• AROUND THE WORLD
International Viewpoint #252 January 1994
THIRD WORLD DEBT MORE than 900 people gathered in Brussels on December 4 to participate in the third annual meeting of the Committee for the Cancellation of the Third World Debt (CADTM). This time, the event was organised around the theme, "necessary solidarity between peoples."
Guests from left-wing parties and movements from the five continents spoke at the meeting. They came from 15 different countries. The main guests included Joaquim Sorino from the leadership of the Brazilian PT, the Moroccan dissident Abraham Serfaty, Susan George, the French author and anti-fascist activist Gilles Perrault, Ernest Mandel, Michel Chussadovsky, Amadou Guiro from Senegal, the Egyptian writer Nawal el Saadawi, Vasudeva Nanaykkara (Sri Lankan member of parliament and a leader of the NSSP, Sri Lankan section of the Fourth International), Andrez Kolganov from the Russian Party of Labour, Adam Novak from the Czech Republic, Amelir Tejada (Cuba) and Ernesto Herrera from Uruguay.
A number of different subjects were taken up, including the ways in which the IMF and the World Bank hide behind those implementing their policies, the ways to struggle for the cancellation of the Third World debt, humanitarian intervention, women's oppression, the link between debt servicing and environmental decay, restrictions on the right to asylum in Europe, and the potential for deepgoing changes in the event of a PT victory in the Brazilian elections later this year.
Participants agreed on the need for a new, revived internationalism and pronised on the occasion of the commemosigning of the Bretton Woods agreement and the founding of the IMF and the World Bank. There will be a big media campaign around this anniversary in October 1994 in Madrid. Participants also spoke of the need to organise international activities of support to the Brazilian people in the event of a PT victoгу.
The conference, an initiative of the CADT, was supported by a large number of NGOs, trade unions, and political parties (including the POS, Belgian section of the Fourth International).
### EL SALVADOR
THE following letter was sent to the national leadership of the Salvadoran FLN, following the assassination of José Mario López:
"It is with great sadness and indignation that we received the news of the assassination of comrade José Mario López (Comandante Venancio Salvatierra) — member of the political committees of the Farabundo Martí Party for National Liberation (FMLN) and the Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers (PRTC) — by a goon squad in the pay of the ARENA government and the most retrograde interests of the Salvadoran ruling oligarchy.
The assassination of Comandante Venancio is a major and irreparable loss for the forces of the revolutionary left in El Salvador and on an international level — and is added to the long list of crimes that the so-called "death squads" have committed against central activists and leaders of the FMLN since peace accords were signed by the FMLN and the Salvadoran government in January
With this new crime, the government of Alfredo Cristiani and El Salva-
Guat emala dor's power elite have made their reading of the peace accords clear for all — to intimidate the same Salvadoran population which for years resisted the brutality of the war, and to slowly kill off the historic leadership of the FMLN.
Our sadness and indignation are all the more profound given that many comrades of the Fourth International had the chance to know and personally work with Mario López — an exemplary activist devoted to the cause of the liberation of the exploited and oppressed not only in El Salvador, "America's tiny thumb" but also of all the disposessed of Latin America.
In the space of a few minutes a band of criminals, who clearly knew whom they were attacking, was able to do what 12 years of civil war could not. We join with you in your rejection of the ARENA government's crude version of events, which treats the assassination as a non-political killing — as it did the killings of Commandantes Francisco Velis and Heleno Hernán. At that time we added our voices to those calling for a full investigation into these crimes, for the punishment of those who masterminded and carried them out, and for the complete dismantling of the illegal paramilitary structures that the Salvadoran oligarchy, its government and imperialism seek to maintain.
Please accept our message of solidarity, and the redoubled commitment of members of the Fourth International to stand shoulder to shoulder with the disposessed of El Salvador and their political vanguard, the FMLN."
Fraternally, Ernest Mandel, for the Bureau of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. *
= Hondures