AROUND THE WORLD
AROUND
THE
WORLD
PANAMA
Talking of annexations...
IN December 1989, Panama was invaded and President Noriega arrested by the
United States. The justification was the
"war against drugs". At the time the soapplauded the American action.
The current Panamanian Justice Minister used to be the director of the First Interamerican Bank, closed in 1985 by Noriega who accused it of laundering drug money. Meanwhile Panama's postinvasion ambassador in Washington is a founder of the Dadeland Bank of Miami, which is also known for its involvement with drugs' money.
The invasion of Panama was followed by the arrest of thousands of people. Almost all trade union leaders have been held. Their houses have been repeatedly requisitioned by US soldiers. Since the invasion the situation has deteriorated both in social and human rights terms. Political oppositionists have been persecuted and death squads have made their appearance. Some 70% of people in the camps for those whose houses were destroyed by the occupiers are unemployed.
In the course of the invasion the poor quarters of the capital were reduced to called "international community"
Obituaries - Louis Sinclair and Reba Hansen
Louis Sinclair THE DEATH of Louis Sinclair after a serious illness, on Saturday July 7, 1990, has removed from the ranks of the Fourth International one of its outstanding intellects. Louis entered the Trotskyist movement when he joined the Glasgow branch of the Revolutionary Socialist League, an affiliate of the International Left Opposition in 1937, and for a short time after its founding in 1945, was a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, then the British Section of the Fourth International.
For the rest of his long life he was not formally a supporter of any organization, but he remained a loyal supporter both politically and materially. He spent the greater part of the next 20 years compiling his massive Trotsky Bibliography.
In pursuit of this project he accumulated an unrivalled collection of Trotsky's writings and books and articles on Trotsky and Trotskyism. This collection is now in the library of Glasgow University and should surely now be named The Louis Sinclair Collection.
He must have visited every major library in Europe and America in his search for material; he ransacked the archives of any Trotskyist or ex-Trotskyist he could get hold of. There can hardly be a secondhand bookshop which he did not enter or write to. It was quite a revelation, when accompanying him on some of these excursions to see how readily he was recognized by the shop-keeper. As soon as he entered the premises the bookseller would say: "Mr. Sinclair, I have the book you have been looking for" and produce it from under the counter.
He corresponded with people in all parts of the world and nearly every post would bring him something. I remember with what pride he showed me a 24 Next? in some obscure Indonesian copy of Trotsky's "Germany, What International Viewpoint #191 • October 1, 1990 dialect. Louis rarely spoke from a public platform. He was most at home speaking to small groups and especially enjoyed talking to young suptheir brains helping them with their problems. He was always being consulted by students writing theses on Trotskyism and related subjects and by would-be
He took a great interest in recent events in the Soviet Union, always on the alert for new material on Trotsky and the Left Opposition emerging from the archives. He also compiled an index of prewar internal bulletins of the national sections of the Fourth International which should be a valuable source for historians and students of the period. He will be sorely missed as friend and teacher by all who knew him and learned from him. - Charlie van Gelderen. * Reba Hansen (1909-July 3, 1990) REBA died of a stroke in her native Salt Lake City, Utah, at the age of 80. She had been a member of the Trotskyist movement almost all her adult life. For four decades, she held key 1931, she married Joseph Hansen, who was one of the leaders of the American Socialist Workers' Party until his death in 1979. Joe Hansen was a secretary of Trotsky and the organizer of his guards in Mexico, an assignment on which Reba accompanied him. In the 1940s, she was the secretary of James Cannon, founder of the SWP.
In 1963, Reba and Joe went to Paris to put out World Outlook|later Intercontinental Press), an international news bulletin for the reunified Fourth International. It was the first time the international Trotskyist movement had regular publication that systematically followed events in world politics as they happened. For health reasons,
Joe Hansen had to return to the United States in 1965. But after an interval, he and Reba continued to put out World Outlook, at first from their loft in lower Manhattan.
In the 1970s, World Outlook/ Intercontinental Press grew into a 48page weekly with a relatively large circulation and an international staff. For a number of years, Reba had virtually the sole responsibility for organizing the business side and technical work of the magazine. She set the standards as high as possible, and was unrelenting in maintaining them.
She also had a remarkable ability to keep a cheerful and friendly manner despite the magazine's work schedule. She took a personal interest in all of the staff members and volunteer workers, and kept up numerous hobbies, from flower growing and tropical fish raising to collecting stones (she shared an interest in geology with Joe, who had spent time in the mining industry in Utah and kept a number of books on the subject in his library).
