AROUND THE WORLD
AROUND THE WORLD
YUGOSLAVIA
Trial provokes mass protests
ON AUGUST 18, the trial began against
Janez Jansa, David Tasic and France Zavrl, three journalists on Mladina - journal of the Slovenian Socialist Youth Alliance - and Ivan Borstner, a warrant officer in the
Yugoslav army. All four are charged with
"having divulged military secrets" (see /V
The military tribunal was held in camera and in Serbo-Croat, even though Yugoslav laws stipulate that defendants have the right to be judged in their own language, in this case Slovenian.
The trial, seen as a test of strength between the federal army and the republic of
Slovenia, was accompanied by mass mobilizations of the Slovenian population.
Since Janez Jansa was arrested last May, a defence committee was set up in Ljubljana, involving around 70,000 individuals. More than 500 organizations have also supported the committee, including local branches of unions or of the League of Communists, not only in Slovenia but also in other Yugoslav republics, in particular Serbia.
The military tribunal pronounced sentence on July 27. Ivan Borstner was condemned to four years in prison, Janez and Zavrl to 18 months and Tasic to five months. However, the army conceded by giving provisional liberty to the four, whose sentences will be carried out later. Coming out of the court the four were cheered by a crowd of 10,000 protesting against the verdict. The Slovenian Communist Party leadership was involved in the protests, and Slovenian CP head Milan Kucan described the judgement as "usurping" the sovereignty of the Slovenian republic. SOUTH AFRICA Fighting conscription LAW AND ORDER minister Adriaan Vlok silenced the End Conscription Campaign (ECC) on August 22. It is the first "white" organization to be banned in a quarter century. The ECC is a single-issue organization that draws together an unusual variety of people under the broad banner of anticonscription: religious objectors, universal 18 pacifists; those who would take up arms against, but not for, apartheid, and unpoliticized youth whose major concern was the loss of two years of their lives and careers to the military. The organization has a quality few other white anti-apartheid groups have: a trendy, populist and open image that had the potential to take it beyond the traditional student and intellectual circles of white radicalism.
This - and the fact that military and political developments ensured that the issue of conscription developed more and more of a resonance among white South Africans — took it into areas of organization previously untapped by the "white left".
Set up in 1983, the ECC initially brought together about 50 organizations who shared little more than a concern for the growing number of young whites who were facing doubts about serving in the
South African military. The issue of conscription was not new: there had in the previous decade been at least 12 conscientious objectors sentenced to jail or detention.
The conscription issue was highlighted by the secret invasion of Angola in 1976, but it became most important when troops were sent into the townships to combat unrest in September 1984. The declaration of a national State of Emergency in June 1986, with the concomitant detentions, bannings of meetings and other restrictions, heralded a difficult time for the ECC. In particular, Emergency regulations made it illegal to "undermine the system of compulsory military conscription" — and therefore removed the ECC's main focus.
Recently, international attention was focused on the trials of Dr Ivan Toms and David Bruce, who were given heavy sentences for refusing to serve in the army. Following this, 143 others publicly proclaimed they would also not do military service. These events brought ECC and the fight against conscription back into the
It was significant that Vlok, in the statement released with the restriction order, justified his action by linking ECC to the "revolutionary onslaught" rather than addressing the issues of conscription directly. "[The] activities of the ECC are a link in the so-called struggle against apartheid and the so-called national liberation struggle undermining an existing state structure," he Other groups - such as the Objector Support Groups, conscripts groups and parents' groups — will fill some of the functions of the ECC. And there are a few objectors due for call-ups - and therefore high-profile court appearances - in the next few months. So if Vlok believes he has added the issue of conscription to the long list that he can keep hidden from his white electorate, he might be in for something of a surprise. *
[Abridged from an article by Anton Harber in the Weekly Mail, August 26.]
