The positions of the
Socialist Workers Party (PST)
In 1973 opposed from now on. This cannot be accepted in any form. After 11 years of systematic disinformation and total negation of people's right to participate in national decisions, the working class and other sectors of the population are entitled more than at any other time to
The Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT) was set up in 1968. it changed its name to the Socialist Workers Party. From 1972 to 1976 it was in the Leninist-Trotskyist Faction of the Fourth International. After this, it belonged to the Bolshevik faction organised by Nahuel
In 1980, the PST broke with the latter current, which had split with the Fourth International a year earlier.
From that time on, discussions developed within the ranks about its international links. They were concluded in the January 1984 congress, voted by a large majority in favour of applying for recognition as the Uruguayan section of the Fourth International at the latter's next
On this occasion the PST also adopted the principle of integrating itself at all levels in the Frente Amplio, a coalition which they had participated in before the coup in 1973.
Since 1978, the PST has put out a regular newspaper, Unidad Socialista, and since last May the comrades of the PST have been publishing, in collaboration with the Brazilian comrades, a monthly edition of Inprecor for the Southern Cone of Latin America.
We publish below a series of positions taken by the PST and reprinted from Unidad Socialista.
know the views of particular sections -be they parties or social organisations -about issues which concern them.
This right is all the more imperative if you take account of the fact that we are in the middle of an electoral process in which the population should be deciding on November 25 what sort of government they want to represent them. We must also remember that the current negotiations are taking place in a situation where all sorts of arbitrary practices and restrictions on democratic rights are being perpetetrated. And almost all of this is being directed against sections of the popular and workers' movement.
Finally, it is important to state clearly what the problems are that the workers' movement considers must be settled immediately and therefore non-negotiable. That is, what are the limits of acceptabil
Defending the gains of the workers and peasants ity for any agreement?
The democratic and popular programme that was forged in the struggle focuses on three conditions that the people expect to see im-
...The open negotiations that have be- workers' and peasants' movement must gun between various social and political forces in the country do not have the objective of establishing the framework for opposition front in the struggle against the dictatorship and for democracy. Nor do they aim to elaborate the attitudes held by these different forces in the present period. On the contrary, the aim is to define, and decide on, the political approach to adopt in the next period of government.
In general terms the workers and peasants' movement has never been, and is still not, opposed to negotiation. That is, obviously, insofar as it does not tie their hands, or downgrade or efface their demands, and does not amount to dealing away over a table what the people have won in the streets through struggle. The main problem is the conditions under which such negotiations are carried out and the forms they take.
For the workers and peasants, these negotiations can represent a step forward by satisfying specific demands, as much on the level of democratic rights as on the economic level. But it is important to take into account that negotiations can be used by the bosses and their political representatives to obstruct the advance of the vast majority of the oppressed and exploited in their struggle to achieve their objectives. The outcome will depend, in the last analysis, on the social and political relationship of forces that tips the situation in one direction or the other.
Above all it must be remembered that whatever agreement may be reached, the International Viewpoint 10 December 1984 retain total independence in its aims and activity. Such an agreement must not be confused with a truce designed to hold back or postpone the expression of popu-
Moreover, all agreements must be disdemocratically, beforehand, by the popular and working class organisations. And the only framework in which workers can democratically approve or reject such agreements is a sovereign conplemented immediately at the negotiating table.
In the first place, they demand that all forces participating in the negotiations commit themselves to an immediate and general amnesty without restrictions. This should mean the release of all polit ical prisoners, without exception, the return of all the exiles, an end to proscription of people and parties and the reappearance of 'missing persons'.
The Frente Amplio out on the streets (DR) 19
At the same time, the people are demanding the opening of an enquiry and the punishment of those responsible for crimes, disappearances and torture; the dismantling of the repressive apparatus; and the abolition of all institutional decrees, including Decree No 19.
Secondly, full trade-union rights must be granted. This means an end to the trade-union laws and to the restrictions on the right to strike; a guarantee of the right to organise; and a recognition of organisations that the workers consider to represent them. All this must, of course, be accompanied by the full restoration of civil rights.
Thirdly, the economic reconstruction of the country must not be achieved on the basis of more sacrifices for the workers and peasants. It must be accomplished through a real increase in wages and pensions, starting with the implementation of the PIT demand for an immediate wage increase of 3,000 pesos and the fixing of a national minimum wage at 7,500 pesos.
Once that is achieved, it will be possible to move on towards a redistribution of the nation's wealth, this time in the interests of the vast majority of the exploited and oppressed. Real wages cannot be increased by just increasing the formal amounts, only to see these raises wiped out by inflation and a rise in the cost of Higher wages have to be assured through a mechanism for guaranteeing them, with wages and pensions adjusted on a quarterly basis in line with the cost of living This is the only way to halt the downward sprial of real wages and to begin to
Moreover, this much must be clear: an increase in the buying power of the masses is an indispensable precondition for carrying out the democratic reconstruction of the country.
Unidad Socialista, No 48 September 20, 1984 ceased to function inside the country following the 1973 coup d'etat. We have fought shoulder to shoulder with all those in the resistance to the dictatorship for and have taken our share of comrades imprisoned, exiled, tortured or "missing.
Most of this time we have operated under the name of the PST, which we adopted in 1973. appeared, we gave our full support to all
We campaigned for a 'no' vote in 1980 [against the constitutional referendum organised by the military]. We called for a blank vote in 1982 [the elections to choose officials in the legal political parties] at a time when other organisations inside the FA hesitated or adopted ambiguous positions toward the traditional parties.
We did not make any alliances outside of the FA or, still less, give any priority to, or put any other united organisations ahead of, the front.
