real and bare truth that no delirious imagination nor well-paid publicist packages of provisions for the week. and didn't even bother to keep any could hide. Several men, two women and a for later. And the next day if they A grave crisis extends through the archipelago of more than ISOOCCOOO inhabitants, youth. One of the men said: "I know wanted to they could eat just as provoked by the generals' coup. what I'm saying because they read much all over again." 'When, in 1966, the movement headed by Suharto and Nasutlon overturned the process it to me in the 1971 Almanac." of national construction taking place and persecution, tortures and the assassination ol "Those are the rich." hundreds of thousands of patriots was followed by the surrender of natural wealth "Almanacs are no good," said the "And God doesn't punish them," to foreign partnerships, imperialism promptly and abundantly recovered the favors it youth. said the old man, looking at him had granted. Goodyear Tire & Rubber had "its plantations", nationalized in the Sukarno "This Almanac always gives true aggressively. epoch, returned; Shell, Caltex, Stanvax and Pan American Oil received oil concessions. prophecies." US Freeport adjudicated all rights to the minerals of western Irian. A contract for sup• "He punishes them, but not all plying Indonesia with oil was signed Rockefeller — despite the nation's own national oil "These people on earth wiio think punishments are the same. We some• wealth and existing refineries. McNamara ordered a high priority on loans conceded they know more than God!" said the times can't see the punishments they to Indonesia by the World Bank. Nine countries, among them England, the United States, youth. get," said the man. Japan and West Germany, have authorized more than $2000 000 000 in credits to the "The prophets don't want to know Jakarta regime over the past five years. "I just beg God to exchange my It is within this framework that Suharto last year decreed parliamentary "elections." more than God," said the man. punishment and give me the pun• Amir Mahmud, Minister of Home Affairs and president of the organization in charge of "They receive God's wisdom." And ishment the rich get," said the elections, defined the character of the elections in one phrase: "Like it or not you will then he added, "Now we're going to woman with the sandals. vote for the Golkar." have three years in a row of I turned around smiling, expect• Precisely concerning the Parliament that began to "rule" Indonesia in October and the general situation affecting the country, comes this article by Ibrahim Isa, Secretary- ing to find a mischievous expres• General of the Indonesian Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa and Asia. sion on her face. But she wore an expression of earnest innocence. BY FORCEFULLY seizing power and tenant-general (Amir Mahmud), taking over all the state apparatus and his military is full of high- and administrative machinery in the and low-ranking reactionary of• fields of politics, economy, culture, ficers, holding important positions. law, foreign trade and diplomatic The majority of governors of the relations, the Suharto clique of gen• 26 provinces of Indonesia are major- erals has set up a complete military generals, brigadier-generals, colo• regime of the most reactionary nels, etc. Besides, there are hun• type in Indonesia. dreds upon hundreds of colonels, In Suharto's cabinet, many gen• majors and lieutenants who are ap• erals are holding the post of min• pointed majors or heads of dis• isters, and in all ministries the most tricts and subdistricts throughout important key positions are in their Indonesia. hands. In the "civilian" ministries, either the important post of secre• The Farce of tary-general or the posts of director "General Election" generals are in the hands of the fascist military clique. July 1971, this regime of Suarto All the key positions in the econ• and his gang of reactionary gen• omic field are now occupied or con• erals, whose hands are dripping trolled by reactionary generals and with the blood of hundreds oi thou• colonels. To cite just a few exam• sands of communists, democrats and ples: the chairman of the Jakarta patriotic persons massacred on a Chamber of Commerce is a nationwide scale, staged the rotton brigadier-general (Usman - Ismail); political farce of a "general elec• chairman of Indonesia National Air tion" they had been preparing for Carriers Association, a brigadier- several years. general (Djuhartono); director of The outcome of the voting and the "private" Mandala Airlines, a the dirty practice and manipula• brigadier-general (S. Sofjar); ad• tions perpetrated by the Suharto ministrator of supply of rice, a military clique before and during major-general (Ahmad Tirtosudiro); the "general election" clearly show chairman of All Indonesia Cigarette that this farce was nothing but a Manufacturers Association, a lieu• political deception of the worst type tenant-colonel (Brototenojo); direc• rigged up in the crudest and dir• tor-general of the home trade a tiest way. major-general (Muskita), etc., etc. This very expensive general elec• Many generals are appointed as tion (it cost 20 billion rupiahs or ambassadors in various important US $55 million) has enriched not places. Where the ambassador is not only the pockets of the corrupt a military man, the fascist clique reactionary generals of Suharto's of generals sends as many brass- clique, but has also produced such hats as possible as members of that rubbish as a rubber-stamp "parlia• embassy, overtly or covertly. By ment," "local assemblies" and "peo• so doing the fascist generals' clique ple's constituent assembly." It was has a tight control also in the entirely geared to deceive people at diplomatic field. home and abroad by providing the Not only the central and executive appearance of "democracy" with• bodies but the regional or provincial out its substance. Their real aim ones as well, even down to the vil• was to consolidate and widen their lage level, are controlled completely by the fascist military clique. The Minister of Home Affairs is a lieu• reactionary military domination in as a democratic mask has failed, "functional group." They converted government in their activities con• aU fields. and the wicked and vicious nature the military-dominated "joint se• cerning the election. Suharto and his consorts up to of a military regime permeated with cretariat of functional groups" (Sek- Antar news agency (June 5,1971) this moment continue to shout at fascist crimes has been completely bergolkar) into a political party reported that Deputy Chiei-of-Staff the top of their voices that the revealed. which was instructed to take part of the Strategic Army Compaand "election" was performed on the Let us examine the facts. in the "election" alongside with (Kostrad), brigadier-general S. Sof• basis of "free," "universal," "direct" nine other political parties. jar, during his campaign for Golkar and "secret" principles. But on the The Birth of Golkar The military-directed political before the election in one of the contrary, all the facts prove suf• (Functional Group) as a Party party Golkar, headed by a lieuten• regions of Sumatra, said without ficiently that nothing about it ant-general (S. Sekowati) as its concealment that it was the policy smelled of democracy, not even in For several years now, Suharto general chairman, is composed of of the government to secure victory a bourgeois sense. and his clique have concerted a about 200 "mass organizations" for the Golkar in the election. Even the mouthpiece of US mo• plan to ensure an absolute majority (mostly also controlled or dominat• The Far Eastern Economic Re• nopoly capital, the weekly Time in the parliament, local assemblies, ed by the military) of "workers", view (Hongkong) of May 15, 1971, (July 12, 1971), wrote: etc., as a result of the general elec• "peasants," "lawyers," "women," printed two articles concerning the tion. It means that they intended, "youth," "students" and all kinds preparation of the election in Indo• The election was a costly ($55 nesia. The articles disclosed: million) move designed to give more than ever before, to manipu• of bogus mass organizations. -Golkar, Suharto's new party the regime a measure of legiti• late these "democratic institutions" One of the chairmen of this fas• power" base, was privileged; macy. The government took no arbitrarily and at will. cist-type political party is a briga• —the military is still very much chances. Before the election it To achieve this purpose, the gen• dier-general (Amir Murtono) and the boss throughout the nation; forbade criticism of President erals' clique rammed the "election its secretary-general is a brigadier- —army commanders have been Suharto or the government's pro• bill" through the rubber-stamp general too (Sapardjo). Through• tackling the Golkar conversion gram. The nine opposition parties "parliament" in November 1969, by out Indonesia, all the branches of effort more along the lines of were allowed to hold village ral• pressure and intimidation against this political party are also direct• a military operation in which an lies but there were widespread political parties. The bill stipulat• ed by colonels, majors, captains of officer's command is law. charges of intimidation. In some ed that in the 460 seat "parliament" the reactionary armed forces of -the Minister of Home Affairs provinces, army commanders pre• only 360 members would be elected Suharto. Amir Mahmud issued a directive vented political rallies by sched• while the rest would be appointed Suharto's Clique Backed that the country's almost four uling military drills at the same by the generals' clique, mostly as the "Functional Groups" million civil servants had to time. The government also weed• representatives of the armed forces. Other means used by the gen• become Golkar members; ed out 2500 unacceptable candi• Long before the polling-day on erals' clique to achieve the aim of —it would be difficult for the dates and arrested many others. July 3, 1971, Suharto's clique had completely dominating the parlia• functional groups to lose, backed Another US imperialist weekly, demonstrated openly its full back• ment were: tightening its control as they are by the army and Newsweek (July 12, 1971), ad• ing of the functional groups (ab• over the political parties and government and with unlimited mitted: breviated in Indonesian language as "mass organizations," creating splits, funds; Occasionally, Golkar's steam rol• Golkar) by all conceivable means. screening their members, interfer• —provincial and village heads ler tactics created outright hos• On many occasions they declared ing in the formation and composi• have been warned that if they tility. Said one civil servant, "If that "Golkar must win the "elec• tion of their leading bodies, and wish to retain their position they you don't join Golkar, you will tion." They even went so far as to even proposing that certain people should make sure their area votes be politely fired. There is no decide one year ago that Golkar be elected into the leading bodies for Golkar; freedom of voting." Peasants must win at least 130 seats out of of political parties. —threats and intimidation are claimed that they were threat• the 360 contested in the election. being openly encouraged as ened with increased taxes and But these were not enough for The Jakarta newspaper Pedoman means of garnering votes. cutoff of such vital supplies as them! They wanted to be more sure (June 4, 1971) disclosed in its edi• fertilizer and insecticides if they about their complete control of the torial that too many government Intlmldaticns, failed to vote for Golkar. There coming legislative assemblies after officials, from ministers down to Arrest, Murder were even reports of physical the election. They needed to have governors and heads of villages, Due to the dirty and rude prac• violence. a political party which is completely from generals down to corporals, tices of the military and civiUan The effort of Suharto and his under their command and becomes are committed to Golkar and openly authorities at all levels to make the clique to use the "general election" their effective political instrument. canvas in the campaign to support Golkar win the election, many For this, about two years ago, the it. The newspaper admitted that in generals' clique created a new polit• practice there is no difference at ical party of its own known as the all between the Golkar and the o Suharto's clique of reactionary gen• known papers in Indonesia pub• .olkar follows "the armed forces' been voiced against the diriy prac• erals, the military regime can, more lished protests, criticism and sarcas• roup" with its 100 seats (directly tices and partisan polices of the than ever, exercise its fascist rule tic remarks by various political par• appointed by Suharto). It means military authorities, no changes wantonly and at will. The parlia• ties and social groupings against the that the armed forces' group occu• have been made by the military re• ment is nothing more than a rubber- military regime's policy. pies 22% of the whole 460 seats of gime. The military authorities went stamp, the worst of its kind. (The ahead shamelessly to achieve their the "parliament." Combined, the It was disclosed that the reaction• secretary-general of the parliament goal: the Golkar must win an abso• military-directed Golkar and the ary military rulers throughout In• is a brigadier-general.) lute majority! armed forces' group will occupy 227 donesia not Only gave ample facil• plus 100 seats, or 71% of the 460 They even banned two Jakarta In the past, parliament under ities and extraordinary privileges seats, while the remaining 28% or newspapers, the Data Masjamakat Suharto's regime has been a rub• to the Golkar, but also resorted to 29% must be divided among the (organ of the Moslem Scholars' ber-stamp one, too. But the present intimidations, arrests and brutal other political parties. Party, Nahdatul Ulama) and Ha• parliament will be completely a terror against the people. Several Such will be the face of the ugly toy to play with. With such a com• months before the polling-day of rlan Kami (orgah of one section of the students' movement), for sev• parliament after the political farce position, the military regime can July 3, 1971, some newspaper in of election staged by the military more easily ram and railroad every• Jakarta reported that arrests and eral days, because these two news• papers have published too many regime. It is quite clear to anyone thing through it without encounter• even killings of opponents of the that it is nothing more than a rub• ing any significant opposition. _ Golkar occurred in various parts of reports disclosing the dirty practices ber stamp to legalize everything The Far Eastern Economic Review Indonesia. of the military authorities. the generals' clique wants to do. (Hongkong) of June 26, 1971, wrote The Jakarta newspaper Suluh What Does the Any reactionary bill or law can be about such a situation: "Since the Marhaen (June 3, 1971) reported "Victory" of the Golkar Mean? rammed or railroaded through such government exercised the power to that in one region of Central Java, a parliament. The parliament must screen all candidates and has also Rembang, the head of the region Knowing the background and pass everything which has been intervened in the internal organ• dismissed government personnel nature of the Golkar and its rela• planned and decided in advance by ization of several major parties, and heads of villages because they tion with the ruling military author• the "war room" of Suharto. there has never been any real threat opposed becoming members of the ities of Indonesia today, it was not That the regime intends to use the that it would face a hostile parlia• Golkar. surprising at all to anyone to hear parliament merely as an out and ment." In its editorial of June 14,1971, the the outcome of the election held on out ornament of democracy to de• Members of the parliament rep• Jakarta newspaper Pedoman admit• July 3, 1971. ceive public opinion and to conso• resenting the political parties have ted that the big issues widely dis• lidate its fascist rule can be seen "Two days after polling-day, every• been selected, screened and ap• cussed recently were: also from the following facts: The body already knew quite clearly proved by the military authorities. —the use of coercion, oppression, political parties had no freedom to that the Golkar (which is in fact They are supposed to be loyal to intimidation against the people nominate their own candidates for a political party created, controlled, the new order of the military regime by the armed forces in their ef• the election. The list of the candi• financed and directed by the gen• and have no leftist tendencies in fort to back the Golkar and to dates of the political parties had erals' clique) garnered the biggest their political outlook. Besides, the corner the political parties; to be screened and approved by the number of votes. whole combination of all political —the attitude of the Minister of military authorities, and finally by According to the official an• parties in the parliament (124 seats) Home Affairs is not fair in act• Suharto himself. Police, military nouncement by the military regime is still a small minority facing the ing as the referee of the elec• police, intelligence officers, etc. (August 7,' 1971) the final counting military-directed Golkar (227 seats). tions; scrutinized and investigated the of the votes in 25 provinces (out It is important to note also that —protests which have been of 26) has shown that the Golkar backgrounds and political attitude of each candidate. Eventually, many political pities willingly launched against electoral cam• was high on top of the list. It gar• serve or cooperate weakly with the paign excesses of violations of nered 227 seats, which means 63% Suharto got rid of more than 1000 names of candidates of the political military regime for their own re• fundamental human rights; of the contested 360 seats, or 49% spective interests. —^political parties and organiza• of the entire seats. Far down below parties, on the pretext that their tions have appealed that the on the list followed the Nahdatul loyalty to the new order was in Such is the ugly feature of dem• government should observe the Ulama (Moslem Scholar' Party) as doubt. ocracy and parliament under the rules of the game as has been the second with 38 seats, and Par- fascist military regime of Suharto. stipulated in the bill of elec• musi (Moslem Party) the third with Rubber-Stamp Parliament With the domination of the legis• tion. 24 seats, and only then the PNI of the Worst Type lative assemblies at all levels by the reactionary generals' clique, the Although many protests have (Nationalist Party) as the fourth with 20 seats. With the overwhelming majority of the seats in the parhament under Such an announcement is rather the direct control and dictate of misleading, since in fact after the o the regime's policies. In this con• usurpation of power and tight con• The oil-producing areas through• industrialization, five-year develop• nection, worth noting are the re• trol by the military rulers in all out Indonesia have been sold to ment plan and other frauds peddled peated demonstrations by youth and fields will be more complete and more than 42 foreign oil companies, by Suharto and his clique only ben• consolidated. Since five years ago, mostly US-owned, and huge on-shore efit a small privileged class and students in various big cities of In• they have occupied the executive and off-shore deposits of oil have have nothing to do with the inter• donesia en 1959 and 1970 and the branch by force (ministries, services been found in many places. The role ests of the broad masses of work• setting up of the Committee for Up• and other governmental or official of the director of the state-owned ers and peasants. They are witness• holding the People's Sovereignty, institutions and agencies). oil company Pertamina, lieutenant- ing with their own eyes that cor• White Group, Conference on Civil• More than ever, the true nature general Ibnu Sutowo (notorious at ruption, abuse of power, ruthless ian Rights, etc., representing a of Suharto's regime as a fascist mil• home and abroad for his corrup• suppression of democracy, persecu• faction of the reactionary forces op• itary regime is becoming clearer to tion), is very important in inviting tions, are inherent, inescapable, posed to Suharto, everybody at home and abroad. A and giving all kinds of facilities to built-in features of the fascist mil• With the staging of the election regime which whole-heartedly foreign oil companies to rob Indo• itary regime of Suharto. They have farce, contradictions have been seen and experienced by themselves serves the interests of US imperial• nesia. mounting, due to the dirty practices that the so-called new order has ism and other monopoly capital. A of the mihtary jrulers before and The military regime sold conces• brought no improvement, no ame• regime which is putting hundreds during the election. Many political sions for exploiting Indonesia's vast lioration of conditions, but rather of thousands of political prisoners parties and nonparty groupings con• timber reserves to more than 56 an increase of ruthless repression into hundreds of horrible jails sidered the election as an unfair foreign companies in 144 projects against the working people. and concentration camps scattered scattered in Kalimantan, Sumatra, game with the military players us• throughout the Indonesian archipel• Sulawesi (Celebes) and other is• Crime has always been endemic ing intimidations, threats and guns ago. lands. The extensive forestry loot among the reactionary officers of in order to win. by foreign companies will totally Suharto. While the generals contin• Total Sell-Out of the cover an area of 15.5 million hec• ue to denounce corruption, they March Onward on Country's Interests to Imperialism tares. also continue to practice it It is the Road of Armed Struggle merely, a screen behind which the Big foreign companies in mining generals' clique can continue its and other extractive industries such From the recent general election During its brutal rule of more crimes. than five years, the military regime as Alcoa, INCO, Freeport Sulphur, and from other developments in the of Suharto, has revealed itself as a N. V. Billiton My, Riotinto, Beth• Discontent, anger, and resent• past in Indonesia, the revolution-, regime in the hands of com• lehem Steel, Broken Hill, Pacific ment against the crimes perpetrated ary people of Indonesia can see pradors and bureaucrat-capitalists, Nickel, Kennecott and a host of big by the generals' clique have as• clearly the correctness of the road the watchdog of US imperialism Japanese companies are busy ex• sumed wider and bigger dimensions, taken, namely the road of armed and other monopoly-capitalists. It ploring and extracting nickel, cop• and wider circles among the people struggle to overthrow the fascist sold out the country's natural re• per, bauxite, tin, even uranium, in are awakening to the damage that military regime of Suharto. sources in a big way to enrich the all parts of Indonesia. the generals are doing to the coun• The objective situation in Indone• pockets of the corrupt reactionary With the "victory" of the Golkai try's and people's interests. sia is becoming more favorable for generals and their consorts. and tighter domination by the mil• Recent years have also seen con• the-struggle of the revolutionary The reactionary generals of itary chque in all fields, the sell-out tradictions and internal strife be• people of Indonesia. The develop• Suharto's clique and the US-educat• of the country will be stepped up. tween the military and non-military ment in the near future will inevi• ed technocrats turned the country The reactionary generals chatter interests sharpening. What was la• tably show that the military regime into a new-type colony by throw• endlessly, endlessly about the vir• tent before, has gradually come to of Suharto is strengthening its ing the door wide open to the in• tues of foreign investments and for• the surface. fascist rule, more brutal and ruth• vasion of foreign monopoly capital. eign "aid." But the brutal truth is Strong anger and displeasure less than ever. With the whole leg• Within a short span of several years that Suharto's regime is in the hands against the arbitrary domination of islative and executive apparatus under their rule, more than 355 of the most reactionary compradors the reactionary army in all fields completely in its tight grip, the gen• foreign enterprises (with a total in• and bureaucrat-capitalists, who are has been felt and voiced through• erals' clique will be more wanton vestment of more than US $1.4 bil• subserviently serving US global out the country. Popular discontent in exercizing its reactionary rule. lion) began their operation through• strategy in southeast Asia. toward the wide-spread corruption Facing such a situation, popular re• sistance and opposition against the out Indonesia to loot the wealth of Contradiction and Clashes by reactionary high- and low-rank• the country out of the sweat and of Interests Are Sharpening ing officers i? mounting every day. fascist military regime will assume blood of the working people. Many former supporters of Suhar• a broader scale. The last two years showed that to's clique, feeling that their own more and more people have seen interests were hurt, have become o that the much-propagated progress, bolder in voicing criticism against

Endemic Disease Giovanni Berlinguer

Many terrible diseases such as pestilence, cholera, yellow fever, typhus, malaria, smallpox and others continue to cause thousands of deaths anmially in the un Jerdeveloped coun• tries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, despite the fact that there are known thera• peutic or prophylactic means of combating them. The developed capitalist countries can claim to have eradicated them from their borders, thanks to the colonialist and neocolonialist exploitation to which 1h«y have subjected the underdeveloped countries. As the Italian doctor, Giovanni Berlinguer, points out in the present work, it would be wrong to deny the universal contributions of western medical science, but there is also a one-sided risk in maintaining a purely medical point of view concerning the public health problems of underdeveloped countries and ignoring the economic, military and political history of these peoples. Inequalities in diet, life expectancy and disease jn developed capitalist countries and in underdeveloped countries are analyzed in this documented artide by Berlinguer, member of the Central Committee of the Italian Communist Party, which Tricontinental presents fir its readers.

