Bloody denouement
International Viewpoint 27 January 1986
SOUTH YEMEN the war of independence. During the rise of the left after June 1969, he was minister of defense. In the Decem-
1972, issue Asie he defined the role of the army as
THROUGHOUT its history, the South Yemeni national liberation movement and subsequently the state it founded have been riven by violent factional conflicts. There are two obvious main reasons for this. GERRY FOLEY
The first is that there has been a strong radical element feared both by the bourgeois nationalist leadership and the reactionary Arab regimes in the area, and they have brought every to bear to push this radical rival factions and corrupting the more moderately inclined leaders.
second is the vulnerability of desperately poor country of barely two million inhabitants to such pressures. It is bordered on one the right-wing regime in Yemen, which presides over a much larger population (7 million) and on another by the thinly populated but enormously rich Arabia, closely allied to the US. Some 70% of the national income from the port of Aden, and it is pressures from the Western countries, Another major source of income working in Saudi Arabia.
Tribal traditions and great unevenesses in the country also are a comp-
Up until now, the more radical advance in the successive confronin the conflict with backed FLOSY faction during the fight for independence, in the ouster of Qahtan ash-Shaabi from the presidency in June 1969, and in the of Salem Robea presidency in June
Qahtan had represented a Nasserite wing of the ruling National Liberation Movement (NLF). Robea Ali been trying to move toward reconciliation with imperialism.
The fall of Robea Ali prompted the Arab League to impose a boycott on South Yemen, and aroused bitter comment by some representatives of the US government. In an article in the July 7, 1978, Washington Post, Congressman Paul Findley
"An internal power struggle cut down the outstretched hand just as it was about to welcome a long-
In February 1979, there was a confrontation Yemen. Washington accused South Yemen of invading its an aircraft carrier to the area.
1979, South Yemen treaty with the Soviet Union. It was the Soviet bloc economic coordinaorganization, Soviet Union was granted the right to establish an important naval base.
The four leaders that the government of President Ali Nasser claims now to have executed were identified with the more radical aspects of
The most important, Abdul Fatah thought to be still alive] was a trade-union organizer, and the chief of the NLF struggle in the city of Aden war of independence. He was influential also on the theorewhere he distinguished himself by his attacks on it for its denial of the role of class struggle and characterized it bourgeoisie, along with a whole series of radical bourgeois nationalist regimes, ding the Indonesian, the Syrian, the
At the Fourth Congress of the NLF in early March 1968, he said, among other things: of imperialism is even more dangerous for the national popular democratic revolution than the explicit counterfeudal, semi-bourgeois alliance."
At the same time, he called for the smashing of state structures lett over from colonialism and for building a militia of 100,000 to 150,000 people.
Abdul Fatah emerged as the leading
1978 events, was pushed out in 1980.
Another of those reported executed was Ali Antar, leader of the guerrilla front in the Radfan mountains during functions as a small corps of technicians,' whose role is to teach the population how to defend itself... Within the army, all power is in the hands of political leaders who our last congress."
The third of those reported executed, Ali Salem Al-Beedh, staged one of the major coups of the left in the firing 28 British military instructors in February 1968.
Hadramaut region, the stronghold of the left.
The fourth claimed dead by the regime was Ali Shai Hadi, chairman of the Yemeni Socialist Party.
It seems apparent that very extensive nationalizations and mobilizations, had not been definitely transformed. The militia, which got Cuban training, is by all accounts substantially smaller essential base of the apparent victor in this confrontation,
The Paris daily Liberation's correspondent Jose Garcon described the origin of the conflict as follows:
"Seeing the making it necessary to seek aid from the 'moderate' Arab countries and not just Moscow, the Yemenite president was to adopt a more 'flexible' policy toward the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia (rapprochement with North Yemen, ending the long dispute with Oman, etc). This evolution was violently opposed by Ali Antar." country, the material weight of the Soviet Union could be decisive. The reported dead leaders have been linked by the big press to Moscow. But they have taken positions to the left of the USSR in the past, if only because they had to fight for their lives against then backed by
Against this background, it does not seem impossible that they would have needed a green light from Moscow to act. The Kremlin has, moreover, kept its alliance with Iraq despite the regime moving the right.
