AROUND
THE
WORLD
GERMANY Violence against squatters ONE of the clearest messages from the German political establishment that it is not willing to tolerate any form of radical opposition was the recent military style action against squatters in East Berlin.
There is a severe housing shortage in Berlin. In the eastern part of the city it is estimated that there are around 25,000 empty flats. Even before the official unification, some people, desperate for accommodation, had begun to move into these run-down empty houses and make them habitable. Many of these were young homeless people from West Berlin. The political priority given to housing the massive influx of refugees to the city meant that hopes of getting housed were almost
In Mainzer Street in East Berlin's Friedrichshain, there were thirteen such empty houses which have been an eyesore for more than ten years. About four hundred young people occupied these houses in May this year. Most were women and many of them were gay. They began to
Berlin — open city clean up the houses, established a second-hand bookshop, an "info-Café", a Gay Bar, a communal restaurant (hot meal for f1) and a playground. They played an important role in the squatters' movement in Berlin and the hope was that, as in West Berlin in the seventies, there would eventually be a negotiated settlement whereby the situation would be legalized.
The life-style of the young squatters may have been exotic by conservative East Berlin standards. Opinions were sharply divided among the "ordinary residents" in the rest of the street.
But on November 12 and 14, 1990 a massive military style operation was undertaken against the squatters which surpassed anything ever seen in this city. The shocks from what happened are still reverberating and not just in Berlin.
The Berlin government is a "red-green coalition" between the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Green Alternative List. But, without informing their partners, the SPD government brought in police, mostly from the SPDcontrolled states of North-Rhine West-
Saxony, reinforced by special border troops and equipped with armoured cars and
AROUND THE WORLD police violence and demanding that those arrested be released, that the houses be returned to their occupiers and that there should be a political rather than a militarypolice solution to the pressing problem of
The SPD leader of the Berlin city government, Momper, has defended action of the government and police, describing the young people who occupied the houses as "criminal chaotics". In the light of the right-wing CDU victory at the time of the state elections in October, the SPD wants to establish its right-wing credentials in the run-up to the national elections in December. The Alternative List has withdrawn from the coalition in protest against the state-police violence against the homeless in East Berlin. The prospects for a red-green coalition in Berlin after December are slim.
These attacks on the homeless - along with those on the PDS — are part of a concerted action by the bourgeois political establishment to head off any development of radical political protest in the exGDR. In the Mainzer Street attack they have shown that they will not hesitate to use extreme violence to deal with any groups that act to defend themselves. -Gus Fagan * CZECHOSLOVAKIA The Czech left greets George Bush GEORGE BUSH's triumphant visit to Prague on November 17, the anniversary of last year's "Velvet Revolution", did not go unchallenged. Two Prague anarchist groups organized a 250 strong demonstration, chanting "Yankee go home. "Their leaflet argued that "We didn't go out into the streets on November 17, or before...
ON NOVEMBER 3, 1990, a year after the start of the massive popular mobilization that led to the fall of the Honecker regime, some 10,000 people look part in a demonstration In Berlin's Alexanderplatz, to mark their ideological relection of Chancellor Kohl's "Greater Germany". The majority of the participants on this demonstration, which had been called by a wide range of organizations, came from Berlin's strong autonomist movement. At the end of the march there was a Fourth International contingent with comrades from
France, Germany, and Denmark,
The organizers had hoped for a turnout of 20,000, so there was some disappointment. Nonetheless the dialogue between the different organizations will continue, notably around the Issues of
German unification and the united
Europe" plans for 1993, It should be possible for the left to undertake loint initiatives on a European scale in the
A square mile of the city in Friedrichshain was cordoned off. During the previous twenty four hours, fearing an attack, the residents built barricades in the street. o'clock on Wednesday morning the police launched a massive assault with water cannon, armoured cars, tear gas, stones and in at least one case, live ammunition. The residents responded with paving stones and petrol bombs. The battle lasted three hours. The brutality of the police shocked the local residents, even those who didn't feel friendly towards the squatters. Around 20 of the squatters were seriously wounded, one of them had a bullet
Over four hundred, mostly women, were arrested. The arrested, according to reports, were beaten up at police stations and women were sexually abused by the police.
On the following day there was a demonstration of over 10,000 people in Berlin protesting against the
(for) the political and economic power of owners, employers and 50 thousand multi-millionaires.'
Another gathering of 100 people was organized by the Left Alternative grouping, while at a rally attended by 70 people, a Campaign for the Rights of Youth launched an 11-point charter. The first issue of the campaign's journal, Budoucnost (Future), comments: "Government promises that every citizen will have the same chance in the privatization process are ridiculous....
"The only people who can contemplate buying are the top figures of the black market, ex-and current bureaucrats and foreigners....The economy will be governed by a smaller and smaller number of monopolies.