Police frame-up SWP
MARK CURTIS, a member of the US Socialist Workers Party in Iowa, works at the
Swift/Monfort packing house. On March 1 this year, several immigration agents raided his workplace, arresting one Salvadoran and 16 Mexican workers for using false documents. A few days later, March 4, a meeting was called to protest against these arrests, which Mark Curtis attended.
A few hours after the meeting, Mark Curtis was on his way to the supermarket when a woman ran up to his car at a traffic light.
She pleaded for a ride home, saying that someone was after her. After arriving at the house, she asked Curtis to wait on the porch while she looked inside. Moments later, the police arrested Curtis and charged him with
At the city jail, police attempted to make him confess. When he asked to see an attorney, one of the police remarked, "You're one of those Mexican-lovers aren't you?"
Curtis was then beaten up, his cheekbone broken and his face cut up. He is charged with first-degree burglary, which carries a 25-year mandatory sentence, and thirddegree sexual abuse, carrying a five-year mandatory sentence.
As soon as Curtis's friends, co-workers and fellow political activists learned of his arrest, they formed a defense committee, raised $30,000 to get him out of jail and found lawyers. To date, more than 4,000 individuals have signed petitions against the
The Mark Curtis Defense Committee is requesting all supporters to help by sending messages to Polk County Prosecutor James Smith and Police Chief William Moulder demanding that the charges are dropped and the police who beat Curtis up are prosecuted. Write to James Smith, Polk county Prosecutors Office, 500 Mulberry Street, Des Moines, Iowa 50309, USA.
Though the defense committee has already surpassed its goal of raising $45,000, more funds are needed to cover ongoing expenses. Contributions and copies of messages should be sent to the Mark Curtis Defense Committee, P.O. Box 1048, Des Moines, Iowa 50311. * SWP win legal fees IN A significant gain for democratic rights, the US government agreed to pay attorney's fees and costs to lawyers representing the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialist Alliance (YSA).
Earlier this year, the court had awarded the two organizations $264,000 in damages, plus additional costs, for the FBI's illegal use of informers, burglaries and disruption operations against the two groups. In addition, the court issued an injunction barring the government from using illegally obtained information to victimize members of the two organization today.
Winning these fees sets an important precedent for the right of victims of government attack to obtain legal defense. All too often defense lawyers who have volunteered to defend political activists from government attack have been victimized along with their clients. In the past many lawyers representing political and union defendants have been hit with contempt-ofcourt rulings, fines and jail terms.
In addition, lawyers often have had to take on such cases for little or no pay because many victims of political persecution cannot afford large legal expenses.
This award, forcing the government to pay a substantial fee to the attorneys for the SWP and YSA, will help to encourage other lawyers to come to the defense of victims of political persecution. *
(From The Militant, August 26] WESTERN EUROPE END congress THE LAST congress of the European Nuclear Disarmament movement (END) was held in Lund, Sweden, from June 29 to July 2. During the four-day gathering, hundred of peace activists from all over the world discussed the new tasks of the movement.
Leaders and representatives came from about 50 groups and movements in Western Europe and from the entire English-speaking world. There were also delegations from the official peace committees in Hungary, Poland and the Soviet Union, as well as a small number of independent peace and human-rights activists from Hungary and Poland, who had been given special authorization to attend the congress.
The independent Polish participants included members of the Peace and Freedom Group (WiP), as well as two leading personalities in the union Solidarnosc, Jacek Kuron and Janusz Onyszkiewicz. Among the independent participants who came from Hungary, there were several members of the unofficial peace group 4-6-0 and the newly Federation of Young Democrats (FIDESZ).
Delegates representing independent peace activists, the Church and humanrights groups in the USSR, Czechoslovakia and East Germany had also been invited, but the authorities in those countries refused to grant them exit visas.