The bloody conflict that erupted
January 13 in fact raises many political and theoretical just about the evolution and parameters of Soviet policy, but about the revolutionary process and institutions in such countries, desperately poor radical ministates which are becoming a more common feature
International Viewpoint 27 January 1986 this is the second fact. In explainrecalled the ing his abstention, he criticisms that various CISL trade made in previous months unionists
The struggle against of the definition of the income categories.
Both in the international incident the Finance Law over the Achille Lauro, which resulted in the death and resurrection within a few days of the five-party government, and in the tempest over the Finance Law we have seen the underlying factors that are eating away at the foundations of the five-party govern-
THE FOLLOWING article from the December 16 issue of Bandiera
Rossa, the paper of the Italian section of the Fourth International, describes the political context of the battles around the Finance Law, the Craxi government's latest austerity legislation. Among other things, this law served as the focus for the massive student upsurge months, which is recounted in the accompanying interview with Sergio Damia.
ELETTRA DEIANA
The vicissitudes of the Finance Law serve to highlight two major aspects of the Italian situation. On the one hand, there is the continuation of an acute, endemic crisis of the bourgeoisie's central instrument for governing - the five-party government. On the other, there is the political self-subordination of the major opposition force on the left, the Italian Communist
Party (PCI).
The PCI continues to avoid exploiting the contradictions, losses of footing, and outright tumbles of this government so as to make its life impossible. In fact, it is doing everything possible to keep these slides from turning into a disastrous and irreversible fall.
If, despite all its internal problems, the Craxi government manages to survive the battle over the Finance Law, after the Achille Lauro episode, and succeeds in getting through a slightly revised but still essentially antilabor the responsibility for all this law, will fall above all on the PCI.
This party, in fact, is continuing simply to pretend to play an opposition in parliament, confining role itself to the presentation of amendments but in full respect for the rules of the game, without any serious attempt to obstruct or delay the work of the parliament. And, obviously, it has intention no exploiting the positive thrusts, the will to fight that various sectors of society, including its own activist base, have demonstrated in recent weeks.
This combativity has been shown by the students above all but also by those who thanks also to the initiative of some PCI activists, gave life to an important and significant
4 demonstration in Rome against internal rifts and contradictions in the majority have focused above all on Article 27 of the Finance Law, which establishes different categories for medical aid according income. This is a central point in the five-party government's strategy for attacking and dismantling the welfare
Already in the first skirmishes, when the finance law was still in the formative stage, the problem of the income categories stirred up a hornets' nest in the various government parties, in particular in the Christian-populist sections of the Christian Democratic Party. The problem seemed to recede after the readjustment of the first version of the income categories. But its virulence, thanks to an operation by majority snipers. By staying away from the vote, they sabotaged approval of Article 27 in the Senate.
This was clearly no accident, the government's spokespersons have tried to get people to belleve. the contrary, it was an unmistakable confirmation of the discontent and government lineup. This is shown in particular by two facts. The defeat of Article 27 came shortly after a Communist amendment that called striking this article was rejected by
(119 against, for, and five abstentions, which count negative votes according to
Thus, the majority senators knew well that there was a risk of deleat. Among the abstentions there as important as Donat Cattin. And ment come to light.
In a few months, these have destroyed the momentum that the Craxi and De Mita government last spring from its administrative elections and the referendum [on abolishing the sliding scale of wages ].
