The statements made by a number of people who witnessed policemen acting strangely at or near the place of Palme's murder have been dismissed or "forgot-
DENMARK • SWEDEN ten". And those who have insisted on pursuing the truth have been prosecuted, as in the case of a TV producer who wrote a book about what he had seen. Internationalen, the paper of the Socialist Party (Swedish section of the Fourth International), has also been prosecuted for "slander" simply because it reported on all the unanswered questions and dubious details of police leads.
Given all this, it would have been legitimate enough for the social democrats to investigate the police lead, distrusting the ability right-wing extremists of the police and the security police to investigate themselves. It might even have been reasonable for the social democratic party to start their own investigation to stop right-wing sabotage.
### Fighting the attacks
Fighting the allacks on democratic rights
But this is not what has been done. On the contrary, it is obvious that the social democrats led their "investigation" precisely in order to continue the favourite theme of the security police and sections of the regular police force: the Kurdish connection. The theory that has been investigated is that the PKK murdered Palme, following orders from Iran. Apart from not being very credible, there is absolutely no evidence to back up this theory. Furthermore, the social democrats worked very closely with sections of the security police and police in this investigation.
This new scandal has broken at a time of general demoralization, when it is clear that the result of the yearly negotiations on work contracts will result in a loss in real wages for most workers, and when the accumulated effects of years of public service cuts is leading to an acute crisis of healthcare and childcare this summer. It cumes at a time when the political vacuum is growing, with the social democrats doing their best to tone down the differences between left and right before the coming national elections in September.
It comes at a time when the Eurocommunist party, the VPK, after years of compromises and acceptance of social-democratic austerity policies runs a real risk of losing all its posts in parliament. At the same time, there is still no strong and credible alternative on the left. The Socialist Party, which is running candidates for the national, municipal and regional elections, is working to build such an alternative.
In this work, the fight against the attacks on democratic rights and against increasing corruption is essential. The Socialist Party has raised a number of immediate demands after the Leijon scandal:
Make all the material relating to the Palme investigation public! Stop the prosecutions of those who have questioned police investigation! Release the nine Kurds from municipal arrest and give them a fair 7 and open trial! * July 11, 1988 • #145 International Viewpoint