Intercontinental Press

combined with iiilflworVol. 16, No. 24 ® 1978 by Intercontinental Press June 19, 1978 USA TSC UK 30p

V/Demonstrati

International Solidarity With

Carter Escalates Threats Against Cuba

Peking Beats the Drums for Mobutu

Plutarco Hernandez Freed In Costa Rica

Why Upsurge Failed to Dislodge Somoza

Hugo Blanco Behind Bars In Argentina

The Attempted Coup In Santo Domingo

9,000 In Swiss Antlnuclear March

French Trotskylsts' Festival a Success

Castro, Menglslu Differ on Erifroa

Castro, Mengistu Differ on EritreaBy Joseph Hansen

The May 24 issue of the West Germandaily Die Welt carried an article date-linedfrom Addis Ababa reporting a rift betweenthe Ethiopian military junta—theDergue—and Moscow and Havana.At the beginning of May, according to

Die Welt, the junta deported the Cubanambassador and the South Yemenite

cbarg6 d'affaires.

This "unusual step" was taken becauseof an "attempt by the Soviets and Cubansto force the military junta led by Mengistuto withdraw and enable a civilian regime,led by a Marxist party, to take power."During Mengistu's April 21-27 visit to

Havana, Negede Gobeze was smuggled outof Paris into Ethiopia by way of Aden."Negede is an associate of the extremeleftist Haile Fida, who has been underbouse arrest in Addis Ababa since August1977. In Paris, Negede bad led the opposition to the military junta, and was sentenced to death in absentia."

At the end of April when be arrived inAddis Ababa, Negede was sneaked by"Cubans and South Yemenites . . . into aCuban diplomatic limousine and taken tothe Cuban embassy."Die WeWa account continues: "There,

together with Soviet, Cuban and SouthYemenite diplomats, Negede planned theoeation of a civilian Marxist regime,which was supposed to replace the junta."

When Mengistu found out about all thisupon returning from Cuba, be ordered thedirector of immigration and the bead ofthe secret police arrested and tortured."Police and troops surrounded the Cubanembassy. They bad orders to shoot Negedeon sight."The worldwide press considered Die

Welfa report to be a sensational item.Some of them tended to be suspicious of itsaccuracy. Thus the Paris daily Le Mondesuggested in its May 26 issue that theaccount should be taken with "g^eat caution." Others offered further details ob

tained tluough their own sources.

For exEunple, in an article published inthe Jime 4 Manchester Guardian Weekly,Victoria Brittain, reporting from Nairobi,

I said, "The Cubans and other Socialist

allies of Ethiopia appear to have failed inattempts to put a brake on Colonel Mengistu's Eritrea offensive and to speed up theacceptance by the Dergue of a civilianparty mechanism to take over tiie runningof the revolution from the militai^." '

Furthermore, Mengistu is conducting a Ipurge. The entire executive committee ofthe All-Ethiopia Trade Union wu ̂ -

missed. According to Addis Ababa Radiothe committee was charged with "corruption, political sabotage, cmd abuses ofauthority" and of being infiltrated byMe'isone (All-Ethiopian Socialist Movement), a grouping that claims to be Marxist.

"The official denunciation of Meison,"according to Brittain, "comes a fortnightafter the abrupt departure from AddisAbaba of the two senior men in the Cuban

Embassy. The two Cubans, with supportfrom the South Yemeni Ambassador in

Addis, had brought back to the Ethiopiancapital from exile in Paris Dr NegedeGozeze, one of the two ideologues whoformed Meison. The other, Mr Hailu Fida,was imprisoned by the Dergue and tortured almost to death, according to diplomats in Addis.

"But the Cuban attempt to get a dialogue going between the Dergue and theMeison leader who weis staying in theCuban Embassy failed completely, and DrNegede and the two Cuban diplomats leftAddis Ababa together."The June 3 issue of The Economist also

provided its own account of the rift causedby Mengistu's persistence in seeking amilitary showdown with Eritrea. Here arefurther details firom this source:

Until last year Meison . . . was closely alliedto the ruling military coimcil, or dergue; itsleaders, Mr Haile Fida and Mr Negede, wereColonel Mengistu's closest political advisers. ButMeison became too powerful for the dergue'sUking. When it began calling for a return tocivilian rule its leaders were arrested or mur

dered. Mr Negede, however, was abroad at thetime.

Neither the Russians nor the Cubans were

happy at this turn of the tumbril. The Russianshad close links with Mr Haile Fida and hopedthat Meison would become the nudeus of a pro-Moscow Communist parly. "They tried to persuade Colonel Mengistu to release Mr Haile Fidaand reinstate his organisation, and in this theyapparently had the backing of three importantmembers of the dergue: Second Lieutenant Le-gesse Asfew, Second Lieutenant Gesesse WoldeKidan and Sub Lieutenant Tamrat Ferede. But

Colonel Mengistu and other dergue memberswere not to be moved. ... ,

Last week the reckoning began. The 22-man iexecutive of the All-Ethiopia Trade Union, whichwas accused of supporting Meison, was dismissed and some of its members arrested. The .mayor of Addis Ababa, Mr Alemu Abebe, once aMeison supporter, and three dergue members are !reported to be under smrveillance and may have ;been arrested.

This is the second big test faced by the;Cubans in following up their decision to i

, support the Ethiopian revolution against j

the efforts of the imperialists to smash it.The first test was the war in the Ogaden,which reached its high point betweenFebruary 11 and March 9. The Cubansresponded to the appeal of the Ethiopiangovernment for help.In a speech last March IS,"" Castro

revealed that the Cubans had followed a

policy of trying to bring the Siad Barregovernment of Somalia into a commonanti-imperialist front:

Roughly a year ago ... we organized a meeting in Aden between the leaders of Ethiopia,Yemen and Somalia and ourselves in an effort to

solve the problems between Somalia and Ethiopia, precisely to avoid a war.

The effort failed, however. The rightwing in the Barre regime prevailed overthe left, according to Castro, and went overto the side of imperialism.Castro has said little about the current

crisis. He barely indicated his position in. an interview granted to Dominique Baudisbefore Mengistu "launched" or was "preparing to launch" a military offensiveagainst the Eritreans. The text of theinterview has not yet appeared in theCuban press but some extracts were published in the June 9 issue of Paris Match.

Baudis asked: "In Ethiopia, the army ofthe Addis Ababa government, which youare helping, is battling against the Eri-trean Liberation Front. Now this front is

deeply sympathetic with the Cuban revolution. Doesn't this bother you a little?"Castro answered: "Listen, it's a complex,

difficult problem. When the Eritrean liberation movement was formed, it was led byprogressives, and there are progressivesnow in the Eritrean liberation movement.

When they were held under the feudaltyranny of Haile Selassie, this movementplayed an objectively revolutionary role.When a genuine revolution exploded inEthiopia, the very reactionary Arab coim-tries at once displayed great interest in theEritrean movement. To put it another way. . . Saudi Arabia and Sudan, for example,two very reactionary countries, are thosewho today control the leadership of theEritrean movement, so that the progressive and revolutionary forces there are in aminority; and thus, objectively, this movement which began as a just revolutionarymovement became transformed into aninstrument for the reaction and imperialism to liquidate, or help to liquidate, theEthiopian revolution. That's the way wesee the problem. It is clear that the solu-

I tion is not easy, because it is necessary totake into account first of all, the principleof the right of peoples to self-determination; it is necessary to take itinto account. It is necessary to take intoaccount the fact that there are progressiveforces among the Eritreans, and conse-

*See "Fidel Castro's Accoimt of Cuba's Role in' Ethiopia," Intercontinental Press/Inprecor,\ April 17, 1978. p. 465.

tntercontmental Press

quently, we believe that it is best to struggle for a correct solution of this problem,and that is, of course, on the basis of self-determination. To my knowledge the Ethiopians £tre disposed to find a correct solution to the problem, but what is notacceptable is the principle, the idea of thedisintegration of Ethiopia."What would happen to the revolution-

sry process in Ethiopia, if as a result of edlthese maneuvers of the imperialists andArab reaction it loses a third of its terri

tory in the south and all openings to thesea? It would be blockaded. Thus it is

absolutely correct for the Ethiopians tostruggle against the disintegration of theircountry."Havana has disclaimed seeking any

economic returns firom its role in Africa.

What the Cubans are interested in isextending the socialist revolution and defending it from imperialist attack. Thiswas quite clear in the case of Angola whenCuban troops proved decisive in beatingback the military invasion mounted bySouth Africa. In the final analysis, thisvictory strengthened the Cuban revolution.

Simil£U-ly in the case of the militaryattack mounted by the Somali governmentin the Ogaden, the Cubans saw this as animperialist ploy aimed at injuring theEthiopian revolution. The Somalian offensive also constituted a rejection of theCuban proposal to form a common unitedfront against imperialism.In the case of Eritrea, the latest develop

ments show that the Cubans are dubious

about a military offensive. Castro, forinstance, cites the right of the Eritreans toself-determination. It can be legitimatelyconcluded that he has at the same time

been weighing what the effect would be onthe Ethiopian revolution as a whole if thatright were acknowledged.At the moment it is not possible to verify

Die Welt's account of Cubsm efforts to

displace Mengistu. The truth may be thatthe Cubans merely stepped up efforts todissuade Mengistu from plunging aheadwith the attack. Part of the effort mayhave been to side with oppositional elements in the Dergue itself, thus strengthening them politically.Mengistu's reaction, which may have

gone as far as arresting these figures,would demonstrate the existence of two

rifts—one between Mengistu emd Castro,' another between Mengistu tmd a minorityi in the Dergue that may have rather broad, backing.The outcome of this complex struggle

remains to be seen. Interest in it is broad-

lening. Many voices, veuied in politicali character, are being reused in behalf of thej Eritreans. This support indicates how unpopular a major war against Eritrea wouldbe.