THE HISTORY of disease and con• the western texts on social medi• tagion is closely linked to social and cine ignore the problems of the political events. The illnesses prev• Third World and the socialist coun• alent in a given country and a tries. Freeman's thick book. Medical given epoch are, therefore, a true Sociology,! limits itself to observ• reflection of the relationship be• ing, on page 39, that social scien• tween man, nature and society. At tists have recently recognized that the present time, due to interna• the experiences of a great many tional economic and political rela• European countries at the dawn of tions and the rapid diffusion of industrial capitalism can be com• medical science, there is a closer pared to the changes experienced relationship between the epidemio• by various African countnies after logical context in different parts of the contact with European civiliza• the world and the demands of a tion, without describing the phenom- "planetary" struggle against illnes• ses. Despite this, a great portion of o 3) Medical discoveries. Toward the ing to Montel, that two periods of enon and without seeing, beyond •industrial development and the new end of the 19th century and the development can be distinguished analogies, differences in develop• methods of transportation and con• beginning of the 20th there was a in Indochina: before and after eme- ment; and for the socialist countries, servation that accompanied Europe's great spurt of knowledge about the tine."5 Whoever writes the history the only thing it says, on page 46, economic development." Along w th pathological agents and insect car• of Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam in is that in the Soviet Union all pub• the development of the productive riers of the main diseases prevalent this century will surely mark the lic health problems are viewed from forces themselves, the end of in the colonies (yellow fever, ele- periods differently and will give a "social point of view" — without chronic famine in Europe was more weight to the Japanese, considering that "social vision" al• phantitis, sleeping sickness, malaria, achieved by means of colonial nu• French, and US imperialists than ways exists, and without analyzing plague, etc.). In addition to human• tritional plunder and the exporta• to the amoebas, and will attribute what perspective relates or diffe• itarian and scientific motivations, tion of hunger, to other continents. the liberation of these peoples to rentiates the socialist countries from these discoveries corresponded to a To this was added the human plun• need of the metropolis. Quanantines their heroic struggle and certainly the capitalist, and what are the re- der in the relationship between cipnocal influences. were not enough to protect the co• not to emetine. America and Africa. According to lonialist countries from tropical In the hygienic history of the the historian BuBo s, the slave trade This concept ignores the fact that epidemics, and in any case they did West and the Third World not only cost no less than 100 000 000 human hygienic progress itself in the cap• not succeed in saving from conta• is there a distinct rhythm of chan• lives and had as its consequence a italist countries is intertwined with gion the military, the officials and ges evident, but these changes also demographic crisis that lasted for the history of colonialism. Three the entrepreneurs sent there to oc• take different, sometimes opposite more than a century in Africa. examples can be given: cupy new lands and open canals courses. Certain differences are 2) Cotton imports. One of the most 1) The exportation of hunger. (Panama, Suez) to transform the evident: serious endemic diseases in Europe From a dietary point of view, Eur• economy. It was necessary to know over a long period was typhus 1) Relation between mortality and ope until a century ago suffered and to conquer at their root the (exanthematous). England and Ire• birth rate. In Europe, the reduction great deficiencies in food similar to causes of epidemics, or else colonial of mortality that accompanied its land were hit in 1816, 1819 and those that now affect the under• penetration would have been slowed economic and cultural growth and again in 1846, when more than a developed zones of the world. South• down. Many investigations were even carried capitalism's develop• million people became ill. After ard recalls that in western Europe actually made by British, French ment forward, is associated with a that the disease slackened except between 'the years 1000 and 1855 and US military doctors. The ben• lowered birth rate. The annual rate, during wartime. Newsholme wrote there were 4501ocal or general fam- eficiaries of these discoveries were, of demographic growth in the first that, in addition to the isolation of ines.2 Citing multiple sources,^ in the first place, the white resi• 50 to 100 years of industrial develop• the sick in hospitals, the increasing Tizzano recalls that France, even- in dents, and only in the second place ment was: 0.6% in England, 0.4% use of cotton bedding and especially the 18th century when it was the and to a lesser degree, the colonial in France, 0.1% in Belgium, 0.8% cotton underwear, the elimination richest country on the continent, peoples. in Germany, 0.3% in Italy.e In Asia, of unhealthy housing, city planning, suffered repeated starvation. In Africa and Latin America there is increased activity on the part of These three examples serve to Sweden, the famine of 1772-73 raised a more rapid reduction in mortality health officials in sterilization and avoid the risk of a one-sided inter.- the death rate to 52.6 per thousand. than in natality and a demographic desinfection with lime and other pretation of the complex relations Animal protein consumption was growth rate of from 2% to 3% and substances of contaminated dormito• between the hygienic history of the fairly limited throughout Europe more (3.6% in Venezuela, 3.7% in ries, and changing the beds, played Third World and that of the cap• until the end of the 19th century: the Dominican Republic, etc.). an important role in the reduction italist countries (the idea of the in France the Morvan peasants ate of the incidence of dermatological "good white doctor" who brings 2) Causes for progress in public meat only once a year, those in infection [...] before it was de• health is still prevalent). On the health. The reduction in mortality Maine twice a year and those of other hand it would be equally er• termined that lice was the bacterial verified today in backward coun• Brittany only for religious ceremo• roneous to deny the universal ben• element that caused it to spread.* tries depends on improved public nies. Up until 1844 a third of the efits that western medical science health standards, in particular the population of the United Kingdom In this case the reduction of the has provided. progress of the struggle against lived on potatoes alone and another incidence of epidemics was the re• Another danger in a unilater.al infectious diseases, while the stan• third could add bread and scraps sult of many factors; among others approach is that of taking a purely dard of living remains more or less from the slaughterhouse twice a one of the most important was the medical point of view which ignores the same (conditions of diet, income, week. Tizzano states that "the fam• "change of fashion" that took place economic, military and political housing, etc.). In 19lh century Eur• ines in Europe were overcome during the first half of the century history. For example, it is rather ope, however, the reduction of mor• with improved methods of cultiva• due to the success of cotton process• strange to read, still today, that tality had a greater relationship to tion and with the increase in food ing (which made it possible to free "the discovery of emetine in 1912 the improvement of the standard of supplies from overseas, along with people from woolen clothing that limited the incidence of amoebic lasted for years and was almost dysentery in the Far East and per• never washed), as a result of co• mitted such a renascence, accord• o lonial conquests. living than to the progress of med• other sciences; the fact that social ... to increase life expectancy by dustrialized countries approaches ical science. support, essentially that of public at least five years at birth [...] ten to one. If mortality during the health education, has served to jus• to provide potable water and first year of life is bnoken down 3) Relationship between hygiene tify the existence of colonialism and sewage for at least 70% of the between the first month and the and the economy. In the West hy• even today, in order to demonstrate urban population and 50% of the next eleven, one sees that the ratio giene, science and industry devel• friendship or solidarity at the state rural population [...] to reduce is S to 1 during this first period of oped more or less in parallel, while level, hospitals, dispensaries or mortality between the ages of 0 life when deaths are frequently the inhabitants of the underdevel• schools are donated; the needs of and 5 by at least half the present caused by genetic factors or illnes• oped areas had their first contact the chemical and pharmaceutical in• figures [. ..] to control the most ses during pregnancy, and reaches with a modern organization not dustries to open new markets, first serious infectious diseases, eradi• 20 to 1 during the next period, through productive activity, as took to seU more and second to reduce cate those for which there are when environmental factors have a place in past centuries in Europe, the incidence of certain epidemic effective means to do so, partic• ater influence. but rather, through hygienic con• diseases; the phenomenon which ularly malaria [...] to improve r Infectious- diseases. Ther.2 are trols and mass vaccination or the has become much more evident in nutrition [...] to train and edur scourges that have been wiped out distribution of insecticides. Thus the past ten years of the colonial cate as many doctors and public in the developed countries but that medicine should have demonstrated peoples' emancipation, of their de• health assistants as are absolutely still persist in Asia, Africa and that there is frequently greater dif• termination to a better life at once, necessary [...] to intensify scien• Latin America, such as cholera, fusion of cultural than of economic and the priority given to public tific investigation and utilize its scarlet fever, malaria, areas of events and also a tendency toward health policy by many new govern• results to prevent and cure di• plague, tripanosomiasis blood para• homogeneity of suprastructural ments; the example and the inter• sease.^ sites, schizosomiasis. Just since 1964 events while there is less homoge• vention of some socialist countries nosological nomenclature has ac• The results in Latin America neity and much more disparity in in the field of public health; the cepted the term "acute diarrhetic were very inferior to the goals; in development and in living condi• work — not free of contradictions illness"; and nevertheless infantile other underdeveloped ar.eas (India, tions. but impor.tant in its totality — of gastroenteritis, caused by virus, Pakistan and certain African coun• the World Health Organization and protozoa, worms or deprivation, As a result of the complex inter• tries), the situation even worsened other international agencies. The constitutes one of the major public relationship of these factors, the in certain aspects. Among the most interrelationship of these factors in health problems of the Third World. countries of the Third World have serious problems, we enumerate the the complexity and variety of one For Latin America, Dr. Martinez a rapid demographic development, following: a slow economic take-off, and a country or another, one disease and Junco stated that faster rhythm of public health pro• another. 1) Hunger. This is the most wide• ... in Venezuela there were 8869 gression than existed in the capital• spread "disease" in the world, the cases of malaria, 19 cases of hu• Despite the progress achieved, it ist countries during the 19th and most frequent cause of death both man rabies, 586 cases and 52 is known that the health situation 20th centuries. In the recent past directly and as a co-cause of infec• deaths frorn. poliomielitis [...], in in underdeveloped countries is quite this is documented, for example, in tious and metabolic diseases and Costa Rica tuberculosis is the_ serious. It may be useful (as we the comparison of periods of growth those affecting the nervous system seventh most important cause of have done) to take as a point of of life expectancy in Ceylan and and sensory organs. It has been cal• death among those between the comparison, Europe in the 19th cen• Italy; Ceylan took six years, be• culated approximately (since the ages of 15 and 44 [...], in Santo tury, and to state that the improve• tween 1946 and 1952, to move from word "hunger" is not a part of in• Domingo thensare 25 OOO cases of ments today are more rapid. But it a life expectancy of 42 years to 56 ternational nosological classifica• tuberculosis in a population of cannot be forgotten, first, that the years, while in another epoch it tion!) that there are somewhere 4000 000 [...], in Mexico there is development of capitalism in the took Italy a half a century between between 50 ODO and 100 000 deaths a a group of lepers numbering West was accompanied by conta• 1880 and 1930 to make the same day in the world from malnutrition 14 233 persons; and between 1965 gious diseases and terrible suffer• progress. (as many as one death every sec• and 1968 — despite programs for ings on the part of the working ond). Moreover, it is proven that its eradication — there were re-' Up to the present it can be said class; second, that to evaluate a pub• where agriculture is not planned spectively 41, 52,36 and 29 deaths: that the therapy and specific treat• lic health situation and determine and modernized, there is a progres• from malaria and in 1969 there ment of infectious diseases and other the purposes of medicine, the only sive reduction in per. capita food were 48 843 cases of this illness.^ sanitary measures that have acceler• measuring stick must be the rela• production and on entire continents Note that therapeutic and pro- ated the progress of public health tionship between scientific possibil• there is a "desperate race against philactic tneatments for these di• in the backward areas of the world, ity and the well-being effectively time" between demographic devel• seases have been known for a long have operated with relative rapid• achieved. ity for different reasons: "the uni• opment and the increase in the time. The situation in many coun• means pf subsistence. versal language" of medicine, as of On the basis of these possibilities, tries of Asia and Africa is still for example, the public health ob• 2) Infant m(H-tality. The difference jectives for Latin America were between infant mortality in the o defined in 1961: backward countries and in the in• of the world, of certain preventable cational level is much greater than practice their profession "honestly" 4) Life expectancy. In 1961, Ufe diseases. This is the reasbn why the with the number of doctors, devote themselves more all the time expectancy at birth calculated in direct path to improving men's lives It should also be observed that to individual medicine and to clients six groups of nations according to lies in activity in the field of pub• there are social and political motives who pay, following the western per capita income, still ranged from lic health protection."" that prevent a sufficiently rapid model even where only a small mi• a maximum of 70.6 years (more rowth in the number of doctors, nority can pay for treatment; and In a more explicit mannen, F. it is frequent that urban residence than $1000 income) to a minimum Herrera (President of the Inter- gthical and economic values that of 41.7 years. In relation to the fu• prevail in the Thind World are not is selected, even when the popula• American Bank for Reconstruction, tion is predominantly rural. In Sen• ture, there is a United Nations in an article professionally titled always humanitarian and frequently study on life expectancy of those other professions have a greater at• egal, for example, there is a doctor "Health Is Wealth") writes that the for every 2000 inhabitants in the who will be born between 1980 and health of the people and the econ• traction for the most brilliant minds. 2000, subdivided into four_ groups It is clear that not all doctors prac• cities, and one for every 60 0 00 per• omy are interdependent. When ill• sons in the country. of nations on the basis of their, nesses are frequent, productivity tice their profession according to economic levels. If new factors do drops, and so salaries, living condi• the needs of the population. "There The diverse location of doctors in not intervene quickly enough, those tions and the educational level suf- are cases that reach the point of various parts of the country re• born in underdeveloped countries fer.i2 It is the theory of the vi• being abenrations (that would seem sponds to criteria that are partly- at the dawn of the next century cious circle between health, work, unbelievable were -it not for the objective (the demand that special• will have a life expectancy of 15 food production, education and experience of the doctors that oper• ized institutions be located in the years less. health that constitutes the ideology ated in the Nazi concentration big centers), in part is dictated by The best informed doctors in the of WHO. It would be sufficient to camps) such as those recently de• the greater or lesser wealth of the Third World are aware of this grow• break the circle of underdevelop• nounced in Brazil: public health demands and in part ing disparity between scientific ment at one point — at the level of by the possibility of being scientifi• Even doctors take part in the possibility and actual health. They health — to guarantee an ascending cally and culturally up to date. But torture of political prisoners in have declared: spiral. On this basis, it has been con• essentially, the laws of the econ• Brazil; the grave accusation, with sidered sufficient to increase the omy control this phenomenon even We expr.ess our profound frus^ trecise testimony, reached the number of doctors and develop On an international scale. What hap• tration as servants of the people. nternational Wonld Court in Ge• "sanitary aids" to conquer the major f pens, for example, in the relations Despite tremendous technical neva. According to this testimony, diseases and thus increase work among doctors in the United States, progress, we are in a situation the BraziUan police requested the productivity, multiply agricultural Great Britain and India is enlighten• similar to that of our suffering presence of doctors in the "tor• resources, reduce hunger and trans• ing and at the same time paradoxi• peasant who wears himself out ture sessions" a few months ago in form the vicious circle into better cal. It is known that many English from sunrise to sunset to obtain order to "revive the prisoners health. From this theory comes the doctors emigrate to the United a miserable yield, in the dispro• when they lose consciousness and analysis as to the number of doc• States because private practice portion between our efforts and give them appropriate tips so that tors and the amount of public health there guanantees them higher in• the needs of the population. the torture will leave scarcely assistance. come than that of the National There is not the least bit of de• visible scars." This would pre• Health Service. But the equilibrium featism in this approach. We only 1) The number of doctors. The vent what had frequently occur• is maintained by the fact that a wish to view with oun eyes open number of doctors and hospital beds red before, when the tortured great many Indian, Pakistani and the true position of medicine and is indeed scarce in broad areas of victims who did not die during other doctors from the ex-British of doctors at this stage of social the world: the relationship of doc• the interrogation were left "deaf, colonies migrate to England (or development. 10 tors to population is 1 to 503 in blind or insane," which was the stay after having been sent there The causal interpretations for so• developed countries (USSR, Italy, proof of torture. The doctors by their own country to study). cial and health conditions in the Israel) and drops to one doctor fon would also be used "to indicate Today 45% of the assistants in Brit• Third World that prevail in the 50 000 inhabitants in certain Afro- each prisoner's limit of resistance" ish hospitals are from overseas. World Health Organization (WHO), Asian nations. Nevertheless it should so that, from the beginning of the The result is that there are whole however, continue to be those ex• be observed that there is no direct treatment, the torture most in• nations with absolutely no doctors pressed in 1958 by L. Scheel, pres• relationship between the number of dicated for obtaining rapid con• that have no aid whatsoever. And ident of the IV World Assembly of doctors and the general health of fessions could be applied. More• so mortality increases. But also this Health: "There are many proofs to a country. Italy, for example, has over it would be usual to "tor• fact is used, reverted to the eco• support the fact that economic de• less favorable health conditions than ture one's spouse in the presence nomic laws of the market. In Br'tish velopment is due, to a great extent, countries that have fewer doctors, of the other, children in the pres• medical schools it is now difficult to the predominance in many parts such as Sweden, England, Fr.ance. ence of their parents." to find bodies for anatomical study; The correlation between infant mor- ^ Fortunately, these cases are the tality, for example, and per capita exception. On the pthen hand it is o income, food consumption and edu• frequently the case that doctors who the poor abandoned in the hospitals, Fortunately, this colonialist thesis fact into a conscious and n^spon- prolificacy, however widely dis" the usual supply, are more scarce is disproved by anjrone who recog• sible decision, and the vital neces• seminated, is still a restatement ol and families do not willingly sur• nizes that these institutions were sity for insuring a worldwide ba• the Malthusian thesis refuted by render the remains of their dead fon usually in the control of the eco• lance between demographic devel• Marx. Marxism affirms, on the other scientific purposes. And so from nomic-political and military power, opment and food production, are un• hand, that family planning is not a India, where the market in corpses and that finally the new nation• fortunately used to hide less noble precondition but a logical conse• is very active, refrigerated ships alist govennments believe that, in motives: essentially the preoccupa• quence (with modern methods ol come filled with bodies purchased the reconstruction of their country, tion with changes in the internation• birth control it can be added that for a few pounds apiece, for use in certain of these institutions should al political balance. it is a desirable consequence) of study by young Britishers who plan economic and cultural development. serve ends that give the nation the Sometimes these motivations come to cure well-to-do Amenicans and The Malthusian law of population maximum benefits of their investi• up in a specific form. In the US by the young Indians who will work was not confirmed in the phase of gations^ and if some benefit can appeal for the Campaign to Con• in the British National Health Ser• ascending capitalism and eiren re• serve another country, it is the duty trol Demographic Exploitation, for vice. The vicious circle is closed. cent experience demonstrates that of the national government to example, one reads: the big countries have resolved authorize it.