Defend
Lau San-ching
Lau San-ching has been an activist in the social movement in Hong Kong for
Since 1979 he has played a central role in the solidarity movement
Socialist Democracy Movement (SCDM).
In April 1981 the Chinese government initiated an unprecedented wave of repression against leaders of the various unofficial journals of the SCM. In response the SCDM solidarity group in Hong Kong led a campaign of denuncia.
The Chinese government then began to extend its repression towards the Hong Kong group.
Lau San-ching went to Canton on December 24, 1981, to visit the families of members of the SCDM. He expected to return on December 27 but did not, and no news has been received from him attempts to trace him through official channels failed. when a member of Lau's family went to the Bureau of Public Security in Canton in March 1982 was the fact of his arrest confirmed verbally. The Chinese authorities stated that Lau had 'broken the law' and that he 'is now undergoing investigation and no one can see him'.
A defence committee has been formed and funds raised to demand the release of Lau. When the defence committee and Lau San-ching's parents met the New China News Agency, the local representative of the People's Republic of China, it was implied that Lau had been transferred from Canton to another
Thus, it seems likely that Lau has already been tried and sentenced period for which he has been held is already far longer than the three months allowed for investigation in the penal code. Also a Hong Kong student group which visited Peking, and asked for the release of the SCM members, was informed that they had been arrested under a special penal code adopted by the Peo. ple's Congress, of which no details have
An international campaign for the release of comrade Lau San-ching is ur-
For further information contact: Lau San-ching Defence Committee, Box 89278, Kowloon City Post Office,
50,000 march in final rally for Mexican Trotskyist candidate
Jose G. PEREZ Anibal YANEZ
MEXICO CITY-Chanting, rio Ibarra, candidate of the proletariat," and "Struggle, companeros, struggle, for a workers and peasants government," 50,000 Mexican toilers, young and old, marched through the heart of this city on June 26 to the closing rally of the campaign of Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, candidate of the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT) for president of the republic in the and busloads of people gathered at 4 p.m. around the Monument of the Revolution, red flags and banners waving, and marched five kilometers from there to Tlatelolco Plaza.
The significance of this march route was not lost on anyone. The Monument the Revolution commemcrates the 1910-17 revolution spearheaded by the peasants and urban poor in the armies of Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. The democratic rights and land reform that were the goals of that revolution have been blocked by the decades-long rule of the Institutional Revolutionary (PRI), which consolidated its hold over the government in the wake of the revolu-
Tlatelolco Plaza is where hundreds of students were gunned down by the Mexican army and secret police on October 2, 1968. That massacre put an end to a massive popular movement that had organized one peaceful demonstration after another against repression, for democratic and for freedom of political prisoners and working-class leaders jailed for
Many of the cadres who organized the PRT came out of that 1968 up-
CLASS STRUGGLE FIGHTERS The people who came out by the thousands to express their militant support for the PRT's campaign front-rank fighters of Mexico's toiling
They came from cities, towns, and villages in 30 of Mexico's 33 states; from as far south as Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, and as far north as Sonora, on the border with the U,S. states of Arizona and New Mexico.
There were thousands of peasants men, women, and children, with faces hardened by toil and poverty, wearing straw hats and cotton shirts or shawls;
proletarians from the big plants conttrolled by imperialist corporations such as Renault and General Motors, and from the nationalized electrical and telephone companies, fighting against the government's austerity plan and for trade-union democracy; residents of (shantytowns) of Mexico City and other major urban areas, who have been carrying out long fights with the authorities to receive the most basic services such as electricity and running water; Indian artisans and farm laborers some speaking only halting Spanish and shouting their slogans in their native tongues; and office employees and teachers struggling against cutbacks in education.
Also present were small merchants who are being squeezed out of their stalls and tiny shops in town markets to make way for capitalist supermarkets; street vendors, who sell produce, candies, or trinkets on the street corners because they cannot find any other way to make a living; victims of government repression, including relatives of political activists who have disappeared or are "missing": former political prisoners; workers fired from their jobs for their trade-union and political activities; women's liberation fighters and gay rights activists; and activists from solidarity movements with El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Palestine.
The marchers assembled in compact contingents by region or organization. the march was about to step off, Rosario arrived, and the neat, orderly ranks dissolved as hundreds and then thousands of demonstrators rushed to greet her or just to get a glimpse of her. marshals formed a cordon around Rosario to escort her to the front of the march "Rosario Ibarra, candidate of the pro-
Rosario Ibarra's candidacy has been the sensation of the Mexican presidential