The Cubans are aware of this, no doubt,and may be pressing the point in trying toget Mengistu to slow down and think itover. □

In This Issue Closing News Date: June 10, 1978

ARGENTINA 724 Blanco Still Jailed

CHINA

FRANCE

ZAIRE

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

COSTA RICA

ICELANDNICARAGUA

BRITAIN

SPAIN

NEWS ANALYSIS

SELECTIONSFROM THE LEFT

CAPITALISMFOULS THINGS UP

DOCUMENTS

Carter Escalates Threats Against Cuba—by Ernest Harsch

Can Carter's Austerity Deal BeatInflation?—by Jon Britton

Peking Beats the Drums for Mobutu—by Matilde Zimmermann

Peking Releases 110,000 PoliticalPrisoners

10,000 in Paris Protest World Cup

Trotskyists' "Fete Rouge" a Big Success—by F. L. Derry i

Report on a CP Cell Meeting15,000 in Paris Condemn French

Intervention—by Ernest Harsch

Why the Generals Got Cold Feet

Plutarco Hernandez Pardoned—by Sara Santiago

Why Carazo Backed Down

Why Trotskyists Are Running for ParliamentWhy Upsurge Failed to Dislodge Somoza

—by Fausto AmadorDozens Killed as Shah's Troops Storm

Tehran UniversityIranian Oppositionist Stabbed in LondonProtests Win Release of Political

Prisoners

Castro, Mengistu Differ on Eritrea—by Joseph Hansen

9,000 in Switzerland March AgainstNuclear Power

A Revolutionary Program for Peru

Intercontinental Press, P.O. Box 116, VarickStreet Station, New York, N.Y. 10014. Published inNew York each Monday except the first In Januaryand third and fourth In August.

Second-ci^s postage paid at New York, N.Y.Editor Joseph Hansen.Contributing Editors: Pierre Frank, Livio Maltan,

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Copyright * 1978 by Intercontinental Press.

June 19. 1978

iVMIIU

Picket line in Chicago May 27 demanding safe passage for Blanco

Blanco Still Jailed In ArgentinaThe life of Peruvian Trotskyist leader

Hugo Blanco remains in danger in Argentina.

Blanco was deported from Peru on May25, along with eleven other leftist politicaland union leaders and one right-wingjournalist. The deportations followed amassive two-day general strike protestingthe Morales Bermudez regime's harsh austerity policies.

The Argentine interior ministry issued acommunique May 31 claiming that elevenof the deportees had been granted asylumin Argentina, and that Blanco and laborattorney Ricardo Blaz Chdvez were seeking to go to Sweden and Mexico respectively. The requests were being "handledat the diplomatic level" and decisions bythe two countries were "being awaited,"the statement said.

On June 5, an official of the Swedishembassy in Buenos Aires told the U.S.Committee for Justice to Latin American

Political Prisoners (USLA) that the Argentine authorities had been informed several

days earlier that Blanco could go immediately to Sweden. But the Argentinesreplied that Blanco was still being "processed" at federal police headquarters inBuenos Aires.

Added cause for concern about all the

leftist exiles came in a June 7 communiquefrom the Argentine interior ministry. Thisstatement reported that only five of thedeportees had accepted the "asylum" offer.Retired admirals Jose Arce Larco and

Guillermo Faura Gaig were reportedly"free" in Buenos Aires, and right-wingjournalist Alfonso Baella Tuesta was

granted permanent residency in that city.Trade-union leaders Valentin Pacho

Quispe and Justiniano Apaza Orddnez,however, were said to have been flown bythe army to an undisclosed location "in thepampas" 370 miles from Buenos Aires.The communique further stated that six

other deportees were requesting asylum insome other country, and that the Argentine authorities were negotiating thoserequests with the governments involved.The countries under consideration were

said to be France, Mexico, Costa Rica,Spain, Colombia, and Cuba. The six areattorney Genaro Ledesma, Trotskyistleader Ricardo Napurl, Marka editors Ricardo Letts and Humberto Damonte, peasant leader Jos6 Luis Alvarado, andAmauta editor Javier Diez Canseco.

No further word was given on Blanco orDiaz Chdvez, other than to reconfirm thatBlanco was still being held by the federalpolice.Blanco was reported to be in "relatively

good condition" by a Swedish embassyofficial who met with him at the policeheadquarters on June 2.The international campaign that USLA

and other human-rights groups havemounted to insure the safety of the Peruvians and their right to leave Argentina iscontinuing.

USLA was told by officials at the Argentine embassy in Washington June 2 thatthey had been flooded with messages. "It'sobvious they're feeling pressure," USLAExecutive Secretary Mike Kelly said, "butwe're going to continue our emergencycampaign. . . .

"The human-rights promises of the Argentine government haven't been worthmuch in the past."

Earlier, Kelly said that "until HugoBlanco and Ricardo Diaz Chdvez—and

any of the other Peruvians who may wishto—have been allowed to leave Argentinasafely they are not out of danger fromright-wing death squads."

French Socialist Party leader FrancoisMitterrand has sent a letter to the Argentine government demanding that "thethirteen Peruvians [who] have beenhanded over to the authorities of the

Argentine republic" be allowed "to makeknown in what country they want to askthe right of asylum and be permitted to gothere immediately." About two dozenFrench trade-union and student organizations have registered similar protests.

In Canada, the Ontario Federation ofLabor sent a telegram to the Argentinegovernment May 27.

An "Appeal in Defense of Democracy inPeru" is being circulated by a number ofprominent British intellectuals and hasbeen signed by several members of Parliament and trade-union leaders. Fifty persons picketed the Peruvian embassy inLondon on June 3 and demanded that the

British government grant asylum to theexiles.

The Swiss Socialist Party passed a resolution at its May 21 congress denouncingthe arrests of Blanco and other Peruvian

political and labor leaders.In the United States, USLA has secured

statements and messages to the Argentinegovernment from- U.S. RepresentativesWalter Fauntroy and John Conyers, Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO President TomTurner, United Automobile Workers President Douglas Fraser, New York StateSupreme Court Justice Hortense Gabel,and other prominent individuals. Picketlines have been held at Argentine consulates in a number of cities, including one offifty persons in New York on June 8.In Peru, a Committee of Relatives of the

Political Prisoners and Deportees has beenformed and is circulating petitions demanding the release or repatriation of allthe victims of the regime's repression. AMay 30 leaflet distributed by the committee said that "the worst thing about thissituation is that [the thirteen exiles] havenot been deported but have only changedprisons . . . the Argentine government, incomplicity with the Peruvian government,has allowed the Peruvian dictatorship'sjails to be extended all the way to Argentina."

Telegrams and messages holding theArgentine government responsible for thesafety of Hugo Blanco and the other Peruvians, and demanding safe passages to acountry of their choice without furtherdelay, should be sent to President JorgeVidela, Casa Rosada, Buenos Aires, Argentina, or to Argentine embassies. □

Intercontinental Press

New Rise In U.S. War Propaganda

Carter Escalates Threats Against CubaBy Ernest Harsch

While American officials were busy studying possible actions agednst the Cubaninvolvement in Africa, and while conservative columnists were clamoring for directreprisals against Cuba itself, PresidentCarter sought to keep up the tempo of hisred-scare propaganda drive.

Speaking at the U.S. Naval Academy atAnnapolis June 7, Carter condemned the"persistent and increasing military involvement of the Soviet Union and Cuba in

Africa. . . ."

He continued, "We are deeply concernedabout the threat to regional peace and tothe autonomy of countries within whichthese foreign troops seem permanently tobe stationed."

What Carter was really concerned about,of course, were the shaky prospects forcontinued imperialist exploitation ofAfidca and the direct challenge that Cubantroops there present to American, WestEuropean, and South African interests.Carter underlined his concern with im

plicit threats, referring throughout hisspeech to Washington's massive militarymight.At the same time, the White House has

let it be known that it is considering a widerange of concrete measures designed tocounter the Cuban presence in Africa andto intimidate the Castro regime. The Carter administration has initiated a full-scale

National Security Council review of thecurrent situation in Afidca.

According to a report in the May 30Christian Science Monitor, Richard M.Moose, the assistant secretary of state forAfrican affairs, "confirmed in an interviewwith the Voice of America on May 26 thata multinational trade embargo againstCuba was one of the possible measuresbeing discussed within the administration."

As a pretext for the escalating anti-Cuban tirades. Carter has charged Havana with arming and training the rebelforces who staged an insurrection inZaire's mineral-rich province of Shaba inmid-May. Carter has maintained hischarges despite emphatic denials by Castro and other Cuban officials. At the same

time. Carter has refused to release publiclythe supposed "evidence" on which hischarges are said to be based.

After CIA Director Stansfield Turner

briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which had raised doubts aboutCarter's charges, committee ChairmanJohn J. Sparkman and other membersannounced June 9 that they remained

unconvinced and that Carter's "evidence"

was "by no means conclusive." SenatorGeorge McGovem described the CIA'ssources for the information as "doubtful."

