Revolutionary convergence in the
EUSKADI
Taking account of this and the new organization's intention not to have strictly formal relations with the Fl, and given the fact that it describes itself as internaFourth International, in a message to the congress, proposed a number of common fields of actions: in the peace movement
Basque country THE fusion conference: between the Communist Movement of Euskadi (EMK) and the Revolutionary Communist League of Euskadi (LKI) -formerly the Euskadi organization of the section of the Fourth International in the Spanish State - took place on March 17-19,1991. Over the years the two organizations have come increasingly close together, and this process accelerated in 1990. The new joint organization has a modest but real weight in Euskadi, and will without doubt reinforce the revolutionary movement in the region. ALFONSO MORO
A FTER a discussion forum on
the "new international order" and the left, attended by about 1,000 people, the conference began with a discussion on the role of the armed organizations in Euskadi [the Basque country] and the current polit-
The EMK and LKI had prepared documents on the balance-sheet of the influence of the armed organizations in Euskadi, and notably on the political and military activities of the nationalist armed organization ETA, which was defined as "the most radical expression of the Basque national resistance", on the limitations of such projects; on the changes in the attitude of the Spanish state and government towards this organization; the price paid for its tactical errors and the fact that in Euskadi "experience has shown...that a significant part of the population does not in principle reject armed actions".
Both the EMK and the LKI emerged from splits in ETA - essentially ETABerri in 1967 and ETA-VI in 1970.
The new organization must obviously take a position on the armed nationalist movement, and this is a debate that is
The conference also discussed the role of the Euskera [Basque] language and the importance of linguistic identity for the Basque people, as well as the threats posed to Euskadi — one of the most developed regions of the Spanish State — by the 1992 European unification pro-
There was also discussion efforts Basque revolutionaries should make to reinforce the elements of national identity in the framework of a project of national liberation.
There was a fundamental discussion on the type of party that must be constructed. The need to maintain pluralism and democracy, and the question of relations with other organizations in the Spanish State and on the international level, were also addressed.
Numerous contributors insisted on the guarantees that the new party must have for discussion, while at the same time preserving the unitary framework necessary for the fusion of two different expe-
The need for relations with different organizations in the Spanish State was underlined, with the qualification that: "for general political reasons, because we live in the same state...as well as owing to our previous links and our ideological and political affinities, we have a particular interest in encouraging the development [of relations] with the Communist Movement (MC) and the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR — section of the Fourth International in the Spanish
A week later special congresses of the MC and LCR decided to enter into a unification process.
Decision on international links
As for international relations, and given that, with the fusion, the LKI is no longer a part of the Fourth International, the conference decided to "maintain and develop the contacts previously sustained by each of the two parties...The new party will not be a member of the Fourth International, but it will establish precise relations with it, as a regroupment of revolutionary organizations. The concrete forms of these contacts need to be worked out on the basis of experience.".
in Europe; the campaign against the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the conquest of the Americas; and the defence of the Central American, and notably the Cuban, revolutions. Meetings to make these steps concrete were proposed.
The new organization has so far not got a name — the majority of the delegates to the congress abstained on the proposed
Hika ("Revolutionary Convergence"); Askasia ("'Grain of liberation"); and Liberazio ("Liberation").
The term EMK-LKI will be used in the
Ideological identity discussed
Finally there was a discussion on the ideological identity of the new party, and above all on whether or not it should define itself as a Marxist organization. This was a discussion that reflects the debate going on throughout the international revolutionary left.
Despite some simplifications and dogmatism, the discussion was aimed at advancing reflection on Marxism.
Many foreign organization were present or sent messages, including: the Saharan Polisario Front; A Luchar of Colombia; the Revolutionary National Union from Guatemala (URNG); the Sandinista leader Tomas Borge; Leonel Gonzalez from the
Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) from El Salvador; the Basque trade union, Langile Abertzale Bartzordeak (LAB); the Organization for Democratic Action of Morocco; Herri Batasuna (HB); the Lesbian Feminist Collective of Euskadi; the Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSR) of Portugal; the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT) of Mexico; and, obviously, the LCR and MC from the Spanish state and the Fourth International. *
KONFERENTZIA
LIBE
RAZIO
ZABALTZEN
21
The legacy of anti-colonialism
VIETNAM-FRANCE charges. But Boudarel's commitment was that of a militant. Condemned to death in his absence, he spent 16 years in exile as a result of his decision in 1950.?
Georges Boudarel joined the French Communist Party (PCF) in 1946, at the age of 20. In 1948 he was a philosophy teacher in Saigon. He came into contact with the Marxist Cultural Group, which
FOR the past two months, a huge campaign has been going on in France against Georges Boudrel, a lecturer at the university in Paris VIl. His crime is to have joined the national liberation forces in Vietnam four decades ago and to have been, for a year, a political instructor in a Viêtminh military prison camp.
Much of the press, radio and television has engaged in a
"media lynching" of Boudrel. Politicians have joined the hunt. The "Boudarel Affair" goes beyond the past of this one individual and can in fact only be understood in the post-Gulf war ideological context. The hour has come to rehabilitate the French army, notorious for the atrocities it committed in
Indochina and Algeria. The legitimacy of any anti-colonialist commitment is being challenged.
PIERRE ROUSSET
HE whole business began on
T
February 13, 1991, when Jean-
Jacques Beucler, an ex-defence secretary of state, who had himself been a prisoner of the Viêtminh for four years, attacked Boudarel during a conference on Vietnam: "you have blood
The far right took up the theme, with one paper carrying the front page head-
"This French Communist tortured our soldiers in Indochina". Right wing
"clean-up" commandos marched around the faculty at Jussieu in Paris, shouting
"Jussieu will be the Dien-Bien-Phu of the
Politicians from the big parties of the mainstream right then got in on the act.
The Republican Party (RP) found it
"scandalous that a former deserter from our forces in Indochina, who voluntarily worked for the enemy, should be carrying
On March 25 the municipal assembly of the Paris Council asked "the responsible bodies of the university to bring
Georges Boudarel before a disciplinary hearing for damage to the university's
Accusations of torture
Twenty UDF-RPR deputies, paying homage to the French victims of the Indochina war, accused him of moral and physical torture". Eric Raouit, the RPR deputy for Seine-Saint Denis, where the historian lives, went so far as to demand
"the removal of this sad figure from the
22 electoran is of hi fraid and orture be
International Viewpoint #205 • April 29, 1991 allowed to remain a full citizen?" 4
The Union for the Defence of the French Army (UDAF) has decided to bring the matter before the courts on the grounds of "crimes against humanity" This is indeed the only category of charge that remains valid after the amnesty of June 18, 1966. According to them: "Georges Boudarel has denied in each individual the very notion of humanity"S