AROUND THE WORLD
AROUND
THE
WORLD
SENEGAL Regime's increasing Isolation ON APRIL 4 the main opposition party, the Parti democratique senegalais (PDS, Senegal Democratic Party), called a demonstration in the capital, Dakar, on the twentyninth anniversary of the country's independence. The PDS made no serious effort to organize this event however, and the party leadership did not turn out for it. Nonetheless, the majority of the city's population came out onto the streets to express their determination to put an end to Abdou Diouf's regime. Diouf had, of course, prohibited the demonstration, and the police James Kutcher (1912-1989) nationalist Tendency. of the American working class. * 26 International Viewpoint #162 • May 1, 1989 were out in force in the centre of the city. There were a number of confrontations and the police made 180 arrests.
Confidence in the regime has fallen to its lowest point ever. The country has been devastated by an economic crisis, reinforced by rampant corruption at the top (see /V 153). There is nothing out of the ordinary in such a situation in a third world country, but what makes Senegal unusual is that the ruling party is a member of the Socialist International, and the country is protected by a strong French military presence. Dominated by French imperialism, Abdou Diouf's Senegal enjoys the total support of the French Socialist Party.
This purported showcase of Socialist International-style democracy in Africa is
OBITUARIES tional." * usually presented in the Western press as an example of pluralism and parliamentary democracy. The reality is that, despite this, Senegal has been pillaged shamelessly by the ruling class. While arrogant displays of wealth can be found in some districts of the capital the rest of the population has been sinking ever further into poverty. Strikes and demonstrations are usually prohibited or repressed. Around 25,000 French nationals live there, a large number of whom work in business of one kind or another, with others in the state apparatus. Several hundred French military personnel are encamped in the capital.
Virtually every sector of society is hostile to the regime, and a strike of university teachers has been going on since February 11. There is also conflict within the army and the police. The timidity of the opposition becomes apparent when we take this background into account.
The PDS, the party of the liberal bourgeois opposition, refuses to organize the thousands of people who respond to its calls for demonstrations. Along with two pro-soviet organizations it has formed an alliance that restricts itself to demanding a government of national unity with the existing regime. At a time when the majori-
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May 1, 1989 • #162 International Viewpoint ty of the population is ready to fight, the main opposition forces restrict themselves to vague propaganda.
Only some small revolutionary currents, among them the Organisation socialiste des travailleurs (Socialist Workers' Organization, Senegalese section of the Fourth International) are attempting, with forces that are at present still weak, to offer a way forward for the popular movement. They propose mass organizations at a district level, giving an anti-imperialist content to the mobilizations, rejecting the idea of a government of national unity and taking part in the various strikes, which the PDS has so far refused to support. * YUGOSLAVIA Kosovo Albanians THE PAPER of the Swedish section of the Fourth International, Internationalen, carried an interview with Kosove Rexha-Bala, the chair of the Kosovo Albanian organization in the city of Göteborg in its April 6 issue. The Albanian immigrant leader said, among other things:
"What can you do when even children are being killed? The socialist organizations and the League of Yugoslav Communists [the official CP] are participating in attempts to organize resistance. Even Albanians who have lived in Sweden for many years are protesting, despite the fact that they risk not being able to visit home.
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"If it goes on this way, there will be a civil war. They are shooting down people in
Kosovo, and at the same time festivals are being held in Serbia to celebrate the
'triumph in Kosovo.' "
INTERNATICNAL
Rexha-Bala denied that any Albanian
"irredentism" was involved in the protests:
"That is pure propaganda! The people in
MARXIST REVIEW Kosovo want to rule themselves. I wonder if Albania would really want to take in these Albanians. The Albanians in Yugoslavia have been born and bred there, and would hardly want Stalinism back." * BASQUE COUNTRY Pravda backs campaign against ETA IN RESPONSE to the breakdown of the negotiations between the government and ETA, in its April 10 issue, an article in Soviet Communist denigrated militant Basque nationalism and identified with the "anti-terrorist" campaign against it. The article was entitled: "The axe or the dove - the roots of Basque separatism."
