Nicaragua.... The Sandinista Front urges the US government to establish a direct dialogue with Nicaragua so that relations between the two countries can be
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CANADA No Pasaran! ON MARCH 19, 1,200 people gathered in front of the US consulate in Toronto to express outrage at the deployment of over 3,000 US troops in Honduras. Here, as in the USA, demonstrators met with instances of police violence and arrests. This report is from the April 1988 issue of Socialist Challenge, newspaper of a Fourth Internationalist group, the Alliance for Socialist Action:
WITH CHANTS of "No Pasaran!" "They shall not pass!", an anti-fascist slogan from the Spanish civil war — the angry, militant crowd, many of them youth and university students, sat down on the pavement in front of the consulate effectively blocking off traffic for up to an hour. The demonstration, called by Canadian Action for Nicaragua and the Toronto AntiIntervention Coalition (TAIC), was addressed by speakers from Nicaragua, from anti-intervention and solidarity groups, and from the Toronto Labour Council.
Barry Weisleder, speaking on behalf of the TAIC, pointed in his remarks to the danger of a false sense of security which began to affect some activists following the defeat of contra aid in the US congress earlier this month. In the light of this week's events, the anti-intervention movement cannot afford to relax its efforts. To this end, he pointed to preparations currently underway in the US for a series of actions to culminate in nation-wide protests in the week of April 30.
The groundwork for this explosive response to Washington's most recent aggression was laid by months of considerable activity on the part of solidarity and anti-intervention groups in southern
On February 2 over 300 people picketed in front of the same US consulate in opposition to Reagan's request to congress for an additional $36.2m for the contras. A few days later, 200 activists gathered in Toronto to discuss ways to pressure Ottawa and Washington to end US intervention throughout Central America....
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Some recommendations were adopted at the February conference with near unanimous approval, including the following: 1) Participation in mass Central America antiintervention protests at the World Economic Summit scheduled for Toronto, June 1921. 2) Participation in similar protests on or around April 30, in conjunction with actions expected to occur across the US. 3) That there be another Ontario-wide Central America solidarity conference, to be held in the summer or fall, with a dual emphasis on "popular education" and developing strategies for the Ontario movement. Such a conference may create the framework for an Ontario anti-intervention coalition.
Undoubtedly, the situation on the ground in Central America will be a primary factor in determining the pace of the next period of activity, not only in Ontario, but also in Quebec, the Maritimes and the West. Already, coalitions are forming to respond to the rapidly unfolding developments in a number of cities. * USA Victory against FBI spying AN UNPRECEDENTED victory for constitutional rights was registered at a federal court house in New York on March 17. "The government's decision to throw in the towel in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) case brings this 15-year fight to a successful conclusion," Jack Barnes, national secretary of the SWP, told a news conference
Attorney General Edwin Meese decided to withdraw a Justice Department appeal of the August 1986 ruling of US District Judge Thomas Griesa that declared it ille-
### NICARAGUA
FSLN appeal A WEEK after the Sapoa meeting between the contras and the Nicaraguan leadership, the FSLN, and the 60-day cease-fire agreement, the FSLN issued the following statement from Managua on March 25, 1988:
"THE SIGNING of the Sapoà accord sets the tone for a solid and lasting peace in Nicaragua. This accord asserts the sovereignty, the self-determination, the independence and the will for peace and democracy of the legitimately constituted government of Nicaragua, which defends the programme and the perspectives of struggle of the Sandinista Front.
"The Sandinista Front will continue to defend peasants right to land, the right to work, the right of workers to organize and the right to freedom of expression by the workers, peasants and all social and economic sectors in the nation.
*The Sandinista Front supports the Sapoà accord, which does not put into question the bases and transformations of the revolutionary process, whose constitution reaffirms political pluralism, the mixed economy and non-alignment. The Sandinista Front appeals to all the heroic people of Nicaragua to demand in a combative manner that the counter-revolutionary hierarchy, as well as the US government, apply and respect the accord
*The Sandinista Front demands that the US president and the democratic and republican parties stop all open or covert aid and respect the Sapoà accords. It demands that the US government withdraw all North American troops sent to Honduras....The Sandinista Front urges the Honduras government to no longer remain a tool of North American politics....