For this reason we find the obstacles that have been put in the way of our participation in the assembly and other sections of the FA completely inexplicable.
In fact, it has to be said that since its creation, we have supported the main programmatic documents of the coalition, and that this support has not been pas sive but that we have expressed it in our press at the worst moments of the repres
Unidad Socialista has been pub-
OST lished regularly from the start of 1978 as an organ of resistance to the dictator-
Is this what prevents us being integrated into the FA? We do not think that our total opposition to the Naval Club agreements is a reason, because in this respect our position is similar to that of other organisations within the FA, such as the IDI.
Eleven years of participation in the resistance have forged within our party an unshakeable determination to restore democracy without restrictions or distortions. But this, of course, should not be an obstacle to our entry into the FA
We heard some comments according to
The PST flag (DR)
Open letter to the militants of Frente Amplio For three months, from March to June of this year, the PST held discussions with executive members of the Frente Amplio, seeking the right to send a delegate from our organisation to their assembly. We got no response to this request.
The request was made before the first meeting of the FA assembly inside the country, which was held in April 1984. At that time new organisations which had not figured among the ones that founded the FA were incorporated, which is a very good thing. The question of our integration, however, was still avoided.
For three more months from June to 20
August the PST continued to make this request to the FA assembly, asking for a decision to accept us into the organisation. But we got no reply.
Because of this, after six months without getting a response from any section of the leadership of the FA, we began to rank-and-file committees in which the majority of our comrades are already involved, in order to inform them of our current relations with the FA.
As the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT), we participated in the founding of the FA [in 1971], and we participated in it right up until the time when it which the problem was bringing in organisations 'which stand for violence'. This was a reference to the methods used by or advocated by certain organisations. The PST is not for violence, and neither is in the first instance, the methods that the working class and popular movement choose to defend their demands. We would have been for violence' on the part of the and the people of Nicaragua againt Somoza in 1979, and we are today with the FMLN in El Salvador, and we are not ashamed to say so.
But we have demonstrated peacefully alongside the Uruguayan people in all the meetings and demonstrations against the dictatorship in the last what the Uruguayan
It is clear that neither our intransimethods which are adopted ' International Viewpoint 10 December 1984
Uruguayan people in defence of their rights, should prevent our full integration into the Frente Amplio. So what is standing in the way of a positive decision?
This is the question we are asking you and every other comrade in the rank-and-file FA committees. And we hope to get a reply that is frank and open and does not dishonour the democratic tradition of the FA.
Most of all, we hope for a decision that will not be a stab in the back to the unity achieved by FA militants in the streets and alongside the population as a whole.
We want to be part of the Frente Amplio at all levels with full rights and obligations.
We make this appeal to the base of the FA, and we trust that these militants will not allow our entry into the FA to be blocked any longer.
Montevideo, August 25, 1984
GENERAL IR
MEDIAY
Free all political prisoners On Wednesday September 12, 1984, the supreme military tribunal pronounced sentence on the six comrades arrested in March 1982 and accused of being members of the Socialist Workers Party (PST). Alicia Locatelli, Cecilia Duffau, Jorge Frutos, Roberto Rodriguez, and Diego and Ulises Negro were all condemned to three years and three months in prison.
These sentences were unjust in three ways. Firstly, because we consider any judgement on civil matters by military justice unacceptable.
Secondly, because the whole trial is null and void in the sense that all the de fendants' statements were extracted under torture as is the case in all trials conducted by the military tribunal. This is a well-known fact amongst judges, magistrates and lawyers.
As a result of his treatment in detention, Jorge Frutos had to be taken to a military hospital with severe cardiovascular problems and Alicia Locatelli suffers from permanent lesions of the heart, stomach and bones.
Thirdly, the sentences were unjust because in the case of these comrades there were no 'related offences', to use the legal jargon. Thus, the sentence of three years and three months which has been meted out to them is simply for holding certain opinions — and this is also unacceptable from the point of view of democratic rights.
"The prisoners are in the hands of Silva Ledesma (the best known torturer in Uruguay)', stated a relative of one of the prisoners during a press conference held
'Vote no! Military out!' (DR)
after a meeting last week between a delegation of the Multipartidario (a political regroupment of the National Party, the PS and the PC) and the commanders in chief of the army.
The acceptance in the Naval Club agreements that the decisions about releasing the political prisoners would remain in the hands of the supreme military tribunal has made all five hundred political prisoners virtual hostages of the dictatorship.
Today, with two months to go to the elections they are continuing to convict people for crimes of opinion, giving them sentences of more than three years. This is a total disrespect for the law and for justice.
What is more, on Monday September 17, the spokesperson of the supreme military tribunal announced that no review of the trials was envisaged between now and December, which gives some idea of the significance that the military attaches to the 'compromise' agreements of the Naval Club.
We demand the immediate release of
VOTE NO the six comrades and of all political prisoners. As we have stated on other occasions, the November elections should not be used to hold back the demand for an immediate and general amnesty without restrictions. On the contrary, even the smallest opportunity should be used
COS FUERA
International Viewpoint 10 December 1984 to deepen the struggle for freedom of all political prisoners.
The Frente Amplio has called a demonstration for a general amnesty without restrictions on September 26... The only way to get Silva Ledesma's hands off our prisoners is to step up the campaign for the release of every one of them.
There should be no truces with their goalers as long as there is a single comrade left in these horror chambers of death and torture which is what the prisons of Libertad, Punta de Rieles and the other places of detention, are.
Unidad Socialista, No 48, September 20, 1984 21
Program of the
Our third point of departure in this project is a reaffirmation of the historical tasks assumed by the Frente Amplio as the political instrument of the struggle for a