THE GULF CRISIS is affecting the whole Arab world. Algerian society has been profoundly shaken. We interviewed Saïd, a militant of the Algerian Socialist Workers Party, an organization in political sympathy with the Fourth International in Algeria. The interview was conducted on October 8, 1990 by Cecilia Garmendia.
HAT stand has the Algerian government taken over the Gulf crisis?
Their position has been extremely cautious. They have wrapped themselves in the flag of "international law". They have demanded both the withdrawal of the Iraqi troops from Kuwait and of the United States' military forces. Officially, Algeria has supported the United Nations sanctions against Iraq. In such forums as the Arab League and the Maghreb Union, Algeria has not made much noise, even abstaining on the vote in the first of these bodies.
In the framework of the Rabat Triangle, which brings together Algeria, Morocco and Jordan, a declaration was worked out and proposed to the other Arab countries, without great success. This text looked both ways, demanding Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, but also calling for Iraq to be given control of an oil field and coming out against the return to power of the Kuwaiti emir. • Does the ruling party, the National Liberation Front (FLN), with its nationalist traditions, have a position distinguishable from the government?
The FLN is much more clearly in favour of Iraq. Arab nationalist sentiment has been revived by Saddam Hussein's attitude. The FLN leadership puts preconditions on the withdrawal of imperialist troops, but the rank-and file militants are simply in favour of Saddam. • Meanwhile the Islamic Salvation 6 Front (FIS) seems torn between the feelings of its rank and file and its
Saudi paymasters.
The base of the FIS clearly supports Saddam Hussein, but the leadership has indeed found itself in a cleft stick. To give an example, during an FIS meeting on the future of the Arab nation, it was possible to see banners supporting Saddam as well as banners more critical of him.
The FIS needs the support of regimes such as those in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, it hopes to play a leading political role and thus likes to put itself forward as a useful go-between, capable of dealing with the situation in the Arab countries. • And Ben Bella 1?
Back now in Algeria he has developed a position of very bold support for Iraq, even calling on the population to go to fight on the side of Iraq. Ben Bella is aiming at the same popular base as the Islamic fundamentalists, and he is going in for demagogy on the grand scale. • How has the Algerian population reacted to the situation?
Anti-imperialist feeling predominates; throughout Algeria people support Saddam. But there have also been changes of mood. Up until the beginning of September, Saddam was glorified, in the football stadiums and so on. He looked like someone who had stood up to imperialism.
In the Berber-speaking regions, which certainly cannot be suspected of panArabism, the Iraqi head of state was also seen as a great man. Saddam was raising his head when the whole world was knuckling under.
International Viewpoint #193 • October 29, 1990
A lot of Algerians watch French television and the "Western" presentation of the Gulf events has only stirred up Arab nationalist sentiment further.
The Gulf Crisis is a frequent subject of conversation in the streets. It has clearly struck the base of the fundamentalists, who have finally found a hero to replace the meanderings of their leaders' positions.
However, feeling and interest have now fallen. The situation here is in many respects catastrophic:
the cost of living has gone up dramatically, and the Gulf crisis has become a matter of secondary interest for Algerians.
• Have there been any actions around the Gulf crisis?
The FLN organized a demonstration that only attracted around a hundred people. The Workers Party [a Trotskyist organization sympathetic to the current led by Pierre
Lambert] got 200 people outside the US Embassy. Finally, the PST held a meeting with 300 to 400 people with participation by the
Communist League of Tunisia,
Palestinians, Lebanese and so on.
There is a Committee in Support of the
Iraqi People, in which the PST participates, which is based on forces involved over the years in work in solidarity with
Palestine.
The Committee brings together the nationalist left which is above all motivated by pan-Arabism. But the Committee's line has been very pro-Iraq; it is hard work in this context reminding people of the brutal nature of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.
• What has been the impact of the
Gulf crisis on the Algerian internal situation?
