News Reports. News Reports... International Viewpoint n° 276 35
Portugal: Youth Camp
The editor's selection of Internet news, addresses The 13th annual youth camp of organisations in solidarity with the Fourth International will be held in late July 1996 near the town of Amarante in northern Portugal. We asked Jorge Costa of
Pentagon monitors Peacenet the PSR (Revolutionary Socialist Party,
Portuguese section of the Fourth International)
Internet users beware, David Corn writes in The Nation (March 4, about the preparation of the camp.
1996). A report by Charles Swett, from the Office of the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity • What are the reasons for organising
Conflict suggests using the Internet for the routine interception of global e-mail, for covert operations and propaganda campaigns, and the camp in Amarante?
for tracking domestic political activity, particularly that of the left. Swett This is where the PSR has one of its most longreports that the "Internet could also be used offensively as an additional medium in psychological operations campaigns and to help the municipal council. And by holding the camp standing groups. We have good relations with here, we hope to develop the local youth section
A significant portion of the report is devoted to the San Francisco- of the party. But in any case, we don't have that based Institute for Global Communications, which operates several many branches in provincial towns.
computer networks, such as PeaceNet and EcoNet, that are used by progressive activists. I.G.C. conferences that might be considered • Why did you propose to host the noteworthy by the Pentagon, including those on anti-nuclear arms campaigns, the extreme right, social change, and "multicultural, multi- camp in Portugal?
racial news." "Although it is clearly a left-wing political organization, The youth of the PSR have, over the last four without actually joining I.G.C. and reading its message traffic, it is years, won an important role within certain layers difficult to assess the nature and extent of its members' actual real- of young people. Not only among students but also in wider layers, through our campaigns on
"We must be doing something right," reacts George Gundrey, some specific political themes. Our campaign for program coordinator of I.G.C.'s PeaceNet. "But it is interesting that all the legalisation of drugs, our intransigent antiof these examples [in the Pentagon report] are the most left-wing militarist stance and above all our participation in the students associations - both in the search for information on "developing security threats." The data will 95 have made the PSR a political reference be fed into filtering computers and then, if it contains any sensitive point for young people seeking an alternative keywords, forwarded to the appropriate analyst. outside the traditional political forces.
Another growth area is the dirty tracks department. Noting that During the last elections, the PSR made a government officials, military officials, business people, and journalists particular effort in direction of those voting for the all around the world are online, Swett envisions "Psychological first time in the urban centres with a high
Operations" campaigns in which U.S. propaganda could be rapidly concentration of young people. We won between 3 and 5% of this vote.
to employ the Internet offensively to help achieve unconventional For the Portuguese section, organising the camp is an opportunity for mobilising a large number of of chit-chat of no intelligence value. Retrieving useful nuggets will Swett does point to a few potential problems. The Internet is chockfull young people and establishing political and personal contact with new activists require monumental screening. [...] And opponents of the Pentagon became widely known that the Defense Department were monitoring might try to exploit the Internet for their own devilish ends: "If it • Why are you proposing the question
Internet traffic for intelligence or counterintelligence purposes of Europe as a central theme?
individuals with personal agendas or political purposes in mind, or 1996 is the year of revision of the Maastricht who enjoy playing pranks, would deliberately enter false or misleading Treat, the time for a balance sheet on the messages." The study ends with a series of vague recommendations practice and perspectives of European neo-
- to be carried out "only in full compliance with the letter and the spirit liberalism. We conceive of Europe as a space for of the law, and without violating the privacy of American citizens." solidarity: which puts the struggle against
Swett's office — the Pentagon's dirty tricks shop - is a newcomer to Maastricht, against the attacks on workers the 'electronic warfare' scene, according to David Banisar, a policy rights, against social exclusion, on which analyst for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Banisar's group monetarist Europe is based, at the top of our has been helping international human rights groups use encryption to protect their global e-mail, "so the spooks don't listen in". By organising the 1996 camp around the centra
Either the left has made much more progress in cyber-organizing than theme of Europe, we hope to open space for a the right and "harmless" fringe groups [like the UFO-watchers], or discussion around themes more linked to the
Swett, true to institutional tradition, is overwrought about the use of the daily activity of the youth organisations affiliated
Internet by a certain parties. In any case, the would-be watchers in the to the Fourth International. Anti-racism and defense establishment ought to be watched closely - especially if immigration policies, ecology, women's struggles
Swett's report reflects broader sentiment within the Pentagon. will of course be central themes of the camp.
David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation magazine (tel. (800) 333-8536). If you Above all the goal is to make the camp into a
546-2239 fax (202) 546-1415 E-mail <dacor@aol.com>. The Pentagon document cited in have any comments or leads for follow-up stories, please contact the author at tel. (202) place for education and preparation so that this article can be downloaded from (http://www.fas.org/pub/gen/fas/sgp/.) young activists are better prepared for the next
Send your contributions and questions about this period of struggle. In a Europe where we have to column to <100666.1443@compuserve.com> develop political alternatives to neo-liberal regression.
Networking and debates.
achieve unconventional warfare objectives."
world activities," writes Swett.
items [on our network]."
universities and secondary schools - in an
Swett proposes that the Pentagon and intelligence services conduct unprecedented period of mobilisation from 1992-
"routine monitoring of messages originating in other countries" in the disseminated to a wide audience. He adds, warfare objectives.
*The U.S. might be able agenda.
----- pull-quotes on this page -----
News Reports.