^^ We have the state• A world with underdeveloped When a visitor enters a British med• problems of nourishment by trans• ment that even multinational aid or and hungiqr countries will be a ical school and sees how many forming the economic-social base that of agencies like WHO and world of chaos, rebellion and „ Asians there are among the stu• first and only later, in a spontaneous UNICEF is frequently invalid be• war [...] We cannot permit our• dents, he gets the impression of a and deliberate manner, reducing muse of the demand that certain selves the luxury of a half dozen marked medical support being of• the birthrate, while other countries industrial products be sold and that, Viet Nam's, nor even one more fered to the developing countries. where there have been no revolu• in any case, it has little effect in [...] National interest demands tionary changes and in which there 2) Hygienic aid. The Third World's relation to needs; the value does that everything possible be done have nevertheless been attempts to serious hygienic conditions are not not exceed 5% of the hygienic bud• to help the underdeveloped coun• substitute them with bith control, a result of its "historic backward• get, or from two- to five-thousands tries control their populations.^^ there has been no reduction nor ness" alone but rather of modern of the national budget. Finally, and The United Nations representative end to hunger..2i neocolonial relations with the me• more recognized all the time, there at the European Demographic Con• tropolis. If this fact is ignored it is has existed the awareness of the ference spoke of "the dangers that Even when these objections exist, naturally surprising to someone who true motivations for aid since as threaten humanity's economic and birth control becomes incBsasingly doesn't understand, how it is pos• early as 1964, when Dalmastro and social progress today because of the transformed from a useful technique sible that endemic diseases are not his collaborators wrote of the health general demographic tendencies in for guaranteeing a conscious pro• fought with greater energy: "It is program of the Alliance for Prog• developing countries" where there creation, into a social philosophy considered that an expenditure of ress: is a higher rate of natural groyrth, disseminated by the mass media, 0.20 to 0.30 cents pen person per year Its true punpose is that of a po• and clarified who was threatened: and a generalized application of would permit extraordinary reduc• litical instrument [...] we alert contraceptives which switches from tions in mortality and cases of ma• the Latin-American people and These differences in the evolu• voluntary and often becomes coer• laria, which is something to make doctors, with the warning that tion of the population of differ• cive, approaching genocide. In India, the rich countries think about."i5 we must count exclusively on pro• ent parts of the world will have when neither pills nor intrauterine grams we ourselves develop to as thein inevitable consequence contraceptives proved effective, fair• One can mourn for the happy co• solve .our hygienic problems, sub• the profound modification of the ly widespread surgical sterilization lonial-epoch: tropical diseases and mitting foreign technical and fi• demographic balance between the of men was used, described as vo• agricultural problems have been the nancial aid to the most absolute principal regions. At the begin• luntary but "paid" with two kilo• preoccupation of the colonial powers respect for our sovereignty.is ning of the 20th century, one out grams of rice, a knapsack or a plas• in Africa, and in many countries The experience in public health of every five human beings lived tic pail, a sari for the woman, um• institutes fon investigation have aid ijs subject to increasing criti• in Europe, while in 1960 the pro• brella, canned goods, 40 rupees and been created. The withdrawal of the cism on the part of the peoples of portion is one European to every a lottery ticket. colonial governments and the lack the former colonies, but this reeval- seven inhabitants on our planet. Despite all this, the forecast of of qualified personnel in the new uation (for opposite reasons) is also At the end of this century, that the Indian authorities is pessimistic, nations have led to a rapid deter• taking place among the govern• is, within less than 35 years, only even catastrophic: "We are like a ioration in these institutes and the ments and economic forces of the one out of every ten persons will ship with a hole in it, now we are thesis is that if urgent measures are West that seek to switch their Third live in Europe (except the sinking slowly but at some point not taken, many valuable investiga• World health policy from the fight USSR).^" we'll go down all at once," the Min• tions will be lost. 18 against mortality to the fight The hypothesis that the present ister of Social Affairs declared. against natality. evils of the Third Worid (and the The correct aim of transforming future evils of the entire world) procreation from an almost casual will be a Consequence of excessive o Even when drastic measures such as development, the rational utilization surgical sterilization might alleviate of natural and human resources and the crisis, it is difficult for the im• the active participation of the peo• balance between food production ple in society's progress. Without and population to be overcome by changing these coordinates, even using birth control as a primary when there is a certain economic measure and avoiding social-econ• development in the ex-colonial omic transformations (which also countries, the typical illnesses of imply a struggle for conscious pro• the primitive processes of accumu• 1 H.E. Freeman, S. Levlne, L.G. Reeder, i» G. Molina, C. Mentoya, O. JimSnez, "La creation) when these are already lation are reproduced among work• Handbook of Medical Sociology, Pren• salud en fiinci«5a del desarioUo eeond- urgent and historically necessary. ers; whereas medicine did not exist tice-Hall, New York, 1963. mico" (Health and Economic Develop• before or developed in an empiric ment), Revista de la Confederaci6n In the same way it is impossible » F. A. Southard, "Famine," Encyclopedia Medica Panamericana, VoL 13. April for the "vicious circle" between and equalitarian manner, class dif• of Social Sciences, Vol. 9, p. 85, IMa 1966, pp. 48-61. health and economic development, ferences among the population are which the WHO theorizes about, to introduced with respect to access 3 A. Tizzano, "Condizioni sociali e mor• J* "Brasile-tortura: 1 'consulenti acietftili- be broken by viewing the level of to cure, the pathology of indus• tality" (Social Condition and Mortality),; ci'" (Brazil-Torture: The Soientilic Recenti Progressi in Medicina, XXX. Advisers), Tempo Medico, No. 85, July- public health as the primary and trialization is superimposed (ins• No. 1, January 1961, pp. 71-99. August 1970. p. 39. universal key to people's growth. tead of being replaced) on that of underdevelopment. If these coor• * A. Newsholme. Evolution of Preventive 18 M, Sankale, op. cit., p. 28. This theory, Lisitzin writes, "elim• dinates do not change, it is prob• Medicine, Ed BaiUifere, Tiadall and Co., inates such ideas as the forms of able that the purely hygienic solu• London, 1927. 18 M. Kaplan. "Health ractora In Develop• production of material goods, rela• ing Countries Ailecting Internationa] tions have almost reached the peak Tensions," Scienfiiic l^orld. Vol. No. tions of production, and class ine• » M. Sankale, "Les problemes de la santi 1, of possibility for improving living et leurs repercussions sur la croissance 3. 1963, pp. 17-24. qualities, exploitation, etc., which conditions in the Third World and des populations dans les pays en voi de accrue from them."^^ in other words this can be verified also by the lack d^veloppenient" (Health Problems and i» "Commetlt on the Above Paper" by Dr. X. Yarmey Wilsen CGhana) in the it ignores the priority (in the his• of mass confidence in medicine. Their Repercussions on Population torical sense, not in the ethical Growth in Developing Countries^, Le same magazine, pp. 18-L9. Monde Scienti/ique, Vol. X, No. 3, 1966, sense) of political economy over And on the contrary, by maintain• pp. 17-27. 0 18 J. Dalmastro et al., op. eit. health, the impossibility of obtain• ing that "the revolutionary process ing not partial successes (which are is intrinsically the best program fon • Fidel Castro, Speech Made on the An• 1* H. Gille, "Speech at the Opening Ses• always within the reach of health niversary f othe Action of March 13, sion." Ev-ropem DemoerapMc Ccnfei- public health,"23 medicine has its ence, Strasbome, August 30-Septeml»er services), but rathen universally own unique task which is not limit• 1957, COR Editions, No. 5, March 13-15, 1968. 6, 1965, Vol. 4. 5-3. stable results, without the develop• ed to birth control, curing illnesses ment of productive forces, including and registering deaths; but which T L. Conti, "Alcuni aspetti culturali nello R Sonnino, "Problem! demograiici del medical sciences, and without a interjects itself into the analysis of sviluppo delle aree arretrate" (Certain paesi sottosviluppati" (Demographic transformation of social relations Cultural Aspects of Undeidevelopmeni Problems oi Underdeveloped Coun• the influence of social relationships tries), Critica Matxista, VII. No. 3, including the distribution of re• on diseases and to stimulating the in Backward Areas), Societd, XIV, No. 4, 1958. pp. 696-710. May-June 1969, pp. 116-129. sources. This theory does not suc• participation of the population in ceed in explaining serious health the modification of illnesses. » J. Dalmastro, J. Niemetz, B.A. Raymun- n "India, la jsconlitta degli lUB" (India, problems in certain highly industri- do, CEl problema de la salud en rela- the Defeat of the lUD^), Tempo Me• In Third World countries there dico, No. 61, March 19S8, p. 44. alized countries, and as far as the even exists the possibility, thanks ci6n con la Alianza para el Progreso" Third WorJd is concerned, it over• (The Problem of Health in Relation to to contemporary medical and polit• the Alliance for Progress), Rewistc de sa I.P. Lisitzin, "Theories mSdicales bour• looks the common causes both of ical progress, that centain stages of la Confederacion Medica Panamericana, geoises actuelles et la protection de la the hygienic lacks and of under• morbosity that prevailed in capital• Vol. 13. April 1966. pp. 274-278. sant^ publiqua" (Present Bourgeois development, that is of the material Medical Theories and Public Health ist countries, and even to a certain Protection), La Scnti Puhlique, V, No. and cultural dependence on the out• » H. Martinez Junco. closing speech by extent in European socialist coun• the Cuban Minister of Public Health ou 4. 19S2. pp. 337-393. side, the unjust and archaic systems tries, can be "skipped over" and April 9, 1971. Fifth International Med• of land ownership, the backward• that this will represent, moreover, ical Congress for the Study of Living 23 Fide] CastTO. Speech at the IX Medic&l ness in education and the unequal a point of reference for the "ad• Conditions and Health. Congress and the VII Cuban Kstomato^ logical Congr&ss, February 27. 19S6. distribution of wealth and of the vanced" areas of the wonld. Certain• possibility for health and well- 10 Declarations of delegates to the Eighth ly this path confirms Sigerist's Pan-Amercian Medical and Social Con• 24 H.E. Sigerist, Civilization and Disease, being, which hold back industrial observation that as far as health is gress, 1964. Cornell University Press, New York, concerned, there is a human solidar• u Chronique WHO. VoL XII, 7-8. 1955. 1945. ity that cannot easily be over- looked.2* " F. Herrera, "Health Is Wealth." World Health, September-October 1961. Fruits of a Struggle Amilcar Cabral

I I 1971 was a year of structural consolidation and political-military successes for the independence of the people of Guinea-Bissau. The revolutionary n. /ement has destroyed tribalism, liberated close to two thirds of the 36 125 km2 of territory and revealed the demagogy oi Portuguese colonialism, which is in virtual socio-economic decomposition. Amilcar Cabral, Secretary-General of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), in an exhaustive analysis, describes the political-military-diplomatic state of the heroic struggle of his people. that he insists on calling the "Portuguese world." The timid reforms, principally those of an administrative nature, which he has begun and has dared to have included in the ne'w Portuguese Constitution, have convinced no one except those already convinced. These have also disappointed the most important segment — because they are activists — of his so- called "liberals" or less reactionary supporters. This is how the conflict occurred within the so-called Portuguese National As• sembly during the recent discussion of the Constitutional re• DESPITE CERTAIN APPEARANCES and a feeble propaganda which, how• vision, a conflict which, if parliamentarianism weren't just a ever, continues with a favorable echo in certain segments of the caricature in Portugal, would have ended with the fall of the western press, Portugal's worsening political and economic sit• government. uation is something the Portuguese authorities themselves, at all levels, are no longer able to hide. This fact, reflected in various The unquestionable truth about present-day Portuguese life is areas of Portuguese society, is chiefly the result of the crime of the following: while Portugal maintains and accentuates day by human perversion committed by the government over the last day the dubious privilege of being the most backward country ten years since it unleashed the colonial war in Angola which it in Europe the Portuguese government deliberately sustains three then extended to Guinea and Mozambique. This fact — dramatic colonial wars of genocide in Africa and stubbornly keeps the today but no doubt tragic tomorrow for Portugal — is the result Portuguese people in ignorance and misery, exiled from Europe and the world, isolated from all scientific and technical advances of the policy of absurdity, of irrationality and lies, practiced by that people everywhere are achieving today. As always, the the Portuguese ruling class which not only obstinately scorns Portuguese exist without the most elemental rights of man. the rights of the African people and of international legality, but even acts conscientiously against the very interests of the Por• The truth, which the Portuguese masses are becoming more tuguese people. aware of all the time, is that galloping inflation as well as It is this reality, most evident over the course of the last two population decrease due to emigration and war, the high cost of living and public and internatioiial debts, lack of manpower years and particularly during 1971, that explains the bankruptcy and a stagnant Portuguese economy are the concrete result of of Marcelo Caetano's demagogic policy, the increasing gulf be• the absurd colonial policy of the Portuguese ruling class that tween the ruling class and popular sectors (workers in the city Marcelo Caetano is accustomed to serve. and in the countryside, antifascist students and intellectuals), the increasingly frequent and intense convulsions in Portuguese Prisoner of the unfortunate Salazar heritage fiercely defended by the "ultras" of the regime, confused by his own measures, society and. as an extreme expression of opposition, the revolu• Marcelo Caetano has plenty of reason to shift from perplexity tionary armed actions that these recent times have produced in to desperation. Much more so when the resistance of the African Portugal. The limited and irregular character of these actions peoples and of the Portuguese people themselves to colonial wars should fool no one. For a fraction of Portuguese society, however is more vigorous and effective every day. small, despite the inveterate nationalism which is the common Thus*the victimized attitude that the head of the Portuguese characteristic of all Portuguese, to have taken the decision to government now evidences is quite understandable. And so in his resort to violent measures of resistance — and this without any speech of July 23, 1971, explaining the incidents that occurred in reproval by the popular masses — indicates that the Portuguese the Portuguese National Assembly, after having deplored the state of mind in the face of the aggravation of the socioeconomic fact that "unfortunately" we are not in the position of people and political situation has reached limits of desperation. who can "demand greater liberty in the name of our immortal Pursuing the Salazar policy of a colonial war of genocide forebears," he stated: against the African peoples, Marcelo Caetano not only deceived On my shoulders weigh the responsibilities of national de• those who believed in his "political intelligence." He also lost or fense, with military operations in three overseas provinces and is on the way to losing the only opportunity a Portuguese has a vulnerable rear guard. Not a day passes on the international had since the time of the maritime discoveries, to have his name scene without our adversaries striking a new blow against us, written down favorably in history. But he cannot understand which forces us to give constant attention and permanent efforts or refuses to understand the meaning of history, or even the to the diplomatic struggle and to clarifying the poisoned opinion interests of his people, which should surprise no one who knows of foreign countries. the process of his ideological formation. Today, after three years If by this statement the head of the Portuguese government in power, the present head of the Portuguese government cannot recognizes publicly for the first time the real existence of co• hide his perplexity and even his confusion in his speeches and lonial wars — which he calls "military operations" — it is no public positions, in the face of the socioeconomic and political less certain that he also seeks to enlighten "the poisoned opinion reality of the complexity of diversities, if not of divergencies. of foreign countries,'* that is to say, he persists in flouting respect critical hours, hours in which national problems are aggravated for international law. by uncertain conditions in economic'and in international policy. In the same speech, after having recognized that "in the in• Let no one think that we are rich in human and material terior of the country [that is, in Portugal] the enemy finds resources. support [...] and increasingly seeks to infiltrate the schools, the Clearly, the people of Portugal who live in misery and see armed forces and the corporate organization," he says: their sons faced with the dilemma of clandestine emigration or And while we must face all this, we must first of all consider death without glory in colonial wars, will doubtless be the judges. the real needs of the people, then the struggle against inflation These quotations, perhaps too long, nevertheless have the which, like a cancer, eats away the economy of every country purpose of demonstrating in the words of the head of the Por• today, destroying price stability and facilitating everything tuguese government himself, that if it is true that the myths, from salary demands up to the problems of economic develop• the tactics, the lies, arguments and objectives of the fascist co• ment of a nation that cannot or must not become stagnant nor lonial regime have not changed in the slightest with the disap• lose its blood because of the demands of social improvement pearance of Salazar, the socioeconomic and political degradation formulated by a population that wants precisely the broadest of Portuguese society as a result of the colonial wars is a fact that perspectives for education and welfare. All this takes money, the laments of Marcelo Caetano cannot hide. To be aware of this and God knows how hard it is to find it! is of capital importance within the framework of the perspectives With this Jobian lament, which needs no comment, Marcelo for the development of our struggle. Caetano seeks to justify the fact of not moving "as rapidly" as Still more realistic than Marcelo Caetano is the confidential his "young friends" would like. But if it is true, as he says in his report of ihe Portuguese high command drawn up in 1970 under speech in an allusion to the French Revolution, that when a the title. Report from Psychological Section No. 15. In this docu• Jacobin was made minister he didn't then become a Jacobin ment, which analyzes in detail the action of the liberation move• Minister, the policy and the arguments of Marcelo Caetano prove ments and of Portuguese means against the colonial war, as well to the hilt that when a Salazarist is made President of the Coun• as the methods, action and results of psychosocial warfare the cil, he becomes a Salazarist President of the Council. authors reveal: In effect, despite shades of originality and liberality, it is The proliferation of antigovernmental organizations and the precisely the profoundly Salazarist nature of Marcelo Caetano's attempt at general agitation lead to the creation of a climate policy — the obstinacy in perpetuating fascism in Portugal and of psychological instability that affects the activity of the colonialism in Africa — that explains the very slight, almost students and, therefore, affects the country, which appears nonexistent, results of his three years of government whose upset and does not know what to do to lead its children along balance he explained in his speech of September 27, 1971. In this the correct path. speech, in which he called upon the "Portuguese worthy of this After having made a long allusion to the increasingly difficult name" to unite around the "governors elected by them" (sic), he situation that is wreaking havoc among the colonial troops, with stated: desertions and demands increasing, the report concludes: We try valiantly to face up to national problems. We succeed The enemy [that is, the liberation movements and the forces in maintaining the defense of the overseas provinces against against the colonial war] have perfected and increased their the subversion supported more and more each day by instiga• efforts on all fronts, internal as well as external. tion of that incredible organization called the United Nations In the metropolis, in general, the population continues to show [sic] [...] and if we are not disheartened in the overseas little interest in the overseas war and is unaware of the effort struggle, neither have we given quarter to those who seek to expended by the armed forces. The student masses show them• bring terrorism to the metropolis. selves to be strongly susceptible to the propaganda of peace. The same terms, the same obstinacy. The working masses, with no knowledge of great national But Marcelo Caetano does not deny that facing up to problems problems, easily allow themselves to be dragged along by does not mean solving them. This is why, after having flashed propaganda oriented toward demands for better pay and better before the traditionally poor Portuguese people the vision of the social conditions. The most developed groups continue to be the "models of development of the tjraditionally rich part of Europe," focal points of subversion and the organizations that arise are he recalls, so that there will be no dreams, that in Portugal proof of great efficacy. Overseas, generally, the indigenous pop• "a dangerous mentality is being created of demanding rights and ulations continue to lean toward subversion, notably when it facilities absolutely incompatible with the country's realities and demonstrates that it has force, or when geographic conditions possibilities." make the action of our troops difficult o-r impossible. The And then comes the traditional lament: aboriginal populations on the periphery of the major urban I would be failing in my responsibility to tell the truth to the centers, generally lacking tribalization, continue to evidence Portuguese if I did not remind them that we live in very great susceptibility to enemy propaganda. The European pop- ulation continues to demonstrate openly its adherence to the ing on the Portuguese strategic problem (Volume XII of the Les- war but does not cooperate against subversion except when sons in Strategy from the Courses «f the High Command 1966/67), its material interests are directly threatened. states: "Subversion is above all a war of intelligence. One must The psychological situation is precarious, both in the metropolis be highly intelligent to engage in subversion; not everyone is ca• and overseas. pable. Very well, the black peoples are not highly intelligent, on Thus, the situation becomes increasingly aggravated in every the contrary, of all the peoples of the world they are the least in• way and one might ask why the Portuguese government, which telligent." (sic) is conscious of the difficulties it now has and will have to face In these same lessons, the author, who believes that the expor• later, obstinately continues its absurd and criminal policy of tation of African slaves to Brazil was a good thing" and that perpetuating colonial war and domination over the African peo• the "tribal state of the black population is favorable to Portu• ples. It is not difficult to recognize that the principal reasons for guese strategy," reveals in all its cruelty the principal objective the unaltered continuation of Portuguese colonial policy lie in of the present Portuguese colonial policy: to maintain white the following facts: domination over black populations. 