V. Volkov, Pravda's correspondent in Madrid, ended his article with a flourish:
"The symbol of the terrorists is a snake's
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these sinister symbols on the walls of homes, on fences and decorate their leaflets with them....It is hoped that the dove of peace will prove stronger than the snake and axe. The Basque country, like the rest of Spain, longs for peace and concord." *
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•Great... First the greenhouse effect - now this.' EXXON VALDEZ STUDENT DRIVER 27
Soviet bureaucracy tries out
"democratic" methods of years in prison and deprivation of all civic rights."
The official tone shifted with the publication of foreign minister Eduard Shevarnadze's speech to the August 14 plenum of the
THE MASSACRE in Tbilisi on April 6 has clearly become a dangerous embarrassment for the Gorbachev leadership both inside the USSR and worldwide. Moscow has quickly retreated from bloodcurdling threats of a general crackdown to an oily discourse about new, more democratic methods of handling the problems caused by the "excesses" of the state security forces.
GERRY FOLEY
HERE CAN BE no doubt about
T what the massacre was intended to accomplish. The scenes filmed by
Georgian oppositionists show an overwhelming display of force, a line of tanks advancing on protesters in a confined space and firing gas grenades. The effect must have been terrifying.
The authorities' original story was that the protesters had stampeded and were therefore responsible for the fate of the victims in their own ranks. The pictures made this charge untenable. If there was a stampede, it could be accounted for by the armored charge of the military. Covering a crowd with teargas in a confined space itself could create panic.
Now, Soviet authorities themselves have admitted that poison gas was used that could have long-term effects on those exposed. That is a very effective form of intimidation. Like a police dossier, it is a threat that continues to hang over you.
Immediately after the slaughter in Tbilisi, tanks were sent clattering through the streets of the capitals of the Baltic republics, striking fear into the populations. This was only a couple of weeks after the elections that produced majorities for the Baltic national democratic fronts.
Mute message of the tanks
The mute message of the tanks was made explicit in Pravda of April 11. The editorial was a broadside against "abuses" of perestroika. It took up the Georgian events only half way through. Fire was focused on
"motley grouplets, who, while they present themselves as champions of perestroika,
28 are in fact shameless opponents of it." The editorial hailed a new law, the text of which
International Viewpoint #162 • May 1, 1989 was also printed on the front page.
Notably, the new legislation makes illegal "deliberate actions designed to arouse national or racial antagonisms or conflicts, diminishing national honor and dignity, or limiting the direct or indirect prerogatives of citizens on the basis of their race or nationality." That is punishable by ten years in prison. Furthermore, the law makes it illegal "to insult or discredit" official bodies or officials.
Potentially witch-hunting legislation
This extremely vague legislation could be used to suppress any criticism of the Soviet authorities and, in particular, any movement against national oppression. It should be remembered that even the expression of pride in the Kazakh-language press at seeing schools filled with "darkeyed" Kazakh children was denounced as "racist" by the Soviet central press. Notably, protests against Russification in the Baltic republics have been denounced as attacks on the rights of Russians who have come into these small countries after their forcible incorporation into the Soviet
This potentially witch-hunting legislation was defended by explicit reference to reactionary legislation in capitalist coun tries. "In all countries there are legal norms defending their systems. For example, in the USA, for anti-state crimes, the law provides for fines of $20,000 or prison terms of 20 years. In Spain, anyone who deliberately damages the authority or the power of the government, who authors or propagates false, distorted or tendentious rumors or reports or perpetrates any action to achieve such ends is punished by six to twelve
Georgian CP in Pravda of April 16. It was couched in hypocritical terms such as those so beloved of British Conservative governments, in particular. Perhaps the "restructurers" in the Soviet government consider those as just as worthy "democratic" models as the "anti-state laws" in the US or belated Francoism in Spain.
Walking the perestroika tightrope
Gorbachev's foreign minister declared that "nothing and no one could justify the deaths of innocent people." He went on to say that the world "puts so much hope in perestroika that no one can be indifferent to any threat to it, either from irresponsible people who interpret democratization and glasnost too freely or those who hold various responsibilities and are unable to break with the false principles of the past."
Shevarnadze blamed the child casualties on adults who exploited their inexperience to mobilize them in protests. The fault for the massacre was put on the republic authorities, who were supposed to have called the military in, a mistake that had been redeemed by the "moral example" offered by the resignation of the Georgian secretary, Patiashvili.