t-- WfJRNERS ",1N'(J,1R'25¢ No. 293 .:~) x·523 20 November 1981 Defense of Cuba" USSR Begins in Central America! • , I , , realen 08Kaoe United States imperialism stands Secretary of State if he would pledge poised to commit a counterrevolution­ that the U.S. was not making "efforts to arv act of war in the Caribbean. The overthrow or destabilize the current R~agan administration, attacking black government of Nicaragua." General people and busting unions at home, is Haig replied, "No, I would not give you trying to head off revolution in Central such an assurance" (Daily News, 13 America by drowning it in a sea of November). And now the commander blood. Their global Cold War offensive of U.S. troops in Latin America is ultimately aims at overthrowing the calling for a reversal of the formal historic achievements of the workers prohibition on military "advisers" in states. from Cuba to the Soviet Union. combat operations in EI Salvador. In the face of this war danger, socialist Ever since he took office Reagan has re\olutionaries and class-struggle mili­ been looking to score a quick Cold War tants in the American labor movement propaganda victory by militarily smash­ must fight to defeat the predatory plans ing the Salvadoran leftists. The guerril­ of their capitalist rulers. We demand: las have proved tougher than expected, Down with Reagan/Haig War Threats! but the administration has not aban­ No Blockade! Hands Off Nicaragua! doned its plans to teach the Soviets a Military Victory to Leftist Insurgents "bloody lesson," if only by proxy, in in El Salvador! For Workers Revolu­ America's "backyard." Even if Haig has tion! As we have repeatedly insisted: to wait a while to drop his "demonstra­ DEFENSE OF CUBA, USSR BEGINS tion bomb" over the Baltic, he thinks he IN CENTRAL AMERICA! can get away with a "demonstration The war threat was issued as a blockade" in the Caribbean. In a switch "leak" to the New York Times. On on the usual bureaucratic line-ups in November 5 a front page article by Washington, the Pentagon reported'ly former State Department and Pentagon questions whether this can be pulled off official Leslie Gelb quoted unnamed without provoking a Soviet show of "key Administration officials" to the support for Cuba in another part of the effect that Secretary of State General globe. This mirrors alleged differences Alexander Haig had ordered his staff to between those in the government who quickly assemble plans for a variety of want to strangle Nicaragua economical­ military "options" in the Caribbean and ly, and those like Haig who argue that Central America. The most frequently only a military "solution" will do the mentioned action is a naval blockade of job. So far, however, economic sabo­ Nicaragua. a maneuver the U.S. prac­ tage has not been enough. ticed only last month in joint'exercises The axis of administration policy In with Honduras. As for Cuba, the plans Central America is its Cold War drive being bandied about in Washington against the Soviet bloc. As Gelb range from stronger economic sanctions reported, the recent Haig memorandum to "a show of airpower, large naval "concentrated on getting to 'the source' exercises, a quarantine on the shipment of the problem in the region. The of arms to the island, a general blockade immediate 'source' was described as as part of an act of war, and an invasion Cuba, with the Soviet Union playing an by American and possibly Latin Ameri­ important role in the background." The can forces." And on El Salvador a U.S. claims that the Russians, via "knowledgeable source" told Newsweek Castro and the Sandinistas, are supply­ (9 November), "Don't rule out U.S. ing arms to the Salvadoran guerrillas Marines." (unfortunately this is very much not the This is no bluff and bluster by case), and as a result the war there "has frustrated Cold Warriors waving verbal become essentially stalemated." So in big sticks. The day after the New York order to save EI Salvador and other Times report, Haig himself confirmed regional "dominoes" from toppling out its substance. And on Saturday, N0­ of the "free world," the war gamesmen vember 7 the Times carried an ominous in Washington come up with a naval announcement (buried on page 48) that, blockade. And from there they see a "Four-Week Navy Drill Is Begun in straight line to Bay of Pigs II, Cuban Caribbean." It turns out that the naval Missile Crisis II and World War III. exercises, which include the aircraft So the stage is set for a major clash in camel's Kennedy and Eisenhower, the Caribbean. How can the Yankee began a week earlier and are supposedly U.S. aircraft carrier Eisenhower cruises the Caribbean. Below: CIA fighter imperialists be defeated? The liberals "only coincidentally related" (!) to plane shot down by Cubans in 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion. and reformists