Skepticism about Carter's claims is present even among intelligence officials. Citing American, Belgian, and Israeli intelligence personnel, correspondent JamesNelson Goodsell reported in the June 8Christian Science Monitor that "some

elements in the intelligence communitysimply do not accept the claims and saythere is no solid evidence of such Cuban

involvement."

It is quite possible that Carter may havesimply manufactured the charges thatCubans were involved in the Shaba uprising as a justification for his anti-Cubanmoves. In any case, getting Cuban troopsout of Africa has moved to the forefront of

White House goals on that continent.Assessing the evolution of American

policy toward Africa, correspondents Robert G. Kaiser and Don Oberdorfer re

ported in the June 4 Washington Post.

A senior State Department official said thatafter the experience in Ethiopia, the UnitedStates had to assume that—in the absence of

countermeasures—the communist forces will be

prepared to move on to the explosive black-whiteconflicts of southern Africa. That would mean

Soviet-backed Cubans in Rhodesia in the near

future, a prospect so ominous to the administration that its top priority now is to avoid it.

Carter's fears about Cuban involvementin southern Africa were confirmed two

days later, when Joshua Nkomo, one of themajor Zimbabwean nationalist leadersopposed to the racist Rhodesian regime,publicly acknowledged that his guerrillaforces were being trained by Cubans.For propaganda purposes, the American

imperialists have maintained that theCastro regime is a "surrogate" for theKremlin and that Cuban troops in Africaare serving as "international mercenaries." However, some of the more soberbourgeois circles have also publicly acknowledged a degree of independence tothe Cuban role.

A report in the June 12 U.S. News &World Report, a conservative newsweekly,commented that while Cuban troops inAfrica were "carrying out Russia's dirtywork," they were at the same time "spreading Fidel Castro's brand of revolution." Italso maintained that "Castro still is not

completely comfortable in dealing with theRussians."

The U.S. News & World Report went onto point out that "Castro does not regard

himself as a Soviet lackey who hires outhis soldiers as mercenaries to do Moscow's

bidding. Instead, he views himself as atrue revolutionary fired by evangelisticzeal to support 'wars of liberation' anywhere in the world."

As an indication of this, the articlereferred to the Castro regime's early support to anti-imperialist fighters in Bolivia,Colombia, Venezuela, and other LatinAmerican countries.

It also noted Havana's assistance to

various Afincan liberation struggles, including the dispatch of some Cuban troopsto Algeria in 1963 to help the Ben Bellaregime fight an imperialist-backed Moroccan attack; Che Guevara's participation inguerrilla actions against the proimperialistregime of Moise Tshombe in the Congo(now Zaire) in 1964-65; training for insurgents from Zanzibar, Zimbabwe, Eritrea,and other countries; the large-scale military commitment in Angola in 1975 thathalted a South Afincan invasion; and thesending of thousands of Cuban troops toEthiopia earlier this year to help theEthiopian regime beat back an American-encouraged Somalian invasion.It is the increase in the Cubans' long

standing assistance to such anti-imperialist struggles in Africa that hasaroused the fury of Carter and his allies inWestern Europe. The American imperialists have conducted numerous attacks

against the Cuban revolution in the past.The step-up in anti-Cuban broadsides fromthe White House, coupled with the administration's consideration of concrete reprisals, raises the immediate danger of arenewed offensive against the Castro regime.Some conservative columnists have

begun to discuss openly the kinds of measures that Carter has so far only daredhint at.

Joseph Kraft, in a June 1 column in theWashington Post, called for "specificsteps," such as an end to the Americsmliaison mission in Havana and an increase

in economic pressures. He arrogantly declared, "Fidel Castro needs to be taughtthe lesson . . . that tiny countries next togreat powers should behave with circumspection."Joseph C. Harsch, writing in the June 6

Christian Science Monitor, was even more

forthright. He stated that "there would beno harm in beefing up the garrison inGuantanamo, and increasing the frequency of American sea and air patrolsaround and over Cuba, and moving somecombat units towards the Florida embar

kation ports, and calling off all furtherdiplomatic and economic traffic with theCubans."

Such threats are a clear warning to allopponents of American aggression againstCuba to be on the alert. Only signs ofreadiness to move rapidly into action todemand "Hands off Cuba!" can preventnew moves against the Cuban revolution.

June 19, 1978

All-out Support for Imperialist Intervention

Peking Beats the Drums for Mobutu

"In the southern border area of Zaire

another war has been started by mercenaries directed by the Soviet Union andCuba."

An article in Mobutu's kept press? In theU.S. Army's Stars and Stripes? In a proim-perialist French or Belgian newspaper?No, the quotation is from an article in

the May 26 issue of Peking Review.To score points agednst the Soviet

Union, the Chinese bureaucracy has beensounding the trumpets for Mobutu and hisarmy, praising the intervention of Frenchand Belgian paratroopers, ̂ d reportingas fact every anticommunist and CIAallegation about Cuban involvement. Chinese Foreign Minister Huang Hua made atrip to Kinshasa June 4-7, where hepledged Peking's support for Zaire's waragsdnst "Soviet imperialism."Peking has gone out of its way to attack

Cuba, using the strong language usuallyreserved for the Soviet Union. It therebychimes in with Wsishington.Peking offers a brazen version of the

uprising in Shaba province. In a May 27polemic with Tass, the Chinese newsagency, Hsinhua, claims:

As is well known, these mercenaries based inAngola in the pay of the Soviet Union are armedby the Soviets and trained by Cuban instructors.And they invaded Shaba region under Soviet-Cuban instigation. How can this be called em"internal affair?"

These mercenaries ran amuck after intrudinginto Zaire, looting, burning, raping and killinginnocent inhabitants including babies. What sortof "popular insurgence" is this?

Two sources are used to substantiate this

version of the facts: President Mobutu,whose statements are faithfully picked upby Hsinhua, and the State Department.Mobutu's atrocity stories and his claimthat the "invaders" were "ex-Tshombe

gendarmes" directed by "a Cuban generalnamed Jos6" are all accepted as the truth.Similar credence is given Jody Powell's

assertion that the Cubans "did train andequip" the rebels. Peking was delightedwhen the Carter administration promisedto "urgently consider" any request fromMobutu for additional military aid and tostudy ways of getting around legislativerestrictions on speeding military aid to"trouble spots" in Africa.Hsinhua's editors apparently comb the

imperialist press for attacks on the Soviet£ind Cuban role in Africa. Hsinhua is full

of quotations and major excerpts fromnewspapers and magazines like the BritishDaily Telegraph ("It is still not too late forthe West to act"); Spectator ("What isneeded is action"); U.S. News and World

Report, Rastakhir from Iran, the TurkishAydinlik ("The Russians take Cubans ashirelings"), and various proimperialistnewspapers frnm Australia, West Germany, France, Venezuela, Greece, Belgium, Brazil, and Austria.Peking's support for imperialist inter

vention in Zaire leads it to give friendlytreatment to others who share this position. Among those cited favorably in Hsinhua are Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford(calling for "a harder line"), U.S. Congressional hawks. Conservative members ofthe Canadian parliament (demEmding animmediate suspension of "all present andfuture aid to Cuba"), West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, Emperor BcJcassa Iof the Central African Empire, the Chfiir-man of NATO's Military Committee, andWalter Mondale ("There is an inexcusableamount of Cubans in Africa"). ZbigniewBrzezinski was cheered at a banquet inPeking when he blasted "internationalmarauders who masquerade as non-aligned to advance big power ambitions inAfrica."

Peking's analysis of events in Africaoverlooks mentioning the centuries of oppression countries like Zaire suffered at thehands of European colonialism. Also overlooked is the fact that American and

European imperialists are fighting tomaintedn their economic and political control. Hsinhua reports the invasion of Kol-wezi by French and Belgian paratroopersas a humanitarian operation "to safeguard

or rescue the foreign residents there." Acommentary on the FrEmco-Afiican "summit meeting" in the May 28 issue ofPeople's Daily explEtins why Peking nowthinks there can be unity between theformer colonies and their masters:

Frfince is a developed European country belonging to the second world. While all Afirican countries are developing countries belonging to thethird world. The summit emphasized the positivesignificance of Franco-African cooperation andEurope-Africa relations to the further strengthening of relations and economic ties betweenthe second and the third world. Despite theirdifferent historical circumstances and levels of

economic development, the second world Emd thethird world countries have something in commonin the current international environment. Mtdnlyspeaking, Europe Eind Afnca are threatened bythe superpowers in varjring degrees, so they haveto improve their relations and strengthen theirties to cope with superpower hegemonism.

This treacherous position has led Frenchand Belgian supporters of Peking to beatthe drums for their own governments'armed intervention in Zaire. Immediatelyafter the French and Belgian invasion, theParis newspaper L'HumanM Rouge published a statement calling "Soviet sociEtl-imperialism" the "most dangerous andmost ferocious enemy which poses thegreatest menace to the countries and people of Africa."The Political Bureau of the BelgiEm

Marxist-Leninist Communist Party wenteven further. It issued a statement sayingthat "the action of the French and Belgiangovernments helps to frustrate the Hitlerite plot of Soviet social-imperialism. . . .To defend ourselves effectively, we have tofight the agents of the Soviet Fifth Columnin Belgium and the Munich-type capitula-tionist tendency of the Belgian bourgeoi-

10,000 in Paris Protest Worid Cup

Ten thousand persons marched in ParisMay 31 to protest the holding of the WorldCup football (soccer) matches in Argentina. The games began in Buenos Aires onJune 1.

