AROUND THE WORLD
Canada Tamil refugees ON AUGUST 11 two boats carrying 155 Tamil refugees were rescued from the sea off Newfoundland. The Tamils have since been the target of a vicious, racist campaign led by the media and the Canadian government.
They have had to endure interro gation day after day by immigration officers, the police and journalists, who claimed that the admission of the Tamils into Canada would open the door to a massive wave of refugees. The Canadian government reiterated its intention to introduce changes in the law to further restrict the rights of political refugees to enter Canada.
Once it became clear that the ship that brought the Tamils to Canada had come from West Germany and not from India (as the Tamils had originally stated for fear of being denied entry), the press, the police and capitalist politicians stepped up their racist attacks. "Send them back" screamed the Toronto Sun.
This entire campaign, which in effect transformed the victims into the guilty, is nothing but pure hypocrisy. The real liars are not the Tamil refugees, as the media claims, but all those who represent Canada as a "humanitarian" country that welcomes immigrants with open arms. It's the Canadian government that forces refugees like the Tamils, often fleeing for their lives, to find a way around the enormous obstacles blocking their legal entry into this country.
The Tamils, who represent 18 per cent of the Sri Lankan population, suffer extreme oppression there. In 1983, following racist government attacks, bands of thugs organized a bloody massacre of Tamils. Many of their businesses and homes were hurned to the ground. The continuing burned to the ground. The continuing intense repression has forced thousands of Tamils to flee their country.
A great number ended up in West Germany where they must wait for up to six years before finding out if they will be given permanent status or not. During all this time the Tamil refugees are kept in cramped communal residences without the right to work, study or travel while remaining under the constant threat 26 of deportation back to Sri Lanka. [See article on page 13.]
Little wonder then that the Tamils who fled West Germany were ready to pay about 3,500 US dollars each (including children) to criminal fastbuck artists in order to come to Canada. They were forced to stay in the ship's hold for 10 days in filthy conditions with very little food. Then they were left adrift in the ocean in two small lifeboats until rescued by fishermen two days later.
The Canadian government has done everything it can to make the entry of Tamil refugees as difficult as possible. It has, for example, demanded a visa for anyone coming here from Sri Lanka since 1983 - in other words, ever since large numbers of Tamils have been forced to flee the repression there. Since then the government has refused all applications for visas from those trying to flee Sri Lanka!
The unions, the National Democratic Party and human rights organizations must come to the defence of the Tamil refugees and oppose the racist campaign against them. We must demand that the Canadian government facilitate the entry of all those fleeing bloody repression, instead of erecting obstacles to their entry such as demanding visas. It should also immediately grant the Tamils permanent status as landed immigrants, removing all threat of subsequent deportation or harassment. [From Socialist Voice, newspaper of the Revolutionary Workers League.]
Dillay and De
Italy LCR Congress THE LIGA communista rivoluzionaria (LCR - Revolutionary Communist League, Italian section of the Fourth International) held its third national congress from June 28 to July 1, 1986, in Salsomaggiore (EmiliaRomagna). Around two hundred people participated in the congress, including delegates, members of outgoing leadership bodies and visitors. For the first two days of the congress, sessions were open to delegates from other organizations, then the congress was held in closed session.
Corriere della Sera, the biggest Italian daily newspaper, sent a journalist to the congress and published a relatively exhaustive account of it in their June 30 issue. Radio Milano populare, which is run by the left and the extreme-left, including some trade-union organizations, relayed a lot of information on the congress, and broadcast an interview with Livio Maitan, a leading LCR member.
The first point on the agenda was devoted to a discussion on a draft resolution that the outgoing centra committee had adopted in autumn 1985, which was published in the LCR's newspaper, Bandiera Rossa. The text dealt with both programmatic and political questions. It reaffirmed the essential programmatic line of the LCR and the Fourth International, while outlining the development of the political situa-
SANCTUARY MOVEMENT
"Give me your rich, your famous, your ruling classes...'
tion in Italy in the last few years. The report on this resolution was made by comrade Franco Turigliatto, a member of the outgoing political bureau.
In the framework of this discussion the question of the relations between the LCR and Democrazia proletaria (DP) was tackled. DP is the biggest of the Italian far-left organizations. They had proposed unity with the LCR, estimating that the political divergences were not so big that they justified the existence of two separate organizations. The leadership of the LCR affirmed, on the other hand, that conditions were not ripe for a unification and that instead there should be a closer collaboration than in the past, particularly in the fields of trade-union and electoral work. The orientation of the leadership was approved by the congress, which adopted the political text almost unanimously.
The second report, on building the LCR in the next two years, was presented by another member of the outgoing political bureau, comrade Elettra Deiana. A large number of delegates spoke on this point, taking up the problems of intervention into the trade unions, of building the organization, of the functioning of its leading bodies and the character of the LCR's press. The contributions also addressed the problems of building the OGR -a revolutionary youth organization linked to the LCR - which had sent delegates to the congress.
Finally, the text proposed by the outgoing leadership was approved by a large majority. On the press, a decision was taken to continue the discussion in the whole organization and to draw out conclusions from the debate towards the end of the year. The congress elected a 35-member Central Committee plus three alternate members and a Control Commission of three members.
DP sent a delegation to the congress comprising a member of their leadership, comrade Saccoman, and comrade Patta, a trade-union leader who is involved in building the trade-union tendency "Democrazia consiliare". Both comrades spoke in the discussion to defend their point of view regarding relations between DP and the LCR and to stress the importance of common work in the unions. The leadership of the Italian Communist Party also sent a two-person delegation who spoke in the discussion, including a member of the regional coprata rist secretariat of Emilie EmiliaRomagna and a member of parlia ment.
During the congress, speeches were also given by representatives of an organization claiming continuity with Lettarcontinuan the the 1905t from. Lotta continua, the largest extreme-