Selections from the World Press of the Workers and Liberation Movements
GERMANY
Was Tun In its February 18 issue, Was Tun, the weekly paper of the Gruppe Internationaler Marxisten, German section of the Fourth International, published a commentary by Winifried Wolf on a recent peace demonstration in East Germany. Wolf wrote:
Thirty-five clergy and workers drew up a petition on January 25, 1982. Two weeks later, it carried 300 signatures. Another week later, on February 15, this led to a public peace demonstration. Three thousand persons met to discuss the question in a church; a thousand went onto the street.
All this happened in East Germany. And this fact gives those three thousand persons who gathered in a church in Dresden greater weight than the three hundred-thousand people who demonstrated for peace and disarmament October 10, 1981, on
Once again, the Springer press found a way to distort this devel-
For example, over its report of the East German peace action, the Berliner Morgenpost ran the headline "East Berlin Pastor for Soviet Withdrawal." This was a gross falsification of the tenor of the document, which says, among other things:
"There is only one kind of war that is still possible in Europe, an atomic war. The weapons stockpiled in the East and in the West will not protect us; they survive, we must demand that these weapons be done away with. All Europe must become a nuclear-free zone. We propose that negotiations be opened between the two German states for the removal of all nuclear weapons from Germany. ...
"The powers that emerged victorious from the second world war must finally sign a peace treaty with the two German states... After that, all troops of the former occupying powers I must be withdrawn from Germany and these powers must come to an agreement on guarantees of noninterference in the internal affairs of both German states."
Thus, the demand for a nuclear-free Europe is now being raised also in East Germany. And the idea is that East and West Germany must start the
This demand was part of the basis for the threehundred-thousand-strong demonsame demand that in recent weeks threw the West German Social Democratic party tops into convulsions, when it was raised by rebellious local units of the party. A nuclear-free Europe from Portugal to Poland-what does this demand mean
It is directed against armament projects of the U.S. and NATO, which provide for making Europe the battlefield of a third world war.
It goes against, directly or indirectly, all neutralist conceptions that call for disentangling West Europe from the U.S. : through the building up of an "autonomous nuclear striking
It has to be stressed that the U.S. imperialists were the first ones to develop the atomic bomb and the only ones who have used it, in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Every new step in arming, every new acceleration of the arms race has been initiated by the U.S. and NATO,
It is important to make those points in the peace movement. But that in nowise means that we approve of the Soviet answer to this imperialist arming. Kremlin bureaucracy responded in accordance with its nature as a conservative caste, in a strictly military way. It followed the West step by step, struggling hopelessly to keep up.
The Kremlin's only peace initiatives were in the conference
If a peace movement of any independence developed, then it was seen merely as a card to be played in the big poker game with the U.S. Such a policy in the long run could only end up in a political and military blind alley. The arms race cannot be halted with negotiations alone. In fact, now it can scarcely even be contained.
Moreover, this purely military answer corresponds to a militarization of the Soviet Union's own camp. The peace petition in East Germany refers to this--war games for children, civil-defense training in the school, atomic air-raid drills. seeing the beginning of a new democratic movement. It is taking the bureaucracy at its word. The Kremlin bureaucracy in fact calls for peace, disarmament, even a nuclear-free Europe from Portugal to Poland. Quite recently, this was proposed again in Bonn by Brezhnev. The bureaucracy will move against such a peace movement in its own camp, not because of its demands but because it is an independent movement.
It is important to realize the possibilities of this new movement, the possibilities for taking advantage of the interrelation between the peace movements East and West. This is something new, the fact that this democratic movement now exists in both East and West. it brings pressing demands to the
•If a real mass movement develops in the East and extends into the West, then it will not stop with the present demands. It can become a movement for socialist democracy both East and West, for the abolition of the status quo that means massive unemployment and preparation for war in the West and political oppression of the masses and martial law in Poland.
In East Germany now, after the establishment of martial law in Poland, a new beginning has been
Now, it's our turn. Helmut Schmidt's invitation to Reagan is an invitation to us to organize the biggest demonstration in West Germany's history in Bonn--against Reagan as the personification of the preparations for an imperialist third world war; against the U.S. president, who is preparing to mount an all-out attack on the revolution in Central America; against Mr.
Ten-Million Unemployed; and in defense of Solidarnosc and for a nuclear-free Europe.
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In its February 5 issue, the fortnightly paper that reflects the views of the Socialist Action League, the New Zealand section of the Fourth International, Socialist Action, carries a report from Janet Roth in Suva, Fiji Islands. She writes:
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"The Pacific will be nuclear-free when it is free from colonialism... In the past the colonialists wanted our labour so they kidnapped us to work in the sugar and nickel industries. Then they wanted our land so they stole it for their plantations.
"Now they want our sea for the dumping of nuclear waste, testing of nuclear missiles and passage of nuclear submarines. The Trident submarine, soon to be launched into our waters by the United States, may be a far cry from a blackbirding (slave kidnapping) vessel but to us they are ships from the same old fleet..."
This was how Barak Sope, roving ambassador for the Republic of Vanuatu, opened the South Pacific International Conference of Students "For a nuclear-free and independent Pacific".