"Artificially high prices will become common practice. Volkswagen wants to buy 75% of Skoda, Tomas Bata wants to be given back the Svit shoe factories in Zlin. The result of this kind of privatization will be that Czechoslovakia becomes an economic colony of Germany and oth 27 er countries."
Belgian teachers' strike
SINCE Spring of this year, the French speaking area of Belgium has been shaken by a teachers strike which has united a workforce traditionally divided between private and public schools. Nearly half of all
International Viewpoint #196 • December 10, 1990
AROUND THE WORLD
BRITAIN
Conference launches debt campaign
THE fourth conference of the Socialist
Movement, entitled "Freedom, Socialism teaching takes place In private schools, and traditionally the lack of and Democracy - an
International combativity of teachers in this sector (where the regimes tend to be
Debate" — sponsored by, among others, much more arbitrary than In the public sector) has held back the capacthe Socialist Campaign Group of Labour
Ity of teachers as a whole to resist government austerity policies. There
MPs, Women for Socialism, Labour Parare 98,500 teachers in French speaking Belgium.
ty Black Sections, The National Left of
SInce 1989, the administration of teaching has been "decentralized"
Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalists), the
Indian Workers' Association GB, Redbetween the Flemish and the French speaking communities (the former
Green Network and a number of far-left are concentrated in the north of the country, the latter in the south and
- took place November 17/18, the major part of Brussels, the bilingual capital).
groups
1990 in Manchester.
Through the 1980s teachers in the public sector engaged in repeated
About a thousand people attended a and sometimes very bitter strike actions. But all these movements series of plenums, workshops (over 40)
came up agains the impossibility of joint action with the teachers in and fringe meetings. One of the largest of the private sector, where the bourgeois Social Christian Party exerted a these, with some 200 people, strong influence,
- was organized by the journal, Socialist Out-
This began to change from 1986 onwards, and in May 1990 a common look. There were many speakers present trade union front was established. Hopes that the situation in education at the conference from Eastern Europe would Improve with the coming to power of a Socialist/Social Christian and the Soviet Union. The Socialist coalition government in 1988 were swiftly dashed. The detonator for the
Movement is planning to produce a popucurrent conflict was the desire of the Ministry of Education to pass the lar fortnightly paper, entitled socialist, a costs of a 2% wage Increase for the teachers onto the students and pilot issue of which was available.
their parents, as well as the teachers through new attacks on working
A very successful workshop was held conditions. During the second half of May 1990 and the first days of around the campaign for the cancellation
June all the schools were out solid over several weeks. A tactic of of the Third World debt. Plans are afoot
"alternating picketing" allowed a greater solidarity to develop between for a massive demonstration in London in private and public sectors. High school students have taken action in
July 1991 at the time of the forthcoming support of the teachers, and rank and file coordinations have spread as
Group of 7 meeting. It is hoped to bring the conflict intensified.
substantial contingents from other Euro-
Since the beginning of October the teachers have been on strike, and pean countries to this protest - in July this has been supported by 90% of the workforce. The government is
1989 a big demonstration took place in reluctant to make concessions for fear of the knock-on effect in the rest
France on the same issue.
of the public sector, On November 18 100,000 teachers, parents and students, marched through Brussels In support of the strike - this was the biggest demonstration seen in the capital since the anti-missile
ISRAEL mobilizations of the early 1980s. - Eric Toussaint*
Warshawsky freed
ON November 9, 1990, the director of the Israell Alterna- ALGERIA tive Information Centre and IV correspondent, Michel Warshawsky, was freed from the prison at Ma'asiyahu, where he had been held since July 1. Accused of having looked the other way" over the origin of a booklet dealing with torture - attributed to militants of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — he was sentenced by the Supreme
Court to eight months in jail and a further year suspended.
Some 100 Israeli and Palestinlan activists greeted him at the
AlC when he was released. in response to this warm greeting, Michel emphasized his
Increased determination to fight against the Israell occupation of Palestinian territories. 28
GOLFE
DEHORS L'IMPERIALISME!
äçhi
LIKHATWAR
Après les élections du 12 juin...
garantir des élections democratiques
Etat de droit sans les travailleurs
THE first number of the monthly journal of the Algerian Socialist Workers Party (PST), El Khatwa, appeared in September 1990. A total of 50,000 copies in Arabic and French editions of the 16 page paper were produced. The paper has the ambition to give a voice to all those in Algeria who reject both the ruling FLN and the Islamic fundamentalists of the FIS.
El Khatwa means "the step", and hopes to express in its pages the experiences of militants involved in strikes, the women's and student movements, and the supporters of the Berber cultural movement. Copies can be obtained for 6 French francs or the equivalent, plus post, from 2, rue Richard Lenoir, 93108, Montreuil, France. Cheques should be made payable to Derbal. *
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Thought to and,