AROUND THE WORLD.)
launching its action, as its main strength is
Department of Energy, in order to conwith construction rather than with productinue production and take advantage of tion or drilling workers, it is a measure of the increased price of oil.
the oil companies, hypocrisy that they blame us for holding up safety work start-
Messages of support and donations ed 15 years late. Chevron is trying to uni to;
219wo laterally suspend work on Emergency
OILC
Shut Down Valves (safety devices which
-Criterion Buildinne and lad Cterion Buildings biGW
United Secretariat of the Fourth International appealing for an international mobilization against the war on October 20).
Growing popular opposition in France to the imperialist aggression is evident in the broadening of the anti-war movement and its increasing resonance. While the first b demonstration against the war in Paris have to be installed on the oil rigs before the end of the year and BP hopes that continued industrial action will strengthen their argument for an exemption from the
AROUND THE WORLD IRELAND Hunger strike against extradition DESSIE ELLIS, a republican political prisoner held in the formally independent part of Ireland, has declared a hunger strike to death, beginning October 10, to prevent his extradition to Britain on a conspiracy charge. This will be the first all-out action of this type since the hunger strike of republican prisoners in Northern Ireland in 1981 that led to the deaths of 10 of the protesters. Ellis's family and supporters have explained that under Britain's conspiracy laws, it is virtually impossible to disprove the charge against him, and that the discrediting of the convictions of the Guildford Four (whom the British finally had to release after they had spent 15 years in prison) and the Birmingham Six show that Irish suspects risk being railroaded by British Courts. Further information can be obtained from Republican News, 58 Parnell Square, Dublin 1. * Police raids REPUBLICAN OFFICES throughout Northern Ireland were raided in early October by British troops and Royal Ulster Constabulary in a large-scale operation dubbed "Operation Whiplash." About 800 troops and police were involved. The reason given for the raids was that they were part of an attempt to stamp out "paramilitary" racketeering. In its October 11 issue, Republican News, the paper of Sinn Féin, noted that many of the premises hit had been repeatedly and recently raided, and so the British forces knew that they would tind no evidence of illegal practices.
In Derry, the second largest city in Northern Ireland, the police took £6,000
52 Guild Street
0otn
Aberdeen AB1 2NB
Tel. 0224-2110118/9 Fax; 0224 210
095.
095. *
319W drew only 2000 cople, mainly from the far left groups, a second shortly afterwards was sponsored by the CGT, France's largest trader union federation, and attracted 5000 people. de 5nn0
The October 20 demonstration is set to
Terbe stilf Targer, with a range of sponsors
Inpu including the French Communist. Party,
Noic from the Derry Taxi Association, a cooperative business, endangering its ability to keep up its payments to its creditors. In Belfast, the "security forces" raided the bookstore run by the Republican welfare organization, the Green Cross. The manager of the store complained that it was the second time this year that the store had been raided, and that this time, as before, serious and quite unnecessary damage was done. "We have never refused entry to the RUC or British army and if they had called and asked I would have let them in " The the Greens, pacifist movements and democratic Middle Eastern organizations. Demonstrations are also to be organized in at least ten other French towns and cities. The Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, French section of the Fourth International, together with Lutte Ouvrière, another revolutionary organization, is appealing for a common contingent on the demonstration of all forces demanding the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of imperialist troops from the Gulf region.
Meanwhile, demonstrations are planned throughout the United States on October 20, from San Francisco to New York, around the slogans of opposition to US intervention in the Middle East and immediate withdrawal of US troops. As Bush's economic problems multiply, Americans are increasingly beginning to resent the huge sums being squandered on the Gulf adventure - a recent New York Times/ CBS poll shows support for the sending of US troops to the Gulf at 61%, down from 75% in late September. * have let them in.
" The
Trotsky commemoration in Beirut raiders took away large amounts of documents
THE Arab Committee for the commemoration of and office equipment.
the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Leon Trot-
Sinn Fein officers sky, in which the Revolutionary Communist denounced the operation
Group, Lebanese section of the Fourth Internaas harassment and intimtional, is active, organized a conference-debate in idation.
Itcertainly
West Beirut on September 26 on the theme of "the marked a major escalathought and struggle of Leon Trotsky in the light tion in the pressure of the of current developments in the USSR and the
"security forces" on the world"
Sinn Fein and neighbor-
More than 200 people met in a conference hall hood organizations in with only 150 seats, to hear left deputy Najah the nationalist areas of
Wakim and Revolutionary Communist Group sup-
Northern Ireland. * porter Kamil Dagher, writer and translator into
Arabic of the Trotsky biography by Isaac Deutscher. The speakers underlined the topicality of the
GULF thought of Trotsky and established the necessary
CRISIS distinction between the bankruptcy of the Soviet
Union and that of socialism. Kamil Dagher also
Paris gave a balance sheet of the positions of the
Demonstration
Fourth International on the subject of the prob-
A MAJOR demonstralems of the Arab region, from the partition of Palestine in 1947 up to the present crisis in the Gulf.
tion is to take place in
Paris on Saturday Octo-
The conference was chaired by Maan Bachour, a ber 20, as part of a day of progressive Lebanese intellectual well known in international activity the country. It is noteworthy that the audience against the threat of war also included people who came from the Eastern in the Gulf (see /V 192
("Christian") sector of the Lebanese capital. *
27 for the declaration of the
October 29, 1990 • #193 Internationat Viewpoint