Dutch anti-missiles movement making big steps forward Robert WENT Amsterdam — A big rally was organised in Amsterdam on November 21 to commemorate the demonstration of 400,000 persons here a year ago against nuclear weapons, which was the biggest mass action of its type ever held in the Netherlands. The rally was sponsored by the Amsterdam committee that mobilized for that action. It is one of the local united fronts that decided to continue functioning after the 1981 demonstration.
The Amsterdam rally was not just a commemoration. It was first and foremost a meeting to discuss what the peace movement should do next. Thus, all the organisations involved in last year's demonstration sent a speaker. This included a representative of the FNV, the Dutch trade-union confederation, which has more than a million members. His participation marked an important step forward for the campaign against the Cruise missiles in the country's biggest trade-union body.
The FNV speaker, Cees Commandeur, who is the member of the national leadership responsible for the questions of nuclear weapons and the reconversion of military production to peaceful purposes, said that in the coming year the labor confederation intends to participation in the anti-Cruise campaign. Last year the FNV did not formally endorse the demonstration. But the buildup for the action had such an impact on the union ranks that the membership and many branches began to demand that the union leadership mobilize for it. In the last weeks, the leadership was obliged to adopt the position that, while it was not officially supporting the demonstration, it hoped that large numbers of trade 18 unionists would come out. Some of its component unions - notably the industrial-workers union, which has about a quarter of a million members - even appealed for that on the front pages of their weeklies. In the coming year, Cees promised, the FNV would participate officially in the campaign.
This move by the FNV leadership came after a discussion in the union branches on a proposed statement of position for the FNV on nuclear weapons. The document was drawn • up and submitted by the leadership after it threw out the first draft. Two things were striking about these discussions, Cees said The first was that a lot of people showed up for the meetings. The second was that a lot of union members wanted a more radical stand than that proposed by the union leadership. This resulted in some changes in the document. One such change was the addition of a statement that the FNV is not opposed to unilateral-disarmament measures that can lead to multilateral disarmament. Another was inclusion of the pledge that the leadership would be more active on the missiles question. effect of this decision was shown when the FNV decided to participate in the defense committee for the soldiers union leaders accused of stealing nuclear sec-
A study done by the University of Nijmegen was published a few weeks before the Amsterdam rally. It was the results of a poll done during last year's demonstration, showed the following things of people who participated.
- Some 29% of the demonstrators belonged to unions; 56% of these were demonstrating for the first time against nuclear weapons. Almost half of the union members came from the industrial union, accounting for 12% of the crowd This represents 50,000 people. Even half of that would be an impressive figu - 25,000 industrial workers demo strating for a political demand!
- Some 71% of those present said they were demonstrating not only moral reasons but to raise political de mands on the government.
- Some 80% of the demonstrators were for the Netherlands leaving NATO the minute it tried to impose the installation of Cruise missiles in this country.
- The overwhelming majority were for more radical actions if the demonstration did not get positive results.
The most important thing for the peace movement now, the well-known spokesman for the IKV, the biggest Dutch peace organization stressed repeatedly, is to win the unions to the campaign. A considerable part of the peace movement's plans for the coming year is directed toward achieving this end.
PROJECTIONS FOR 1983
A few weeks ago, a new right-wing government was installed in the Netherlands, a coalition fo two bourgeois parties, the so-called Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Christian Democrats (CDA). These two parties together have 81 of the 150 seats in parliament. So, under normal circumstances, they could make a quick decision to install the Cruise, and that is what they want to do! But because of the existence of a large peace movement the circumstances are not normal.
In an interview with British jounalists, former Premier Van Agt said: "I don't
provement in the technological level of the U.S. weaponry, as shown graphically in the Lebanon war, there should be no illusions as to what those figures mean.
The U.S. today is qualitatively stronger on the technical military level than at
The political balance sheet is of course far more mixed.
believe the Cruise will be installed on
This was not some expression of wishful thinking by a member of the peace movement. It came from the right-wing leader of one of the two parties that now have a majority in parliament. Even Van Agt knows that the question of the Cruise missile will not be decided in parliament but by the relationship of forces between the peace movement and its enemies. That is why the government's program on the mis-
By the end of 1983, the government says that it will make a decision on this question and write a report to parliament. In the meantime, the first, "passive" prefor the PvdA in the next demonstration. It argues that since this party won seats by their stand against the missiles, now they have to show that they are prepared to act on this issue.
- The IKV wants all organizations to make it clear that they are present in the demonstration by carrying their own banners and posters. In the Netherthere is no tradition of unions marching in contingents in demonstrations behind their own banners. But now the IKV, with its 403 branches, is going to put its forces into bringing the unions into the campaign and promoting discussions in the factories about why workers have to act against the Cruise missiles, not only as unionists, but with the union. And so, it should be much easier to get the unions to assume their own profile in the demonstrations.
The IKV has also moved to form the first national youth organization against the missiles (the first national meetings have already taken place).
In all, we see to be on the threshold of a quantitatively and a qualitatively new and higher stage of the Dutch movement against the Cruise missile and