Algerian women! AN appeal for solidarity with Algerian women was adopted by the 13th World Congress of the Fourth International which was held in February this ear (see report in IV 202): THE Intifada of October 5, 1988 allowed the workers, the youth, women and all the popular masses to express and organize themselves, but the rise of fundamentalism threatens these liberties which were so dearly paid for. Preoccupied by its opening to the world market, the Algerian regime, which has multiplied the obstacles placed in the path of the democratic movements, has shown extraordinary complacency in the face of fundamentalist attacks against non-Islamic meetings, and limitless tolerance of violence against women. It has accepted without any action Islamic militia laying siege to university students' residences. The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) threatens the few gains made by Algerian women and enjoys the support of the consensus in Algeria's patriarchal society. In this country, the Family Code of 1984 obliges a women to have a guardian in order to marry, enjoins obedience to the husband and his family, makes divorce almost impossible, ensures loss of children in case of re-marriage and so on. Women hold only 4% of jobs, but the fundamentalists are still attacking women's right to work. They attack coeducation and male and female employees are kept apart in town halls under fundamentalist control. In fact, women's right to study and to move around freely without wearing hidjab (the veil) are under threat. Women have reacted with courage. They have formed associations, have demonstrated against the violence and against the threats to their jobs and their right to study. They have denounced the electoral law which allows enemies of women to vote on their behalf by proxy. They have been treated as agents of "the party of France", "the cats' paws of colonialism". Nonetheless 4,000 demon- colonialism. Nonetheless 4,000 demonstrated on March 8, 1989 and 20,000 on March 8, 1990. They are building, through an inclusive coordinating body, a big united movement with the Mudjahitates — women who fought in the national liberation struggle.
While the defenders of the most retro-
ALGERIA / GULF WAR
Continued from page 28 giving an account of the commission's findings will be presented at a public meeting at the end of May or the start of June; information will be made available 1o the press and interested associations from April onwards, through public testimonies, and in time through a bulletin that at each stage will present the facts as established by the inquiry.
"We have d
The "sponsorship committee" is not intended to be a sort of "supreme antiwar movement". Its purpose is to ensure the largest possible diffusion of the commission's results.
Every movement or association will retain its independence to continue its activities. But all are united on one common demand: "The truth about the war, the truth about the massacre." - Alain Mathieu ecided to create a
Commission of Inquiry"
"DURING the weeks of the war, the hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs poured down on Iraq and Kuwait were accompanied by just as many lies poured out of the media. The military censorship and the manipulation of opin-
Tion have reached new heights in the history of falsification using modern means of communication. According to AFP, the American authorities have recognized that: they had to a certain extent manipulated their own media in order to deceive the Iraqis.' But it was not only the Iraqis that were deceived, but public opinion throughout the world.
"The real causes of the war have been hidden from the eyes of the world:
• How many Iraqi soldiers and civilians were killed during the 40 days of intensive bombing? • What type of arms were used by the coalition armies - were napalm, vacuum bombs or fragmentation bombs used?
• What really happened on the highway from Kuwait City to Basra as thousands of civilians and soldiers fled back to Iraq?
• Why is the embargo being maintained when Iraq has a greater than ever need for drugs, provisions and the means to reconstruct their devastated country? • What have been the ecological effects? • What is the balance-sheet of the attacks on liberties in France, as a consequence of the plan "Vigipirate.' • What have been the real costs of this massacre, who has profited from it, at
La time when the Third World is crushed under the weight of the debt? • And now, what is happening to the Palestinians in Kuwait? And what about the repression that Saddam Hussein is now undertaking against the Kurdish and Iraqi peoples? • What really happened in Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion on August 2, 1990?
"Public opinion has been the victim of a gigantic bluff.
"We, who participated in the different movements opposed to the war, now commit ourselves to seeking the truth about this war. We call for the bringing together of all the suppressed evidence, the accounts of civilians who lived through the war, the Western soldiers who saw it, the journalists who were censored. To this end we have decided to create a commission of enquiry to gather together these accounts, and to make public at a united public meeting the reality of the massacre." The initial signatures to this appeal have established a sponsoring committee for the commission of enquiry, which can be contacted at: "Collectif pour la vérité" , 33, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine, 75011, Paris, France. The commission of enquiry itself, compozed of 15 independent personalities, appeals for witnesses to come forward. It can be contacted at:
Maitre Dominique Tricaud, 9, avenue Hoche, 75008, Paris, France, tel:
(Paris) 49 53 00 55. * grade projects today have at their disposal the most sophisticated means of propaganda, the women do not have any way of producing any leaflet of appeal.
Algerian women are in danger! Only a few more months remain for them to get organized before the forthcoming legislative elections, which the fundamentalists hope to win.
Algerian women need our material
27 and political solidarity! *
GULF WAR
Finding the truth about the war
A COMMISSION OF INQUIRY into the truth about the Gulf War has been launched in France.
The appeal for the commission is not signed by organizations, but by individuals. However the three main currents in the French antiwar movement, the Appeal of the 75, Peace Now and the Forum for a Just Peace in the Middle East are circulating the appeal, and leading members of these groups have signed it.
Other signatures come from members of the French
Communist Party (PCF), the
Communist Youth (JC), the
General Workers Confederation
(CGT), SOS-Racisme, the radical students union, the UNEF-id, the
Revolutionary Communist League
(LCR - French section of the
Fourth International), the Greens and immigrant and anti-racist organizations.
We publish below the appeal and an introduction to its work that appeared in the French socialist weekly, Rouge, in its issue of
March 28, 1991.
ROUGE
N MARCH 27, 1991, the appeal which we publish below was made public. It has been supported by a wide cross-section of personalities who took part in the antiwar movement in France. It involves many of those who signed the "appeal of the 75", along with supporters of "Peace Now" and the "Forum for a Just Peace in the Middle East", as well as representatives of associations of immigrants from the Arab countries.
The idea of commissions of inquiry or "white books" to establish the truth about the war has taken root with all those who were not taken in by the gigantic manipulation aimed at hiding the reality of the massacre. The objective of this appeal is to bring together all interested forces for a joint commission of inquiry.
An initial meeting of the signatories has mapped out a number of initiatives: the setting up of a commission of inquiry composed of personalities, jurists, doctors, journalists and writers; a white book 28 Continued on page 27 International Viewpoint #204 • April 15, 1991
A sinister resolution
THE resolution adopted on
April 3 by the United Nation's