EAST GERMANY / AROUND THE WORLD
AROUND was feeling a lot more intransigent. He had met with resistance on all sides, while in Rostock and Erfurt for example, the opening of certain files by the commission of inquiry had brought scandals to light without any sign of the lynch-mobs that Eppelmann was so worried about.
Fischer concludes: "Contrary to the feeling that we had two weeks ago, when we imagined ourselves controlling the dissolution of the Stasi in some way, I now have the feeling that everything is slipping through our fingers. This impression goes far beyond the question of the dissolution of the Stasi as such. Since this ministry was almost dissolved, a vacuum has appeared. The KGB is at work and, among others the West German security services are trying to jump into the breach...It is important that the dissolution is controlled and it is up to the citizens' committees to do this...I want to avoid embittering a climate of suspicion, a pogrom atmosphere. Since the elections and after the multiplying number of items of information we have received, I think that things have developed in a different way from the moment when people, through the elections, assumed their political responsibilities. I think that the population has the right to know about the past of the parliamentarians. Otherwise we leave ourselves open to the accusation of wanting to suppress things. This affair was a turning point for me and I am now in favour of publicizing the files on all the candidates." Should the population be told the truth?
For decades the GDR's citizens were treated - and mistreated - like minors. The State-Party-Stasi told them what to think, what to do and how to behave. But hardly had they assumed their responsibilities as active citizens in the streets last autumn than the governments, both in East and West, decided that they are incapable of knowing the truth about their own society. Not only its past, but also what is happening right now. This is what the pleas for amnesty mean.
But people who have won democratic liberties for themselves will not relinquish them so soon. The demonstrations of the end of March and the actions of the citizens' movements, such as in Rostock and Erfurt, have already borne fruit. Under the pressure of these events, the heads of the parliamentary fractions in the new parliament have agreed to an inquiry into the deputies. Der Spiegel of April 2 remarks:
"The parliamentarians had no choice. The battle to get to grips with the political legacy of the SED and its army of spies threatens to divide East German society, which is already very disturbed". The truth it seems still has some future on the other side of the former iron curtain. *
THE
WORLD
COLOMBIA Campaign against repression THE Colombian political organization A Luchar supported a boycott of the legislative elections. Subsequently a group of its members were arrested and are still being held in Cali prison. The organization has now launched a campaign around the following themes: respect for its right to function as a political organization; freedom for the Cali prisoners; political guarantees to allow it to make known its boycott campaign before the next elections; an end to state violence against women.
This latter demand comes after the torture and rape in prison of Elizabeth Suarez, an A Luchar militant in Cali. But the women of A Luchar are not restricting their campaign to their own movement and have appealed to "all women from all sections of society to take part in a broad, united campaign at both the national and international levels."
They want to denounce all the daily attacks that women suffer in public and in private as well as those inflicted by the police and military. Daniel Libreros, a member of A Luchar's national executive, will be visiting Europe in May and June to inform people about the situation in Colombia. *
SOUTH AFRICA Socialist organization formed IN THE new and rapidly changing situation in South Africa, important debates on political orientation and public profile are taking place in every political current.
It is in this context that a number of groups of the socialist left have come together to form a national organization, the Workers Organization for Socialist Action (WOSA). Among the groups involved in this initiative are the Cape According to WOSA's founding state-
"The resurgence of mass struggles, the ever-increasing participation and radicalization of both rural and urban masses, and the era of reform and negotiation, all create opportunities and dangers. This lends enormous urgency to the task of forming and building a socialist organization.... (point 2)
"The organization will give support to national liberation organizations insofar advance the struggle against oppression and exploitation, but will at the same time strive to put forward working class interests in the struggle. It is committed to the tactic of the united front to enable it to act in a manner that places the interests of the working class first on its agenda....(point 4)
"WOSA, Workers Organization for
Socialist Action, is a unitary organization which was formed at its inaunational conference
Cape Town on April 14 and 15, 1990.
It comprises independent political groupings, some of which are in the process of dissolving, as well as individuals in various parts of the coun-
"Our basic principles are the following, leadership by the black work.
ing class, anti-imperialism, anticapitalism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, one-person, one-vote in a non-racial undivided, unitary country, and we believe collective leadership, accountability, and democracy....
"Central to our programme of action will be issues affecting the black working class in particular, and the oppressed and exploited people in general, such as housing, land, educain homen, wages and issues affect 13 ing women." * May 7, 1990 • #184 International Viewpoint
SOUTH KOREA
"We are not machines"
growth have created a new workers' movement, whose social and political links with its predecessors (the trade union organizations that participated in the anti-Japanese struggle between 1910 and 1945 and which, after this, were destroyed by the military regime under the US occupation) remain very weak, if