1) Portugal's chronic and characteristic underdevelopment, its After having, pointed out that the danger lies in the increase lack of valid economic infrastructures, make it incapable of in "evolutionized blacks," Kaulza de Arriaga affirms: considering a process of decolonization in which the interests We are not capable of maintaining white domination, a na• of the Portuguese ruling class would be safeguarded within tional objective, unless the white population achieves a rhythm the framework of a neocolonial situation or of effective com• that matches and outnumbers, however slightly, the production petition with other capitalist powers. of evolutionized blacks [sic]. On the contrary, if the whites 2) The inhibiting effects of almost half a century of fascism are outnumbered by the production of evolutionized blacks, then on a society which, throughout its history, has never really ('or one of two things is bound to occur: either we install apartheid, to any extent) known the rights of man, liberty and the prac• which would be terrible and in which we would be unsuccess• tice of democracy. ful, or we will have black governments with all the conse• 3) The imperial mentality of the Portuguese ruling class and quences that this implies (destruction of the overseas provinces, the ignorance, the myths, beliefs, prejudices and narrow na- etc.). tionahsm that characterize the culture of major sectors of the The racist boss then explains the tactic required to avoid such Portuguese population which, for centuries, has been subjected a situation: to the doctrine of European supsriority and African inferiority, The white population does not contemplate the equiiiDrium and to the myth of the "civilizing mission" of the Portuguese of the black demographic potential, it contemplates the equdi- with respect to the African peoples who are considered to be brium of evolutionized blacks [...] and thank God, since it is "savages." impossible to see that all blacks are evolutionized, it is possible, Despite the whims of the Portuguese colonialists as far as the almost certain, that we will be able to situate there in Africa "creation of multiracial societies," this doctrine, to which the fear enough whites to balance the blacks who will become evolu• of "conimunist subversion" has recently been added, crowns the tionized. , crystallization of a primitive racism often without any evident On this basis, after having stressed that "we will not be too economic motivation. effective in the production of evolutionized blacks; we must pro• The racist character of the Portuguese intervention is amply mote them, yes, but it's not necessary to exaggerate," the general ievidenced in the disregard for Africa's cultural values as well and presidential aspirant reveals the master line of present Por• as in the most abject crimes committed by the administration and tuguese strategy in Africa: "First an increase in the white pop• the Portuguese colonists during the golden era of colonialism. ulation, then a limitation of the black population." In the face Today it is evident in the cruelty that characterizes the actions of the difficulties of the problem and convinced of the myth of of the colonial troops. But there is a tendency at present, in the the great fertility of the African, he suggests, although in a face of African resistance, for it to manifest itself in the pater• negative form, the practice of scientific birth control: "Clearly, nalism and false preoccupation with "achieving the social advance• ment of the African within the framework of the Portuguese it is an extraordinarily difficult problem since we cannot distrib• nation." ute a birth control pill to each black family [...] but what we can do is not overstimulate the increase of the black population." Portuguese racism, which is one of the subjective causes of One of the principal objectives of Portuguese colonial wars in the continuation of colonial wars, reaches its maximum in the Africa thus becomes most evident: given the immediate impos• top levels of the ruling class. Thus General Kaulza de Arriaga, sibility of limiting birth control by insuring the supremacy of one of the most outstanding personalities in Portuguese colonial the white population, they resort to the physical liquidation of leadership, commander in chief of the colonial troops in Mozam• populations by the increasingly intense use of aerial bombard• bique and aspirant to the job of President of the Republic, touch• ment by napalm and other means of massive destruction of the African man under the deliberate practice of genocide. concessions, promises of promotion of Africans, even of a "social This objective, whose realization clashes with the effective revolution" (sic) which, if it were the case, would not only carry armed resistance of the peoples of the Portuguese colonies sup• out the socioeconomic program of our party, but would also give ported by African and international solidarity, nevertheless re• our people a much more advanced standard of living than that veals the full extent of the criminal character of the'moral, of the people of Po-rtugal, To complete the farce, the present head political and material support that Portugal receives from its of the Portuguese colonialists — the sinister General Spinola — allies through NATO and on a bilateral basis. In reality it is no now promises to "give the people self-determination under the secret to anyone today that without the aid of its western and Portuguese banner." Fervently c inging to the theories of General racist allies, the Portuguese government would in no way be Kaulza de Arriaga, who considers the black to be an unintelligent able to continue the colonial wars in Africa and repress the person, the military government of Guinea seeks to live the fable legitimate aspirations of the people of Portugal for peace and of the wise man who had promised the king he would be able progress. to teach an ass to read. Like the man in the fable, he is doubtless It is with full consciousness of the situation of the enemy of convinced that in the long run either the ass or the king will our people and of the internal and external factors and circum• die; or perhaps he will die. stances that made possible and condition its criminal attitude, Having almost reached the end of the four-year mandate that we must analyze the situation of our struggle and the during which our struggle, that he had sworn to liquidate, has perspectives for its evolution at each moment. developed, intensified and consolidated itself on all fronts and The political-military action of the Portuguese colonialists in levels. General Spinola is beginning to demonstrate his confusion, our country continues to have as its fundamental objectives: ever greater because of the growing support that the populations a) to defend and consolidate the positions they still occupy in of the urban centers themselves give to our party. the urban centers and in some zones that are still not liberated; Thus, after the attacks against Bissau and Bafata, and faced b) to demobiUze the populations in the liberated regions; with a bread and favorable reaction by the populations of these c) to perpetrate the violent destruction of the human and cities, the military governor issued a menacing declaration on material means that serve as the base of the victorious develop• July 25 over Radio Bissau, and dropped his paternalistic and re• ment of our struggle; formist mask, revealing his true nature. d) to maintain war for the sake of war, to make Africans fight It is worth quoting certain passages from this declaration which, against Africans; like the attacks against Bissau and Bafata. marks the beginning e) to maintain at all price, the presence of colonial troops in of a new stage in the conflict that opposes tis to the government of the principal strategic points with the hope that our poUtical- Portugal. It affirmed: military organization, in the long run, will enter into crisis and With all the circumstances this province has gone through, it wind up in disintegration; should surprise no one that rumors — sometimes fantastic — f) to withdraw from our people the fraternal solidarity and should circulate, since this is a constant matter everywhere at logistic support we have in neighboring countries, by means of all times, which we cannot pretend to avoid totally [...]. Never• open aggression or armed provocation against these neigh• theless, the volume and nature of the rumors that have recent• boring countries. ly circulated have unfortunately found a certain receptivity In its efforts to apply these objectives, the enemy continues among the most timorous. This has caused a climate of un• to practice the policy of attack and deceit, making a certain justified apprehension in the capital of the province. But it is number of concessions of a social nature to the population it still necessary to demand that an unequivocal position be taken controls and fiercely repressing all those who, individually and that returns the situation to normal so that no one can harm collectively, are suspected of nationalism or of concrete support anyone whose serene capacity to judge is upset by fear. to our party. The enemy, who acts with the conviction that the After having noted that "adequate measures have been taken African peoples are "the least intelligent in the world," has not, to insure peace and security at all times," it threatens the most however, attained the hoped-for results and his desperation in severe repression: the face of failure is becoming more evident each day. It is also .important that there be no illusions concerning the firmness that the government will use to guarantee the peace, In urban centers and other zones still occupied (some coastal order and security of citizens. Any attempt against individual areas, the islands of Guinea and the Archipelago of Cape Verde), or collective security will consequently be considered an act the enemy's position is less secure all the time. This is the result, of betrayal against the people of Guinea. Proceedings against on the one hand, of the most vigorous daily attitude of our armed the authors will be inexorably applied in the name of respect forces and, on the other hand, of the development of clandestine for the principles of the liberty and equality we defend and work by our party in the urban centers of the continent and in to which all good Guineans so correctly aspire. And any breach the islands. of civil discipline that can disturb the normal complicity, an In Guinea, the enemy continues his policy of lies, demagogic act of betrayal of the people will, as such, be repressed without colonialists. And so they face growing difficulties even in the the slightest contemplation and with all the severity merited recruitment of mercenaries and right-wing common prisoners, and by the enemy, as well as all those who support his interests, desertion mounts within their supposed "African companies," which have nothing in common with Portuguese Guinea. As for the enemy's positions, we attacked all of them during It is true that no one should have any doubt as to the fact that the f.rst months of 1971, including the capital, Bissau. Today, the the normal rhythm of life in the city will be preserved at all colonial troops know they are not safe in any part of our country. costs and under all circumstances. Whatever measures are Meanwhile, civilians in the urban centers, particularly the necessary will be used, and their effectiveness will be doubted Portuguese, currently live in a permanent state of alert and only by those who do not yet know the firmness and determina• scarcely conceal their fear. The majority of the officers are tion of the governor of the province. sending their families back to Portugal. Not only has the enemy If it is true that this declaration confirms the fact that the seen the security of his troops diminished but he has also had populations in the urban centers, in particular in Bissau, support' to recognize that our party's solidity has increased and that our the struggle (as the secret report of the Portuguese high com• armed forces are stronger than ever. Taking into account the mand notes), there is no doubt that this is also the confession of disparity of material and human resources between the enemy the failure of the so-called policy of "better Guinea," as well as and our forces, this fact represents a great defeat for the Por• of all the attempts made by the colonialists to consolidate their tuguese colonialists. present positions. In desperation, the enemy has multiplied armed provocations Faced with the patriotic resistance of the people in the lib• and criminal acts against neighboring countries despite the con• erated regions who are increasingly aware of the realities and demnation of the United Nations and world opinion. There have objectives of the struggle and are better off because of party been various aggressions against the population of Casamance organization, the Portuguese colonialists have intensified bom• (Senegal) and the frontier zone with the Republic of Guinea. In bings and acts of terrorism during 1971. They could do this be• their dream of freeing themselves from the weight of our strug• cause they have received new airplanes and helicopters from gle, the Portuguese colonialists, with the support of their allies, their allies, but nevertheless, they have not achieved their objec• are preparing a new imperialist aggression against this latter tives. The organization of self-defense among the population is country. As with the preceding one, such aggression will have very efficient, both with respect to bombardments and to terroris• as its objective the overthrow of the regime of President Sekou tic attacks and attempts to burn our crops in order to conquar us Toure and replacing him with a government favorable to Por• by hunger. What they succeeded in destroying during the first tuguese domination of our country. mcmhs of 1971 is not sufficiently significant to upset the vic• The Portuguese colonialists are also doomed to failure on this torious advance of our struggle. On the other hand, in the level: our relations with the governments and peoples of the absence of an effective antiaenal defense, the measures of civil neighboring countries are better all the time and no aggression defense generally adopted by the people have contributed to a against the Republic of Guinea could deter the advance of ouc significant drop in the number of victuns of barbarous actions by struggle. An eventual aggression in any form will contribute to the Portuguese airmen. strengthening still further the ties that join our people to those The attempt to maintain war for the sake of war, and involve of the Republic of Guinea and will reinforce African and interna• Africans — most of them recruited by force — in fighting against tional solidarity with our struggle. Africans, is a pressing need for the colonialists because of the The modifications introduced in the structure and functioning heightened resistance and conflicts within the colonial troops. of the directive organ of the party by the meeting of the But It is doomed to failure, especially after the shameful defeat broadened Political Bureau held in April 1970, have permitted suffered by the colonialists during the imperialist aggression a great improvement in the work of militants and those re• against the Republic of Guinea. In Conakry as in Koundara and sponsible for various levels of our activity. The political work of in Gaoual, the Portuguese, along with the Europ3an militarists the local commissaries and Political Action Brigades and the enrolled in the Portuguese colonial army. On the other hand, the village committees (VC) have worked at a normal rhythm and liquidation in the course of this year, of certain of their leaders have been highly productive, such as "Captains" Joao Bacar Djalo and Guela Balde, and After the work was begun toward the end of 1970, the party "Lieutenant" Loro Bamba, has upset the sinister plans of the secretary-general held many reunions with delegates from the base committees (close to 200 delegates, a third of whom were 10 000 Cape Verde natives have been sent. women). These meetings, really seminars, were enthusiastically Our party's denunciation in April L971 of the starvation situation, welcomed by the village committees and by the people, and have forced the colonialists — who refused to accept the humanitarian had visible results in the militant spirit and actions at the base. aid of international solidarity — to take certain measures ta "com• This is an initiative that we must continue to develop with great bat the crisis." But these measures did not succeed in deceiving attention. our people who, aware of the necessity to free themselves from The results of the school year have been encouraging, both with colonial domination in order to get rid of misery and hunger, in• respect to the schools in the liberated regions (despite the creasingly support our party's activities. The reality of the increase terroristic action of the enemy) and in the Friendship Institute. in party activity in the islands and of the support it has there is Close to a hundred boys and girls have been selected this year recognized by the enemy himself. For example, in the secret report to continue their studies in friendly countries, and have already by the Portuguese High Command the enemy states; left. Over this period there have been two subversive appeals directed In health, where there is still a certain amount of confusion to military officers, sergeants and soldiers of Cape Verde, On and a certain inefficiency in the work of the intermediary cadres, the night of December 31, pamphlets were distributed on three particularly the nurses, there has been an overall improvement islands; in May, packages with PAIGC pamphlets destined for in administering medicine and in assistance to the population. The the islands were intercepted in Lisbon. vaccination campaigns, particularly agamst cholera, have allowed Actually, on December 31, pamphlets were distributed simulta• us to avoid serious problems. However, despite the return to the neously on all the populated islands. country of a number of doctors trained during the course of the During the first months of 1971, conflicts between segments of struggle, we have run into certain difficulties in this area. A large the population and the colonialist troops increased significantly number of the foreign doctors who came to give us their assistance on the main islands. The colonial, civil and military administrat.on became ill and had to interrupt their activities. is more isolated every day. An abyss between the colonial class Despite insufficient rain during the agricultural year 1970-71, and the people, between the servants of colonialism and the pa• general production covered the needs of the population and there triots, is progressively widening. was enough for the basic nourishment of the fighters. The return During the meeting of the Higher Council for Struggle (CSL> to the country of various technical cadres in agriculture (agrono• held in August 1971, which made a deep study of the principal mists, technical agents and other specialists) trained abroad will problems of our life and our struggle, important decisions were permit a considerable improvement in assistance to the peasants, taken with the aim of strengthening and improving political works, but above all will permit certain limited projects to be carried out consolidating the structures for our development, and intensifying and certain experiments to be made that will serve as the basis and broadening of our armed action. Among the decisions, it is for agricultural development, which is the principal factor in our important to single out the creation of the first National Assembly economy. of the people of Guinea, which will be selected at the appropriate The people's stores have been greatly improved with respect to time and will give our people an essential organ of sovereignty the articles placed at the disposal of the people, principally cloth, that will open new perspectives for our political action, in our own thanks to international solidarity. country and abroad. It is equally appropriate to mention in par• On the Cape Verde Islands, conscious of the progress our party ticular the decisions related to strengthening the armed struggle, has made over the course of recent years, which is reflected in the the development of the struggle on the Cape Verde Islands and, on strengthening of our clandestine organization and the growth of a the human level, the creation of the Red Cross of Guinea and Cape nationalists spirit within the population, the Portuguese colonial• Verde. With the permission of Radio Senegal (three times a week) ists are reinforcing their vigilance and repression everywhere. and Radio Mauritania (once a week) — which have joined the Fourteen fellow countrymen were arrested and accused of belong• programs already being broadcast over the Voice of the Revolution ing to PAIGC and of an attempt to detour a trading ship toward (in the Republic of Guinea, four times a week) — we have greatly Dakar.