Reba had considerable experience of international work, and retained a keen interest in the politics and culture of Paris. She and Joe were insistent that Intercontinental Press had to be an international magazine, with no special connection to the United States, a magazine to build the Fourth International. In the years from about 1968 to 1976, they achieved the sort of magazine that they wanted. Those years were the pinnacle of their political
The magazine that they developed was wound up in 1986 by the Barnes leadership of the SWP, which abandoned the political program on which the party was built and purged those who continued to defend it. But Reba, as well as Joe, made contributions to building an international movement and an international press that continue. - Gerry Foley *
October 1, 1990 • #191 International Viewpoint rubble by rockets and incendiary bombs from American helicopters. Some 12,000 people were left without shelter. Nothing has been done to rehouse them. It is rumoured that there is a plan to build luxury accommodation at El Chorillo, one of the areas destroyed, which is nicely located on the seafront. The homeless have launched a campaign for compensation by
However they are not destined to benefit from the $420m aid package. The lion's share of this is to be devoted to the "reactiincreased credit" for private enterprise, and, of course, to get rid of some of Panama's debt arrears. That is to say that a large slice of the money will be going
Estimates of the number killed in the invasion vary between 2,000 and 7,000 with some 15,000 wounded. The vagueness of the figures is due to the Bush administration which has been blocking investigations. Charles Rangel from the
US Congress' House of Representatives, has asked the Pentagon to release the many video cassettes shot during the invasion. The administration has refused, citcommission of inquiry into the invasion is now underway in the US. Among its discoveries is that bodies found in 14 mass graves had been summarily executed by a bullet in the back before being wrapped in bags with a chemical decomposing agent.
As the US installed Panamanian president Endara has recently remarked "the
United States did not undertake their action to liberate Panama, but for their SOVIET UNION Monument for women prisoners IN a small news item in its September 10 issue, Pravda reported that a memorial to women victims of the gulag had been opened in the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where some of the biggest and worst camps were located.
"The modest stone monument was built by activists of the local Memorial society alongside a preserved camp barracks. The investigation work continues." * Lithuanian People Politbureau appeals to THE STATEMENT published in the September 15 issue of Pravda was hardly calculated to make a favorable impression on the Lithuanian people, especially because of its references to the discredited Moscow loyalist Lithuanian CP (CPSU), locally called the "fly by night party." "Expressing support for all healthy forces in the republic, the Politbureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU places hopes in the Twenty-First Congress of the
Communist Party of Lithuania (CPSU). This congress is called upon to work out documents mobilizing Communists and the entire society of the republic to defend social gains, to achieve the constructive program of perestroika."
The statement concluded: "The Politbureau of the CC of the CPSU appeals to all those to whom the future of Lithuania is dear not to allow a further heightening of tensions in the republic or any deliberate stirring up of all wrongs or distortion of the past, and to make a correct choice in a difficult stage of historical develop-
The blessing given to the Kremlin's stooge party in Lithuania is likely to give a sharp edge to the memory that the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was carried out in the name of an appeal to the "healthy forces," - local bureaucrats who could maintain their positions only with the support of the Red Army. As for "distortion of the past," despite certain admissions, the Soviet central authorities refuse to give up their claim that the Baltic peoples democratically chose incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1940. * Deserters AFTER the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet's declaration of sovereignty, which demanded that Ukrainian soldiers not be used outside the Ukraine without the agreement of the Ukrainian legislature, the September 3, Pravda reported, "some young soldiers in various bases in the country decided on their own to leave the service and to go home" The Kiev military district authorities appealed to the parents of soldiers not to encourage them to leave the Soviet army and if they had already left their units to try to persuade them to return." *
Invest in the new Europe!
THE collapse of Stalinism in Easter n Europe brings new hope, but also new responsibilities, for socialists. Our voice must be heard in the great debates taking place in these coun tries, It is necessary to ensure that advocates of capitalism do not have
La monopoly of the press.
The United Secretariat of the
Fourth International is launching an international campaign to gather the means to respond to the new situation, to make known its opinIons and analyses and help its supporters in Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union to organize themDonations should be addressed to:
Eastern European Solidarity AMRO bank, Account no.444 531 092, Amsterdam, Holland (Central Agency AMRO, Rembrandt
Plein 1). *
AROUND THE WORLD / TROTSKY
Murder in