In the first place, the special preoccupations of each party to maintain a sphere of action and political role of its own have generated disolving and centrifugal tendencies. In particular, the intrinsic competition between the Socialist Party (PSI) and the Christian Democrats has had such
The party whose escutcheon bears the sign of the cross in fact has always the five-party government." been working incessantly to reestablish the Christian Democratic Party firmly in the center of the stage. And in this respect, Craxi is suffering from a sort of back-to-the-wall syndrome. In fact, he is perfectly aware that if the fish gets away this time, it is not very likely that his electoral fortunes in the future will give him another chance to play the balancing or Bonapartist role that he considers his great mission Bourgeoisie not satisfied
However, the majority also has another sort of problem. Directing the new and difficult phase of austerity that the bourgeoisie wants to impose on the workers and the popular masses requires, in fact, a determination, a tightness, a disregard for political risks that may not correspond to the electoral interests of some parts of the fivecoalition, in particular the Christian Democracy.
to a meeting of Confindustria [the employers held in late November in Turin, [FIAT boss ] Agnelli drastically distanced himself from government. He declared that it was necessary to carry out "a deepgoing restructuration of our entire system,
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_ ITALY
International Viewpoint 27 January 1986 on the economic level, on the level of regulations, on the level of behaviour." It was necessary, he said to have "the courage to make unpopular choices." Industry was doing this, but the state and the government were not keeping pace.
Agnelli's speech was nothing less than a peremptory summons to the government to act in accordance with the expectations and desires of the bourgeoisie, that is, as an executive committee of the ruling class. There is no doubt that these desires are also those of the parties in the majority. But from word to deed the road neither easy nor straight.
In a bourgeois democratic system such as ours, the government can only hold office with the consent of the electorate. And getting such consent costs something. The government's credit could wear out overnight, because of the discontent that the unpopular choices that the FIAT boss wants could arouse even among the most faithful electoral supporters of the ruling parties.
De Mita [the Christian Democratic leader] and his party are certainly aware of this, and it is no accident that they did not exploit the crisis touched off by the Achille Lauro affair to go for the premiership. In fact, their plans call for Craxi carrying as many of the difficult tasks as possible, such as launching this Finance Law. On the other hand, it is vital for Craxi to succeed in handling this crucial transition in Italian political life if he does not want to lose his credibility once and eyes of the bourgeoisie.
However, in these days it is not only the government that is showing clear signs of crisis. The whole political and institutional system reveals a state of deepgoing crisis and malaise, in which it has been for some time.
unprecedented controntation between the president of the republic and the Supreme Council of the Judiciary in the Craxi-Intini-Tobagi case is of this situation, a particularly sensational
The rules of the game have been broken, Eugenio Scalfari laments Repubblica of Sunday, December 8. On the one hand, he sees, "excesses by the judiciary," "exhibitionalist judges looking for cheap publicity," "megalomaniacs with a fascination for slapping handcuffs on people." On the other, he suspects grave interference by the political branch, illegitimate interference by the office of the president of the republic, which, according to the constitution is supposed precisely to safeguard the rules of the game.
Even in the pages of l'Unita you can find concern expressed about the "decline of the democratic system," about the "coming apart of the fiveparty coalition." But for the workers movement, opposition worthy of the name, the task should certainly not be to lament wearing out of the bourgeois system of rule, the "weaknesses" of the gov-
This wearing out and these weakshould instead be used make the struggle of the opposition to make the task of this government more difficult. The potential for a fightback there the grave difficulties in which the workers movement finds itself today, after the defeats of last spring, there are energies and potential that can be tapped effectively for a deep-going struggle against the government and the Finance Law, would give new thrust and perspectives today, feeling the weight of defeats, confidence in their ability to the government's course of
The student movement is demonstrating a determination, the readiness to fight the Finance Law, that few would have which the press is trying in vain to cover up. The 20 to 30 thousand who mobilized in the PCIs Rome, already numerwould certainly be much more
Sit down protest in Rome (DR) there had been clear for a struggle, if there had been a clear determination to really defeat the government's maneuver.