The conference was attended by about 70 delegates from many different organizations in the Pacific
Hosted by the University of the South Pacific Students Association (USPSA), it was held from December 14-20, 1981, in Suva, Fiji.
Issues discussed at the conference ranged from the independence struggles in Pacific countries, and the fight for Maori and Aboriginal rights, to the movement to make the Pacific nuclear-free, to the Sinai "peacekeeping" force. A point constantly stressed was that until total independence was gained, the Pacific would never be nuclear-free.
Many of the delegates were leaders of the struggles discussed at the conference.
There were also about 10 delegations from students' associations belonging to the Asian Students Association, which had called the conference.
NEW CALEDONIA
The conference voted to "see as a priority the struggle for independence being waged by the Kanak people of New Caledonia",
Yann Celene Uregei, a leader of the Independence Front in New Caledonia, explained to Socialist Action that the struggle for independence "has become stronger and stronger and now we are holding actions like land occupations... The Kanak people are completely confident that independence is coming--officially or not it is coming..."
This contrasted sharply with the support given by Vanuatu. As Barak Sope explained in his opening speech to the conference, "Vanuatu's position on a nuclear-free and independent Pacific is as clear and as strong as it is different from the position of countries like France, Japan, the United States, Australia and New
"Very simply, Vanuatu supports the declaration of a nuclear-free zone in the Pacific and it supports all the independence. struggles of Pacific island peoples, whether they be in New Caledonia, West Papua, East Timor or French Polynesia."
Just prior to the conference starting, the French government had exploded several underground bombs on Mururoa atoll. Delegates condemned these tests and called for their immediate end.
Darlene Keju from the Marshall Islands in Micronesia was able to describe very graphically to the conference the terrible effects that such nuclear testing has. The United States exploded 66 bombs in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958.
FOUR TUMOURS
Darlene herself has four tumours as a result of these tests, while her fellow islanders have had even more horrific experiences.
For example, babies have been born like lumps of shapeless and transparent jelly--the only indication that they were living beings was their heartbeat.
"The Marshallese are dying out slowly, " she said. to make sure the Tahitians know about these things.... The purpose of this conference is to make sure people know we will not allow it to happen again."
A motion was passed denouncing "the actions of New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Canada and the US for conducting Rimpac exercises on Kaho'olawe in Hawaii". These are joint military manoeuvres which have been held regularly in the central Pacific Ocean since 1971.
The conference also opposed the Japanese government's plans to dump nuclear waste in the region.
The New Zealand government also came under fire with regard to Maori rights, and the conference voted to "fully support the Maori people in their struggle for the retention of their lands, forests and fisheries".
Barak Sope summed up the feelings of many of the participants in the conclusion of his speech:
"The struggle for a nuclear and oppression-free Pacific is for many of us not just another cause that we might or might not care to support--it is a way of life. In fact, I would like to see it as the Pacific way.
"But to see as the Pacific way the heroic resistance of the Fretilin guerrillas, the West Papua freedom fighters and the Kanak independentists may appear to some as too radical a re-definition of our Pacific identity. Perhaps a blasphemy against the Pacific ideal.
"But this is no more or no less than the challenge we must accept if we are to be victorious in our struggle for an independent and nuclear-free Pacific."
NEISTI
ROBB
Uppiöf B.S.R.B. forvstunna»
In the January issue of the monthly paper of the Icelandic section of the Fourth International, Ragnar Stafansson writes:
"Although the public workers' union got a bit more in its contract than the ASI (the national labor confederation that includes the blue-collar unions), the results generally were such as to discourage them about the prospects, given the guidelines adopted by the government and previous attacks on the levels of real wages.
"In the September issue of Neisti, we wrote: 'From the responses of some labor leaders, it seems that they are anxious to accept the government's wage guidelines but that they fear that this could arouse general discontent among the workers. So, they are trying to test the ground first...."
"The public workers' union contract runs to the end of July, that is two and a half months after the expiration of the ASI contract. The public workers union leadership apparently wanted its contract to come up after the ASI's. As elsewhere in the labor movement, the public workers' leaders' main By Kjell Ostberg concern has become to hide behind
"The contract signed by the public workers' union is clearly a capitulation. ... The gap between the demands, which were summarized in the last issue of Neisti, is very great....
"The public workers' union leadership has shown that its main concern is to get its contract negotiations to come after those of the ASI so that it will have an excuse for accepting the same miserable results...•
"This is a foolish game that is one of the things that helps most to get the trade-union movement trapped in a vicious circle of retreat after retreat.
"The vote against the contract in the public workers' union was relatively large, larger than in the ASI unions, about 30%.
"Obviously that does not mean that 30% of the membership was prepared to wage a real struggle. Many could have voted 'no' as a simple protest, in the assurance that the contract would be easily passed. However, there are some indications that there was more opposition than in the past.
"The leadership played up the fact that rejecting the contract would mean a strike at the end of February or early March and that the members would lose the 3.25% increase they were due, starting then.
"Important groups in the union, such as registered nurses and teachers, were given indirect promises of raises by other means, which were given quietly so as not to be an example for other groups of workers.
"I think that what most helped to get the contract accepted was the lack of an organized opposition.... A great many union members swallowed the contract because they did not trust the present leadership to wage a hard struggle and there was no sign of an alternative."