*The Sandinista Front appeals to workers, peasants and all the Nicaraguan people to continue to fulfill the tasks demanded by the nation in terms of military, economic, political-ideological and political-diplomatic defence in the face of the aggressive policies that the US deploys in every way possible against normalized.** gal for the FBI and other police outfits to use informers, disruption programs, or break-ins against political organizations and activists [see IV 105]. Meese was joined in this action by 11 other heads of
Griesa's ruling in favor of the SWP and Young Socialist Alliance (YSA), and his 1987 injunction barring the government from using information in the 10 million pages of files obtained illegally by the FBI, are now the law of the land.
"This places a valuable weapon securely in the hands of every fighter for democratic rights and political liberties. It is a weapon that can and should be used widely and enthusiastically to win broader freedoms for
"The court decision states that the use of FBI or other police informers to infiltrate and spy on people engaged in political activity is not a neutral act — it is a violation of the right of privacy and freedom of association. This is a historic victory that expands the space for political action free from government interference," Barnes emphasized.
The SWP's general counsel and attorney in this case, noted constitutional lawyer Leonard Boudin, pointed out that Griesa's decision was also the first time that a federal 19 judge has ruled that burglaries carried out April 18, 1988 • #139 International Viewpoint
AROUND THE WORLD by the FBI to steal or copy private papers or to plant microphones are violations of the Fourth Amendment, which was written to protect the people against illegal searches by the government.
And for the first time, a federal court ruled that a surreptitious campaign of disruption operations is against the law. In addition, the court awarded the SWP and YSA $264,000 in damages. *
• From The Militant, newspaper of the SWP, March 25, 1988. ISRAELI STATE Derech Nitzotz closed DESPITE heavy local and international pressures, on February 18 Eli Suissa, Jerusalem District Commissioner, implemented his threat and ordered the closure of the paper Derech Niztoz/Tariq ASharara [see IV 136]. He did not give reasons for his decision, which was preceded by the arrest of Ribhi al-Aruri, a journalist
The editorial board of the paper condemned the decision, which it described as "a black day for democracy and a dangerous new precedent, which will harm first and foremost the Israeli public".
Ribhi al-Aruri, from Ramallah, brother-in-law, Jamal Zakout, a trade unionist from Gaza, were arrested on February 16. They were beaten, starved and threatened during their interrogation.
Ribhi told his lawyer on February 28: "I was brought into detention, and some policemen entered the room, between six to eight I believe, and started me... with their fists and kicked me for about an hour, and beat my head against the wall, screaming 'PLO journalist' ordered me to undress the upper half of my body without stopping the beating even for a second... then they brought me into a yard, covered with an asbestos ceiling through which the rain entered. They handcuffed my hand to a wall with a piece of iron around my back and covered my head with a sack, without letting me dress
"The next day, another interrogator... threatened to keep me tied until I died, and reminded me of Muhammad alHawaja, who died during an interrogation, and of Awad Hamdan....They tied me again in the same way, but this time my hands were pushed higher up my back. I stayed like this until Thursday night, without having anything to eat....On Friday morning, they put me into a tiny 'cupboard', where I was kept standing with hands tied to my back until the evening....
"On Sunday morning, they took me out [of his cell], handcuffed my hands to my back and put me in the 'cupboard' again, where I stayed until Tuesday morning without food....I saw my lawyer for the first time only on Friday, February 26, and had the court session two days later in the 2 presence of my lawyer. During that whole period I couldn't wash or change my International Viewpoint #139 • April 18, 1988 clothes." (As we go to press, we hear that Ribhi al-Aruri has been sentenced to six months administrative detention.)
