• For a United Socialist Germany as part of a Europe of the workers, East and
AROUND THE WORLD UNITED STATES New moves in campaign for release of Mark Curtis THE fight for justice for Mark Curtis, the U.S. socialist activist currently serving a 25 year sentence on trumped-up sexual assault and burglary charges (see /V 147, 149, 151, 154) has taken on a new impetus with the establishment of a United Nations inquiry into the case. An interational delegation of Curtis supporters arrived in Geneva on February 6 to raise his case at the 46th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights. The delegation was headed by Kate Kaku, Curtis' wife, and John Studer, the coordinator of Curtis' international defence effort.
A UN human rights officer has been assigned to direct the UN inquiry - she will prepare a summary of Curtis' case and send it to the U.S. embassy with a formal request for a reply. Kate Kaku is currently undertaking a two month tour of
Europe to publicize the Curtis case.
Curtis, a member of the U.S. Socialist
Workers Party, has been subjected to further harassment in the Iowa State Men's
Reformatory in Anamosa, where he is detained. After being framed on charges of gambling on the Super Bowl football game, his visiting rights have been reduced and 2 good conduct days removed from his record; he can no longer receive telephone calls or have access to
West.
Such a programme, even though Marxists will not be able to win acceptance for all these demands straight away, corresponds to the interests of German workers, East and West. The socialist left has to take the lead in fighting for the unification of Germany — it must trump the manoeuvres of Kohl and Modrow. The programme outlined above would be totally unacceptable to imperialism -even neutrality is anathema — or to the bureaucracy itself. But these demands will seem reasonable to an increasingly bigger layer of militant workers, at first in the East but also in the West. East German workers should appeal to workers in the FRG, build links, common campaigns and solidarity. In other words, try to construct real unity in action —- a united front of the workers East and West!
What is at stake — not just theoretically, but concretely — is the possibility of European-wide working class and socialist cooperation. Despite discussions in his typewriter, and has been moved to a more overcrowded level of the prison where inmates enjoy less privileges.
The Mark Curtis Defense Committee has urged that protest telegrams and letters be sent immediately, demanding that prison authorities rescind the punishment imposed on Curtis, drop the frame-up charges, and clear his record. Messages should be sent to John A. Thalacker, Warden, Iowa State Men's Reformatory, Anamosa, Iowa 52205, and to Paul Grosshem, Director, Department of Corrections, Capitol Annex, 523 E 12th, Des Moines, Iowa 50319.
Please send a copy and any response received from Iowa prison officials to the Mark Curtis Defense Committee, P.O. Box 1048, Des Moines, Iowa 50311. Donations to help finance Curtis' efforts to fight for justice before the U.N. Commission can also be sent to the above address, and earmarked for the U.N. effort. *
POLAND
Fourth
International thanked for solidarity effort
The second regional congress of Solidarnosc in Lower Silesia, held in Wroclaw on March 2, 3 and 4, 1990, paid tribute to the solidarity with Solidarnosc built by members of the Fourth International at the time of the state of emergency. The congress was attended by over 500 delegates representing 235,000 trade unionists. Presenting a report on activities in
DEBATE ON GERMANY the European Community about building political and economic links with Eastern Europe, its institutional framework, everso carefully negotiated over many years and taking into account all the different national interests, is incapable of providing a structure for pan-European cooperation.
On the contrary, the initiatives of the Kohl government in relation to German reunification are causing significant strains within the existing capitalist clubs.
Right across Europe, the left must initiate an alternative political and economic framework for the integration of the continent, which respects the rights of peoples' to self-determination and democratic control of their political and social life. Our sections must not only help to build sections of the Fourth International in the East, but also intervene into the existing workers' movements in the West, promoting European-wide intitiatives for developing pan-European socialist perspective. * his capacity as president of the clandestine leadership of Solidarnosc in Lower Silesia from October 1982 to April 1983, Josef Pinior said in particular; "In this period Solidarnosc in our region received aid of the utmost importance from the west, in the form of radio equipment and transmissions, thanks to the activity in Paris of the Solidarnosc support committee led by Zbigniew Kowalewski and that of the editorial staff of the Polish journal of the Fourth International, grouped around Cyril Smuga". The written text of this report has been distributed to all the trade union structures of the region - the second largest in Poland in terms of Solidarnosc membership — and will appear in a
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book on the history of the trade union. Issue number 25 of Polish Inprekor, printed in Wroclaw with the assistance of the Socialist Political Centre, was distrib- uted during the congress by the regional distribution service of Solidarnosc. Our comrade Cyril Smuga, who attended the congress, was interviewed by Wroclaw regional television in his capacity as editor of Inprekor and the magazine was shown * on television on March 5. SULDARNOS E SOLUANNOSCI INPREKOR nr 7 PO ROKU... •UGEOS O SETUACO 27