25«1: No.S89 3 December 1993 After NAFTA, Clinton Strongarms Japan, Europe Wilson/NY Times Clinton and leaders of Pacific Rim countries meeting in Seattle at "Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation" forum. U.S. wants to use spectre of Pacific "free trade" as club against European imperialist rivals. u.s. Gears UP lor Trade War Hours after the North American Free Workers marched with red flags to protest ernment. The international airport at that the major unions in Belgium have Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was passed a three-year freeze on real wages and Brussels was shut down by pickets who called a general strike. by the U.S. Congress on November 17 massive cuts in social security decreed put up flaming barricades on the access • Spain: On November 25, hundreds by an unexpectedly wide margin, Presi­ by the Christian Democrat/Socialist gov- roads. This is the first time since 1936 of thousands of workers demonstrated dent Clinton shuttled off to Seattle where across Spain against "Socialist" prime he had convoked a meeting of the heads minister Felipe Gonzalez' proposed labor of government of the Pacific Rim coun­ law "reform" which would make it easier tries. The purpose: to use his NAFTA to fire workers at a time when official "win" to extract trade concessions from unemployment is almost 23 percent. The the Asian leaders, to be used in turn as workers' demonstrations, supported by a battering ram against the Europeans. students and community organizations, The aim of Clinton's pact with Canada were called by the Socialist Party-led and Mexico is to reinforce the American General Workers Union and the Work­ bourgeoisie's economic muscle against ers Commissions as a dry run for a its imperialist trade rivals by creating a general strike. U.S.-dominated free trade zone-"free" • France: Coal miners of the Lorraine for capitalist exploitation and immiser­ region in northeast France struck Wed­ ation of the workers. This is a step nesday against threatened layoffs, wag­ toward global trade war. ing pitched battles with police. Armed Washington's "New World Order" was with ax handles, the miners overran supposed to be an era of renewed U.S. police lines (47 cops were injured), over­ imperialist hegemony. heralded by the turned police cars, burned buildings and ruthless destruction of Iraq in the Gulf smashed up a local office of the min­ War. The terror bombing that slaughtered ister of industry. This explosion of tens of thousands of Iraqis was as much working-class anger comes one month intended as a warning to America's chief after a two-week strike by Air France imperialist rivals, Japan and Germany. ground crews, who battled cops on the With the restoration of capitalism inEast airport runways, forcing the right-wing Europe and the former Soviet Union', the cabinet to scrap its job-cutting plan Cold War cement which, held together (see "French Government Reeling-Air the post-World War II imperialist alliance France Strikers Ignite Class Struggle," has come unstuck, And as in the periods WV No, 587, 5 November), leading up to World Wars I and II, trade This powerful working-dass upsurge, wars for redivision of the world are ulti­ coming after mass marches by tens of mately decided by the imperialists in thousands of coal miners in Germany's shooting wars-only this time they will Ruhr region and militant factory occu,­ be armed with nuclear weapons. pations in southern Italy, took place As they gear up for an era of height­ simultaneously with big student strikes ened interimperialist competition, the in France, Spain and Italy. At the same capitalists on three continents are all time, amid burgeoning unemployment seeking to squeeze enhanced profit~ out and petty-bourgeois despair, fascist of the workers through speedup, wage­ forces are escalating their racist terror gouging and ruthless cuts in social serv­ attacks and gaining at the polls (notably ices, But the working class has the power in the recent Italian municipal elections), to turn the capitalists' trade war into a What is clearly posed is international class war against all the exploiters. This working-class struggle against the capi­ was dramatically underscored last week talists' reactionary attacks, But reformist by an upsurge of class struggle that misleaders have sidetracked labor pro­ ripped across Europe, where the bour­ tests into the dead end of protection­ geoisie is on a rampage to dismantle ism. The miners in Lorraine burned the so-called "welfare state" and tear imported coal on the docks and rail­ up hard-won union rights and working Metz, France, November 24: Striking while students took to the streets road sidings. German miners-many conditions. coal miners waged pitched battle with to demonstrate against education of them Turkish immigrants-have • Belgium: A one-day general strike cops as wave of class struggle cuts, Student