Demonstrators chanted "No football

among the concentration CEunps," "Boycott the dictatorship", and "Videla murderer, Giscard d'Estaing accomplice!" Themarch had been banned by the Frenchgovernment a week earlier, but the policedid not try to break it up.The action was sponsored by COBA,*

the group that has organized support for aboycott of the World Cup matches, and

*Comit4 pour le Boycott de I'Organlsation parI'Argentine de la Coupe du Monde de Football(Organizing Committee for a Boycott of Argentina in the 1978 World Cup).

had the support of most French far-leftorganizations. A contingent of postedworkers from the union federation CFDT

and many other trade unionists participated in the meurch.A similar demonstration took place the

same day in Dijon, where 2,000 personsmarched.

COBA's boycott campaign has beenorganized around two main demands:• Freedom for all political and trade-

union prisoners, including those who have"disappeared" (i.e., whose detention is notofficially acknowledged by the Argentinemilitary junta).• Restoration of all political, trade-

union, and democratic rights in Argentina.More demonstrations were planned in

France for June 3 in Thionville, Montpel-lier, and other cities.

Intercontinental Press

1,500 March in Brussels

On June 5, the first contingent of Moroccan troops arrived in Zaire's Shaba Province aboEurd American C-141 transportplanes flown by American pilots. Theywere part of an imperialist-organized expeditionary force designed to prop up thebrutal and corrupt dictatorship of MobutuSese Seko and defend Western economic

interests from insurgents in Shaba.The airlift itself was a significant escala

tion of American imperialist interventionin Afiica. The Pentagon announced June 5that besides the planes and pilots, 325American military ground personnel wereinvolved in the operation, 72 of them inZaire itself. (The rest were dispatched toSenegal, Gabon, Morocco, Corsica, emdFrance.)While the airlift was under way, repre

sentatives of the American, French, Belgian, West German, and British governments met in Paris to discuss how to

further their joint aggression in Zaire andAfrica as a whole.

This imperialist intervention in Zairehas not gone unchallenged.In one of the biggest protests against

French intervention in Africa since the

Algerian war, 15,000 persons marched inParis June 5. The demonstrators carried

signs reading, "No to Giscard's intervention in Africa," "No to the colonialist plotof Giscard-Schmidt-Carter," and "Indochina, Algeria, that's enough. No to colonialism."

The Paris march was organized by theFrench Communist Party and by anumber of far-left groups, including theRevolutionary Communist League, Frenchsection of the Fourth International. Ac

cording to a report in the June 7 Trotsky-ist daily Rouge, the procession includeda contingent of 9,000 unionists and'alsodrew the participation of a number ofAfrican and Arab immigrant workers.

There have been other indications of the

antiwar mood in France. The Paris march

was preceded by a number of smallerdemonstrations in various parts of thecountry, and by a protest statement in theJune 4-5 Le Monde issued by a group ofFrench political figures and intellectuals.Signed by, among others, Simone de

Beauvoir, Daniel Guerin, Charles Bettel-heim, Alain Joxe, and Jean-Pierre Vigier,the statement began, "We accuse theFrench government of sending its paratroopers to Zaire to defend colonial interests and to interfere in the internal affairs

of the country by giving, under the pretext

June 19, 1978

15,000 in Paris Condemn French intervention in Zaire

By Ernest Harsch

of humanitarianism, crucial support to thecorrupt and unpopular dictatorship of General Mobutu."

In Belgium, where the government sentsome 1,700 paratroopers into Zaire, protestdemonstrations were held in various cities

as well. The largest took place on May 21in Brussels, where 1,500 persons rallied todemand "No to the Belgian and Frenchmilitary intervention in Zaire."

There have also been picket lines in theUnited States to protest American participation in the Belgian and French intervention in Zmre. But the most significantprotest so far came on June 6 when theCongressional Black Caucus,* under pressure fi:om the deep opposition amongAmericem Blacks to any aggressionagainst Africa, issued a statement condemning the Zmre intervention as a "dangerous precedent."Barren J. Mitchell, the chairman of the

Black Caucus, said that he wa? opposed tothe U.S. airlift of Moroccan and other

African troops into Zaire, because it "suggests very strongly . . . further steps topresent us with a situation comparable toVietnam."

The fear among the U.S. rulers of thewidespread antiwar sentiment in the United States and the knowledge that anysignificant moves toward foreign militaryaggression could prompt renewed massdemonstrations like those that shook the

country during the Vietnam War havebeen the major factors behind Washington's relative caution in Zaire and else

where.

An unnamed American official at the

Paris summit meeting acknowledged this,stating, "It's our general assessment thatthe mood of the U.S. as a whole is one of

reservation about involvements, certainlymilitary involvements overseas, and thatanything that raises that possibility has tobe very clearly justified and the result ofan understanding and recognition of thegeneral mood."The American-supported French and

Belgian military offensives in Zmre, Chad,and other countries have sdso aroused

protests in Africa itself, where a number ofregimes are under considerable pressurefrom their own populations to publiclycondemn the Western aggression.The Angolan press agency declared.

*A grouping of sixteen Black members of theHouse of Representatives.

"Intervention of military contingents firomthe U.S., Belgium, France and Moroccowas a threat to peace on the Afiricancontinent." The Ethiopian regime calledthe Paris summit meeting an "imperialist"plot. The Algerian government said that"the five-country conference in Paris was aneocolonial enterprise launched with thecomplicity of the neocolonized." Col.Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan head ofstate, said, "French military interventionwas part of an imperialist scheme torestore colonialism."

The government-owned Daily News ofTanzania stated June 6 that the "Western

powers are conspiring to create bananarepublics to minister to neocolonial interests." Two days later Tanzanian PresidentJulius K. Nyerere, who had previouslyspoken favorably of Carter's policy inAfrica, criticized Carter because he "onlycares about confi-ontation with the Soviet

Union and defense of capitalism inAfrica." Nyerere defended the Cuban military presence in Afirica and stated, "Current developments show that the greaterimmediate danger to Afidca's freedomcomes fi-om nations in the Western bloc."

It is partly to avoid further damage totheir diplomatic positions in Africa andtheir political standings at home that theimperialist powers are now seeking tohammer together a force of Moroccan andother African troops to take the place ofthe French and Belgian units in Shaba.The June 5-6 meeting in Paris was held todiscuss the arrangements and Westernbacking for this force, as well as to exploreother forms of assistance to Mobutu.

The backbone of the new force is to be

composed of some 1,500 combat-experienced Moroccsm troops, as well asseveral; hundred troops from Senegal,Gabon, and Togo. All four countries areformer French colonies.

Nyerere commented on the establishment of this force and the Western proposals for a more permanent one capable ofintervening in other African countries. "Itis the height of arrogance," he said, "foranyone else [besides Africans] to talk ofestablishing a pan-African force to defendAfrica. It is quite obvious, moreover, thatthose who have put forward this idea, andthose who seek to initiate such a force, arenot interested in the freedom of Africa.

They are interested in the domination ofAfrica." □

727

The Attempted Coup in the Dominican Republic

Why the Generals Got Cold Feet

[The following interview was conductedby Gus Horowitz in Santo Domingo onJune 3 with two revolutionary socialists:Enrique De Leon, a former general secretary of the Dominican teachers union and

author of the recently published bookOpresion y Democracia Sindical (Oppression and Trade-Union Democracy); andClaudio Tavarez, who wrote the introduction to the book and is well known for his

activity in defense of trade union anddemocratic rights.]

Question. What is the significance of thePRD* victory in the recent elections in theDominican Republic?

De Leon: First of all, the May 16 elections were a big defeat for Joaquln Bala-guer, the incumbent. It represented a repudiation of his twelve-year rule and of thepolicies he stood for.More generally, the vote showed that the

masses of working people are demandingmeasures to improve their living conditions and to meet their most urgent problems. In general, these demands include anagrarian reform, wage increases and ageneral lowering of the high cost of living,nationalization of the multinational corporations, freedom for the political prisoners,the right of the exiles to return, and othermeasures along these lines.Although the electoral results were fa

vorable to the PRD they do not mean thatall those who voted for the PRD ticket

consider themselves PRD supporters. TheDominican people were using the PRD asthe channel to express their repudiation ofthe Balaguer government and to showtheir desire for an improvement in theirconditions of life.

Q. Do you think, then, that the PRD willcarry out policies that will meet the demands that the masses are raising? Willthe PRD government be able to satisfytheir expectations?

Tavdrez: Whether the reforms that the

PRD promised are carried out or not depends on several factors.One of these is the economic crisis that

the country is going through. The PRDwill be inheriting a very difficult situationfrom the Balaguer regime, which is supposed to leave office on August 16.Another factor will be the role of the

*Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (Dominican Revolutionary Party).

military-bureaucratic sectors of the bourgeoisie, those sectors that were behind theattempted coup on May 17, when theythought that their interests were threatened by the PRD election victory. Although they had to back away from theattempted coup, they will still try to preserve their interests.