- Nevertheless, under pressure of pubUc opinion, the Por• amplified the possibilities of reaching our people and those of tuguese colonialists found themselves forced to absolve another Africa. four fellow countrymen on trial in San Vicente who were part of On the African level, our relations with independent countries a previously arrested group. have been broadened and consolidated over the course of the first As a result of a criminal policy of abandoning the people of the months of 1971. In addition to the consolidation of our relations archipelago to natural contingencies, the people are st II suffering with neighboring countries — among them the Republic of Senegal, hunger after three years of drought. The colonialists have tried to which evidences increasing interest in giving us all possible help take advantage of this circumstance to destroy the bases of our — countries such as Nigeria, Somaha, Sudan, Tunis, Libya, and struggle's advancement in the islands, and have resorted to the other states have expressed a desire to extend bilateral aid such exportation of workers to Sao Tome and Portugal where some as others are now doing. the victories achieved on the battlefields, but also from the constant The Conference of Chiefs of State held in June of 1971 in Addis- elevation of the level of our people's political consciousness. Aware Ababa was an important victory for the African liberation move• of this fact, the colonialists try by every means possible to commit ment, in particular for our party. Once more, we were designated the most barbarous crimes against cur people, to kill our cattle, unanimously as the voice of the liberation movements at the con• burn our crops, in a word, to develop and intensify their criminal ference. The decision to increase aid to the libertv fighters and and terroristic activity, which gives the lie to their pretensions of the creation of a Special Commission of the OAU for western social-economic und political promotion of our people. Africa whose subdirector is a member of the leadership of our For this reason, the action of the enemy during the first months party permits us to anticipate a considerable increase in African of 1971 was characterized by intense and continuous aerial bom• solidarity with our struggle. The Liberation Committee unsparingly bardments, mainly with napalm, and by airborn troop assaults continues to give us all possible aid. In fulfillment of the decisions aimed at the destruction of villages, crop burning and cattle killing. of the Special Conference of Lagos (December 1970), the committee As we said, having been provided by their allies with new and gave our party special financial aid which was extremely useful. better planes and helicopters, the colonists have augmented their We must stress that during the course of the conversations we bombardments and terrorist actions. Nevertheless, in the face of have held with various African chiefs of state in Addis-Ababa, the valiant resistance of the people and fighters, they have seldom Conakry or in their own countries, as well as with the Secretary- achieved their objectives. The regions most affected by these crim• General of the OAU and the members of the Executive Secretariat inal acts are precisely the most populous and those in which the of the Liberation Committee, we have always encountered the party organization is most developed: Cubisseco, Cubucare. Ba- greatest concern for our struggle and an enthusiastic desire to aid lana-frontier zone (in the south), Oio and Saara (in the north). our party. It is a great stimulus for our people and for all the Dozens of villages were destroyed, an appreciable amount of rice fighters of our organization. was burned in the regions of Unal, Tombali and Como and some On the international plane, where the enemy nimself recognizes 200 head of cattle were killed. Fortunately, the loss in human lives that he is more strongly accused, condemned and morally isolated is far below the criminal intentions of the enemy who attacks despite the political and material support of NATO and other hospitals and schools by preference and takes his principal victims allies we have achieved considerable progress in the first months from among the elderly and the children. of 1971. The action of our armed forces during the first semester of 1971, Relations of solidarity with the Soviet Union and other socialist in the dry season, achieved a breadth and vigor never before countries are increasingly useful to our struggle. They are trans• equalled. It is a fact known to the Portuguese colonialists them• lated concretely into important aid in articles of pr'mary necessity selves that in order to sustain the impression created by its war and in other materials we have already received this year. In the communiques — although these are never quite true — they have western countries, the Support Committees in general have inten• tried to make believe that the intensification and development ef sified their information activities and their collections of gifts of our armed struggle was due to the presence of foreign specialists, solidarity. Sweden has decided to double the aid it gave us last chiefly Cubans, within our armed forces. This lie, like so many year; Norway and other Scandinavian countries also seem disposed other, has convinced no one who isn't already convinced, and has to aid us. It is important here to mention especially the valiant only served to improve once again the capacity and high level of attitude of the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Relations during the initiative of our fighters who unsparingly sacrifice to put into last meeting of the NATO Council in Lisbon where he denounced practice the slogans of our party's War Council. Portuguese policy and colonial wars as contrary to the interests Restructured into various army corps and drawn in part from of humanity and incompatible'with the principles enumerated in the defense forces of the liberated regions, thanks to the creation the Charter of the organization. and strengthening of the Local Armed Forces, our National Armed In Portugal the people are evidencing increasing awareness of Forces have developed and intensified their action on all fronts; the fact that the colonial war is a crime, against their own in• by doubling the initiative, we have completely disoriented the terests. Each day there are more demonstrations against colonial enemy who sees his plans condemned to failure. We have carried policy and the actions carried out by the brave Portuguese patriots out 86 attacks against Portuguese positions (at the rate of three of Armed Revolutionary Action (ARA) represent important vic• attacks a day); we have laid eight fatal ambushes and put out tories in the common struggle against the colonial war and a of combat more than 250 soldiers ^nd officers of the cjlonial army, guarantee of friendship and solidarity on the part of the Portuguese among them 158 established dead. Among the operations we have people that our people wish to maintain, develop, consolidate. carried out, we should note particularly the campaign successfully On the military level, the action of the Portuguese colonialists led by the army corps on the Kinara front (from April to June), continues to be dominated by this truth, frequently recognized where all enemy positions were attacked on various occasions and publicly by the colonial authorities themselves: they cannot win suffered great human and material losses; the actions that took the war they are waging against our African people. This results place on the Catio front, where the city of the same name was not only from the growing combativity of our armed forces and attacked twice by our combatants causing great destruction; the actions on the eastern front where, on three occasions, the city of Gabu was the object of assault by our forces, which, in addition, of our armed liberation struggle, nevertheless there is no doubt laid the most damaging ambushes suffered by the enemy during that, for eight months of action, it is the best in our eight and a the course of the struggle. In one of these ambushes, the garrison half years of struggle and represents a decisive contribution to commander of Pitche was killed; ten trucks, a tank and various the certain victory of our liberation battle. It is this result and cannons were destroyed; finally, the no less important, intensive all the victories achieved that explain the growing desperation of and continuous operations directed against Portuguese positions the Portuguese colonialists, the increasingly ferocity and savagery all along the Senegal border. of their colonial war. In order to try to justify their criminal obstinacy against our But the first semester of 1971 will go down in the history of progress in the struggle, the Portuguese colonialists resort to every our struggle as the period in which, for the first time, we have been capable of attacking all the urban centers still occupied by type of argument_; such as that presented by General Kaulza de the enemy, including the capital Bissau, and Bafata, the country's Arriaga, for instance, who stated in the Strategic Lessons of the second most important city. The attacks against the colonial posi• Course of the High Command: tions of Bissau and Bafata mark a new stage in the political-mili• Naturally, when our trdops die in Guinea and we are spending tary evolution of our struggle. If such were necessary, they are a great deal of money there, we do not take these losses into a new and clear refutation of the allegation that serves as a pretext consideration nor think that this money is spent only for the for the criminal aggressions against our country, namely that we defense of Guinea. If this were the case, it would not really be are acting from neighboring countries. reasonable; but a man who dies in Guinea indirectly defends It is a fact that the attack against Bissau was more of a warning Angola and Mozambique. to the population ot the capital, and that to carry it out we had to If this affirmation reveals to the fullest the miserable nature, attack seven enemy garrisons of logistic support. Thus the human the cynicism and the scorn of the Portuguese colonial leaders for and material losses to the enemy were not great, but the psycho• human beings — for the Portuguese man himself — it has the logical and political effect of the action surpasses all others so far merit of recording the community of the struggle and the interests undertaken. In Bafata, where our infantry entered and remained that unite our people with the brother peoples of Angola and for some time without enemy response, our fighters destroyed four Mozambique. It clearly shows the degree of our responsibilities in garrisons, the meteorological station, the airport control tower the united struggle for the total liquidation of the Portuguese and various buildings of the military and administrative infra• colonial presence in Africa. structure, and several sections of the colonial troops were put out To draw the- best out of victories our people have achieved, and of combat. Our fighters also carried out 75 arrests of suspicious *he successes already won this year, to meet the level of our individuals in order to interrogate them, following which 58 were responsibilities, we must make 1971 one of the most decisive pe• released. riods in our long and rich struggle. We must Constantly strength• During the period January-August 1971, we carried out 508 im• en our awareness of realities and not forget that we face a portant actions: desperate and unscrupulous enemy, be ready to make greater 369 attacks against garrisons in urban centers; - efforts and sacrifices, to overcome all difficulties, progressively 102 ambushes and other operations on the highways; ' correct our errors and deficiencies, continuously improve our in• 15 very important mining actions; dividual and collective behavior and our action in jwlitical and 14 actions against river transportation; and military areas, as in all other branches of the new life we have 8 operations by commandos in urban centers. begim to build. Our forces put out of combat 480 dead, 735 soldiers and enemy At the same time that we intensify our armed action and blunt agents, confirmed. The confirmed number of wounded (255) is the enemy's claws, we must pay greater attention to political far from corresponding to the real total. In effect, information work in our own country, in Africa and internationally. One of from Lisbon and Bissau indicates that the military hospitals in the principal forces, if not the main one, of the Portuguese these cities have never had as many wounded as they have this colonies is the political and material aid of their allies. We must year. On the material level, we have destroyed or damaged 90 draw all the lessons from this reality, both for the present and military vehicles, sunk 28 ships and coast guard craft in the rivers, for the future, develop and consolidate friendship and solidarity shot down two planes ana three helicopters. Our forces, which with all anti-imperialist and anticolonial forces, tighten our links have expelled the enemy from three battlefields and have demol• with the Africans and non-Africans who are aiding us in this ished several encampments such as that in Umaru Cosse on the difficult struggle and are giving us true proof of their friend• eastern front, seized an important supply of war materials, princi• ship. pally G-3 machine guns, Mausers, American bazookas and telecom• No maneuver, no crime of the Portuguese colonialists, no force munication apparatuses. in the world will be able to prevent the inevitable victory of our While it is true that this does not represent the victorious end African people on the road of national liberation and the con• struction of peace and progress to which they are entitled.

Soldiers Against the War David Dorey The GI movement grew in the US army as a result of aggression in Viet Nam. of the GI newspapers, and the first concept of organizing off the Its antiwar activities represent a powerful and effective force in the US revolu• tionary movement. Its organization is present almost everywhere that imperial• campuses by the New Left. At this time most of the GI organizers ism has military forces: in Europe — principally in Germany — in Japan, in were people who had come out of the student movement, who had south Korea and especially in South Vict Nam itself. come out of the civiUan antiwar movement, basically from edu• David Dorey. 21 years old, from a military background (his father was in tlic cated backgrounds and almost exclusively without military ex• military 26 years), a voluntary enlistee in 1968, decorated with badges during his 19 months' mobilization on the Viet Nam front and who rose to become a perience. The very first of the GI newspapers were written not sergeant of the Rangers, is a case in point. His level of consciousness and by GIs but by civilians for distribution to.GIs. But people soon subsequent attitude made him a risk as far as his superiors were concerned came to realize that the GI movement could not be a long-dis• and in 1970 they transferred him to Fort McClellan. Alabama, where he came into tance struggle carried on from New York to the bases; and that contact with the GI movement and besjan to work on the publication of Left Face, one of the 80 newspapers the movement currently publishes. if people were going to do serious work with military they had In an interview for Tricontinental. David Dorey traces a general panorama to locate themselves near bases, get to know GIs, and give them of the antecedents, structure, activities and perspectives of the GI movement. the skills to produce their own newspapers. THE ORIGINS OF THE GI' MOVEMENT are rooted in an historical, It was the emergence of these newspapers written by GIs that spontaneous class struggle which has existed in all segments of brought mass retaliation, mass repression from the command American society but which is much more clear, much more rigid, structure of the army. While the army's purpose in this was to within the United States military. As long as there has been crush a very new segment of antiwar activities, the result in fact a military structure within the United States, there has been a "was mass support by thousands of GIs and a new understanding struggle going on and this struggle has been greatly intensified by the civilian movement of the situation within the military around the war in Viet Nam. The personal awareness of people Primarily in relation to a case that became known as the Ft. Dix within the military, of GIs within the military, and their under• 38 — 38 GIs being tried by the army for antiwar activities — a standing of imperialism in relation to the Viet Nam war come whole surge of support for GIs emerged. This was followed by out of an understanding of their own oppression and their own many other trials of a similar nature and out of this repression and exploitation within the US military. also out of the army's attempt to remove political GIs from the The manifestations of this primary struggle in the GI move• bases where they were located and ship them to other bases, ment are the mass refusals of companies to fight in Viet Nam, the GI movement rapidly spread to almo.<;t all areas in the fraggings,^ the relationship of GIs to dope in Viet Nam, and a military. whole series of spontaneous actions that have taken place both There has been a quantitative progression in the number of in the United States and in Viet Nam within the military. And GIs involved in GI newspapers, in the number of GEs involved the GI movement — I'm referring to the movement that consists in mass actions organized by the coffee house projects and by of organizing projects, a movement with a defined ideology, the GI organizing projects. This progression has been conaplemented by newspapers, the GI coffee houses^ — all tho.se manifestations which actions in Viet Nam, actions organized not by civilians but by GIs I'll call the GI movement from here on — has to learn to serve, to themselves. These actions didn't occur suddenly at thi^ time, but complement this primary struggle, has to see that it isn't a separate for the first time the civilian press started to acknowledge the struggle, and has to learn how to stay in contact with, how to fact that there were mass refusals to fight in Viet Nann. The direct, how to lend consciousness to a movement that has much first case that received wide publicity was Company A of the 196 older roots historically. Light Infantry Brigade in the Americal division, 1967. At the same The GI movement as it is known today, began to emerge around time, over the past five years, there has been a qualitative progres• 1965. At that time civilians in the antiwar movement started to sion too. Organizing, which started off as liberal ideology with gain an understanding of the potential for antiwar activities an antiwar perspective, hss nov/, in the last two years, expanded; among GIs; started to see that those actions were going on and consciousness has been raised and its scope has been broadened. that GIs were not the enemy, as so many civilians had defined The situation that exists today is that the original organizers them. These antiwar activists then began to switch the primary who came out of the student movement have been replaced by struggle from draft resisting to military organizing. those coming out of the GI movement. The ideology has become The result was the first of the GI coffee houses, the first a revolutionary one, primarily a Marxist-Leninist one. The con• cept of organizing is no longer just antiwar; it's one of organiz• 1 GI. the term used for the ordinary US soldier, is an abbreviation of "govern- | ing around day-to-day oppression within the military, of organ• mcnt issue" denoting tlie standardization, conformity and rigidity of US Army i izing around domestic struggles, black struggles, all points of prncticf,;. and requiremenLs. (Ed. note) struggle within the United States and of trying to build a con• sciousness of imperialism, not just as to how it relates to Viet 2 'I he act "f JiurJin;; a fragmentation grenade against one or several US officers or subofficcrs notorious for their maltreatment of the troop. See "News Nam but as'to how it relates to the entire Third World. Behind the News" in Tricontinental No. 24, p. 159. (Ed. note) There are three major segments of the GI movement at this time: ihere are GI projects which are funded and which see them• 3 A coffee house is a place where nonalcoholic beverages and light refresh• selves as related to the United States Servicemen's Fund . single action. jects. Since then two types of projects have been developed- Many bases, both of USSF projects and ASU projects and in• 1) where organizers come simply for the purpose of organizing dividual GIs participated in the April 24 march and in May Day a project at a base, and actions this past year. It has become a poUcy of almost sll or• 2) where GI collectives have emerged and have seen a need ganizers of demonstrations to regard GIs as the vanguard in terms for civilian organizers or civilian resources there of speakers, in terms of taking a front position in marches, in There isn't a formal program by USSF and USSF has not been terms of publicity. It has been the policy of most GI organizing seen m the past as being in a position to make demands on pro• projects to plug into antiwar actions wherever and whenever been used to establish this relationship have been fairly simple, possible within the limited mobility that GIs have. And in the a matter of communicating the realities and( the struggle of the Washington area there are a number of military bases. The BMC working class to GIs who otherwise — because of the nature of coffee house during the sprin^^ offensive did propaganda on GIs the establishment press and because of the nature of communica• directed toward troops mobilized tor riot duty, and in effect, tions in the military — have no feeling for, no idea of what's made it necessary for the army to go much further abroad — to going on. go, for instance, to Ft. Bragg — to alert troops for action in Beyond this there is the field of political education, of revolu• Washington because the troops in the Washington, area were very tionary political education provided it is done properly with much affected by the spring offensive and were very much in consciousness and understanding of the importance of the revolu• support of it. There was also the veterans' action immediately tionary potential of the working class. It should be understood preceding April 24 in which a number of active-duty GIs par• that a great many GIs enlist in the military — some are drafted ticipated in the demonstrations, but it was a five-day action and but a great many enhst voluntarily, mainly out of a desire to for a GI to get five days away from the military is sometimes escape the oppressive environment of their class, of their situa• very difficult. tion. When they get into the army they're confronted by a much The activities of the immediate past have included a boycott more rigid and very clear class structure in which they're at the demonstration near Ft. Hood in which 400 GIs were arrested; bottom. So the job of the GI organizer is not that difficult: he GI participation in hospital strikes with black workers in Ala• has only to take that knowledge of oppression, that knowledge bama, and s milar actions that give GIs more contact with their of class structure that GIs have of the military and simply make class, with work, and finally with the world of tomorrow that is it clear through education that this is simply a veneer of the class theirs: namely the world of civilian work. structure they came out of, to show the relationship between the A consicerable number of GIs have refused to go to Viet Nam two areas of oppression, between the two areas of exploitation. outright. What is more common, particularly since the GI move• To give GIs access to the knowledge of the historical revolution• ment has emerged in a more formal