AROUND THE WORLD THIRD WORLD DEBT Berlin, Paris, Houston.... THE success of the demonstration and concert held in Paris on July 8 of last year (see /V 168, July 31, 1989), coming after the demonstrations of September 1988 in Berlin against the meeting of the IMF there, showed the possibility of a prolonged campaign for the cancellation of the third world debt. This has been followed up, with initiatives planned in several countries for the time when the summit of the world's seven richest coun tries takes place this year in Houston, Texas. The "Bastille Appeal", launched by the unitary collective that organized the July 8 demonstration in Paris, denounced the worsening of the pillage and impoverishment of the third world, and demanded the immediate and total cancellation of the debt, which overwhelms the people, encourages the dictators, and smothers democracy•
In France, support has grown — around the writer Gilles Perrault are grouped numerous artists, writers, intellectuals, but also all the anti-imperialist and third worldist organizations, the Communist Party, the CGT (the biggest trade union federation), the SNES (a tcachers' union), the Green Party's European representatives, the anti-racist organizations MRAP, FASTI, and SOS-Racisme, a number of Socialist deputies and personalities, the League of Human Rights, and so on.
In Latin America support is strong in a number of countries, notably in Mexico (the PRT, the Mexican section of the Fourth International, but also C. Cardenas, leader of the Democratic Revolution Party). Bolivia (the leadership of the COB, the trade union federation), Brazil, Colombia (all the left organizations), Haiti (the Independent Federation of Haitian Workers), Martinique and Guadeloupe.
In black Africa, trade unionists have pledged the support of their organizations in more than 10 countries, and support has also come from movements of opposition to the existing regimes. The appeal has been signed in Morocco and Algeria.
In Belgium, a unitary collective has been created grouping numerous forces, the Communist Party, Socialist deputies, Greens, solidarity committees, and the POS, Belgian section of the Fourth Inter-
AROUND THE WORLD national. In Greece, the NAR, an important regroupment comprising ex-members of the Communist Party and the Communist Youth, and the OKDE, Greck section of the Fourth International, have supported the appeal. In Italy, Democrazia Proletaria has asked for the support of other sections of the left. In Spain, the appeal is beginning to be circulated.
In both West and East Germany, support is strong. Even in Houston, during the meeting of the Seven, a counter-summit is planned of the nongovernmental representatives of the peoples of the poorest countries of Central America, organized by the International League for Human Rights and the Liberation of Peoples. Demonstrations are already anticipated in Mexico, Bolivia, Chile and Brazil, but also in Senegal with the support of the revolutionary group And-Jef and the OST (Senegalese section of the Fourth International). Demonstrations are being discussed in Algeria, Greece, Italy and Spain. In France and
Belgium, the coilectives plan to organize rallies.
In Berlin, left organizations in both East and West are planning a demonstration and an international concert to be held in the cily on June 23. What better place 1o organize an initiative with delegations coming from all over Europe symbolizing the common struggle of the peoples of East and West, in solidarity with the peoples of the third world against the summit of the seven imperialist powers? It is crucial that the solidarity of the peoples, of the workers, be affirmed, at a time when the bankers and the IMF are withdrawing their capital from the third world after having pillaged it and subjected it to drastic austerity plans, and prepare to subject the peoples of Eastern Europe to the same mechanisms and win new markets which they hope will be more profitable.
Daniel Ortega has summarized it well; "there is another wall to overthrow, that of the third world debt". The recent popular uprisings in Gabon, Niger, the Ivory Coast and Senegal has shown the urgency of the campaign. In France, the Collective against the Debt has solidarized with these demonstrations provoked by the weight of the imperialist debt, and has denounced the responsibility of the French rulers. During these hunger riots, Jacques Chirac, former prime minister, declared that "multipartyism is a luxury for the countries of the third world", and the French government expelled a Gabonese oppositionist. For these "democrats" , the struggle for democracy and against the single party stops when it turns against their imperialist interests.
AL- MITRAQA no. 7
May 1989 - January 1990
Revolutionary communist journal for the Arab region.
CONTENTS
* PALESTINE: The third year of the Intifada. Interview with Dr.
George Habash, followed by a commentary
* LEBANON: The snowball
* MOROCCO: The situation and tasks of revolutionaries - a document from the Revolutionary
Communist Circles of Morocco
* TUNISIA: The Tunisian
Communist Party, from its foundation to its self-dissolution
* ERNEST MANDEL: Glasnost and the crisis of the Communist
Parties
Subscription for threc issucs: in France 60FF, for other countrics write to AL - MITRAQA.
Send cheques made out to PEC to Quatrième Internationale (Al-Mitraqa) 2, Richard
Lenoir, 93108, Montreuil, France. Bank and postal transfers as for International
27
Viewpoint — see inside front cover.
April 9, 1990 •
GREECE