Then there will be the question of thedegree of mobilization that the masses canmake on behalf of their interests; thiswould be a pressure on the PRD to fulfilltheir election promises.But there is something else to keep in

mind. Even if the PRD does carry out someof its promised reforms, it would not meanthat the basic needs and aspirations of themasses of people would be met.It should be stressed that although the

PRD presented a program of reforms in theelections and made many promises to themasses, it is a capitalist party. In addition,it has been evolving in a rightward direction for the past several years.

Q. What has the PRD said since theelection?

Tavdrez: The PRD is toning down itsimage. It now says that it will wipe theslate clean with respect to the past. Thatis, they will not touch the interests of themilitary-bureaucratic sectors who enrichedthemselves through corruption; the structure of the armed forces will not be af

fected; those guilty of crimes during theBalaguer regime will not be brought tojustice.As for the question of a general amnesty

and the return of the exiles, PRDPresident-elect Antonio Guzmdn has said

that each case will be reviewed individu

ally, to see if any were guilty of criminalacts. But of course, most of the politicalprisoners and exiles have been falselyaccused of criminal acts by the Balaguerregime—that is, they were accused of beingterrorists, of killing policemen, of robbingbanks, and so forth. So Guzmdn's stanceindicates a retreat on this issue.

As for the nationalization of the multi

nationals, the PRD has reaffirmed that itwill not challenge the multinationals. Atthe most it will seek to renegotiate some ofthe contracts—which Balaguer had already been doing.Also significant are the PRD leaders'

proposals that some of the government-runenterprises—those operating at a loss—beturned over to Dominican capitalists, or toDominican capitalists in combination withU.S. or Spanish interests. This, too, is a

step backwards from their election promises.

In international affairs, Guzmdn saysthat his government will continue thesame policies towards Cuba as the Balaguer regime, that is, to establish relationswith Cuba only after the United States hasdone so.

Guzmdn also says that he will not permit Communists to hold public posts ofresponsibility in his government. This is asignal to the capitalists that his government will be reliable as a procapitalistgovernment.

The statements by Guzmdn and otherPRD leaders on these issues also indicate

that they intend to retreat on the economicand social promises that they made in theelection campaign.

Q. .Then what was the significance ofthe statements by the PRD's general secretary, Peha Gdmez? As reported in some ofthe U.S. papers, he said that the newgovernment would be socialist.

Tavdrez: This was immediately repudiated by Guzmdn, who stated categorically that his government would in no waybe of a socialist type. And, he added, onlyhe could speak for the new government.For his part, Pena Gdmez has made it

clear that his remarks had been misinter

preted, and that he too firmly holds thatthe new government will not be a socialist

Q. How do you explain what occurred onMay 17 when armed forces units stoppedthe counting of the ballots ?

Tavdrez: When the early election returnsshowed the PRD ahead, this came as a bigsurprise.

It had been generally expected thatBalaguer would win. For several reasons.In the period prior to the elections he hadbeen carrying out a demagogic campaignaimed at winning sectors of the masses.He could count on the support of importantsectors of the bourgeoisie. He had thesupport of the army and the police. He wasable to use the resources of the state to

further his electoral campaign. And hedrew on the weight of twelve years inoffice. He had a very important additionalbase of support—U.S. imperialism. All ofthis was combined with repressive measures which, he calculated, would intimidate people in the elections.So, when the initial results came in and

were favorable to the PRD, the armedforces occupied the offices of the NationalElectoral Board and stopped the count.This occurred in the very early morning ofMay 17.

De Leon: This represented an attemptedcoup by a sector of the bourgeoisie thatwas determined to prevent the PRD fromtaking over the government. Who wasbehind the coup? Primarily the parasitic

Intercontinental Press

sectors of the bourgeoisie who gained theirpower and wealth through the posts theyheld in the military and governmentalapparatus during the rule of Joaquln Bala-guer. That is, a bourgeois stratum withinthe government bureaucracy and the military. They saw the impending defeat ofBalaguer as signifying their own fall—their removal from the offices that were

the source of their wealth.

Q. How do you explain the collapse ofthe intended coup?

De Leon: For one thing, the attemptedcoup did not represent prior planning bythe bourgeoisie as a whole. It did not evenhave the prior backing of all of the topsectors of the armed forces. But it did putthem all on the spot. The intended coupcaused a terrible problem for the bourgeoisie as a whole, as well as for the imperialists. Expecting Balaguer to win, they hadintended to make a demonstration of hold

ing relatively free elections, pledging themselves to respect the popular will anduphold the results.Faced with the decision over what to do,

it turned out that the imperialists and theDominican ruling class as a whole, including some previously pro-Balaguer sectors,decided not to go along with a coup and toaccept the transfer of government to thePRO, which, after all, is also a capitalistparty.

This decision was made clear on May 18,shortly before midnight, when Balaguermade a speech saying that the counting ofthe ballots should resume and that the

electoral results would be respected. Someof the leading sectors of the bourgeoisieissued statements along the same linesthat were printed in the papers the nextday. In face of this, the intended coupcollapsed.The main reason why the rulers decided

not to back the coup was their fear of theresponse by the Dominican masses. Theconcern and outrage of the masses wasvery high in face of the intended coup, asyou can imagine. And not only did theruling class as a whole fear a possiblemass upsurge, but they doubted the capacity of those behind the coup to maintaineconomic and political stability over thelong run if the coup was allowed to gothrough. So they decided not to back it.

Q. What was the stance of the PRDleadership during these events?

De Leon: The matter was resolved

through negotiations and tacit agreementsnot only within the pro-Balaguer wing ofthe bourgeoisie, but also including thePRD and American imperialism.The main leaders of the PRD, for exam

ple, made clear their hopes to realize anaccord when they called on the masses ofPRD supporters not to mobilize in face of

the intended coup.

#

t .'-H

■ '

Pedro Guzman/El Nacional

Motorized unit patrolling PRD headquarters in Santo Domingo May 18,following army's seizure of election ballots.

Then, after Balaguer made his speechpromising to accept the election results,Guzman called a press conference the verynext day. Among other things, he promised to refrain from any major shakeups.He promised a "team government," agovernment of national unity, and he saidthat "the institutions of the country, including the Armed Forces, will be strengthened and respected, for the good ofDominican democracy." He also promisedthat there would be no persecution againstthose associated with the Balaguer regime.And he appealed to his supporters toremain calm and refrain from mass action.

So, you had a whole series of declarations by the PRD that were the counterpartof negotiations. These assurances by thePRD, which are still being made, aremeant of course to cement the ruling-classdecision to accept a PRD electoral victory.But at the same time, these statements by

the PRD are contrary to the hopes andexpectations of the masses.

For example, when the PRD says that itwill wipe the slate clean on the past, thisgoes against the masses' desire to do awaywith corruption in government. Similarly,the qualifications now placed by the PRDon freeing political prisoners or allowingthe return of the exiles are a retreat from

the masses' desire for a general amnesty.

Q. What do you think are the prospectsahead for the Dominican working classand the mass movement as a whole?

Tavdrez: The masses were against the

Balaguer regime and they expect things tochange now. They consider it to be a newsituation. They think there will be significant changes in their living conditions andin political life. They expect the right topolitical organization, trade-union rights,improvement in housing, education, andhealth conditions. And they will be willingto struggle to obtain these demands, whichthey expected to gain through a PRDvictory in the elections.

This poses the possibility for revolutionary socialists to participate in these struggles alongside the masses, to demand notonly that the government fulfill the promises that it made to the masses during theelection campaign, but to raise demandsthat go beyond them. We can fight fornationalization of the multinational corporations, wage increases, a sliding scale ofwages that would be enforced by committees of the workers—not leaving it in thehands of the government. There is a needto insist on trade-union democracy and onunity of the working class to struggle forits demands.

The aim is to mobilize the workers, thepeasants, the urban and rural poor independently of the bourgeoisie, independently of the PRD, independently of thegovernment. In this sense there is a political opening that we hope to take advantage of in helping to build an independentmass movement and an alternate leader

ship that will really represent the interestsof the working peoples and the masses ofthis country. □

June 19, 1978

Newspaper sponsored by the International Marxist Group, British section ofthe Fourth International. Published

weekly in London.

The May 25 issue reports that the UnitedTroops Out Movement (UTOM) is holdinga conference June 10 on the role of the

British Army in past colonial wars and inIreland today.One of the events at the conference is to

be a discussion among former soldiers whoserved in the north of Ireland. In this

issue, Socialist Challenge offers excerptsfrom an article by one such soldier, IanPhillips, which appeared in the UTOMnewspaper Troops Out:"I was sent to the North the day after

my 18th birthday. We were stationed inNorth Belfast. At this time the Protestant

paramilitaries were at the peak of theirsectarian assassination and bombing campaign."Nevertheless all our activity was di

rected against the Republicans."I was stationed in Tactical HQ as an

orderly for a period. Anyone arrested andall suspects were brought in there forscreening."My room where I slept was right next

door to the interrogation room and everynight you'd hear people coming and getting roughed up, their heads hangedagainst the walls, screaming and everything. . . ."On one occasion I was told to guard

three prisoners. They were told to lean upagainst the wall, fingers on the wall, feetapart. I was told to keep watch on them.One had a gunshot wound in his leg froma few days earlier and couldn't stand upproperly."1 let him sit. The corporal came in,

screamed at and threatened me and made

the bloke get up. Then he took me off thejob. Two hours later I saw that they werestill stood there in really bad pain."I saw lots of blokes who had been given

a real hammering. One of the first things Isaw when I arrived there was a little room

called 'The Box.' It was about 10ft. by 10ft.with a table and a chair in it—and it was

covered in blood.

