All this is as yet only a relative tendency but it has already had political consequences. In France, for example, more than half of the workforce now work in enterprises of less than 50 people. A recent survey (in Le Monde, June 13, 1990) concluded that in France employment in enterprises of more than 500 workers fell from 20.7% in 1975 to 14.6% in 1986. In the building and public works
AROUND
THE WORLD sectors, 4% of workers only work for big companies, whereas 36.1% are employed in firms of less than 20 workers. This phenomenon, combined with an absolute transfer of workers from industry to the tertiary sector, weighs heavily on the experience and political consciousness of the workforce.
In such countries as France, the labour movement faces a considerable challenge if it is to avoid a rapid degradation of trade union organization in the work place. * SOVIET UNION Supporters of the "Chilean mode!" The March 23-29, 1990, edition of Nouvelles de Moscou contained an article by Youri Korolev entitled "The economic defeat of Allende". Korolev, who worked in the ministry of the economy under the Allende government, reviewed the economic factors which, according to him, led to the defeat of Popular Unity and led Chile into the *impasse from which Pinochet poration... Pinochet bought to Chile some gifted young scientists from the economics faculty at Chicago, and put them at the head of the ministry of economics and finance. Ten years later, they have reached their objective".
For Korolev, there is no doubt about the success of Chile, whose economic growth, "rose last year to 10%" and which is "a powerful competitor on the world market". The social costs of this "success" are consciously overlooked by Korolev. [See next issue of IV for an analysis of the "Chilean miracle"]. * SYRIA International appeal AT THE END of March 1990 15 people were arrested after writings were painted on walls in the town of Yabroui, to the
MISSION emerged".
In opposing the the choice of economic and social policies undertaken by the Allende government to
SOUP LINE FORMS TO RIGHT→ the "natural order" of the existing international organization of production, Korolev condemns all alternatives to the "neo-liberal"
economic models which have been imposed by the International Monetary Fund in most Latin American countries and in many other parts of the world.
COMM
CRUMBLES
In his opinion, "a national renaissance, in opposition to imperialism as a system, constituted the fundamental idea of the Chilean concept.
And it is also this that constituted the principal danger".
Korolev, whose positions are now indistinguishable from those of the most stalwart defenders of the "Chicago Boys", the monetarist advisers who helped Pinochet develop the famous "Chilean model", affirms that, contrary to other military dictatorships whose leaders "understand nothing of economics and who, in the best of cases (...) think only of the well being of their cor-
AROUND THE WORLD north of Damascus comparing the Syrian president Hafez-el-Assad to the to the late Romanian dictator Causescu. Some of the prisoners are still being held and one of those arrested died two weeks later, as a result of internal haemorrhaging caused by ill treatment while in the hands of the security services.
Faced with this kind of repression and the constant violation of human rights in Syria, a Committee for the Defence of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria has been set up in France. It has just launched an international appeal:
"A state of emergency has existed in the Syrian Arab republic for the past 27 years with its corollaries: a total absence of individual and public liberties and permanent violations of human rights. There are more than 18,000 political prisoners in Syrian jails. Most of those arrested suffer physical and moral torture which are systematically practised. Several have died.
The signatories of the appeal are demanding from the Syrian government:
• The immediate freeing of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.
• An end to the state of emergency and the laws and decrees flowing from it. • Respect for democratic rights and, in the first place, freedom of expression and of the press, of political and trade union association and demonstration."
To support the appeal write to International Viewpoint, 2, rue Richard Lenoir, 93108 Montreuil, France. *
CATALAM A VICTORIOUS. PASS IT ON.... 25 July 2, 1990 • #188 International Viewpoint
SRI LANKA