AROUND THE WORLD / CZECHOSLOVAKIA
AROUND
THE
WORLD SOUTH AFRICA Socialist organization holds conference The Workers Organization for Socialist Action (WOSA) held its first national conference May 31-June 2. Attended by over 200 delegates, it marked a significant step forward in the building of an independent socialist organization in South Africa.
Delegates discussed a number of vital issues affecting the broad liberation movement: the current national situation, the call for a constituent assembly and an interim government. Also high up on the agenda was a discussion on the violence presently tearing the townships on the
The discussion on the present balance of forces was marked by a sober assessment of the situation. Delegates noted that the state, by employing a strategy of reform from above while at the same time directing a low intensity war at the black population, had forced the mass movement on to the defensive and the de Klerk regime was thereby seizing the political initiative.
The easing of international pressure on the government had also widened its room for
Conference delegates discussed the political tasks facing WOSA in the context of the defensive position of the working class. A resolution was passed calling for a mass united campaign for a constituent
One of the most urgent tasks confronting the liberation movement was the building of a patriotic front around the demand of the constituent assembly. Delegates stressed that such a front must be a fighting mass movement built at local, regional and national levels.
A resolution was passed explaining that responsibility for the recent township violence must be firstly directed at the state, which was attempting to destabilize and disorganize working class communities.
The conference noted that only the united response of working class communities can begin to counter this independent, sectarian self-defence committees, building peace from below, and avoiding undisciplined and undemocratic actions which could further drive hostel workers into the arms of the Inkatha leadership and other reactionaries. * GERMANY Kohl's witch-hunt contin22 decided to make the people of the ex-GDR THE government of Helmut Kohl has International Viewpoint #211 • July 22, 1991 pay the price of German unification. Several million workers have lost their jobs while hundreds of thousands have seen benefits and social services slashed;
La witch-hunt has been launched in the universities against the meanwhile, left. Now the German government has decided to freeze the bank accounts of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the principal left formation in the ex-GDR, a move which the European workers' and democratic movement must immediately denounce. We publish below an appeal of the PDS which should be widely circulated and supported.
"The delegates of the congress of the Party of Democratic Socialism address themselves to European public opinion, asking that they support the condemnaof Berufsverbot (professional disex-GDR, now described as "the new länders".
"We draw the public's attention to the following paradox; although the government of the Federal Republic claims to act in the name of the rights of peoples and democracy, it violates those rights inside
Germany. We note that, despite the criticisms raised inside and outside Germany, the policy of the Berufsverbot has been followed now for 19 years, in spite of its condemnation in 1987 as an act incompat-
"Through systematic questionnaires and by multiple discriminations at work
— above all in the public services man constitutional law as well as international norms (the final act of the CSCE and convention number 111 of the Interbreached by the German government.
"We appeal to public opinion that it does not allow fundamental human rights to be trampled on in Germany. We call on
Gregor Gysi, PDS, 28 Kleine Alexander Strasse, D1020 Berlin, tel: (30) 822
1945. *
DENMARK
Palestinian refugees threatened with expulsion
DANISH police are set to expel 300 Palestinian asylum seekers to the Lebanon.
Until early 1990, almost all Palestinians fleeing the Lebanon were granted political asylum in Denmark. Now, all applications are investigated case by case and only about 50% are successful.
The new practice is justified by alleged improved political situation but several organizations, including Amnesty International and the
Danish Refugee Council, have questioned this judgment and are supporting the refugees' right to asylum.
Protests against the deportation of the Palestinian refugees should be sent to Danish embassies or to the Ministry of Justice, Slotholmsgade 10, 1216 Copenhagen K. *
N THIS ARTICLE I am turning to you who represent more than a half of this country's inhabitants. First of all I will summarize what is known about the terrible state of our living conditions. Then we will be able to address the task of looking for the reasons and analyzing the present situation as a precondition for seeking solutions.