"Other blokes said: 'It's just from blokeswho get a working over.' There were pictures in the Intelligence Room of blokespropped up between two marines reallysmashed to pulp."There wasn't a day went by when you

didn't witness some incident of brutality,whether it was someone getting draggedthrough the corridor by his hair or somewoman who was smashed in the gob[mouth] by the biggest guy in our unit

once, just for screaming."The worst incidents of brutality that I

witnessed were in the Crumlin Rd. Prison

during searches we did there. When wesearched, the Republican wing, the blokesfi-om my unit went round to certain cellslooking for certain individuals who hadbeen convicted of shooting marines."There was one guy in particular: every

one made a bee-line for his cell. He was

stripped and given a hiding. You couldhear the bloody screams all over theprison."Under the Blue and Yellow card system

strict regulations are laid down aboutgiving warnings before firing on someoneyou suspect has a weapon. But while Iworked in the office I was able to read the

sniper file. In 1972, 17 people had beenshot by snipers in our unit."Snipers are in hidden positions and

using telescopic sight. So they can't givewarnings and they can just shoot someonewalking down the road on suspicion; youhave to take his word for it."

"Class Struggle." Reflects the views ofthe International Communist League,Dutch section of the Fourth International.Published fortnightly in Amsterdam.

In the May 13 issue. Ton van Gijselreports on demonstrations held throughoutHolland against the building of nuclearpower plants:"The national day of actions against

nuclear energy on April 29 demonstratedwhat extensive roots the movement has. In

about fifteen places, activities of varioustypes were held. They had a rather localcharacter. As was to be expected, thesemobilizations fell far short of the one on

March 4 [when 40,000 persons demonstrated in AlmeloJ. The preparatory workand publicity were too limited."As regards national publicity, the re

sults were quite poor. This reflects to someextent the still weak national organizationof the antinuclear movement. The national

papers paid little or no attention to theactions. On the other hand, the regionalpress gave extensive coverage."The political character of the demon

strations was also determined locally. Insome places, they limited themselves torepeating the slogan: 'No spread of thenuclear power plants.' In other places, thequestion of nuclear power plants waslinked up with that of nuclear energy as awhole and the alternatives to it. Often

immediate problems were taken up such asthe threat that nuclear waste may be

deposited in Groningen, or the problem of'nuclear installations' in the border area of

central Holland, and the problem of thenuclear power plant in Dodeward."On April 22, a march was organized in

North Brabant to go to Mol in Belgium,where there is a major concentration of'nuclear industry.' . . ."There is a threat that in the near future

new 'nuclear installations' will he built in

and around the Netherlands. However, thelatest demonstrations have shown once

again the growing opposition to this."

was tun"What Is To Be Done," weekly paper of

the International Marxist Group. Published in Frankfurt, West Germany.

The May 25 issue carries a statement bythree persons attacked by monitors at arally organized by the West German Communist Party. It is signed by UlrichHeyden, Bernd Schultz, and Jutta Wrage:" 'A festival of political debate where no

subject is taboo,' that was the title on theprogram of the Youth Festival organizedby the German Socialist Worker Youth [theCP youth organization] in Dortmund onWhitmonday [May 15]."It looked a lot different than that to

those of us who were brutally attacked bythe monitors.

"On Whitsun Eve, Ulrich was selling thepapers of the Communist League [a Maoistgroup that supports the Gang of the Four]... in front of the Westfalen Hall. Without

any warning, he was jumped by ten monitors and dragged fifty meters away by hishair. Every time he called for help, he waspunched in the face. When he was taken tothe hospital, it turned out that he had aconcussion of the brain.

"On Whitsunday, we distributed a leafletexplaining that such attacks by the monitors were an improper way of dealing withpolitical differences. This obviously wasnot to the liking of the festival organizers.They did not want to see such questionsput before their public. . . ."Eight hefty monitors came over to us,

tore our leaflets out of our hands, andlaunched into us furiously. Bemd wasknocked into the street, where a car justmanaged to stop before hitting him. As hewas lying on the ground, a monitorstamped his glasses into his face. He waslucky that he suffered nothing more thanlacerations and a brain concussion.

"Jutta, who photographed this attack,was struck brutally in the face. He sufferedbruises and a bloody nose. As he lay on the

Intercontinental Press

ground, the monitors tried to grab hiscamera. Jutta and Bemd also had to be

taken to the hospital for treatment."This is not the first time that German

Socialist Worker Youth or German Com

munist Party monitors have used brutalforce against people on the left who thinkdifferently from them. So, we think that itis necessary to take legal steps againstsuch thug methods. We have made threecomplaints of aggravated assault. OnWhitsunday, the police were able to establish the identities of seven of the monitors

who attacked us. . . .

"We think that the use of such thugmethods by the German Socialist WorkerYouth and the German Communist PartyYouth should be widely publicized. Suchdictatorial and undemocratic kinds of be

havior help only the reactionaries, andthey should be immediately stopped."The West German CP is one of the few

Communist Parties in the advanced coun

tries that still supports Moscow unconditionally, along with the American CP. Itsattitude toward political opponents on theleft apparently has not been mellowed byany "Eurocommunist" concern for acquiring a more democratic image.

"People's Voice," organ of the CentralCommittee of the Estonian CommunistParty, the Supreme Soviet of the EstonianSoviet Socialist Republic, and the Councilof Ministers of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. Published daily in Tallinn.

The Estonian CP paper is one of the bestedited and produced of the bureaucraticorgans in the USSR, in accordance withthe high cultural level of the Estonianpeople. However, apparently at times thedemands of servility overwhelm even itsworkmanlike editors. One example is theMay 6 issue.The front page is taken up with the

speeches made by Brezhnev and WestGerman President Walter Scheel on the

occasion of the Kremlin chiefs visit to the

Federal Republic. The inside page is devoted to a speech by Estonian CP FirstSecretary J. Rabin to a meeting of Estonian ideological workers dedicated to hailing two books by Brezhnev.Rabin begins:"Respected comrades!"Today's meeting of the [Estonian] re

public's corps of ideological workers, inwhich the political workers of the armyand navy are participating, is devoted toComrade Brezhnev's books Small Countryand Resurrection.

"The first is the story of the heroic deedsof the Soviet people in the Great Fatherland War. The second deals with the periodafter the victory won by the heroic deeds of

our people in the Great Fatherland War inwhich the people's economy was rebuilt. . . .

"First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the SovietUnion and Chairman of the Council of

People's Ministers Comrade Leonid IlyichBrezhnev has given the party and thepeople two magnificent books {suurepd-rased raamatud]."He participated personally in the Great

Fatherland War and in the rebuilding ofthe people's economy, at two intense crossroads in the life and struggle of the Sovietpeople. He writes his memories of this withthe greatest sincerity and simplicity. Thesetwo books are less than fifty pages each,but what scope and what depth! Howmuch factual material, living portraits,simplicity, fortitude, and fearlessness!With extraordinary truthfulness, he portrays the heroic deeds of the popularmasses led by the party of Lenin and theirwork in the war and in reconstructing thepeople's economy."Many other writers of memoirs have

taken up whole volumes, hundreds ofpages, without achieving such power andimpact."Rabin's speech continues in this vein for

something over a page and half of the four-page paper. In the entire issue, there is lessthan half a page that does not directlycelebrate Brezhnev's deeds and utterances,and part of that is devoted to the obituaryof an Estonian CP veteran, Eduard Zopp.Brezhnev's pamphlet Resurrection be

gan to be serialized in the April 29 issue,Riling half the paper.

UKPl BLK AX

NEWSReflects the views of the Provisional

republican movement. Published weekly inBelfast.

The May 27 issue reports on a mountingcampaign of torture against suspectedmilitant nationalists in Derry City, thesecond largest city in the British-ruledenclave of Northern Ireland:

"Despite very short notice—severalhundred people came out on the night ofThursday the 18th May to show theirdisgust at continuing RUC [Royal UlsterConstabulary, the local force made up ofproimperialist Protestants] torture campaign against young Derrymen."On Monday, Gerry Meehan of Bluebell-

hill Gardens, Brandywell, was lifted [arrested] at 4.40 a.m. from his house. Hisfamily tried to get a doctor in to him, andDr. McCabe, the family doctor tried to getin to examine Gerry. But the RUC refusedto allow this and it wasn't until Gerry wasrushed from Strand Road RUC to Altna-

gelvin Hospital that Dr. McCabe saw him.What he saw sickened him. , . .

"Dr. McCabe spent one and a half hoursexamining 21 year old Gerry, and foundthat his stomach, kidneys, and privates allbore signs of bad beating. He found Gerryto have a perforated eardrum, and this,from what Gerry tells us, was caused bythe Branch continuously slapping himhard on the ear. The side of his face was

all swollen, and he had three cuts on hisear as well. His wrists were swollen badly.The reason for his swollen wrists is that

the RUC put tourniquets on his wrists, andtightened them until the blood stopped.They bent his fingers back until theynearly touched his arm. He was spread-eagled and kicked about the kidneys, stomach and privates, and was forced to dopress-ups until he collapsed. When hecould no longer continue the exercises, hewas kicked viciously."On Wednesday, Gerry was brought to

Altnagelvin Hospital where his own doctorsaw him. The RUC made sure he got anecessary injection, and then hauled himright back to Gestapo HQ for furtherinterrogation. Meehan's solicitor W. Has-son, requested a photographer to photograph Gerry's injuries while they were stillfresh. The RUC refused point-blank toallow him in to the barracks.

