WORKERS ,,1N(JIJl1ftlJ 25¢ No. 330 .~~.:~ X_-523 20 May 1983 Reagan's Butchers Shakioo 6~'" DID MAY 17-A leftist guerrilla in central EI Salvador recently declared, "We are moving the war along as fast as possible now, so the people don't have to suffer so much. We are coming to the final stage. We now have the capacity to launch a definite insurrection" (Wash­ ington Post, I May). In recent weeks the insurgent forces of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) have kept the U.S.-backed army reeling. The much-touted "new" military strategy (nothing but Vietnam­ \ era counterinsurgency) has gotten no­ 1 where as each army sweep is met by fierce resistance and devastating coun­ terattacks by the rebels. The FMLN-_ iorces have IT,,,intained and accelerated the military momentum which they seized last October, striking targets at will across the country. Six months ago, the opposition Democratic Revolution­ ary Front (FOR) declared that the rebels were entering "a more offensive and defining phase of the revolutionary war" with the "creation ofconditions for the general insurrection of the masses" (FDR/FMLN, Boletin £1 Salvador Libre, October 1982). This has certainly been accomplished. What now? In the United States, all sectors of the ruling class are worried about the "fire in America's front yard," vividly recall­ ing the Vietnam debacle. Reagan wants to escalate, the liberals want to nego­ tiate. Now various reformists are joining with the Democrats to call an "emergen­ cy" demonstration (on July 2!) for "No Vietnam War in Central America." The Spartacist League (SL) says: Vietnam ~ was a victory-Two. three, many .. No Negotiatecl Sellout! . defeats for U.S. imperialism! And the ill bourgeoisie has good reason to be worried. With Central America already successful the guerrillas are against the while the workers and peasants defy cutting the link to Honduras and aflame, there is now rumbling in the army, the more insistent their leaders blood and fire in a struggle to rid southern Central America at the border. Southern Cone of South America. One are in offering to sell out what has been themselves of a rapacious oligarchy and And while the sizable FM LN "areas of thousand arrested for demonstrating won on the battlefield in exchange for its kill-crazed death squads. Ungo and control" are expanding, the government against the Pinochet dictatorship in some :cabinet seats and promises of the rest of the phantom bourgeois army is crumbling as a result of mass Chile, general strikes against the gener­ reform (the so-called "political solu­ politicians in the FOR ply tb? cocktail surrenders to the guerrillas: als in Argentina, workers confront the tion")" This pattern has again been circuits hoping to rally liberal support • March 27-Capture of 114 sol­ 1M F austerity policies of the popular dramaticaliy confirmed. A week after and thus stave off social revolution. The diers in a rebel attack on San Esteban front in Bolivia. And to the north Reagan's war on Communism in Cen­ SL says: No negotiated sellout! Military Catarina, 29 miles from the capital. Mexico is in deep crisis. Now is the time tral America speech to Congress, FOR victory to leftist insurgents! Take San • April 17-Capture of 71 soldiers to strike for victory on the battlefield in leader Guillermo Ungo came to Wash­ Salvador! and their commander. overrunning an El Salvador. A leftist military victory ington to hold a press conference in army post near Chichontepec volcano could open the door to workers revolu­ which he announced: "The United Reagan's Butchers On the Run (La Paz province). tion that could spread throughout the States has the right to stop the spread of • April 18-Capture of 80 govern­ continent. communism. That's true. We agree on After the "Heroic January 1983" ment soldiers on the San Vicente Yet as we have noted before, the more that" (Ballimore Sun. 3 May). Indeed. F\1U\ offensive. which resulted in the volcano. rebel occupation of the town of Berlin In addition, in what was described as and attacks inside the capital itself. the one of the biggest FM LN victories of the guerrillas have kept up the pressure. UAW: From Sitdowns to war. on March 31 guerrillas ambushed pre\enting the army from taking back and destroyed two companies of the the Chrysler Board Room the initiative oreven regainingequilibri­ crack U.S.-trained Ramon Belloso urn. The rebels responded to Reagan's battalion in the northeastern Morazan .Fraser"~.· ;~.·; threats by occupying the key border province. And in mid-April the govern­ Doug .• ... town of Santa Rosa de Lima in eastern ment made its 14th attempt to dislodge La Union province on April 29. They rebels from Guazapa volcano just Company CCJP •• ~~, ,. also destroyed five bridges along the . "-''--:,- - --~:::-:\:.