way, is for GIs to try to find ary role that the working class has had in the United States and legal means to refuse orders for Viet Nam. I don't have any exact which has been denied them in high school, in the army, by all figures on those who have refused to go to Viet Nam. The army's forms of establishment education and establishment information. policies in regard to that refusal have varied a great deal from The reality of the situation is that GIs are going to return to very repressive measures with very severe jail sentences to working-class environments simply because, with a very few simply trying to discharge people in that situation. In the last exceptions, they have no other choice. Whether or not they have four months there have been some very heavy actions on the west contact with the GI movement, GIs or veterans have rapidly be• coast among sailors, on aircraft carriers leaving the west coast for come probably the most militant and angry segment of the working Viet Nam: on the USS Constitution and the USS Coral Sea there class. The role the GI movement has to serve is to add or contribute have been mass protests, mass demonstrations, anc in the case a consciousness and an ideology to this militancy — to give it of the Coral Sea, many of the sailors did not go, went into hiding, direction. went underground rather than go to Viet Nam. The question of the army's move to establish an all-volunteer The various legal methods GIs have used in order not to go army is a very important move at this time. We don't see that to Viet Nam have taken the form of conscientious objector ap• the government can use reforms within the military: a more plications — an application for discharge in which the person hberal disciphnary policy, better living conditions, increased pay, claims to have either moral or religious grounds for opposing the as tools in themselves to establish a volunteer army, s'mply war. This and many other army procedures have been used because this does not deal with the primary contradictions of the primarily to tie up the administrative system of the army, to military. We c'o, however, see great danger in this action by delay shipment, to get orders changec^. But we should remember the government paralleling the economic recession in the United that a great deal of the militancy, perhaps the major part of the States. At this time definite steps are being taken to gain an militancy and participation in organizing GI activities comes not understanding of the armv's future plans in regard to VOLAR from soldiers new in the military, but primarily from the Viet (which is the word for volunteer army). It is our belief that the Nam veterans, who became politically conscious in Viet Nam. army is not successful at this time in carrying out that program, The army's desire, the government's desire is to alienate that while enlistments have gone up — particularly in econom• members of the military from the civilian populace; and in the ically depressed areas — re enlistments, people staying within case of GIs, because of their background, to alienate them from the military, have fallen off. We don't feel that VOLAE has a the working class, from their families, their brothers and sisters, chance of being successful as long as the war in Viet Nam con• friends, who are civilians in the working class. I think the most tinues or as long as there's a high predominance of Viet Nam important thing that has happened in bringing about a con• veterans in the military. Partlv to trv to gain a better \inder- sciousness of the need to relate GIs to that class struggle has been standing of what the army is doing with respect to VOLAR and the transition in organizers, from middle class, educated antiwar how the GI movement can best deal with it, and partly to try activists to veterans from the working class. The tools that have new organizing forms and structures, an experimental GI pro- 2) to aid and give continuity Ac the struggle of the GIs at ject has been plannef for Ft. Carson, Colorado, which is the experimental base for the volunteer army. McClellan. To facilitate this they rented two houses near the base, began We see it as »ur responsibility to establish struggle over a to assemble literature and equipment, began to get to know GIs broad front in the militarv before the end of the war in Viet Nam involved around the paper, GIs involved in political activity on and while there still are Viet Nam veterans. We believe that the base. And a GI who had been primarily responsible for the GIs forced into enlistment because of economic factors are not beginning of the paper became a member of the collective when going to be hanpy with their situation in the mMitary, that thev're he got out of the army. A period of intensive political education still poing to be aware of the primary contradictions of American began wth a cadre of approximately a dozen GIs. During^ this capitalist society and of the army as a tool for carrving out period of four or five months, the paper was not published since imperialism. Unless the army can successfully alienate the what was desired was that the political consciousness of "the GI members of the volunteer armv from the rest of the civilian cadre be such that when the newspaper began publishing again, poDulace, it cannot be successful in es^^ablishing a -volunteer army. it would not be a case of civilians having to manipulate GIs; that Almost exclusively, activitv in the GI movement has bfen not the iceology and direction would be already established, would be among draf^e'd neople but among people who have enlisterl in the in the hands of GIs, and the civilians would only serve as support armv. Traditionally, the political movement in the militarv has workers to the GI cadre. been among volunteers, among enlistees. And while the army may Actions were still going on at this time in the nature of leaf- be successful in getting a great many people to enlist because leting around racism, an Angela Davis rally and joint action of economic necessity, we don't believe that it can be successful around it by the black community in Anniston and GIs at the in pacifying those people while they're in the military or in fort, showing movies, etc. In December of 1970 Irfft Face started keeping a great many of them in the military when their enlist• to appear again. The difficulty that arose after the first few ment IS up. In general we oppose the volunteer army program; issues was the difficulty that always faces a GI organization, we do not see the ending of the draft as a political victory; in namely the transient nature of GIs. And what this meant in real fact we see it as a danger for the future struggle among the terms was that over the period of the next eight months a number populace of the United States. of GI cadres emerged and disappearec, emerged and were dis- Concerning specific GI activities, perhaps the best way to ap• • charged, shipped out. There was no one cadre carrying on work proach them is the specific situation at Ft. McClellan, which is over a long period of time but many individuals coming and going where I began to do GI organizing when I came back from Viet and the staff of the paper changing many times. Other actions Nam. In some ways that situation is typical of other bases and carried out included subsequently the first march held in Annis• in some ways it's not. Ft. McClellan is a base of some 6500 people ton, followed by a cemonstration on a much larger scale on in north-eastern Alabama — small by comparative standards. Its Veterans' Day, October 25, when actions were taken on many two primary functions are as headquarters for the Army Chemi• bases around the country. cal Corps and training school and the hom.e of the Women's Army A great deal of legal work, legal counseling and handUng of Corps (WAC) and basic training. In 1969 a group of GIs — pri• court martial cases took place over that year. At this stage, marily from chemical units, one Viet Nam.veteran who was an contact was established with three radical lawyers who agreed instructor in the chemical school — got together and decided to lo handle all miUtary cases related to pohtical activity. Their put out an antiwar newspaper. When they put out the newspaper services became a very necessary thing as GIs continued to be Left Face (the name mocks the military command "right face") arrested, not on charges that were superficially political, but for they were met with considerable repression. They engaged in a political reasons. For instance, in the spring of 1971 the army series of actions to try to secure the right to distribute the news• arrested a group of five GIs on a charge of possession of mari• paper legally and, as on all other military bases, were unsuc• juana, which was simply an attempt on the army's part to send cessful. In reprisal for these activities, some of the GIs were them to jail without creating a political issue. And a great threatened — and procedures were taken against them — either number of other GIs were arrested and harrassec, on minor mili• to give them undesirable discharges or to give them dishonor• tary charges such as being out of uniform, speeding, disrespect. able discharges, or to send them to jail. And there was a lot of There were many mistakes made in organizing at Ft. McClellan support for them from GIs on the base. In the spring of 1970, an but there were also successes. The major success I think is that antiwar rally was organized in Anniston, the town where the Left Face and GIs and WACs United became accepted institutions base is located. An organization known as GIs and WACs United which had the sympathy of masses of GIs on the base. GIs began was formed around that time, in the late summer or early fall of or continued to take a great interest in the paper, wanted to read that year; a civihan collective which had visited McClellan and the paper despite harrassment, despite moves on the army's part had seen what activities were going on there, decided to locate to take legal action against them. GIs began to see the organizing itself in Anniston. project as the place to turn to for legal help, rather than turning The two primary objectives of the civilian collective were: to the army's institutions. It became possible to mobilize con• 1) to have the first organizing project for WACs, which was siderable numbers of GIs around specific issues. to be carried out by the women of the collective, and I think the pr.mary error arose out of the makeup of the the knowledge, the facts concerning whatever they were writmg civilian collective in that the original collective was not mace up about, and the skill of how to make that relate to the con• of people with military experience and was primarily not made stituency they were writing for, basically their friends, people up of people from working-class backgrounds. And what that in their unit. That experience was very useful in education and meant was a very long per.od of education for those people in in breaking down the belief that working-class people can't write, order to learn what the realities of military life were and what that that isn't their role, that both the leadership and those issues you could organize around. The primary success that the skills should lie in the hands of someone other than GIs, organizing project at McClellan had and the reason it's not typical All the articles in almost all GI papers and definitely in Left of other projects on other bases, was not that of creating mass Face are written by GIs and not by civilians. Articles covering actions but of creating a great number of individual cacres who everything from Third World struggles, such as the war in Laos; are presently doing political work within the GI movement or in the situation with political prisoners, for instance articles around other areas and forms of organizing. The first GIs who worked Attica, around George Jackson, around Angela have been written; on the paper ana were engaged in political activities defined articles relating to the situation of veterans; articles about themselves as revolutionaries but did not have a sound basis in specific day-to-day oppression at Ft. McClellan, around racism at theory, did not have access to detailed political literature around Ft. McClellan, around sexism at Ft. McClellan. The other primary a Marxist-Leninist ideology. Civilians coming brought that litera• areas written about were actions that GIs have carried out, for ture but because the movement in the 60s had not related to instance in protest over the death of George Jackson, demon• masses, had not related to working-class people, the literature, strations that they were involved in, boycotts that they were the propaganda materials produced were for students and very involved in. It was very valuable for them not only to participate cifficult for GIs to relate to. in those actions, but to produce propaganda around those actions. So what was done in concrete terms was to take the limited Actions, particularly actions by the black community in Anniston available material that GIs could relate to and do sessions two were and are an important area of GI writing. It has been nights a week in which GIs could get together and rap about this important that there be articles about legal rights, legal educa• material and try to relate it to concrete day-to-day activities, to tion, breaking down the mystification of the legal code, so that GIs their experiences in the army and with the war. with the idea of could gain confidence and ability to combat the use of the mili• then using Left Face as a mass propaganda tool to educate people tary justice system as an oppressive weapon against them. Writ• around revolutionary politics. ing about actions at other bases has been very significant in In terms of political education with GIs, there is a somewhat giving a feeling of a national movement, in breaking down the unique situation in that GIs, particularly working-class GIs, are isolation that comes of being on one base. very ready to accept a socialist and a communist perspective on Then there are articles on political activities. In Anniston, for struggle, but because of their ecXicational background, because of instance, besic'es having demonstrations, besides having political their exposure to an oppressive educational situation, are not actions, we had more informal gatherings: picnics, open houses initially enthusiastic about doing a great deal of reading and about where people speak, play music and rap. These have been very doing a great deal of formal study. And so the most successful successful in integrating political activity into the social and approach is to educate around concrete struggles, around the cultural life of GIs. struggles of the Vietnamese people, around the situation in Cuba, The San Francisco Mime Troupe, which is a revolutionary around what imperialism means in concrete terms in the Third street theater group from the west coast, produced a play for GIs World instead of around specific raoical writings. To give GIs in Anniston. The most important thing about it was not just the a sound basis for practice, to give GIs both the skills and the play itself, but arrangements that were made and, the negotiations icieology to be organizers, not just people who have been or• for a place to have it; the publicity was all done by GEs and ganized, with an emphasis on practice as opposed to an emphasis WACs. Along the same lines, Barbara Dane, who has always on intellectual ideology. Other approaches that have been used played an important role of support within the GI movement, with some success are bookstores with political literature at GI came to Anniston to sing at a picnic; a singer from the United projects, particular kinds of movies good for mass education, and Farm Workers as well as other people involved in the movement the mass distribution of cue materials that we see as good tools have come and have given a political perspective but have also for organizing in the army; And the primary producer of these participated in cultural activities with GIs. The creation of GI has been People's Press in San Francisco, while Newsreel's coffee house was based very much on this principle and it's been movies have been particularly valuable. Another thing we found very successful. very useful was taking advantage of other movement periodicals, One problem facing the GI movement now is how to maintain primarily the Guardian, so that GIs would not be solely depenc'ent ties with the people who leave the army, the GIs who are de• on the organizing project or on Left Face. But finally probably mobilized. It's been very difficult. While the GI movement sees the mo^t successful and primary area of education was around itself very much in the role of producing cadres for the civilian GIs actually writing in Left Face, As they decided to do articles, movement, particularly civilians at the point of production, at as they decided to write, it became necessary for them to acquire this moment there is no national or very significant movement among white civilian workers so that there are difficulties with tneir own movement. What this has meant in concrete terms is } respect to communication and activities for those veterans to that the question hasn't been dealt with successfully in many I participate in. So far the tie has been maintained primarily by areas; that resources that are accessible to white GIs have not the GI who leaves a specific base continuing to communicate with been passed into the hands of black GIs. This has meant that in the GI project, with the GI organization at that base; particularly some areas ^ere are black GI newspapers, such as the Voire of when he becomes involved in political activity such as factory the Lumpen in West Germany. And in some places black GIs organizing, he sees that area that he's left, sees that base that have participated in the GI movement whereas in other places he's left as very much in the resource area, the communications they have felt that the movement does not respond to their area, an area where he can discuss the difficulties he's having in concerns. Sometimes black and white GI movements exist side doing political work. But this is no longer a satisfactory method by side at the same base with good relationship but separate for maintaining communications or continuing to do work. For organizations. And in some cases black GIs have integrated a long time, many GIs could plug back into the GI movement themselves into predominantly white organizations, although this and in fact became GI organizers, but what is happening now, has often been very difficult for the black GI because it puts the what has to happen now — because there can only be a limited burden of dealing with white racism on his shoulders. Despite number of GI organizers — is that they go into more diverse activities and other areas of organizing in which a localized type the consciousness of radical whites in the United States, we have of communication is inadequate for their situation. There is a not been successful in dealing with a great deal of the uncon• tremendous need to establish better communications nationally scious racism we've been educated into. And one of the political and internationally within the GI movement. necessities we're faced with is achieving a consciousness of how that racism manifests itself, and one of the ways it definitely Some of us also feel that there is a need for a national structure manifests itself is automatically taking or feeling that we should of GIs but that such national structure should include radical take leadership roles in the movement. The participation or lack veterans and there should be both a united ideology and a united of participation of black GIs within predominantly white or• program of action within that structure. ganizations within the military is a decision that black GIs have Viet Nam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) should, by logic, be to make for themselves and in most cases it has been the cecision that kind of a national organization. Particularly in Texas a unity of Third World people in the military, not to participate in those has been established between the Texas WAW and the GI projects organizations. And this is because the primary struggles for black at Ft. Bliss and Ft. Hood so that veterans who get out of the army GIs are different, or somewhat different than for white GIs. there can go into VVAW and use it as a form of communication For instance at Ft. McClellan, in October, a mass demonstra• both with other radical veterans and with active duty GIs. But tion of black GIs took place and mass arrests and repression took Texas is very much of an exception. Again, one of the difficulties place with 138 GIs and WACs — black GIs and WACs — facing in talking about the GI movement is that the formal movement heavy charges from the military. That type of action simply could that's made up of organizing projects, USSF, etc., leaves out the not have taken place among white GIs and the role that the GI very important actions that have gone on among Third World project and GI organization took, as opposed to a leadership role, GIs, among black GIs. The GI movement has been primarily a was one of communicating with the media, one of supplying legal white one, not exclusively a white one, but primarily a white one help, one of organizing a ctefense campaign — the white GIs were and very important actions, particularly in West Germany but capable of doing that; they were not capable of reaching that also in the United States, have been organized by black GIs. level of struggle in Ft. McClellan at that time. And the role of Obviously, I as a member of the GI movement, as an organizer GI organizers and of the paper became that of educating white in the GI movement, support those actions, and desire more of GIs not involved in the GI movement as to the reasons behind •those actions, and desire closer unity between black GIs and that demonstration. The paper became a voice that black GIs white GIs. But the problem we're confronted with is the problem could use to explain what had happened, why it had happened. the entire movement is confronted with: black GIs, because of Those resources were what they needed. They didn't need our their background, and a great number of things, have a much leaoership, they already had their own. better consciousness of the need for struggle and the areas of struggle and this creates a gap between white and black GIs. From this brief insight into the role of black GIs, it becomes evident that complete and comprehensive knowledge of a move• When you talk of the formal GI movement, it has to be under• ment as broad and diverse as that of the GIs is not generally stood that the people who went to GI projects to do organizing available. And this is true even within the United States where, were white people, primarily white people from bourgeois back• for a number of years, the establishment press was very success- grounds. That is, the dynamic that was set up was the choice of full in blacking out the existence and activities of the GI move• two things: black GIs could come in or relate to that project in ment. It is just in the past year that this has begun to break a minority situation, in other words taking political direction, down, primarily because of the activities of veterans. This is an political leadership from whites; or an attempt could be made area in which communication can help to erase distortions and to make the resources of the project, of the organization accessible present an active picture both of the political actions and of the to black GIs and let black GIs do their own organizing and lead growing consciousness of the GI movement.

