HAITI / AROUND THE WORLD
AROUND THE WORLD PORTUGAL Revolutionaries campaign in elections THE Portuguese general election on Sunday October 6 1991 resulted in a resounding victory for the governing rightist Social Democrats (PSD), who won 50.4% of the vote, with the Socialist Party (PS) far behind with 29.2% and the CDU (an electoral coalition dominated by the Portuguese Communist Party) losing almost half its parliamentary seats.
The Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSR - Portuguese section of the Fourth International) ran a dynamic and original campaign which attracted wide support from both the rank and file of the PCP and several national personalities, including television star Carlos Cruz.
The PSR's campaign meetings (particularly in Lisbon, where 1,000 people attended the main rally) demonstrated a healthy level of support for the party, in particular amongst youth.
The axis of the campaign was the election of PSR member Francisco Louça as a deputy in Lisbon. While initial projections on October 6th indicated that Louça would win a seat, ultimately he fell a few votes short because of an electoral boycott called by the inhabitants of Dona Maria, a suburb to the north of Lisbon, in protest against inadequate sanitary conditions and water supplies.
The suburb is to vote on October 20, and the PSR remains hopeful that Louça will be elected. * AUSTRALIA Abortion battle in New South Wales TWENTY years after abortion became easily available in the Australian state of New South Wales, the fight to defend freedom of choice has begun again. The conservative government of this state (where one third of the Australian population lives) has just lost its parliamentary majority and is now reliant for its survival on the votes of a married couple, Fred and Elaine Nile, who are members of a far right Christian group.
A bill to ban abortion outside certain public hospitals has been introduced, which, since most terminations are carried out in independent women's clinics, represents a major attack on abortion availability. 27
The bill comes at a time when govern-
AROUND THE WORLD / CUBA ment hospitals in the city of Sidney are being closed, while funding for major public hospitals run by the Catholic religious orders is being increased.
Reaction to the bill has been swift and militant, with a march of 4,000 on August 14 and another of 500 during international abortion rights protests on August 28.
Public sector trades unionists, veteran feminists, and lesbian and gay groups were prominent in the marches, but the ranks were made up mainly of energetic and angry teenage women.
When the bill was introduced into parliament, 13 of the 15 women in the (42 member) upper house staged an unprecedented walkout, and the national assembly of the Uniting Church, the third largest religious current in Australia, has unanimously voted down a resolution supporting the bill. On October 7, during an annual parade by Pentecostal supporters of the Niles, there were clashes between pro and antichoice activists, with the latter violently attacking lesbian banners. Police intervened in the fighting, but only to arrest 10 pro-choice activists.
While the bill currently lacks anything near majority support, it is possible, given the instability of the minority government, that an amended bill may be passed as part of a deal between the Niles and the government. * FRANCE Massacre of Algerians commemorated SEVERAL thousand people marched through the streets of Paris on Thursday, October 17, 1991, in commemoration of the police massacre, exactly 30 years earlier, of at least two hundred Algerians who were participating in a pro-FLN (National Liberation Front — the liberation movement then fighting for Algeria's independence from France) demonstration.
The demonstration, called in defiance of a curfew that had been imposed on French Muslims, was peaceful; the FLN had ordered that none of the participants should carry so much as a penknife. They had, however, reckoned without the murderous climate of anti-Algerian hatred whipped up within the Parisian police force by its commanders over a period of several years.
The demonstration was brutally attacked; while many were killed on the streets. the survivors were taken to
Appeal against the blockade of Cuba
THE following appeal for the lifting of the United States' blockade of Cuba, launched at the initiative of a number of prominent French personalities, has already attracted significant international support.
IN CUBA, the conjunction of the American embargo which has asted 30 years and the draconian reduction in frade with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe has led today to a dramatic situ-
Nation. Dificulties In ensuring suppiles are Increasing. The unquestionable gains in matters of health and education may be put at risk.
Cuba has been criticized in the name of human rights for Infringements of democracy. But criticism does not give others the right, even in the name of human rights, to economically suffocate the country. We have diferent opinions about the Cuban regime. We are joinIng together to denounce this attempt to bring down a regime by starving a people.
Such unilateral aggression by the world's leading power can in no case lead to the liberty of this people.
We therefore demand the lifting of the blockade, which is an altack on the dignity and lives of the Cuban people.
SIGNATORIES so far Include: Algeria: A. Ben Bella. Austria: E Danneberg Belgium . Braband; -, Mandel; Pos. H. Pastoors; E Toussaint, Bolivia: A. Alemro o. Brazil 4.I. Lula Da Silva. Canada; D. Heap. colombia: M. Correa, Dominican Republic: R. Traveras
El Salvador: A. G. Martinez; J, Vilialobos, France: E. Balibar; D Berger; Costa Gavras; D, Daeninckx, R. Debray; J. Habel; A. Krivine; R. Lew; A. Lipietz, M. Lowy; F. Maspero, G. Perrault; M. Ras)fus; D. Singer, Germany: G. Gysl, J. Moneta; G. Waliraff, Haiti; E Lescauflaire, Italy: A, Cossutta; L. Maltan; R. Serri. Mauritius: R. Seegobin, Morocco: A. Serfaty. Nicaragua: T. Borge; O. Cabezas; C.F. Chamorro. Peru: J. del Prado. Poland: J. Pinlor, Portugal: C. Brito, F. Louca. Senegal: M. Dia. South Africa: N. Alexander Spain;
J.M. Diaz-Alegria; M. Garcia Ollva, F. Umbral. Sri Lanka: C. Gunawardena; V. Nanayakkara, B. Tampoe. Switzerland: J. Ziegler, United Kingdom; T. All; T. Benn; J. Corbyn; S. Hall; P. Heathfleld; E. J. Hobsbawm; K. Livngstone, United States: N. Chomsky;
S. Landau; H. Magdoft; P.M. Sweezy.
Seventy-five memebers of the European Parlament have also signed the appeal.
Correspondence to Dorothée Piermont, MEP, Boite postale 210 232, D-5300 Bonn 2, FRG or Robert March, 24, rue de la Réunion,
75020 Paris, France.
Financial Support: Cheques should be made out to: R. March
CCP 6 325 37 W Paris (mention "Cuba appeal"). * streets, the survivors were taken to detention centres throughout Paris where they were savagely beaten and tortured, many more dying there. The bodies were thrown into the Seine.
The instigators of the massacre have
28 never faced charges of any kind. Government, media and police have conspired to throw a veil of silence over the events of that evening, and the official death toll remains only two.
The Parisian prefect of police who oversaw the massacre, Maurice Papon, had also been responsible for the rounding up and deportation of Jewish children in 1942.
The demonstration took place as part of a week of events organized by antiracist groups in commemoration of the massacre, including the inauguration of a memorial on the banks of the Seine and a colloquium at the Sorbonne. *
International Viewpoint #215 • October 28, 1991