"His sister got a visit with him onWednesday, and she was shocked to see anRUC man on either side of Gerry help himinto and out of the visiting room. She waswarned by the Special Branch: 'Don't askhim why he is here or how he is, or yourvisit will be immediately terminated.' Shehappened to ask if he had seen a doctor,and the RUC shouted 'Shut your mouth,'and stopped the visit."The day before, young Bernard Curran

of Lecky Road was charged with murderand attempted murder. His mother stillhasn't been allowed a private visit withhim, but she found out he had been interrogated for 17 hours without a break on thefirst day: from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. the nextmorning; 11 hours on Tuesday [the nextday] and 5 hours on Wednesday. The RUCdetectives worked in relays to keep up theconstant pressure but Bernard got nobreak the entire 17 hours, not even to usethe toilet. His mother says, 'No man couldhold out against that type of continuousinterrogation. It was Monday's 17 hourinterrogation that made my Bernard signhis life away.'"After learning about this torture, Sinn

Fein set about immediately to organise aprotest. Within a few hours people were onthe streets in angry protest, showing theRUC their disgust at such low and cowardly tactics."Two RUC came out to the crowd but

ran back in after the crowd closed in on

them. These RUC men who are so aggressive when handing out beatings to youngmen run like rabbits when the women of

Derry douse them with milk from a baby'sbottle—which is precisely what happened."

June 19, 1978

OST contingent in San Jos6 May Day demonstration. Plutarco Hernandez, political prisoner!" and "HoldingBanners read, "We demand that the government release Plutarco in prison is an attack against our rights!"

Total Victory In Campaign to Free FSLN Leader

Plutarco Hernandez Pardoned by Costa Rican Government

By Sara Santiago

[Plutarco Hemdndez, a central leader ofthe Nicaraguan FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front), was released fromjail in Costa Rica on May 31. He had beengranted a pardon after a special meeting ofthe council of ministers. The decision came

after three consecutive days of demonstrations in San Josd demanding Hemdndez'srelease.

[The following article describes Hemdn-dez's case and the campaign waged inCosta Rica on his behalf.]

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica—Plutarco EllasHemdndez Sancho, one of the most important leaders of the Nicaraguan FrenteSandinista de Liberacidn Nacional

(FSLN), was arrested in the San Josdsuburb of Desamparados on April 11 (asymbolic date, since it marks the commemoration of the Costa Rican anti-imperialisthero Ju£m Santamaria).Plutarco Hemdndez, a Costa Rican by

birth, had been sentenced in absentia by aCosta Rican court for his role in the rescue

of Carlos Fonseca Amador, the historicleader of the FSLN, from a Costa Ricanjfdl on December 23, 1969. In the course of

that operation a civil guard lost his life.Immediately after Plutarco was arrested,

the Organizacidn Socialista de los Traba-jadores (OST)i initiated a campaign to freethe Sandinista fighter and called on otherleft parties and organizations, trade-unionfederations, and the workers parties' deputies in the Legislative Assembly to join inthe effort.

The class struggle in Costa Rica isunfolding under the profound impact ofthe great mass upsurge against the Som-oza dictatorship in neighboring Nicaragua. The Costa Rican people, linked to theNicaraguans in a multitude of ways, arefervently anti-Somoza. In imprisoning Plutarco Hemdndez, the Costa Rican govem-ment appears as a collaborator with thebutcher of Nicaragua.The arrest also represents a test of

strength. Plutarco is the only politicalprisoner in Costa Rica. Securing his release would mean a victory for the massmovement and would greatly increase thegovemment's difficulties in carrying outits policy of restricting democratic rights.

1. Socialist Workers Organization, a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International.—IP/1

The OST found itself virtually alone inthe campaign for Plutarco's release. Thearrest came at a time when the chronicallystrained relations between the Partido

Vanguardia Popular [PVP—People's Vanguard Party, the Costa Rican CP] and theFSLN had grown particularly tense. TheCosta Rican Socialist Party [PSC] and theRevolutionary People's Movement [MRP],groups supposedly to the left of the PVP,kept a shamefaced silence. (This againrevealed the situation of weakness in

which the PSC and the MRP have placedthemselves by participating in PuebloUnido.2 This keeps them shackled politi

cally, tailing behind the policies adoptedby the Stalinists.)Outgoing President Daniel Oduber

washed his hands of the "Plutarco case"

and dumped it in the lap of the newpresident, Rodrigo Carazo. Divisions undoubtedly exist among the Costa Ricanbourgeoisie about how to handle the affair.Imprisoning Plutarco too obviously associates the Costa Rican govemment withthe unpopular Somoza regime.

2. People United, an electoral bloc between thePVP, PSC, and MRP.-/P/7

Intercontinental Press

A few days before Plutarco Hernandezwas arrested, his family had presented anofficial petition for pardon. The outgoingLegislative Assembly had then approved amotion recommending the pardon begranted. The judicial authorities, for theirpart, came down against the pardon, refusing to recognize the legal irregularities inPlutarco's sentence.

The irregularities are obvious. Plutarcoplayed only a secondary role in the operation to free Carlos Fonseca Amador, and itcan be proved that he did not participatein the incident that led to the death of the

civil guard. During their trial, PlutarcoHernandez and the other accused were

declared fugitives from justice. This wasconsidered a compounding of the crimeand partial proof of guilt when the judgment in absentia was handed down.

In declaring Plutarco Hernandez a fugitive, the judges cited a prison escape thathad in reality never occurred. PlutarcoHernandez and other Sandinista prisonersleft jail in October 1970 on direct ordersfrom the president of the republic. Theywere all deported to Mexico City underheavy police escort. This cannot be considered an escape, nor can anyone be declareda fugitive on such grounds.The matter at present is in the hands of

the executive branch. Before adopting afinal decision. President Carazo has toconsult with the principal sectors of thebourgeoisie that support him—amongwhom can be found the most conservative

and reactionary in the country. At thesame time he is feeling pressure fromSomoza.

The OST saw the need to participate inbuilding a broad and energetic defensecampaign, one that could unite a largenumber of prominent defenders of democratic rights. The Comite Pro-Libertad dePlutarco Hernandez [Committee to FreePlutarco Hernhndez] was officially constituted May 17.

Its initial appeal was signed by CarlosMonge Alfaro, ex-rector of the Universityof Costa Rica and an intellectual of greatprestige; Javier Solis, editor of the independent left newspaper Pueblo-, representatives of the left organization Frente Popular; well-known trade unionists; andleaders of the OST. The president of thecommittee is Graciela Sancho de Hernan

dez, the mother of the imprisoned Sandinista leader.

The most notable absence from the cam

paign has been that of the Pueblo Unidoparties. They have refused to participate.Another particularly unfortunate absencefrom the defense committee has been that

of the Partido Revolucionario de los Tra-baj adores [PRT—Revolutionary WorkersParty], a sympathizing organization of theFourth International. Despite repeatedinvitations from the OST, the PRT hasreiterated that participating alongside theOST in acts of solidarity with the Nicara-guan people goes against its principles.

Why Carazo Backed Down

For three consecutive days beginningMay 29, the Committee to Free PlutarcoHernandez mounted protest demonstrations of 500 persons in front of the mainpost office in San Jose, demanding therelease of the Sandinista leader.

On May 30, 200 persons picketed thepresidential palace during a torrentialrain.

President Carazo's press officer responded to the mobilization by announcing that the council of ministerswas not going to deal with the case atits May 30 meeting, that its May 31meeting had been canceled, and thatthe question was not on the agenda fora June 1 meeting either.

Under pressure of the mounting protests, however, a special meeting washeld and the pardon was granted. Plutarco Hernandez was released in time to

An intense campaign by the defensecommittee began May 17. The campaignhas involved picket lines and fund collections on the streets; public statementsthrough the press, radio, and television;public meetings at the university aimed atpublicizing the committee's goals; andcirculation of public letters supporting thecommittee, signed by prominent intellectuals, trade unions, community organizations, and so on.As the campaign to free Plutarco has

gained momentum, details about the rolebeing played in the case by Somoza arelittle by little being brought to light. These"leaks" emanate from sources close to thegovernment that are opposed to the pressure of the Nicaraguan dictator. The revelations concern threats of economic reprisals made by Somoza against the Costa

Famine in EthiopiaThe Ethiopian government announced

June 3 that between 600,000 and 1 millionEthiopians were starving in the drought-stricken province of Wallo. A few dayslater officials of the United Nations World

Food Program in Rome announced that upto 1.5 million persons faced starvation inthe country. They said that Ethiopia wasfacing a famine "far, far worse" than theone that killed some 200,000 Ethiopians in1973-74.

The drought-affected area stretchesnorth to south along the eastern escarpment of the Danakil mountains and in-

head off a march planned by thedefense committee for June 1.