geographic expansions that took place later, and on the insistence of the rights of the Palestinian people to the self-determination of all the original territories at the same time as the solution to the Israeh problem through the establishment of a single, democratic, people's state in Palestine, where Arabs and Jews live together with equal rights and responsibiUties. Tlus state must be Mnked to a socialist Arab federation opposed to Ziomsm, chauvinism and imperialism. PafesHnl m?.FT fvf' ?f Democratic People's Front for the Liberation of F« fh ^Pn » K T'K Liberation of Palestine (OLP5, Al The organizations of Palestinian resistance agree on this fun• t^ons enrfrnn liberation Front), Al Saika (The Spark) and other organiza- damental principle now and for the future, but from our point trun^hak.hL i • reactionary governments of the Arab world with the unshakable decision to regain the occupied territories of view this is not the problem. To eliminate the resistance and divide the countries of the area are the The mere declaration of these preliminary principles is not suf• unachievable aims of Hussein, in cahoots with Tel Aviv and the United States. ficient to achieve the realization and concrete practice of this In this interview for Tricontinental magazine, Navif Hauatmeh, Secretary. General of the Democratic People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine, explains strategy within the context of the idea of a prolonged people's the principles and strategy of the organization, founded in 1968. war of liberation. These preliminary positions must be related to the basic laws that make these positions an alive, practical What is the present state of the Palestinian resistance to the Israeli and realizable question. occupation and the reactionary Arab regimes? This is the problem with which the Palestinian liberation move• ment lives. There are two contradictory currents around this The general strategic situation at present with respect to the point within the resistance movement: IsraeH occupation and the State of Israel is based on these fun• 1) The orientation adopted by Al Fatah especially tends to damental pninciples: complete rejection of Zionist imperialism's consider that the conflict with Israel is only between the Pal• oppression and usurpation of the people of Palestine which, since estinian people and the national liberation movement on the 1948, has resulted in the creation of the State of Israel in one part of the Palestinian territory; and of the consequent expulsion one hand, and the State of Israel and the Zionist movement of our people from their land and Israeh occupation of Golan and on the other. Sinai and the remainder of Palestinian territory in June of 1967. We believe that this line only leads the Palestinian resistance and the movement of the Palestinian people into a cul de sac These two fundamental principles mean, in effect, the r.ejection of all the solutions that confer legahty on the presence of the and does not provide a democratic and progressive solution to State of Israel in any part of Palestinian territory, and of any the Palestinian question. new political or geographic concession to this state and to im• 2) The line adopted by the progressive organizations headed perialism in the region. by the Democratic Front expresses clearly that our conflict Beginning with this, all the organizations of resistance have with Israel is also with imperialism in the whole Arab region. declared their complete rejection of Security Council Resolution There is a daily, living dialectic relationship between the Zionist 242 of November 22, 1967, of the US initiative taken by Secretary movement and the imperialist camp throughout the entire h story of State William P. Rogers, and any other partial solution that of this movement. Before and up to 1948, the year in which the leads to the same consequences that form the basis of the Security State of Israel was founded, there was a tight relationship with Council resolution. These consequences can be summarized as British imperialism. Since then a new alliance has been estab• the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories occupied in lished with US imperialism in the light of the new internation• June 1967, in exchange for legal recognition, coexistence and the . al conditions that grew out of the Second World War. guarantee of safe bordens for the State of Israel. It is for this r.eason that the fight against Israel and the Zionist At the same time, the Security Council resolution represents a movement must be linked to the struggle against imperialism and reactionary and colonialist view of Israeli and Palestinian prob• be extended to the entire Arab world, given the relationship lems. It preserves the existence of the Israeli state and urges between what happens to the people and territory of Palestine its recognition. Practically and objectively, it means abandon• and what happens in Arab territory, especially in those countries ing a part of Palestinian territory in favor of the conquistador nearest to Palestine. Zionist colonialization that took place in Palestine in the 20th This law leads naturally to another based on the tie between century. the struggles against Israel and the Zionist movement and against the local reactionaries of the Arab world. These reactionaries repre• This solution also means that the problem of the Palestinian sent the shock force, imperialism's class and political instrument people would remain unresolved forever. On the other hand the in the Arab lands against the Arab and Palestinian national revolutionary, democratic and progressive position sees the need liberation movement. The reactionary Arabs, on the basis of their for presenting a democratic solution based on the rejection of identification with imperialism, defend their economic, military the Zionist oppression and usurpation of 1948, and of the Israeli and political interests in the zone. In summary, their relations tion is intimately tied to that of Palestine's neighboring territories. with imperialism represent an obstacle on the road to the dem• This historic fact encompasses the entire Arab question from ocratic national liberation of the Palestinian territory. medieval times up to the present. That is why we say that the That is why our struggle must have a close link with the two oiientation that confines the struggle only to the Palestinian wings of the Palestinian and Arab revolutionary and national people and Israel leads to a dead end limited by vague declara• democratic movement to achieve the complete and definitive tions, strategies that can't last and are incapable of any daily, defeat of Israeli imperialism and the Arab reactionaries. In other quantitative accumulation of revolutionary achievements. words, that the possibility of achieving any victory at tactical For this reason, the other line is the national revolutionary line or strategic levels against Israel and the Zionist occupation is that effectively leads to the development of the situation in the completely subordinate to that whether or not there is triumph area in a way that converts it into a second Viet Nam where against Arab reaction and imperialism in the zone. everything available is mobilized against imperialism, Zionism The internal class enemy, Arab reaction and imperialism must and the State of Israel. In order to be able to do this, we must be liquidated so we are able to mobilize all the energies of the finst overthrow the reactionary regimes in the region to open Arab world into a long people's war against Israel which cul• the road to revolutionary mobilization at all levels: organization• minates in the defeat of the Zionist movement. Throughout the al, military and productive. entire century, Arab reaction has been a very strong link with imperialism working within the context of imperialist plans with Is it true that there Is a erisis of confidence within the leadership sectors respect to the Palestinian question. This was already clear at the and even amonc the Palestinian and Arab firhten? beginning of the century and became evident during the Palestin• Yes, it is true. The cause of this crisis arises originally from ian revolution of 1936 whfen the reactionary Arab reg mes in• the program, tactics and practices of the Palestine resistance under tervened rapidly to smother it with the approbation of Arab kings its present leadership. The right wing of the resistance, represent• and presidents. ed by the experience with Al Fatah, occupied a principal position The interference was also patently clear in the war of 1948. of force that influenced the whole Palestinian resistance move• The armies of the reactionary regimes limited themselves to fight• ment over the past four years. This occurred because of different ing on the border of the terr.itories ceded to the Palestinians by subjective factors in the Palestinian people, governed by the gen• the UN resolution on the partition of Palestine in 1947, and which eral characteristics of geographic division and the chaotic class permitted the foundation of two states in Palestinian territory, stratification. Also, because almost half of the Palestinian pop• one Zionist and the other Arab. ulation is nonproductive and has no relationship to production. In fact, these armies fought in conjunction and in accord with This makes the Palestinian people an easy prisoner of the think• the imperialist forces in the area, in favor of the partition of ing of the ruling class. This is why the Palestinian population Palestine and the founding*of the State of Israel. is prisoner Of the ideas of bourgeois and reactionary culture. Such From 1948 up to the present, the Arab reactionaries have rep• a situation conditions a national movement governed by national• resented imperialism's material base in the area, a class enemy ist, spontaneous and bourgeois ideas. of the Arab and Palestinian national hberation movement and In order for the revolutionary movement to make an impres• a historic safety valve for the State of Israel and its regional sion on these people and rescue the masses from the influence expansion. of reactionary ideas and liberate them from spontaneity, an ar• These reactionaries refused to meet the requirements of Pal• duous prolonged ideological, political, organizational and armed estinian liberation, especially those of liberating the zone from struggle is required. . » imperialism, mobilizing the energies of the population throughout On the other hand, the objective conditions exist in the Arab the area, and urging the subordination of the internal productive zone for stimulating these regressive currents. All the Arab states front to the fighting fnont against Israel and imperialism. collaborate with the right of the resistance which, for them, That is why we state that there are two different lines in the represents a comfortable situation and doesn't worry them ideo• Palestinian revolutionany movement. One leads to a cul de sac logically, politically or organizationally. limited to the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis. A The right wing of the resistance, represented by Al Fatah, limits struggle with those characteristics is lacking in equilibrium. On the conflict between us and Isrsiel to a Palestinian-Israeli frame the one hand a Palestinian population dispersed through the of reference. Everything the right wing demands from the Arab neighboring underdeveloped Arab countries; on the other the world it obtains from its relations with the existing power struc• State of Israel with close to 3 000 000 inhabitants planted in Pal• tures and not through the masses. estinian territory living in a contemporary society, technically and Thus, the revolutionary program adopted by progressive and scientifically modern and linked to imperialism. leftist forces within the resistance requires an understanding of This conflict lacks balance; Palestine's ancient and modem the laws of the conflict in the Middle East with respect to the history confirms the fact that the destiny of the Palestinian ques• stnuggle against Israeli imperialism and the reactionary Arabs to paralyze the demagogy of the petit-bourgeois regimes and their This unity of struggle must be oriented practically and objec• programs. Up until now the leadership hasn't developed such a tively against the enemies of Arab national liberation and at the revolutionary program, which requires a long struggle. same time the enemies of Palestinian liberation: Zionism, im• The program of the right-wing forces in the resistance was perialism and Arab reaction. and still is of a general character insofar as its relations with If the Palestinian struggle is capable of participating in the the Palestinian masses and within the context of a logic of sen• awakening of the revolutionary political and organizational con• timental and spontaneous relationships. Thus relations with the sciousness of the Arab masses, the starting point for this awaken• Arab masses remain very limited while the chief relations with ing is in the Palestinian struggle for a revolutionary program the Arab world are established through their regimes. for these masses, which clearly states its positions against the In the light of all the daily tactics and practices of the resistance, enemies of the revolution and establishes close relations with this situation gradually led to the alienation of the Arab and these masses through their revolutionary organizations and parties Palestinian masses from the resistance. These masses demanded and not through the present Arab regimes. that the resistance present them with a revolutionary program The Palestinian struggle pnesents a unifying strategy of com• in substitution for that of the reactionary r.egimes that capitulated mon struggle in which the Palestinian people occupy a vanguard before imperialism and the Israeli State and were defeated in position in the clash against Israel and Zionist occupation. Mean• June of 1967. while, the Arab revolutionary, democratic and national forces The masses waited a long time before discovering from their must play the role of direct shock troops against imperialism and own experience that the program presented is objectively a com• local reaction, with the objective of paralyzing the program of plement and prolongation of the contradictions that govern the the pxetit-bourgeois regimes incapable of undentaking national Ar.ab regimes in the zone. revolution and overthrowing imperialism and Israel. Finally there occurred the crisis in relations between the leader• Only in such circumstances would the whole area be part of ship and the Palestinian and Arab people's fighting base. Sen• a strategy of united revolutionary struggle by the Palestinian timental and moral speeches of a general character are not enough people and those of the Arab nation. This would be^ the sudden to solve this. The masses have to be given a revolutionary pro• departure transforming the Middle East into a second Viet Nam, gram that provides them with revolutionary solutions to the nation• scene of a prolonged pational liberation war, arid the only way al question, alternatives to the solutions presented by the Arab to counteract the technical superiority of the imperialist, Zionist regimes and embodying the point of view of the masses and their and reactionary wan machine. own experiences. This program constitutes the basis for a dialectic response to A prolonged struggle within the Palestinian population at the colonialism, Zionism and the local reactionaries. In the field of ideological, political and organizational levels is required until these political relations, organizing can be born and the principal these solutions become dominant within the revolutionary move• method of struggle can arise, based on the character, and condi• ment. At the same time it is necessary to strengthen the alliance tions of each Arab country in the common battle. These forms with the revolutionary and progressive forces, enemies of colonial• and methods will develop later when the armed struggle of the ism and Arab reaction within the Arab world. organized masses becomes the principal form of struggle against By this road, the masses will be able to appreciate, through imperialism and its allied forces and against Israel, in all the their own experience, the difference between the r.evolution- Arab countries, and subordinates the other, forms of struggle to it. ary and the right-wing position. In this way the confidence This is how the Palestinian struggle can participate in the of the masses will be strengthened again and they will give their crystallization of a revolutionary strategy for the Palestine and complete solidarity to the forces that sustain the revolutionary Arab movement of democratic national liberation. line within the resistance. Oo you consider the creation of a political party within the Palestinian Inwliat way do you think the Palestinian national liberation strunle resistance to be fundamental? Some Palestinian political tendencies depends on the political awakeninr and revolutionary acticm of the Arab speak of a proletarian party. From what I know, the Arab and Palestin• masses, and how could this Palestinian struggle help in this awakening? ian proleteriat is poor in number and politically weak. As I said at the beginning, the victory of the Palestinian nation- Scientifically speaking, the proletariat is quantitatively and ^L^of- ^f^^^^ *° """y 0^ the democratic national qualitatively weak. Not only among the Palestinian people but liberation struggle thr.oughout the entire Palestinian and Arab among all the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. If there region because of the ties that Israel and the reactionary Arabs is any difference it is with respect to the number of components have with imperialism. This situation forces a united struggle and the quality of political culture from one country to another, by the Palestinian people's movements and those of the Arab nations to solve the problem of national liberation and fulfill the but the differences are not substantial. duaes of the democratic Arab revolution, among the first of which All the countries of the underdeveloped world are subject to IS the liberation of Palestine. a general law by which their local bourgeoisies were incapable, because of theif "comprador" characterv, of carrying through the Some of them can be summed up in the feeling of all progressive democratic bourgeois revolution (liquidation of feudalism, indus• and rev61utionary forces for the necessity for. contact within a trialization of the country, industrial revolution, national unity single revolutionary organization as an alternative to the present within the framework of a single state). Thus we find that the fractionalism that is evident within the revolutionary organ• proletariat in these countries is small in number and relatively izations. weak, with its forces dispensed and with a low level of political The objective conditions are ripening each day. We know that culture. This general situation, however, does not exclude the pos• the progressive and revolutionary elements in organizations such sibility of the upsurge of revolutionary movements in Asia, Africa as Al Fatah, Al Saika or the Popular Front are closer to the rev• and Latin America. olutionaries of the Democratic Front than to some of the mem• The possibihty of organizing such revolutionary movements as bers of their respective organizations. revolutionary, parties is feasible thanks to the alliance between A greater development of subjective conditions leads to- a more these few proletarians — different in their class political conscious• profound maturity in the objective conditions, a maturity that ness, internationalist and nationalist — and poor peasants and will stimulate all or part of the. revolutionary elements of the revolutionary intellectuals who play an effective role in the na• resistance to seek a new organizational force that will regroup tional liberation movements and in socialist revolutions in those them into one organization. We believe that this will lake place countries (Viet Nam, Laos, Cuba). in the not-too-distant future. In the case of our country, the possibility of founding a polit• It is clear that such a future organizational unity of revolution• ical party within the Palestinian resistance is linked to certain aries into a single organization within the resistance does not objective and subjective conditions and does not depend on the mean that the revolutionary political party has been achieved, desires to create such a party at will, as in contain organizations but it does fulfill the first stage. This step should prove to the in the Palestinian resistance. masses that it means that its tactical and strategic program and Up until September of 1970, because of the general patriotic its daily action are really the expression of a vast class alliance uprising in the country in an atmosphere of great liberty that among proletariats, poor peasants, revolutionary intellectuals and permitted each of our citizens to become affiliated with the Pal• soldiers. This alliance must be led by a proletarian program to• estinian resistance without great danger to life, the Palestine- ward a democratic national revolution in this phase. Jordanian camp did not have the objective conditions necessary The attempts to create such a party were marginal efforts with• for. the formation of this party. Anyone could fulfill their respon• out any important value and at no time have they been able to sibilities without great risk and, fired by spontaneous patriotic demonstrate their existence in the Palestinian question. These sentiments, everyone could receive armed training and fight efforts are similar to the petit-bourgeois attempts that were born against Israel and the attacks of the counterrevolution represented and nourished in the Arab region, especially after the Palestine by the reactionary government of Jordan. In this situation, any disaster of 1948. As we know, some of these experiences led to attempt to create such a party was a mere subjective proposal Bonapartist Arab regimes dependent exclusively on the forces condemned to failure because the revolutionary party must grow of the petit-bourgeois class, while others ended in small fragment• out of armed struggle confronting the attacks of the counterrev• ed groups incapable of supporting the attacks of the counter• olution and when all democratic liberties have been trampled. revolution. Any attempt to construct parties with the same logic The conditions that flourished after September 1970 created the will inevitably lead to the same results. appropriate atmosphere for the birth of the objective situation In fact, one of the resistance organizations! is trying to con• for the construction of the nucleus of the revolutionary party struct a party that will break out of this, but this party is incapable within the resistance. With all democratic liberties wiped out, of playing a vanguard role within the resistance or within its Jordan was subjected to a violent poHce dictatorship obsessed with own organization since it has been conceived as an appendage the extermination of progressive and patriotic forces. These con• of the organization. It represents nothing more than a petit- ditions created the possibility for an objective selection of militants bourgeois birth outside of any national Palestinian movement. and fighters. The requirements for membership in the resistance at present In what way. for example, could the Palestinian struggle benefit from are more rigorous than before September 1970. Now a resistance the successful experience of the Tupamaros in Latin America? militant is exposed to daily arrest, exile, persecution or assas• The Palestinian struggle can benefit from the democratic- sination. Under these conditions we can place greater value on revolutionary experiences of all peoples, especially the national the solidity of each militant and his dedication to sacrifice. liberation movements of Africa, Asia and Latin America, because With respect to the subjective conditions necessary for the for• of the similarity of economic and class life in these countries. mation of a revolutionary party within the Palestinian resistance, Among these experiences are those of the Tupamaros, which have we believe that its first success would be to demonstrate its exis• tence, but not all the subjective conditions are completely mature. 1 Hauatmeh is referring to the Popular Front led by Dr. Habash. er.tence was unable to penetrate among the poor peasants and are greater possibilities for agreeing with a program of min• jegin armed struggle in the countrjiside linked to that in the city imum understanding between left and progressive currents than in order to conquer power on behalf of the revolutionary move• one could have between these and the right-wing forces within ment of the country. All this impelled this revolutionary group the res'stance. to transfer the scene of its activity to the city and carry out a Such alliances can help to unify the struggle in its present phase, series of political and armed actions that have won it a vast against the liquidationist attempts within the revolution and the solidar.Uy but, because of the program proposed, do not offer Palestinian problem, as well as the progressive and left forces the possibility for organizing the working class and democratic in the bosom of the resistance. forces in the city. The formation of such alliances within the context of a pro• We believe that this will lead to maintaining an organization gressive fr.ont with a collective leadership tied to a specific pro• limited to small groups of combatants with broad mass solidarity, gram, will certainly meet the problems and duties of the resistance but incapable of transferring this to a structural and political at the present stage and impel it forward. Such alliances can also plane constituting an alliance between workers, poor peasants, offer adequate defense of the progressive and left-wing forces in revolutionary intellectuals and all the patriotic national forces the resistance and open the road to more just and strong relation• of the small and middle level bourgeoisie. In any case, we can ships with friendly progressive currents within the right-wing use certain of their experiences of a democratic and revolution• organizations. ary political nature and others such as those that, permit the Tupamaros to liberate numerous cadres from the jails of the coun• Do you consider that the road to Tel Aviv passes through Amman? terrevolution (daring and ingenious flights). The nest is subject Is there currently some clandestine people's network orgaaized with a to the conditions of the Palestinian struggle and to the Pales• view to overtlirowing the Jordanian regime? tinian program and subordinate to the relationship between the struggle of our people and other oppressed people. As I said earlier, the road to Tel Aviv must necessarily go through the liquidation of the internal enemy of the Palestinian Don't you think tliat the division between Palestinian groups is the and national Arab liberation movements, because of the dialectic best present that can be offered Arab reaction and the Israeli usurper? link between them. Do you see any possibility for unity among these groups? Do you think a collective leadership might be a solution at this time? The liquidation of Zionist occupation and the liberation of the Palestine national territory are related to the creation of a per• Certainly the division among left forces, when they are really manent rear guard base for the Palestinian resistance, vital to left, seriously damages the revolutionary movement. Without any the revolution and its shock forces. 1) armed training to defend the nsvolutlon and confront reac• The region most appropriate for this main base is Transjordan. tionary attacks and any probable Zionist aggression against Half the Palestinian people are distributed over both banks of Transjordan; the Jordan river. Some 70% of the Jordanian population is Pales• tinian and would greatly facilitate this enterprise. Without the 2) mobilization and organization of the population around the existence of this base, the Palestinian resistance will always be resistance; exposed to easy liquidation on to being swallowed up by the Arab 3) proclamation of self-determination in its own territory. states, determined to implement Security Council Resolution 242, At the same time this front has to struggle to tear, political which provides a reactionary "solution" to the Palestinian ques• power out of the hands of the reactionary and imperialist forces tion, based on recognition and legitimacy of the imperialist- in favor of a national democratic regime which is the enemy of Zionist aggression and usurpation of the Palestinian people in 1948. imperialism, semifeudalism and the comprador bourgeoisie, those who historically constitute the material base of imperialism in the- Victorious popular revolutions don't come about without first country and carny out the role of police in the protection of the insuring permanent bases to be depended upon as points of sup• interests of imperialism and the Israeli frontier. port for actions against the enemy and which serve as protection against his counterattacks. Transjordan is the only area that can The National United Front must carry on a tough clandestine become a principal base for the Palestinian people. For this rea• resistance against the present Amman regime and must definitive• son, the Democratic Front has been urging a completely clear ly discard the policy of bargaining and conversations, treaties struggle since the beginning of 1969. and mediations for a new coexistence with the reactionany Am• man regime. This regime on numerous occasions has rejected In order to pursue a prolonged armed struggle and transform coexistence with resistance, and has seen in the contradiction that it into a people's war of liberation against Israel and the Zionist should be secondary to resistance a primary contradiction to be occupation, we must solve the present contradiction with the in• resolved in its favor, that is to say, with the liquidation of the ternal reactionary enemy linked to imperialism. This internal resistance or its submission to its own reactionary and proimpe- enenjy rejects coexistence with our people's movement and insists rialist power. on the liquidation of the resistance before anything else. Nor is he interested in fighting Israel and imperialism. On the contrary, The reactionary Jordanian regime depends for the achievement he maintains clpse relations with both. of ths policy on consecutive anti-Palestinian military campaigns and political deceit. But as we well know, the reactionary regime We must recall that during the "revolution" of July 14, 1958, of Jordan will never permit the resistance to renew its armed strug• in Iraq, the British forces went to Amman to protect the Hache- gle against Israel if this activity is not linked to its plans, and mite throne and the Hussein regime, and to do this they went the resistance does not bow to the reactionary control of the through Israeli territory and air space, as all the colonialists have Jordanian military high command. admitted and as Israel and King Hussein himself have confessed. The Israeli leaders continue to declare at this time that any The logic of the reconciliation has proven its ineffectiveness throat to the reign of Hussein will force them to intervene to throughout the last four years, despite the numerous accords protect him and keep him in power. The most recent of these signed with the reactionary regime of Jordan (October 1969; June declarations was made in September of 1970. For these reasons 1970; September of the same year under control of the Arab Com• we can say that the hberation of Transjordan from the reaction• mittee made up of Egypt, Libya, Sudan and Algeria; that of Cairo ary class regime, imperialism's agent and enemy of the revolution on September 27, and the Protocol of Amman, October 13, 1970). and the people of Palestine, is an historic and strategic necessity These repeated experiences should alert all revolutionaries and that opens up the possibility of establishing a solid anticolonial- patriots within the Palestinian revolutionary movement to the ist and anti-Zionist bulwark that sustains the revolution and per• construction of a Palestine-Jordan National United Front, which mits the concentration of society's energies on the development employs all means of struggle, beginning with clandestine armed of action in a prolonged national people's war. This is the pres• resistance, and all other democratic forms of mass resistance in ent duty of the Palestinian resistance and the patriotic move• order to overthrow the reactionary regime in Jordan and impose ment in Jordan. a democratic national regime, friend of the resistance, which sup• ports it and makes Transjordan the principal permanent base of On September 7 the Democratic Front formulated to the Extra• the Palestinian revolutionary movement. ordinary National Palestinian Council, which met in Amman on August 28, 1970, the necessity to work toward' the transformation Up until now this front still does not exist. Certain organiza• of Transjordan into a permanent revolutionary base within the tions, especially Al Fatah, are still looking to the Arab capitals context of a national power formed by the aroned masses and for the achievement of coexistence with the reactionary regime soldiers. This political position was completely victorious. of Amman which continues rejecting it. This situation leads to We believe that today more than ever, the Palestinian and na• chaos and confusion among our people, militants and fighters. The tional forces need a united front in Jordan for the defense of their government of Amman benefits from this, closing its fist still rights from the teeth of reaction and imperialism, and that these tighter over Jordan and pursuing its police campaigns to disarm could be summarized in: the people and smash all opposition to the dictatorial regime. This whole situation strengthens the counterrevolution and Arab reactionaries. Meanwhile, the Palestinian resistance loses ground by the vacillations of some of its organizations that persist in co• existence with the Jordanian regime, utilizing the Arab capitals as intermediates. The construction of this front will help- to resolve the present subjective crisis in the resistance and concentrate all the available forces in a clandestine armed mass battle against the monarchy. Up until now, we must say that there is still no people's clan• destine organization whose objectives are to overthrow the Jor• danian regime, but there ar.e certain serious attenipts to create this organization. In this respect we can mention a Jordanian organization that is now fighting against the Jordanian regime: the Jordanian Movement for National Liberation (Al Harakat Al Urduniat Litaharor Al Watani). We have some of this organ• ization's military communiques. We have also read its preliminary political program, whose objectives are the founding of a national patriotic force in Jordan with the overthrow of reactionary power.

