MIDDLE EAST • AROUND THE WORLD raeli army from the territories occupied since June 1967.
This is the only slogan in line with the partial self-determination of the Palestinian people on the West Bank and in Gaza. It is the immediate goal of the uprising which could take the form of the free democratic election by the inhabitants of these territories of governmental self-determination organs. It is around these slogans - combined with that for the right of the entire Palestinian people to self-determination — that we will fight to organize active solidarity with the struggling Palestinian masses. * Hands off the Kurdish THOUSANDS of Kurdish civilians were killed on March 16-17 by poisonous gas delivered by Iraqi forces during an offensive by Iranian troops, supported by Kurdish nationalist guerrillas. Whole communities seem to have been exterminated. On March 25, the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, issued the following statement on this atrocity, which ranks with the atrocities of the two world wars of this century and of the US intervention in Vietnam. ONCE AGAIN the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein has resorted to the use of chemical weapons, this time against a civilian population. By diffusing deadly gas in the Kurdish town of Halabja and its environs, the Bagdad regime has shown, if this were not already clear, that there is no limit to its barbarism, especially when it is directed against other nations.
Once again, the Kurdish people has been the victim of the barbarism of its national oppressors. The new atrocity committed by the Ba'athist dictatorship is another in a list series of outrages against the Kurdish people, including those perpetrated by the Turkish, Iranian and Syrian regimes.
Subjected to these four dictatorships, the Kurdish nation is one of the most oppressed in the world. Not only is its right to independence and national unity denied by its oppressors but even the simple exercise of its cultural rights and its right to self-government in its territories.
The national emancipation of the Kurdish people is tightly bound up with overthrowing the oppressor regimes. In particular, the people of Kurdistan in Iraq and Iran need to unite their forces against the Bagdad and Tehran dictatorships, which are now busy savaging themselves in a war whose murderous madness continually grows worse.
The Fourth International unreservedly supports the right of the Kurdish nation to self-determination, as well as the struggle of the Kurdish people against its national oppressors, regardless of the policy of the various leaderships of this struggle in Kurdistan. * International Viewpoint #138 • April 4, 1988
AROUND
THE
WORLD
ITALY March 8 demonstrations INTERNATIONAL Women's Day in Italy was marked by a whole series of demonstrations in which students played a prominent role. Demonstrations were held on March 8 in 40 cities, and according to the daily press (in particular the Communist Party paper l'Unitá ), nearly 200,000 university women took part in them.
One of the dominant themes was denunciation of sexual violence against women. Incidents of rape were reported a few days before the Women's Day demonstrations in Rome, for example, and a law on sexual violence is presently under discussion in the parliament. In Milan, mobilization by women was given impetus even before the latest demonstrations by the brutal murder of a young woman last November in one of the neighborhoods of the city.
In Rome on the same day there were two demonstrations. The first, in the morning, brought out about 15,000 high-school students. The second, in the afternoon, was built by various groups, associations and organizations. It brought out an even larger number, about 20,000. Some contingents carried placards expressing solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian women.
Milan saw its largest student and youth demonstrations since the 1986 movement. About 15,000 people participated. The demonstration was called by the FCI, the Communist Party youth organization, the youth of Democrazia Proletaria and the Revolution Youth Organization (OGR), which has a revolutionary Marxist orientation and is in political solidarity with the Liga Communista Rivoluzionaria, the Italian section of the Fourth International. The OGR played a prominent role in the course of the demonstration, and its slogans were taken up widely in various sections of the procession. * SOUTH AFRICA Protest at brutal repression ANOTHER protest on International Women's Day was that of women from Fedtraw, the Federation of Transvaal Women. Around 500 women converged on the Chamber of Mines in Johannesburg to hand in a memorandum that charged that South Africa's repressive laws were made to protect "your interests as business at the expense of human rights and democracy". The personnel at the Chamber of Mines offices refused to receive the women, allowing only a few copies of the memorandum to be thrown through a crack in the door.
The protesters went on to the British consulate offices, where they met consulgeneral John Massingham. The Weekly Mail of March 14 reported that the Fedtraw memorandum "accused the British governemnt of presenting a 'false front' to the intowards resolving the South African problem; charged that the country's repressive laws were passed to protect British interests in South Africa; and slammed the British government for remaining silent when 17 extra-parliamentary organizations were
"Amid the strains of hummed freedom songs filtering through the consulate's closed doors, the women demanded that Massingham make clear Britain's stand in the face of the 'continuing repression' in South Africa.
After Massingham's pathetic reply in the form of justifying Britain's anti-sanctions position, the Weekly Mail report continued: ''We are not here for rhetoric,' said a Fedtraw representative. What does Thatcher say as a woman and mother about the plight of women in South Africa?'"
The International Herald Tribune of March 9 reported that later police broke up the demonstration, briefly detaining seven press photographers and cameramen. The same edition of the newspaper carried a photo feature on its front page including the Johannesburg demonstration, a women's rally in the Philippines where women carried banners saying "Military aid = violence against women", and Palestinian women demonstrating at a refugee camp in Sidon. * WESTERN EUROPE Anti-racist campaign ANTI-RACIST and anti-fascist activists from seven Western European countries met in Stockholm for a European Anti-Racist Conference on Feburary 57 (see report in /V 137). The following statement was issued from the meeting:
Concerned by the rise of racism and fascism in Europe, by the conditions imposed on immigrant workers, by the restrictions placed on the right to asylum, the organiza-
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8
AROUND THE WORLD • NEWS FROM THE F / big but our Swedish comrades alone expect to bring a couple of hundred peo ple. Likewise, we expect delegations from Norway and West Germany. Besides that, we expect many people from the Danish left. There is room for about a thousand people. This will be the first affair of this type for a long time, attended by revolutionists from all continents. * tions present examined ways of combatting together racism and of promoting equal rights in Europe. They decided:
1. To do everything in their power to establish a movement which would assume the form and slogans enabling it to become a large-scale movement against racism and for equality.
2. To take all the initiatives necessary to promote the emergence of a majority antiracist current among young people across Europe: by creating base committees in schools, colleges, universities, neighbourhoods and factories.
The delegates of each country have decided to organize initiatives appropriate to the situation in their respective countries within the framework of a European Day of
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IM A PALESTNIAN
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4
I'M A
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WE'RE WILLING
..BUT THERES
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THE PALESTINIANS...
NEWS FRON
Action on April 23 (on the eve of the
French presidential elections). On that day, anti-racist, anti-fascist and minority
THE FOURTH organizations will organize action to:
a) Draw international attention to the
INTERNATIONAL dangerous rise of racism and the spread of fascist ideas in France in the shape of the
National Front, whose leader Jean-Marie
Le Pen is a candidate in the French presidential elections. There is a similar growth