AROUND THE WORLD
Ecuador Big gains for the left THE RIGHTIST government suffered serious setbacks while the left made important gains in the June 1 elections. The opposition parties altogether got 47% of the vote, and the far-left more than doubled the total that it got in the 1984 general elections, from 8.4% to 19%. Because of anomalies due to the local character of the elections, the opposition vote in fact added up to more than that of the pro-government parties. The rightist coalition backing president Leon Febres Cordero got only 20%, and the right-wing populists of the Concentration of People's Forces and the Alfarista Radical Front only 12%.
The far-left vote almost equalled that of the president's coalition. On the slate of the coalition that got the bulk of the far-left vote, a member of the Ecuadorian section of the Fourth International, the Revolutionary Workers' Movement (MRT), was elected as a deputy for the largely Quechua-speaking province of Canar.
In a referendum to change the electoral laws, the government went down to a resounding defeat. Its attempt to gain more maneuvering room was rejected by a vote of 68% to 22%.
In office only since August 1984, the government of President Cordero already seems to be sinking fast. In March, he was forced to jettison his minister of defence, General Luis Pineiros, who was responsible for waging dirty war against "subversion" under the pretext of combatting two urban guerrilla groups.
General Frank Vargas led a revolt of the soldiers and airbases under his command to demand Pineiros' removal. He accused the minister of having sold out to the US and of having formed death squads and paramilitary gangs.
Some of these groups, such as "the Brothers of the Sun," tortured and assassinated left activists. They had extensive files on political activists supplied by the police and the army.
The government hoped to repair its facade in these elections, but its moves backfired. The proposed change in the electoral law was to permit independents to run without the endorsement of recognized parties.
The proposal had a democratic appearance and the government and its backers put all their weight behind it. Nonetheless, it was seen as a maneuver by the voters and buried in a landslide of "no" votes.
Moreover, the right-wing populist parties, very strong in the past, suffered big losses.
Within the opposition, the left gained at the expense of the bourgeois centrist parties: the Democratic Left, which is linked to the Socialist International; People's Democracy, linked to Christian Democracy; and the Roldosista (a populist center formation); and other small formations. These parties had the majority in parliament and controlled the judicial branch, as well as the constitutional court. But they did not show effectiveness in defending democratic rights.
The far-left was represented in these elections by three fronts, the People's Democratic Movement (MPD), a pro-Albanian formation, got 4.2% of the vote. The Broad Left Front (FADI), organized by the Communist Party, got 3.4% of the vote. And the Socialist Party-Socialist Front (PSEFS) got 10.1% of the vote. The three fronts got respectively three, two and six seats as provincial deputies, who are re-elected every two years in between national parliamentary elections. Thus, the far-left now has 13 deputies out of a total of 71.
The FS represents one of the historic socialist currents in Ecuador, comprising the Ecuadoran Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSRE), the PSE, and the Ecuadoran People's Party (PEP). These groups also have their forces in the Ecuadoran Federation of Free Trade-Union Organizations (CEOSL).
For these elections a tactical alliance was concluded between the FS and the MRT, as well as with two factions of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left.
Formed in 1977, the MRT is active in ten out of the country's twenty provinces. Although the MRT asked to join the FS several months ago, its application has not yet been accepted. Nonetheless, many class-struggle leaders of the MRT ran on the PSE slate, and one of the deputies it elected, as well as several municipal and provincial councillors, are members of the MRT. Some MRT members are also in the provincial committee of the FS for the city of Guayaquil.
In Canar province, Segundo Serrano, a member of the MRT, got 65% of the vote, becoming the first Trotskyist deputy in the Ecuadoran parliament.
In this mountainous region in the south, the peasants are organized in Indian communities and are fighting for their own culture. One of their demands is for a literacy campaign in Quechua, as well as Spanish.
The Indian people also see defence of their culture as including the fight to regain the lands that have been taken away from them and the opportunity to develop their specific forms of work organization.
In this province, the candidates were selected by people's assemblies in the rural communities and urban neighborhoods from among the most militant activists who enjoyed the confidence of the people's organizations. [Summary of an article by Alfonso Tavares which appeared in our Frenchlanguage sister publication, Inprecor No. 223, July 7, 1986.] Britain 250,000 rally against apartheid JUNE 28 saw the biggest anti-apartheid demonstration in British history. A quarter of a million people attended a rally and concert in south London. A hundred thousand people marched four miles from Hyde Park to the concert. The enormous size of the demonstration reflected the fact that at the moment South Africa is continuously at the centre of political attention in Britain.
The march itself was dominated by young people predominantly young women. There was also a significant Black presence on the march. This included the Black Section of the Labour Party, the Black Workers Group from the local government workers union NALGO and community-based Black organizations. There were large contingents from the Labour Party in the London area on the march, with a smaller presence from the rest of the country.