According to the Nitzotz editorial board, "The closure of the newspaper is a McCarthyite step, and flows from purely political considerations, connected with the government's embroilment in the occupied territories. This is a desperate attempt to close the mouths of those calling for an end to the occupation and recognition of the PLO as the only way to achieve peace"
The board promised that it would continue its journalistic work, and, in accordance with the press law, which permits publication of a single issue of an unlicensed paper, the Nitzotz publishing house issued Sawt al-Sharara in Arabic on February 19, and Ve Af Al Pi Hen ("Nevertheless") in Hebrew on February 28, which continue the journalistic direction of the banned
On February 28, the Israeli Journalists Association called for the abolition of the law empowering the District Commissioner — a relic of British colonial rule - to grant or deny a licence to a paper. They also demanded the restoration of Derech
• From News from Within, March 14, SWEDEN Left union victory A MAIN speaker at the May 14 allScandinavian rally in Copenhagen to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Fourth International (see page 27) will be Göte Kilden, a trade-union leader in the Volvo car plants in Sweden's main industrial center and a leader of the Swedish section of the Fourth International. The following feature is from the March 14 issue of Klassekampen, the paper of the Socialist Workers Party (SAP), Danish section of the Fourth International:
GÖTE KILDEN will speak not only as a representative of the Swedish section, but also as one of the leaders of the most extensive trade-union work carried out in recent times by a revolutionary organization in the developed world. The scope of this work was confirmed again by the union local [fällesklub] elections just held in at the Volvo plants in Göteborg, which, with 13,700 workers, form the biggest workplace in norther Europe. In this election, the trade-union opposition, of which Göte is one of the leaders, got more than a third of the votes. Göte himself was re-elected as shop steward for 800 workers at the Lundby truck factory.
"We waged a more solid election campaign than any time before," Göte said in a commentary of the results in the Socialist Party (Swedish section of the Fourth International paper, Internationalen. He continued: " If we analyze the election results in the various departments, we see that we got our best results in the departments and club districts that we have been doing trade-union work in for a long time. "In the Lundby truck factory, where we have a deep roots, we won between 70% and 80% of the votes. In some of the shops, we got our best results ever. On the other hand, in the present situation we have no way to counter various unfound arguments and fabrications, especially in the club districts where the opposition has only individual supporters. Leaflets are not enough. We have to have an organized presence. In big units, such as the paint shop, we got only 15% of the votes. And that the same time, a lot of the workers do not vote at all.
"We have to remember, too, that the social democrats had an election budget of 250,000 crowns [about $50,000]. If you compare that to our 12,000 crowns, you get an idea of what we were up against. The social democrats paid up to 200 people to do full time election work for three weeks for their election machine. But we had volunteers who, besides missing work, got up at 4am every morning to distribute leaflets.
"At the same time, we have seen censorship operating against working-class points of view. For example, Dagens Eko called me up to get my comment on the election. When they published an article later on the election, there was not a word of mine in it. On TV, there was a report that the social democrats got 75% of the vote. There was no rebuttal, nothing. A long interview with me was reduced to a few seconds
"In 1980, the trade-union opposition got almost 45% of the vote. But at that time we were present in more of the big shops. We had significantly more people involved in the election work....Today, the opposition is reduced essentially to the Socialist Party and a number of unaffiliated activists. In the light of that, it is not bad to have won almost 37% of the vote at northern Europe's biggest workplace. And this was against a ruling party given around 45% of the vote nationally by the polls. Our vote should be compared with that of the Communist Party a decade a ago. It was the strongest at the time, but it never got more than 15% in union branch elections.
"Through our election campaign we managed to press the union branch leadership to the point that it 'pledged' to assure us an 8% wage increase both locally and centrally. If they stick to that, social-democratic finance minister Feldt's wage ceiling will be shattered. That would not have been possible if the union opposition had not pushed the demand for 1,000 crowns more a month so forcefully.
"All in all, it was not so bad that more than one in every three workers at Volvo said 'no' to the metal industry contract and voted for a radical trade-union alternative," Göte concluded.
The strength of the trade-union opposition was also confirmed from another point of view. The social-democratic daily Aftonbladet described the election result at Volvo as a grave warning to the metalworkers' un-