The general problem posed in Lund was finding new focuses around which to revive the movement. In fact, the congress could only note a major decline in peace mobilizations in the recent period. In these conditions, few new ideas have come forward from the activists, the space has thereby increased for official and institutional declarations. For example, the official stands taken by the Social Democratic
AROUND THE WORLD government in Sweden, largely repeating the already well-known proposals for nuclear-free zones and armed neutrality, have marginalized the peace movement in the
East European problems took up only a small part of the debates. But the organizers had decided to put the question of human rights in East Europe on the agenda of the congress, and the invitation that was extended to members of the independent groups showed that the importance of these groups is recognized in the Western peace
The congress held sessions on Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania. But it was only on the last country that a joint statement was issued by the participating movements. It was accompanied by a decision to call a joint action. The session on Romania was organized at the instigation of the Dutch religious movement Pax Christi. The proposal was made to build solidarity actions, information campaigns and demonstrations this year on behalf of the peoples of Romania and the democratic circles in the country.
The initiators of this proposal included the representatives of the Polish Peace and Freedom Group; Lynn Jones, chair of END in Britain; Joanne Landy, head of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy East and West in the United States; and Jan ter Laak, general secretary of Pax Christi.
The official and independent delegates from Hungry drew attention to the discrimination suffered by the Hungarian population in Transylvania and international protests. *
WELL, GEORGE, IT LOOKS LIKE
THE END OF THE LINE FOR ME..
YOU TAKE ER FROM HERE.
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REAGAN *
DANCING
BEARS
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STAM
«Within this reformist avalanche, the masses
International Viewpoint #147 • September 19, 1988
MEXICO
O
N JULY 6, the political potential of the Mexican people was fully revealed. Working people in the countryside and the cities dealt an impressive blow to the PRI. This vote expressed the level of mass discontent provoked by the anti-democratic character of need a socialist the regime and the attacks on living standards. In this respect, there should be no reference point"
mistake about the reasons for this vote. A series of political commentators have analyzed it as the expression of a desire to vote for change without violence. And this assessment seems confirmed by the small vote won by the PMS and the PRT.
IT TOOK the Mexican authorities ten days to announce the results
However, the Cárdenas vote reflects of the July 6 presedential and parliamentary election. Everyone a diametrically opposite evolution. In the first place, it reflects a dynamic of political expected the usual electoral fraud of the Institutional Revolutionary independence. It is true that the policy pro-
Party (PRI), which has held all governmental power for 60 years.
posed by Cárdenas by no means poses the need for political independence. But for
The PRI candidate to succeed Miguel de la Madrid as president, significant sections of the Mexican people,
Carlos Salinas de Gortari, was accorded 50.4% of the vote.
it means a political break with the PRI.
Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the candidate of the National Democratic
Secondly, those who voted for Cárdenas did so because this seemed to be the best
Front (FDN), supported by the Mexican Socialist Party (PMS, a way of dislodging the PRI. In this sense, coalition including the CP, was credited with 31.1%. The National for the first time in Mexico, a dynamic of
Action Party (PAN, the traditional right-wing opposition party) was
"tactical voting" has emerged. Thirdly — and this is a fundamental point - they voted for Cárdenas as the best way of advanc-
The Revolutionary Workers' Party, PRT, the Mexican section of the ing the fight for democracy, seeing this not only as fight in the electoral arena but also
Fourth International, and its presidential candidate, Rosario Ibarra centrally in the social arena. They wanted de Piedra, were credited with 0.38%, and thus lost their to bring about a change in the relationship of forces.
Officially, then, the PRI won, even if Salinas' score looks dismal by
Mass demonstrations comparison with the 70%, 80% and even 90% of his predecessors.
against election fraud
Most of the population considers that he was not really elected. In the aftermath of the vote, gigantic demonstrations swept the
This is why, immediately after the elections, masses of people came into the streets to demonstrate their desire for
On July 9, at a press conference including all three opposition change and transformation. They gained presidential candidates, Rosario Ibarra for the PRT said that the confidence and were no longer afraid to express themselves politically.
popular will should be respected and Cárdenas recognized as
When the masses are no longer afraid of president. She called on workers in the countryside and the towns the regime and state policies, possibilities abound for the realization that they must take their fate into their own hands. Possi-