Upon his release, Plutarco Hernandeztook out a full-page advertisement inthe major San Jose daily La Nacionthanking those who had come to hisdefense. One paragraph read:"1 want to express my special recogni

tion to the Organizacion Socialista delos Trabajadores, whose members fromthe very day of my arrest were unstint-ingly in the front ranks of the fight formy release. In this case, however, 1think that [OST leader] Alejandra Cal-deron and the companeros of the OSTwere only carrying out their most elementary duty as revolutionists. In anycountry where you find a revolutionistin jail for his ideas, it is the mostelementary duty of anyone who callshimself a revolutionist to defend theprisoner unconditionally. . . ."

Rican government. Besides its politicalposition, the Somoza family has enormousholdings in Costa Rica—land, businesses,and factories.

The "leaks" do not redound to the credit

of Carazo's government; they are helpingto convert the case into a political scandal.They are also opening the eyes of theCosta Rican people to the fact that tyranny in Nicaragua is a constant threat totheir own democratic rights. The CostaRican government's collaboration withSomoza in jailing anti-Somoza fighters inCosta Rica is appearing more and moreobvious and repugnant, and the falseimage of "democracy" that the CostaRican ruling class has so carefully cultivated during thirty years of "social peace"is beginning to come apart.

May 29, 1978

eludes Wallo Province, which was one ofthe worst hit by the previous famine. TheEthiopian regime charges that guerrillaactivities by the rightist Ethiopian Democratic Union have aggravated the situation by disrupting services.

According to Ethiopian officials, thecountry will need about 400,000 tons offood over the next year to avert a seriousfamine. They announced that forty-sevenpersons are known to have already died,mostly after eating poisonous herbs andfungus-infected grain.

June 19, 1978

Debates With CP, SP Leaders A Highlight

French Trotskyists' 'Fete Rouge' A Big SuccessBy F. L. Derry

PARIS—A festival organized here May27-28 in support of the Trotskyist dailyRouge became a front-page political eventas a result of a debate held at the festival

between representatives of the LCR,' andleaders of the French and Spanish Communist parties.The general theme of the event was

"May '68—May '78." It received front-pagecoverage in Le Matin, a large-circulationdaily associated with the Socialist Party,as well as extensive coverage in Le Monde.The event also received attention in the

pages of the French CP daily l'Humanit6,where it was denounced by members of thePolitical Bureau. Le Monde estimated the

total weekend attendance at 10,000.Part of the "F6te Rouge" was a cultural

event. A rock concert was organized forSaturday night. Concerts of African emdHaitian music as well as a jazz concertwere also organized. One tent featuredcontinuous showings of movies includingfilms of antinuclear demonstrations, theAmerican movie Harlan County, USA,and a recently produced film on the lifeand assassination of Leon Sedov, the sonof Leon Trotsky.A second tent provided tables and

stands from many different groups. TheInternational Marxist Group (British section of the Fourth International) soldbuttons against racism. The Liga Comu-nista Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Com-unist League, Spanish section of theFourth International) sold its new magazine Perspectiva Mundial.A table of French LCR members from

the Alsace region sold their journal Cahi-ers Alsace-Rouge. Another stand distributed Barricades, a new Trotskyist youthjournal. Other French organizations alsoset up stands, including Lutte Ouvri6re(Workers Struggle), Comit6s Communistespour I'Autogestion (Communist Committees for Self-Management), and the Organisation Communists des Travailleurs

(Communist Workers Organization).The heart of the festival was the political

debate that took place in a variety offorums on such topics as women, youth,the army. Eastern Europe, French imperialism, the struggles of homosexuals,ecology, revolutionary struggles in south-em Europe, and, above all, the French

1. Ligue Communiste R^volutionnaire—Revolutionary Communist League, French section of the Fourth International.

Communist Party and Eurocommunism.Many different groups were invited to takepart in each of these forums.The forum on women, for example, had

representatives from sections of the FourthInternational in Spain, Fremce, and Italy,as well as Nadi Camado, a leader of theWorkers Commissions in Spain and amember of the Spanish Communist Party,and Alicia de Diego, secretary for women'sissues of the Workers Commissions in

Spain. Many members of the French CPtook the floor to explain the struggles theyare waging inside the CP concerning thewomen's movement.

A forum on the press in the workersmovement included Jacques Fremontier asa peirticipant. Fremontier is one of thedissidents in the French CP who have

recently begun to publicly express themselves. He is a former editor of Action, a

CP joumsd distributed in workplaces. Herecently quit his post at Action because ofhis growing disagreements with the CPleadership's course.The forum on the opposition movement

in Eastern Europe brought together anumber of well-known representatives ofthe movement for democratic rights including Victor Fainberg and Leonid Plyushchfrom the Soviet Union; Jan Kavein, aleader of the student movement in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and a signer of theCharter 77 document; A. Smolar, a leaderof the 1968 Polish student movement; andCatherine Verla, representing the FrenchLCR.

Of particular interest were those forumsthat offered a direct confirontation of views

with the Eurocommunist representatives.L. Malo de Molina, director of foreignaffairs for the Spanish Communist Party,spoke as an official representative of hisparty, for example.Several members of the French CP also

spoke, such as Jean Elleinstein, one of thebest-known intellectual representatives ofEurocommunism in France. Jean Rony, aneditor of the CP magazine France-Nouvelle, also took part.Many former members and leaders of

the CP also took part, including P. Ro-brieux, the former national secretary of theUnion of Communist Students, and RogerGaraudy, a former member of the PoliticalBureau who was expelled firom the CPafter 1968.

Several leaders of the SP also took partin the debates, including SP NationalSecretary Gilles Martinet and Didier Mot-chcme, an editor of the journal Repkres, the

theoretical journal of the SP minoritytendency, the CERES.^ Representing theLCR were Alain Krivine, editor of Rouge,and Daniel Bensaid, a member of thePolitical Bureau.

The participants firom the CP are alloutspoken dissidents. They devoted mostof their remarks to criticisms of the CPand of the Soviet Union. The CP responded by condemning both the festivalitself and the participation of Elleinstein,Rony, and other CP members. A front-pagearticle in the May 29 I'Humanite by Political Bureau member Roland Leroy used the"fete" as one example of a "factionalundertaking directed at the CommunistParty, its policies, principles, and leadership."

So far, pressure from the CP PoliticalBureau has not succeeded in silencing thepublic dissent. For example, when Ukrainian Marxist and fighter for democraticrights Leonid Plyushch joined those on thestage about halfway through the debate onEurocommunism, Elleinstein was on^ ofthe first to shake his hand, declaring,"Today, it is in the Soviet Union that thereare thousands of Dreyfuses who must besaved from repression."Rouge and the LCR have been working

hard to open the broadest possible dialogue with the developing dissident currents inside the CP. They have been tryingto break down the long-standing harriersand prejudices the Stalinist bureaucratshave relied on for years to isolate theranks of the CP from the arguments andideas of the French Trotskyists. The results of the festival show that this activitywas an important step forward towarddestroying these prejudices and laying thebasis for a real debate with the CP ranks

on the program of Trotskyism.Not everyone has seen the debate with

the Eurocommunists in this light, however. In a letter to the LCR, the PoliticalBureau of the Organisation CommunisteIntemationaliste (Internationalist Communist Organization) refused the invitation that had been extended to it to takepart in the activities and debates. Owingto a misunderstanding. Rouge had alreadyreported that the OCI had "agreed inprinciple to attend." In its May 19 letter,the OCI replied:"How could you assume, to top it off,

that the OCI could—as you put it—'agree

2. Centre d'Etudes, de Recherches et d'EducationSocialistes (Center for Socialist Studies, Research, and Education), a wing of the SP.

Intercontinental Press

in principle' to a debate commemoratingMay '68 organized wdth the participationof Elleinstein and representatives of theSpanish CP, among others?"Debate with Elleinstein, the historian

of Stalinism?

"Elleinstein, who at a meeting held forhim February 24 at the Pantheon campuscalled the OCI and LCR activists, and thestudents there, 'fascists'?"Debate with representatives of the

Spanish CP?"The Spanish CP, which, in the name of

the Moncloa pact it has signed with thegovernment, fights to maintain the decayed monarchist-Francoist regime inpower, fights for austerity against theworking class! . . ."In our view, such a policy has nothing

in common with that of the workers united

front, which makes it possible to achieveunity around precise goals irrespective ofpolitical differences."On this basis, the OCI declined to have a

speaker on the platform to present itspolitical ideas to those present.The problem facing French Trotskyists

today is how to reach the tens of thousands of members and supporters of theFrench CP who are now beginning to raisethe first questions about their party's rolein the recent legislative elections, andwhat course to follow in the future. How

can Trotskjdst ideas be presented in such away that they will be taken seriously byrank-and-file CP members who are consid

ering an alternative to the line of the partybureaucrats? A willingness to debateopenly—in fact, to aggressively seek outall possibilities for such a debate—is essen-ti£d if Trotskyist ideas are to begin topenetrate the CP ranks.The degree to which these sectarian

harriers are being challenged was demonstrated in one of the remarks made by SPnational leader Gilles Martinet, when hesaid that "anti-Trotskyism is the anti-Semitism of the working-class movement."

By a Trotskyist Invited as a Guest

Report on a French CP Cell Meeting[The following article appeared in theMay 26 issue of the French Trotskyistdaily Rouge. The translation is by LynnSilver.]

Palavas-les-Flots is a town ten kilome

ters fi-om Montpellier. In winter it is afishing p