~;T,'!;:\:/-c.t~· .;- ;_._.:·-~;~:~~/~/i}{ Pan American highway, including continued on page 4 La Migra's Racist Roundups in Chicago CHICAGO-With the push on to pass the "community" petty merchants­ the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration "re­ who fatten themselves off the blood and form" bill, they're trying to whip up a sweat of poor immigrants-do without chauvinist frenzy against foreign work­ "illegal aliens"? (CP fellow traveler Ray ers, During the month of March alone, Romero remarked: "Employers look at some 1,000 "illegal aliens" were rounded things in terms of profits, what happens up here by the racist squads of the when you eliminate the undocumented Immigration and Naturalization Serv­ workers and reduce the margin?") At the ice (INS), known by its victims as fa 1982 May Day march, the Spartacist migra, The crackdown is part of a League (SL) contingent had the only nationwide pattern-the Border Patrol signs demanding "Full Citizenship announced it picked up an unprecedent­ Rights for Foreign Born Workers and ed 107,997 people along the Mexican Their Families! Stop the Deportations!" border in March, more than any month "Asylum for Refugees of Salvadoran in history and an increase of 43 percent Junta Terror!" and "Military Victory to over last year (Chicago Tribune, 24 Leftist Insurgents in EI Salvador!" For April). this we were jumped by a goon squad of And while fa migra spread its dragnet, these nationalists and Stalinists seeking the Tribune spewed out a racist propa­ to keep out opposition to their popular ganda barrage in a six-part series front with the Democrats. entitled "The Illegals." The press ac­ These popular frontists, whose call counts did bring to light the desperate for a "negotiated solution" in Central conditions faced by Chicago's countless America would lead to new massacres of thousands of undocumented workers: Salvadoran leftists. and who in Mexico from their perilous entry into this have for decades sought to tame all country, creeping through holes in the opposition to the ruling PRI. now seek chain link fences of the "Tortilla to tie Hispanics in Chicago to the Curtain," hiding in the brush from the Democrats' "reform" mayor. Yet this Border Patrol \",ho stalk their quarry same Democratic Party and the same with an arsenal ranging from helicopters liberals are some of the biggest to infrared nightscopes. At the mercy of pushers of anti-immigrant legislation. the "coyotes" (smugglers), they pay Carter/Chicago Tribune The Stalinists along with the class­ Immigration cops raid factories in Chica~o, April 1982. hundreds of dollars to be packed into collaborationist labor tops call for vans and car trunks, arriving in Chicago protectionist legislation against runa­ to wash dishes, sew garments or work in and addresses on file, and could be for the garment sweatshops of the way shops (run away to Juarez, for grimy metal shops. deported at any moment. Northeast and the foundries in Chicago. example) and support protectionist The latest sweep was called "Opera­ The Reagan-backed Simpson­ Now with the financial and economic demonstrations against buying foreign­ tion Repeater," a follow-up on last Mazzoli bill now pending in Congress, if crisis in Mexico, in addition to the made steel (such as from Monterrey). In year's "Operation Jobs," Reagan's fully enforced, would lead to a South normal attraction of making a better life contrast to this reformist racist poison, vicious attempt to make foreign workers African-style internal passport system, for themselves, hundreds of thousands the Spartacist League calls for interna­ scapegoats for skyrocketing U.S. unem­ strengthening the police powers of the more are being driven across the border tional class struggle. The SL points out ployment. In last year's ten-city sweep, INS and expanding the Labor Depart­ looking for any kind of work. that everyone in this country came from Chicago was a particular focus of the ment's role as a labor contractor. Under Moreover, many Mexicans and somewhere else (except the Indians and INS: 1,295 out of a total of 5,000 arrests the vaguely worded "amnesty provi­ Central Americans meet death in their look how they were slaughtered). We nationwide took place·here. We report­ sions" ofthe Senate bill, applicants must attempt to make it to the "land of the say that anyone who is here has a right ed how INS local chief H.A. Palmer show'tlrey entered the country before free." There are accounts of"wetbacks" to stay with full citizenship rights. murdered by Ku Klux Klan' mobs raided factories and warehouses, swept 1977 and that they won't become More than a century ago Karl Marx waiting for them to· cross the Rio through the barrios separating families "public charges"-impossible to prove pointed out that capitalism maintains Grande, of bodies ofteenage boys found and slamming terrified people into in depression-ravaged USA.