The trade union banners represented in particular teachers, local government workers, telecommunications workers and engineers. This was in addition to Rail Against Apartheid, an organization of supporters of the anti-apartheid struggle in the rail workers' union, the NUR, which received full support from the NUR's annual conference. Large numbers of students also joined the march. International Viewpoint 14 July 1986
The Anti-Apartheid Movement's platform at the rally was draped in the banners of the African National Congress and the South West African People's Organisation who provided the main speakers.
The political background to the march was the huge impact of the struggle in South Africa on Britain and, linked to this, splits inside the ruling class on the question of sanctions.
Thatcher has been holding out strongly against sanctions. The ruling Tory Party almost certainly realise that in the end some economic sanctions will have to be applied against South Africa, but they are aiming to keep these to a minimum. Other sections of the ruling class, as well as the Labour Party leadership, believe that a more rapid imposition of sanctions is necessary in order to head off public demands in Britain and an uncontrollable development of the struggle in South Africa itself.
A split has also developed between Thatcher and various governments in the Commonwealth, particularly those in Africa. These divisions are being utilised in the fight inside the ruling class over the sanctions issue. The Eminent Persons Group - including ex-prime minister of Australia Malcolm Fraser and General Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria - came out strongly in favour of sanctions, much to Thatcher's surprise.
Also hitting the headlines in Britain was the visit of Cyril Ramaphosa, general secretary of the South African National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), who addressed the British NUM conference and demanded the imposition of sanctions. Ramaphosa not only strongly attacked the policies of the Thatcher government, but also the inadequacies of the TUC, the national trade-union federation, for its role in the fight against apartheid. Cyril Ramaphosa also met with the general secretary of the TUC, Norman Willis, Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock and other leaders of the labour movement in Britain. Britain Printworkers continue fight PRINTWORKERS in London are stepping up their fight against the mass sackings of 5,500 News International workers by Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch sacked the printworkers when he moved his four titles - The Times, Sunday Times, Sun and News of the World - to a new hightechnology plant at Wapping in East London.
There has been an escalation of
International Viewpoint 14 July 1986 flying pickets and bigger mass pickets at Wapping following on from a rejection of Murdoch's £50 million offer to buy-off the sacked workers by the print union SOGAT 82. Rupert Murdoch's affidavits to the high court in his legal action against SOGAT, now postponed, reveal the demoralising impact this picketing is having on the electricians and journalists scabbing in the Wapping plant.
The Times and Sunday Times journalists are also balloting on taking strike action against the sacking of eight journalists who had refused to move to the scab plant.
But instead of taking advantage of the difficulties Murdoch is facing, and calling for stepped up support and solidarity from the rest of the labour movement, Norman Willis, general secretary of the TUC [national trade-union federation], is chiefly demanding that the scabs intercede on behalf of the sacked workers! Willis has asked the electricians' and journalists' unions to "use their best endeavours with their members at Wapping and with the company to bring about a resumption of talks."
The "best endeavours" that the electricians and journalists could make would be to strike in support. This should be the axis of the TUC's call.
We already saw what the "best endeavours" of the Sun journalists amounted to when, after voting to strike, they were bought off by Murdoch for an extra £2,000 a year each. Only appeals based on class solidarity, not on Murdoch's supposed good nature, can deal with such bribery.
An attempt to put together another sell-out package with Willis undoubtedly lies behind Murdoch's decision to postpone until July 7 his court action against the print unions. In the context of the greater self confidence of the sacked printers such a legal move at present would only stiffen their resolve and bring greater solidarity action from the rest of the movement.
The key to preventing any new sell-out deal being accepted is to continue the mass meetings which discuss and decide the conduct of the dispute - together with the liaison committee of representatives of the striking chapels. Building these, together with stepping up the picketing, is the key task in the coming days. [From the British newspaper, Socialist Action, June 27] Peace Fifth END Convention AFTER BEING held in previous years in Brussels, Berlin, Perugia and Amsterdam, the fifth convention of European Nuclear Disarmament (END) was held this year in Evry, France, from June 5 to 8.
Some 650 persons attended, mainly peace-movement, political, and trade-union figures, as well as representatives of the churches. There was even an official representative of the Soviet peace movement, along with representatives of the independent peace movements in Eastern Europe.
Also present were the mayor of the city of Esteli in Nicaragua, a representative of the South African ANC, of the PLO and Oscar Temaru, leader of the Polynesian Liberation Front.
Unlike the previous conventions, where there was an attempt to ru...force, enrich and deepen the peace movements, this time the 40 or so workshops on diverse topics did not make it possible to give a new impulse to the peace movement. To the contrary, the Evry convention marked a regression, with the debate focusing mainly on European security, dissuasion, arms policy and Eureka [an EEC space project].
Moreover, there was a noticeably greater presence of institutional forces that helped to shift the discussion to the right. The Danish Social Democratic Party, the British Labour Party, the Spanish state Socialist Party (PSOE) and the Italian Communist Party tried to propagate their general positions on disarmament, NATO, Central America, the Mediterranean and the Strategic Defense Initiative. But they showed no concern about mass mobilizations, even on limited objectives. ı[From the July 3 issue of Rouge, •newspaper of the French section of the Fourth International./ •
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