hope that by pretending Haig's war threats. Nevertheless, the the issue in EI Salvador is "self­ article added. "Pentagon officials said 20 Latin American nations. the U.S. and ed Haig's line, saying that a blockade of determination," by ignoring the imperi­ that the size of the fleet and the extent of Canada met in secret sessions in Nicaragua would solve his problems alist Cold War and the issue of revolu­ the exercises could not help but send a Washington to discuss joint actions (Washington Post, II NO\iember). The tion vs. counterrevolution in a raging message to Cuba." On Sunday, Cuba against Cuba and Nicaragua. A featured following week, in hearings before the civil war, they could entice support from announced a full military alert. speaker was Salvadoran military House Foreign Affairs Committee, liberal imperialist "doves." Repeatedly Simultaneously, the war ministers of strongman Colonel Garcia who parrot- Congressman Gerry Studds asked the continued on page 4 RWL Joins Teamsters for a Democratic Sellout DETROIT-The sixth annual confer­ hapless TDUer who called on the ence of the Teamsters for a Democratic conference to go on record in support of Union (TDU) convened here in the last Teamsters who exercise the right to weekend of October. The conference strike was informed that strike talk met as the trucking bosses are preparing would only scare away Teamster a major assault against the Teamsters members! (lBT) in the upcoming contract negotia­ This is no big surprise from the outfit tions. The employers' Trucking Man­ which at last contract time refused to agement Incorporated is calling for call for a nationwide strike, which immediate institution of a wage freeze publicly defends its members' crossing and its extension over the next Teamster picket lines during a bitter 18­ three years of the contract. Ominously week northern California Safeway Teamster president Roy Williams has strike in 1979, which refuses to criticize ·~i:Z$..'.· _ agreed to the company demand to Teamster raiding of the Farmworkers Rosas/Black Star reopen the master freight agreement and Teamster organizing of racist cops. over four months before expiration. The TDU constitution actually bars the Haitian Victims of Reagan Racism Already since 1979 the union has lost organization from participating in any 115,000 freight industry jobs as a result Even after death, the bodies of 33 is concentration camps and the political action. Never mind calling for Haitians who washed up on the of layoffs, bankruptcies and runaway the unions to break with the capitalist frozen American Siberia of Fort Florida shore October 26 were fuel non-union firms. parties-the TDU does not even offi­ Drum. The INS wants to insist U.S. for Ronald Reagan's race-hate cru­ But the Teamsters are one ofthe most cially oppose the Reagan government! refugee status is available only to sade. Reagan ordered the bodies, powerful industrial unions with the those who are "political" refugees, which had been kept in a 48-foot social weight to cripple the economy, not those who have fled because of refrigerated truck, shipped back to stop the trucking bosses in their tracks Enter the RWL, Birds of a Feather "economic" conditions. But Haiti is a Baby Doc Duvalier's torture regime. and pave the way for a major counter­ You'd think that any class-eonsicous place from which everybody flees, for For those who reach the U.S. alive, it his life. offensive by the labor movement. Well militant, let alone ostensible socialist, aware ofthe danger posed to its interests would want to keep his distance from an by the IBT, the capitalist state has outfit with such a sordid history. In fact, movement. In 1973 the SL refused to from virulent Cold Warriors like Albert jumped to the aid of the trucking TDU, originally brain-trusted by fol­ endorse Arnold Miller and the Miners Shanker and Bayard Rustin. It's not employers. Recent months have seen an lowers of the International Socialists for Democracy (MFD), put into office surprising that the TDU, which appeals unprecedented step-up in indictments of and its spin-offs, has been politically with the aid of the U.S. Labor Depart­ to the bourgeois state against the Teamster officials ranging from execu­ supported by the bulk of the reformist ment. As the MFD experience demon­ Teamsters union, supports capitalist tive board members in Detroit Local left. This year a new group of strated, those who use the state against restorationist forces in Poland. But the 299 to central figures in the Internation­ opportunists-the Revolutionary their opponents in the union will use the RWL is hardly better. Nowhere in their al bureaucracy. The government at­ Workers League (RWL) and its same state to crush the struggles of the four-page special bulletin addressed to tacks, ostensibly directed against "cor­ supporters-burst on the scene.