HAITI / AROUND THE WORLD
AROUND THE WORLD PORTUGAL Revolutionaries campaign in elections THE Portuguese general election on Sunday October 6 1991 resulted in a resounding victory for the governing rightist Social Democrats (PSD), who won 50.4% of the vote, with the Socialist Party (PS) far behind with 29.2% and the CDU (an electoral coalition dominated by the Portuguese Communist Party) losing almost half its parliamentary
The Revolutionary Socialist Party
Portuguese section of the Fourth International) ran a dynamic and original campaign which attracted wide support from both the rank and file of the PCP and several national personalities, including television star Carlos
The PS's campaign meetings (particularly in Lisbon, where 1,000 people attended the main rally) demonstrated a healthy level of support for the party, in particular amongst youth.
The axis of the campaign was the election of PSR member Francisco Louça as a deputy in Lisbon. While initial projecon October 6th indicated that Louça would win a seat, ultimately he fell a few votes short because of an electoral boycott called by the inhabitants of Dona Maria, a suburb to the north of Lisbon, in protest against inadequate sanitary conditions and water supplies
The suburb is to vote on October 20, and the PSR remains hopeful that Louça will be elected. * AUSTRALIA Abortion battle in New South Wales TWENTY years after abortion became easily available in the Australian state of New South Wales, the fight to defend freedom of choice has begun again. The conservative government of this state (where one third of the Australian population lives) has just lost its parliamentary majority and is now reliant for its survival on the votes of a married couple, Fred and Elaine Nile, who are members of a far right Christian group.
A bill to ban abortion outside certain public hospitals has been introduced, which, since most terminations are carried out in independent women's clinics, represents a major attack on abortion availability. 27
The bill comes at a time when govern-
Appeal against the blockade of Cuba
International Viewpoint #215 • October 28, 1991
AROUND THE WORLD / CUBA ment hospitals in the city of Sidney are being closed, while funding for major public hospitals run by the Catholic religious orders is being increased. Reaction to the bill has been swift and militant, with a march of 4,000 on
August 14 and another of 500 during international abortion rights protests on
August 28.
THE following appeal for the lifting of the United States' block-
Public sector trades unionists, veteran ade of Cuba, launched at the Initiative of a number of prominent feminists, and lesbian and gay groups
French personalities, has already attracted significant internawere prominent in the marches, but the fional support:
ranks were made up mainly of energetic and angry teenage women.
When the bill was introduced into par-
IN CUBA, the conjunction of the American embargo which has liament, 13 of the 15 women in the (42 lasted 30 years and the draconian reduction in trade with the member) upper house staged an unprece-
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe has led today to a dramatic situdented walkout, and the national assembly of the Uniting Church, the third
Difficulties In ensuring supples are Increasing. The unquestionlargest religious current in Australia, has able gains in matters of health and education may be put at risk.
unanimously voted down a resolution supporting the bill.
Cuba has been criticized in the name of human rights for
On October 7, during an annual parade
Infringements of democracy. But criticism does not give others by Pentecostal supporters of the Niles, the right, even in the name of human rights, to economically sufthere were clashes between pro and antifocate the country.
choice activists, with the latter violently attacking lesbian banners. Police inter-
We have different opinions about the Cuban regime. We are joinvered in the fighting, but only to arrest
Ing together to denounce this attempt to bring down a regime by
10 pro-choice activists.
starving a people.
While the bill currently lacks anything
Such unilateral aggression by the world's leading power can In near majority support, it is possible, givno case lead to the liberty of this people en the instability of the minority governthat an amended bill may be ment,
We therefore demand the lifting of the blockade, which Is an passed as part of a deal between the attack on the dignity and lives of the Cuban people.
Niles and the government. *
SIGNATORIES so far include: Algeria: A. Ben Bella. Austria: E.
FRANCE
Danneberg. Belgium: J. Braband; E. Mandel; Pos. H. Pastoors; E
Toussaint. Bolivia: A. Alemrojo. Brazil, L.I. Lula Da Silva. Canada;
Massacre of Algerians
D. Heap, Colombia: M. Correa, Dominican Republic: R. Traveras commemorated
El Salvador: A. G. Martinez; J, Villalobos. France: E. Balibar; D
Berger; Costa Gavras; D, Daeninckx; R. Debray; J. Habel; A. Kri-
SEVERAL thousand people marched vine; R. Lew, A. Lipletz, M. Lowy, F. Maspero; G. Perrault, M. Rasjthrough the streets of Paris on Thursday, fus; D. Singer. Germany: G. Gysi; J. Moneta; G. Wallraft. Haiti: E
October 17, 1991, in commemoration of the police massacre, exactly 30 years
Lescauflaire, Italy: A. Cossutta, L. Maltan, R. Serri, Mauritius: R earlier, of at least two hundred Algerians
Seegobin. Morocco: A. Serfaty. Nicaragua: T. Borge; 0. Cabezas;
who were participating in a pro-FLN
C.F. Chamorro. Peru: J. del Prado. Poland: J. Pinior, Portugal: C
(National Liberation Front — the libera-
Brito; F. Louca. Senegal: M. Dia. South Africa: N. Alexander Spain;
tion movement then fighting for Alge-
J.M. Diaz-Alegria, M. Garcia Oliva; F. Umbral. Sri Lanka: C from
France)
ria's independence
Gunawardena; V. Nanayakkara; B. Tampoe, Switzerland: J. Ziedemonstration.
gler. United Kingdom: T. All; T. Benn; J. Corbyn; S. Hall, P. Heath-
The demonstration, called in defiance of a curfew that had been imposed on fleld; E. J. Hobsbawm; K. Livngstone. United States: N. Chomsky;
French Muslims, was peaceful; the FLN
S. Landau; H. Magdoft; P.M. Sweezy.
had ordered that none of the participants
Seventy-five members of the European Parliament have also should carry so much as a penknife.
signed the appeal.
They had, however, reckoned without the murderous climate of anti-Algerian
Correspondence to Dorothée Plermont, MEP, Boite postale 210 hatred whipped up within the Parisian
232, D-5300 Bonn 2, FRG or Robert March, 24, rue de la Réunion, police force by its commanders over a
75020 Paris, France, period of several years.
Financial support: Cheques should be made out to: R. March
The demonstration brutally was
CCP 6 325 37 W Paris (mention "Cuba appeal"). * attacked; while many were killed on the streets, the survivors were taken to detention centres throughout Paris where they were savagely beaten and tortured, many more dying there. The bodies were thrown into the Seine.
The instigators of the massacre have
, never faced charges of any kind. Gov-
28 ernment, media and police have conspired to throw a veil of silence over the events of that evening, and the official death toll remains only two.
The Parisian prefect of police who oversaw the massacre, Maurice Papon, had also been responsible for the rounding up and deportation of Jewish chilation.
dren in 1942. The demonstration took place as part of a week of events organized by antiracist groups in commemoration of the massacre, including the inauguration of a memorial on the banks of the Seine and a colloquium at the Sorbonne. *