protests also swept repeatedly demonstrated against im­ on November 26 completely shut down sweeps across Europe, A day later France, The militant Air France strike ported coal. This nationalist poison is a industry, transportation and even shops, in Belgium, the first general strike in two weeks earlier rattled French rul­ deadly obstacle to effective working­ nearly 60 years shut the country ers and raised spectre of a new May class struggle. down tight in protest against govern­ 1968, when a general strike nearly Similarly in the U.S., the AFL-CIO ment wage freeze, On November 27, toppled the regime and posed pros­ bureaucrats and their right-wing allies In Spain hundreds of thousands of pect of workers revolution, What's have pitched opposition to NAFTA in 49 workers marched threatening a gen­ needed: revolutionary vanguard par­ terms of protectionist tirades against I II eral strike. Italy was hit by strikes of ties to lead workers to victory over Mexican workers "taking American transport, auto and steel workers, capitalism. o 4470 81030 • I continued on page 14 Down with Germany's Ban on the Kurdish PKK! The following article.is adapted from selzmg bank accounts. Only a week Spartakist (No. /08. NovemberlDecem­ before, the French gQvernment likewise ber 1993). newspaper of the Spartakist launched an ass.ault against Kurdish mil­ Workers' Party of Germany. itants, rounding up III people "sus­ pected" of belonging to the PKK. The On Novernber26,. the German gov­ Turkish .government expressed "great ernment outlawed the Kurdish Workers satisfaction" with these raids. The Spar­ Party (PKK) and 35 other politic'al,cul­ takist Workers Party of Germany and the 100,000 Kurds demonstrate In Bonn last May. turaland news organizations of the Ligue Trotskyste de France issued urgent 450,000 Kurdish people living in Ger­ statements denouncing the anti-Kurdish this vile racist vendetta as a campaign In recent months, the Turkish govern­ many. The ban came as .German cops repression. Hands off the PKK and other to wipe out "foreign extremism" on Ger­ ment has dramatically escalated its war staged more· than a hundred raids on Kurdish organizations! man soil. In fact, it is part and parcel of against the Kurdish people, as 20 people Kurdish clubs, businesses and homes, Christian Democrat (CDU) interior the German bourgeoisie's unstinting a day are murdered. The Fourth Reich breaking into post office boxes and. minister Manfred Kanther tried to justify support to its junior partners,. in Ankara. continued on page 11 Freedom for Class-War Prisoners! In fighting to mobilize the working class in defense (){victimized black and labor mil­ itants, the Spartacist League and Partisan MDL/DAY APPEAL Defense Committee look to the tradition of the International Labor Defense founded by FDR CLASS-WAR James P. Cannon. In the face of revolution­ ary upheavals inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution, the U.S. bourgeoisie escalated PR/SDNERS TROTSKY its persecution of working-class militants. LENIN notably through the notorious 1920 Palmer Raids. While the imperialists crow over the destruction of the Soviet Union, the class COME TO A FUNDRAISINfJ PARTY! struggle continues. as does the capitalist rulers' vendetta against fighters for the working class and black emancipation. In a 1921 article commemorating May Day, Music * Dancing * Food reprinted in the Prometheu~ Research Library's James P. Cannon and the Early Years of American Communism (1992), then Communist Party and later Trotskyist leader Saturday, Dec. 4, 9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10,5-9:30 p.m. Cannon honored the class-war prisoners of u.s. imperialism and called on the workers Wetlands movement to fight for their freedom. Please call for information: (404) 659-0251 161 Hudson (at Laight) There is a definite purpose behind this persistent and systematic railroading of For information: (212) 406-4252 working class agitators. The money-sharks who rule America thought they would be able to break up the movement by taking away the leaders and intimidating the rank and file. But the revolutionary movement grows up out of the life needs of the workers and there is no power that can break it. Persecution is but the fire in which Sunday, Dec. 12,'-3-7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12, 1-4 p.m. it is tempered and hardened. When leaders go to prison others come forward out of UE Hall . Fort Mason Ctr., Bldg. A-1 the· ranks and take their places. When fainthearted followers desert, new recruits, 37 S. Ashland Ave. Marina at Laguna better suited for the stern requirements of the class war, are enlisted. For information: (312) 663-0719 For information: (510) 839-0852 The men who have gone to prison for the workers' cause-know this. That knowledge enables them to bear their confinement without complaint, oppressive as it is to men of independent spirit.