It is still premature to talk about that, but the rise in petrol prices has already been felt. It is manna from heaven for the managers and those who are in on the oil business in Algeria. There is a huge amount of money on the move. This explains the caution of the Algerian government, who are profiting from the threat of war in the Gulf. *
1. Ahmed Ben Bella was a leader of the FLN during the war of independence. He was president of Algeria from 1963-65 when he was overthrown by the head of the army, Houari Boumedienne. After imprisonment in
Algeria, Ben Bella lived in exile in France for many years, until his recent retum to Algeria.
PHILIPPINES
Right to asylum for Jose Maria
Sison
ON JULY 13, 1990, the Dutch Justice Ministry announced that it had rejected the demand for political asylum of Jose Maria Sison -"Joma" — one of the historic figures of the Communist Party of the Phillipines. PAUL PETITJEAN
OSE MARIA SISON was the Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (PCP) between its foundation in 1968 and 1977, when he was arrested by the army. He was severely tortured, and held incommunicado and without trial until the overthrow of the regime of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. He was freed after the "February revolution" in that year with many other prisoners on the orders of the new head of state Corazon Aquino.
After his release. Joma Sison did not After his release, Joma Sison did not return to clandestinity, although he did not return to andestinit although he did not renounce his revolutionary opinions. He became a public activist, contributing notably to the formation of the Partido ng Bayan, (the People's Party), which is a legal organization. Attached to the University of the Philippines, and involved in university activities, Sison gave conferences for which he travelled abroad, both to Australia and Europe. It was on one of these trips, in 1988, that the Filipino government took away his passport. At the same time a violent poster and press campaign was launched against him. Under these circumstances, he decided to apply for political asylum in The Netherlands.
The rejection of this application is a serious matter, for a number of reasons:
The Dutch ministry claims that Jose Maria Sison is at risk only of being prosecuted, and not persecuted if he returns to his country. In fact, a price of a million pesos (about US$50,000) has been put on his head. His wife has been assessed at half that sum. This means, concretely, that anybody in the Philippines can kill them to get these rewards. Several leaders of the Partido ng Bayan have been assassinated, even though they were not facing legal proceedings. The former head of the PCP would obviously be a prize target for all the death squads and vigilante groups that haunt the country!. Once back in the Philippines both Julieta and Joma Sison would be in immediate danger of death.
The Ministry also produced another, especially dangerous, argument to justify its decision. It is employing the notion of the "intellectual author" — "auctor intellectualis" — to claim that Jose Maria Sison, even while residing in The Netherlands, can be held responsible before Filipino law for the actions of the Communist guerillas of the New People's Army. This idea of "intellectual authorship" can obviously be extended to cover anything. It can, notably, be used against any revolutionary militant on account of their convictions alone, whatever they may do.
### Worsening crisis
THE DUTCH GOVERNMENT has refused to grant political asylum fo Jose Maria Sison, although the situation in the Philippines has continued to deteriorate. A new military rebellion took place on October 4 on the Southern island of Mindanao. The government's air force Intervened to crush the rebellion, but this has not changed the underlying problem of dis. content in the armed forces, the social crisis is getting worse, aggravated by the rise in the price of oil and the collapse of the immigrant labour market in the Middle
East.
Under pressure from all sides, the Aquino government has proposed the opening
The Dutch Ministry's decision calls into question traditional European law concerning political asylum. It has a directly international dimension. It comes at a moment when a number of European governments, via the secret Schengen negotiations, have been elaborating new repressive measures under the pretext of harmonizing "reception policies" in the run up to 19922.
United States. The defence campaign must also be international in its scope. *
Community countries. It is all the more significant from this point of view that the Ministry's letter bears the signature of Secretary of State Aad Kosto, who belongs to the PVdA, the Dutch social democratic party who is a member of the coalition government rather than that of a figure from the CDA, the Christian democrat partner in the coalition.
It is, furthermore, clear that the Filipino and US governments have put considerable pressure on their Dutch counterparts to ensure that asylum is refused to Jose Maria Sison.
Sison has appealed against the Ministry's decision, and the decision can still be changed. It is thus essential to act quickly. Numerous personalities and organizations in the Netherlands have supported the demand for asylum from this Filipino militant. The Dutch section of Amnesty International had taken up Sison's case even before the Ministry's decision, calling for Sison to be granted Refugee status A - the category which ensures the most protection. 3