How does the Democratic Front maintain contact with the Arab and Palestinian masses and help them in the process of revolutionary polit• ical awakening? [FWJ \\m\mti on tliB inarGli In summary, one of the main points of the Democratic Front's /lAMJ duties and of its relations with the Arab and Palestinian masses is thein revolutionary ideological education. it a direct colony, we mean that the This education clarifies the revolutionary position and dissemi• laws governing Puerto Rico are de• nates political culture among our masses and the people of the From the Colony creed and directly approved by or• Arab nation, reveals the false reactionary p>ositions of the bour• gans of the US government, in geoisie, which has neither the possibility nor the courage to con• to Socialism every fundamental aspect that rules front imperialism's and Israel's attacks, as well as the right-wing Juan Mari-Br^s the people's lives, and only those positions within the resistance movement. This labor permits the aspects of a provincial or municipal masses to guide themselves by their own experience, identify the nature are in the hands of the so- called Free Associated State of correct and revolutionary position of the Democratic Front in Juan Mari-Br4s, Secretary-General of the those problems linked with the Palestinian question and the strug• Puerto Rican Socialist Party, on the occa• Puerto Rico. This situation has given gle in the Middle East. sion of his visit to Havana, provided the rise to a growing penetration by OSPAAAL Executive Secretariat with a industrial and commercial finance In the second place it must provide political indoctrination on valuable and interesting report on the capital from the United States into daily problems that arise within the resistance movement and economic situation ip his country and the our country in the last decades, among the people of the area in the common struggle against MPI's conversion into a new party that which has resulted in an absolute Zionism, imper.'alism and reaction. This political awareness will brings together the Puerto Rlcan political vanguard in its revolutionary struggle for control over the economic life of lead masses to discover their revolutionary road against the for• the independence and sovereignty of the our people by big US capital. More es of counterrevolution in the area. homeland of Albizu Campos. We present a synthesis of the Puerto than 85% of the industrial capital In the third place, to establish in the Arab region, organization• invested in Puerto Rico is in the al relations with democratic national revolutionary groups, as a Rican leader's exposition, which reflects the colonial reality of his country under hands of Nonth Americans. The step in the project of constnuction of a vast Arab national front US domination. same thing is true in the area of throughout the entire extent of Palestine and Arab territories, to commerce and finance. Total US carry out a common struggle for a strategic program that has as Economic Penetration investment in our country has its first condition, in the present stage, protection of the Pales• in the Direct Colony reached $6800 080 000, whereas US tinian resistance and contiributing to the development of revolu• investment in the whole of Latin tionary progressive forces in the interior to pursue the armed A.merica, from Mexico to Argent I- confrontation against Israel and to inspire the peoples of the zone PUERTO RICO has been a direct in their struggle against imperialism and the local reactionaries, colony of the United States since and against all reactionany solutions to the Palestinian problem. 1898, when our country was invad• ed by US armed forces. In calling the economic situation to - do the that carry hydrogen, bombs and are na, is $12 000 000 000: that is, more This imposes a supenexploitation, hardest work at the lowest salaries constantly in the skies n^ady for any than half the total investment in because the Puerto Rican worker and under the greatest discrimina• kind of bellicose confrontatioiL Latin America! earns scarcely .a third of what the tion of which any sector of US so• At Roosevelt Roads base, on the Of course this doesn't mean that US worker earns and his cost of ciety is victim. In the city of New east of the island, there is a nu• $6800 000000 has really been in• living is 20% or more higher than York there are a million Puerto clear armament deposit and a sys• vested in Puerto Rico, but rather in the city of Washington, which Ricans. In the whole of the United tem of teledirected rockets. This that the investment made has been has the highest cost of living in the States there are possibly 1 800 000 to base is supported by a naval com• multiplied by capital reserves that country. 2 090 000 Puerto Ricans. plex stationed on Vieques and Cu- inciease year by year. After the This is because our trade is mo• "What has been done with the lebra islands, which are part of our division at the investment level, a nopolized by the United States. We Puerto Ricans who have gone to the territory. major part of the profits is left in buy $2 500 000 000 dollars worth of United States is the same thing that capital reserves and this supports goods every year from the United was done with African slave traf• On Vieques island the mountains the margin, which has ascended to States and are its second largest fic in the 16th to 18th centuries. At have been penetrated and convert• the astronomical figure of $6600 market in the hemisphere, immedi• this time in this century, it is the ed into nuclear arms war.3hcuses. million. ately after Canada, and the fifth in equivalent of that period, in which On the island of Culebra, the US If to this is added the fact' that the world, despite our small geo• Africans were chained and forced Navy engages in continuous maneu• the Puerto Rican market is monop• graphical size, and the fact that into ships to be brought as slaves vers and at least once a year in olized by the United States, that there are only 2 700 000 inhabitants to the plantations of America. In maneuvers with the navies of we are bound by US tariff regula• on the island. The volume of trade this century Puerto Ricans are all member countries of the tions and are therefore obliged to with the United States is so large seized and placed in immense planes North Atlantic Treaty Organization buy all the goods we consume because it is a monopoly trade and and brought to the huge farms of (NATO). These maneuvers are a within the United States, one sees we can't engage in trade with other New England, the Midwest and the constant threat to the inhabitants of the absolute control the United countries of the world due to the South of the United States and Culebra which represents one cf the States holds oven Puerto Rican eco• colonial system. made to work like semislaves. most dramatic examples of genocide nomic life. In this way, the United The menchandise we buy from the known in this part of the wv)rld, They are taken there and placed because the US Navy has insisted States has converted Puerto Rico United States we pay for at 20%. in concentration camps where they into a veritable economic fortress more than the price of these articles on moving the population from the are paid a miserable salary; deduct• island in order to continue using it to protect its domination over the on the international market. I should ed from this salary is the cost of Caribbean and Central American like to say that we have been pay• for its military maneuvers, while the plane flight, lodging, the com• the population affirms its right to areas. ing an annual surplus price of mission of the intermediary who $500 000 000 to US commercial in• live in its own country. Puerto Rico's production is based contracted them in San Juan, of the terests for merchandise we have fundamentally on the importation intermediary who contracted them The Empire been obliged to purchase every of Venezuelan oil, which is the raw in the United States. There are times year. Against lndeperad«nee material essential to the oil and when an emigrant worken spends chemical industry established in our On the other hand, the merchan• six months on a tomato farm work• Since Puerto Rico is an economic countny by the big US oil compa• dise that is shipped from the United ing from dawn to dark and when and military fortress, the United nies. Raw materials are also import• States to Puerto Rico arrives in US he returns to Puerto Rico, instead States has continuously refused all ed from other nearby countries and boat's, whose shipping charges are of having money saved, he has debts requests and claims to independence from the United States itself. The the highest in the world. This great• accumulated and can't turn over a or broadened autonomy made to it fundamental principle of the co• ly increases the cost of articles sold penny to his family. by any official organization on the lonial tax on Puerto Rico is the in Puerto Rico. island. In 1917 the Puerto RLcan leg• exploitation of the Puerto Rican IWIiltary Bases islature requested independence Emigration to work force. A Puerto Rican worker .and Nuclear Arms and objected that we were being the iMetropoiis converted into US citizens. It de• roduces as much or more than a Our country, which is a tiny is• clared that we are Puerto Rican cit• S worker with similar skills. But Imperialist superexploitation in E land of 9000 km2 with one of the izens and that we have no inter• in Puerto Rican industry, the av• Puerto Rico has produced a crisis highest population densities in the est in exchanging our citizenship erage salary is a third of what is situation which has led to chronic western hemisphere, has military,i for US citizenship. But the Congress paid in US industry despite the fact unemployment with 30% of the air and naval bases on it that to-' of the United States, ovenriding the that the man-hour production is the coimtry's work force constantly un• gethen occupy close to 13% of itsi resolution of the Puerto Rican legis• same and sometimes higher in cer• employed in addition to a per• cultivable land. lature, imposed North American tain areas than the man-hour pro• centage of partial unemploy• Ramey Field Air Base is the cen-i citizenship on Puerto Ricans. In; duction in the United States. ment, plus the fact that more than a third of the island's popula• ter of the US Strategic Air Com• tion has had to emigrate to the mand in the Atlantic. Stationedl United States, where it is forced by here are the B-52 superfortresses 1959, the legislature requested that an assimilationist ideology, to the We have declared this year, cipally the Independence Party the autonomy of the Free Associat• Puerto Rican people through the "Year of the Party's Organization," (PIP) and the Socialist Party which ed State be broadened by transfer• control of all the means of com• because we are going to concen• represent 957f or more of the coun• ring to the Puerto Rican govern• munication, of education, church trate our efforts on party organ• try's active independence move• ment areas of authority that were and civil institutions. They project ization with a precise goal of dou• ments. Thus, in the first place, we in the hands of the US government. their colonialist ideology to make bling membership at the same time propose a united front with th^ In• This project was not approved be• the least politicized sectors of the that we face the repressive process dependence Party, but open to the cause it was opposed by various working class think they are liv• that the regime unleashes against participation of all the groups that departments in the Eisenhower gov• ing in vital progress, which is only us. To the same degree that we seek Puerto Rican independence. In ernment, despite the fact that six for this group of imperialism's become a decisive force in Puerto the documents approved by the as• years earlier and in the voice of the parasites. Rican politics, the US regime, in sembly, we establish eight points on US delegate to the United Nations, connivance with the colonial Puerto which the united independence Henry Cabot Lodge, he had stated Rican regime, tries to corner our front should be based. This is the to the General Assembly that any The Political Vanguard country's revolutionary patriotic only way to achieve the unity of of the Proletariat time the Puerto Rican leg slature movement by repression. different forces. Clearly, the Inde- requested a broadened autonomy or Every means of repression is- f>endence Party at this moment is the independence of the country, Independence in Puerto Rico has •used, from the organization of bands reluctant to enter a united front the United States promised to offer gone through the phase of stagna• made up of elements hired by the with the Socialist Party but we are that change. tion in which it existed at the be• Central Intelligence Agency to burn confident that the united fr.ont will be forged because we have already We know that Puerto Rican in• ginning of the decade of the sixties, MPI headquarters and those of succeeded in carrying out very im• dependence has to be wrested from and emerged at a higher level of other independence organizations, portant joint activities. the government of the United States development because it is support• to sophisticated repression which ed and stimulated by working-class takes the form of persecution of and big US capital by our struggle, Last September 12. a conference because they are not going to cede and student sectors of the Puerto party affiliates at their, work, in Rican population. In the midst of their communities, etc. of governors of all US states took gratuitously the extraordinary priv• place in San Juan. Invited Latin- this situation the Pro-Independence We understand the organization• ileges they hold in Puerto Rico. American politicians also came as Movement (MPI) founded in 1959 al strategy of the new independence At the same time a certain caste well as more than 590 journalists proposes the need for its own de• struggle to be founded, first, on the of imperialist parasites approximat• from all over the world. We invited velopment as a revolutionary party organization of the development of ing a bourgeoisie has developed. It the Independence Party to join us of the Puerto Rican working class a revolutionary vanguard, the party, does not hold in its hands the in a protest march against the hold• in order to fulfill its vanguard func• among our people; second, on thg means of production since it is not ing of this conference of Yankee tion in the destruction of the colo• development and intensification of truly a bourgeoisie, but it is the governors in Puerto Rico which nial capitalist system and the con• the national unity of Puerto Rican intermediate for US capital. It in• coincided with the anniversany of struction of socialism. patriotic forces, a large united anti- cludes the importers, the executives Albizu Campos' birthday. The imperialist front which raises the of the enterprises and the banks, At the 19B8 Assembly we proposed march was held and it was the slogans of national independence.; army officers and high-level gov• as our objective the transformation largest in the history of Puer• and third, on the militant solidarity ernment bureaucrats in the United of the Pro-Independence Movement to Rico. Estimates ran between of all world revolutionary and anti- States and in the Puerto Rican co• and from that time on, began a pro• 80 000 and 100 OOO persons who imperialist forces with the liberation lonial government. And this tiny cess that would last three and a half walked through the streets of San struggle of the Puerto Rican peo• percentage of the national popula• years, in order to plant the bases Juan yelling, "Yankees go home!" ple. It is the combination of these tion has piled up fortunes out of that would make this transforma• and all the slogans of the new in• three factors in one sole united the fervor of the imperialist plunder tion possible, culminating in the dependence struggle. This act was movement that will put a stop to of our country; they have made VIII National Assembly of the MPI. jointly sponsored by MPI and the imperialism's efforts to continue the themselves ri.ch serving as inter• In this Assembly, the Puerto Rican Independence Party and demon• classic colonial system that pre• mediaries for the North Americans Socialist Party was formally consti• strated that when these two organ• vails in Puerto Rico and which has and they are the ones that populate tuted out of the Pro-Independence izations unite to canry out an ac• led to the full flowering of this cri• the great urban developments for Movement, and the general declara• tivity, the force they generate is sis in the colonial system which, in the rich, who have all the privi• tion that outlines the principles of much greater and has a multiply• turn, will make independence inevi• leges, who give the impression that the program of the party and the ing effect in terms of unity. This table. Puerto Rico is a highly developed rules establishing its structure were is what we tell the comrades of the and veny prosperous country. And agreed to, as well as a series of The United independence Front PIP, that we must take maximum they project this ideology of theirs, resolutions concerning national and advantage through united actions. international affairs that define the We have suggested the need to party's positions on pnoblems in the form a united front of patriotic contemporary world. Puerto Rican organizations, prin• • In the Negev desert near the Confused and flattered by the vince of Cochin. .The former are Dead Sea, the city of Dimona request, the Israeli immigration dark-skinned, almost black. with almost 30 000 inhabitwits authorities decided to accece and During the past year, com• has been constructed. In recent installed the new arrivals — in plications arose with the direct months it has acquired spectacu• total 13 adults and 21 children — arrival from the United States lar notoriety. Racial conflicts in the remote city of Dimona, of new black colonizers. Their Chicago or New York style erupt inhabitable only when the hot number increased to 309 and they night after night in the people's desert winds are not blowing. brought with them certain ideas neighborhoocs where a small Now the authorities say they disturbing to orthodox Judaism. colony of 300 blacks from the were moved more by compassion Through their religious teacher, United States lives. Fights, rob• for the misery of these people Ben Ami Carter, they stated beries, child beatings, long drun• than by their claim to belong to publicly on television that they ken parties with the sound of the Hebrew people. are "the true sons of Abraham guitars "have cost Dimona its and therefore the chosen ones." tranquillity and are worring its The Drama In their contradictory exposition, mayor." they admitted that they were For ihe first year things went not ethnic Jews but at the same The story began at the end of along without any problem. "It time alleged that they were de• 1969 when eight families of black was as if a jazz band had been scended from the ten lost tribes North Americans, originally fipm installed in Dimona," the mayor of Jacob's sons, of which the Chicago but who had lived in says. Under municipal auspices bible speaks. Liberia for a long time without the new arrivals worked in the The irritation of the religioxis having been able to integrate cotton mills and were given Jews reached an extreme when themselves there, asked to go to comfortable houses. Dimona is they stated that Abraham, Isaac the promised land of their an• also the center for the "exotic" and Daniel were blacks and so cestors. Jews who come from Africa was God himself. To prove this As followers of Moses, they (the so-called falashas from Ad- last point, they based them• claimed their right to be citizens cis-Ababa) and the Indian pro• selves on a vision by Daniel of the Zionist State. who spoke of having seen God a climate of racial intolerance access to public administration. that quickly changed to open Pressure from thes« groups, moat covered with long curly hair Justice "like sheep's wool." hostility was the immediate of whom are Sep bardic Jews These theoreticians of "black result. who speak Spanish, in the long Jewishness" broke the initial On October 14, Rabbi Meir Finally, during the last days of run can pose a serious question peace and frustrated plans to Kahane, President of the Jewish December, the Supreme Court for the government of Tel Aviv, convert the black Jews to the Defense League, after visiting of Jerusalem ruled in favor of despite its confidence that time orthodox religion. Dimona, made his famous state• the defendents and refused will procuce a demographic ment, "the Jew is beautiful," authorization for their deporta• homogenization. tion because, according to. one Unemployment which as a counterpart means On another level, they need denying blacks the right to call of the basic laws of the State of not be concerned about Ben themselves Jews; and along with Israel, every Hebrew has a right Ami Carter's threats over televi• For the new immigrants, who to Israeli citizenship from the were also sent to Dimona, there the mayor of the city, calleci for sion that at least a million black the expulsion of the "intruders." moment he sets foot in the Jews were rushing to emigrate were no jobs nor housing; and territory. even worse, the police removed During this same period, an to Israel. Explaining the origin The episode is still not closed, them from the Bedouin encamp• episode dramatized the situa• of this black Jewish population, and Dimona "continues without ment where they had been pro• tion. A hundred blacks went into the same Carter referred to the sleep," according to the mayor. visionally installed. The blacks the supermarkets and collected old negro spirituals, songs of the But behind the trial is a still who had arrived in the first food and clothing worth $1000 slave period based on sacred more serious question^ the situa• immigration came to the rescue and refused to pay. The police texts with abundant references tion of Jews from the Mediterra• and took them into their homes, intervened and some of them to the enslavement of the people nean and Asian Arab countries which started a true Harlem-like were arrested. As a consequence, of Israel by the Assyrians, and who claim they are treated like ghetto. The beginning of the eight families were held in the created a subtle link between third-class citizens, condemned, tension with the authorities, the custocy of the Ministry of Im• the idea of pjersecution and that in fact, to the lowest and worst precarious economic and housing migration, which decided to sol• of the "chosen people" which paid jobs. Although they total situation to which all of them icit authorization for their repa• could be converted into a motive M 40% of the country's population, were subiected did the rest and triation to the United States. for the conversion of thousands If onlv 12% of them have had of blacks to the Mosaic religion. Ii •

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TRICONTINENTAL, theoretical organ of the Executive Secretariat of i OSPAAAL: information - theoretical articles - contributions by outstanding leaders from the three continents - activities and development of the OSPAAAL member organizations - books from the Third World and on the Third World-the national liberation movements presented through previously- unpublished texts and photographs - documents and speeches in 10 sections alternatively published.

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