Big start to Rifondazione's election campaign Over 200,000 people demonstrated in Rome on Saturday 24 February, in response to a Communist Refoundation Party call to oppose the "authoritarian" reform of the country's political institutions. Centre-left and right-wing parties had earlier agreed to establish a French-style semipresidential system, and implement electoral reform designed to reduce the number of parties in parliament. But when this agreement fell apart in mid-February, the demonstration became, in effect, the opening meeting of questions back at the centre of the debate". What a start! At the end of the 20th century, the construction of a mass communist party is not just a dream for a nostalgic few! The extraordinary participation on February 24th was much higher than at similar Rifondazione meetings in 1992 and 1994. The following day, the party's 250-strong National Political Committee approved a non-competition pact with the centre-left Olive Tree coalition. This is expected to guarantee the party fifty deputies and senators. The link with Olive Tree is weaker than in 1994, and the two parties will stand for election under separate logos. The militant base of Rifondazione is hardly enthusiastic about the deal, but sees no alternative. The left wing within Rifondazione refuses that such an electoral alliance be made, as if nothing has happened since the last time. After all, the Democratic Left Party (PDS), which is at the centre of Olive Tree, agrees with the right on the kind of constitutional reform needed. And it is the centrists who are strongest inside Olive Tree. With the result that Lamberto Dini, former Director of the national bank, and Treasury Minister in the Berlusconi government, has now associated himself with the centre-left coalition,
News Reports. along with other technocrats linked to finance capital.
"We need to reinforce Rifondazione's autonomy," Fourth
International supporter Roberto Firenze told the party's
National Political Committee on February 25th. "And the party should work towards the construction of a third pole in
Italian politics," a combative alternative to both the right and the centre-left.
A majority of committee members eventually approved the proposal of party president Bertinotti. But, for the first time since June 1995, nine leaders of the left, including the former leaders of Proletarian Democracy and the Italian section of the Fourth International, abstained. Eight representatives of a minority current voted against the document.
Alessandro de Robertis, Rome.
Youth conference in Uruguay
Over fifty youth organisations are expected to participate in the First Conference of the Southern Cone for Human
Rights and Against Repression, in Colonia, Uruguay, from
3-7 April. Organisers expect 3-4,000 participants, including
Fourth International comrades from the Youth Front of
Uruguay's Socialist Workers' Party (PST) and the young women's group Teindira, as well as our comrades from
Socialist Democracy (DS) from the Brazilian state of Porto
Workshops will include Police and Institutional Repression;
Abortion; Drugs; Alternative Means of Communication;
Education; Land and house occupations; Marginalised social sectors; Games and recreation; Work and 36 International Viewpoint April 1996 unemployment; Urban security; Marginal culture; and Social ecology. Contact: fax: (598 2) 95 02 47, e-mail: mundafro@chasque.apc.org. The PST can be contacted at fax: (598 2) 48 10 62 Ukrainian miners' strike Coal miners in Ukraine returned to work on February 16 after one of the hardest-fought strikes in the former Soviet republic in recent years. The resumption of work followed an agreement by the government to negotiate with the miners on their demand for the payment of wages owing since October, and after an initial pay-out offer had been substantially increased. As the government tries to meet insistent IMF demands for reductions in the state budget deficit, miners' wages have fallen repeatedly. By late January, the coal unions put the total unpaid wage bill at the equivalent of US$122 million. Some disability payments to injured miners had not been paid since July. The latest strike began on February 1. A total of 142 mines, accounting for more than 70% of industry output, shut down entirely. At almost all the remaining mines, workers refused to load coal for shipment. Trade union sources put the number of miners and other coal industry employees on strike as high as 800,000. The stoppage affected pits not just in the traditionally militant, mainly Russianspeaking Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, but also the mines of Lviv province in the Ukrainian-speaking west. As well as payment of wages owed, the miners demanded that the government pledge US$1.5 billion in subsidies in order to renovate the industry. On February 12, the feared energy crunch arrived, when the Russian government cut off electricity sales, after the frequency of the current in the Ukrainian network fell to critical levels. Extended blackouts followed in most areas of Ukraine. In the industrial centre of Dnipropetrovsk, electricity supplies were cut by 40%, forcing the closure of most plants. By this time, threats and promises from the government had eroded the strike to the point where the miners were no longer capable of forcing a decisive victory. On February 13 union sources reported that only 40 mines remained fully shut down, with workers in another 87 refusing to load coal. The government's options were limited by an extensive solidarity movement. On February 14 it was reported that the Coordinating Council of Trade Unions of the Machine Building and Defence Complex, and the Association of Trade Unions of Basic Industrial Sectors, had called for an all-Ukrainian protest action on February 21. This was to include a general one-hour stoppage, around demands that included meeting the miners' claims. Nevertheless, the miners were forced to drop their call for massive state support to the coal industry, and to limit their demands to the payment of wage arrears. On February 16, with 25 mines still fully on strike, the miners' leaders announced that they had decided to suspend the stoppage and take up a government offer of talks.
The miners' movement has emerged from another hard-fought conflict with its militant traditions and popular backing recharged. For the government and the IMF, eager for the implementation of a long list of anti-worker policies, the combativity in the mining centres presents an obstacle that will not be easily overcome. But the steady collapse of the Ukrainian coal industry places a question mark over the miners' longer-term prospects.
The output of Ukraine's coal mines fell by a further 11% in 1995, to a figure less than half that of 1990. Once a leading centre of the Soviet coal industry, Ukraine is now a coal importer. The refusal of the government to invest in the coal industry has made work in the mines mortally hazardous. On February 18, three miners in the
Donetsk region drowned when a cage was lowered into a shaft that had filled unexpectedly with water. The miners' deaths brouaht the number of fatalities in the Ukrainian mines this year to 43. The death toll continues to rise, even as output plunges. *
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