AROUND THE WORLD
### REVOLUTIONARY
LEADER DIES IN COMBAT We publish below extracts from a communique by the Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers of Honduras (PRTC-H), which announced the deaths of a group of militants who had undertaken the armed struggle against the reactionary Honduran regime and the American imperialists who are occupying the country.
The leader of this group, Jose Maria Reyes Mata, finished his studies in Havana at the end of the 1960s and then went to Bolivia, with the aim of reorganising what remained of Che Guevara's guerrilla forces. He was arrested and sentenced six months after his arrival in the country. He then escaped and went into exile in Chile. After the coup by General Augusto Pinochet in September 1973, Reyes Mata took refuge in the Honduran embassy, and then returned to his country. A founding member of PRTC-H, he took part in the kidnapping of a manager of the American oil company Texaco in Tegucigalpa. Captured and imprisoned, he was then released under an amnesty.
We, the Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers of Honduras, (PRTC-H) and the People's Armed Forces (FAP), have declared war against the North American intervention and its acolytes in our country since the end of last year. The FAP are presently limited in number and resources. They draw their real strength from the patriotism of the Hondurans, the revolutionary consciousness of the workers and peasants, having at their side representatives of the middle layers, mainly those of the intellectual milieu.
We decided to take the first step, to give an example of sacrifice for the homeland, so that the Honduran people would stand up against the foreign invaders and their puppets.
This war, launched by the FAP on our national territory, is part of the struggle that the peoples of Central America are carrying out against the intervention of the Reagan administration and its allies, the military and the oligarchy. All we Central Americans have the duty to unite in this struggle, as the peoples of Central 26
America united in 1856 to confront and vanquish William Walker (1). Today we have the same ideal as did Morazan (2) against the presence of these modern freebooters, the Yankees, in any of our
Today as yesterday, blood and sacrifice are the high price that the struggle for liberty demands. The cause for which Lempira fell in the people's strug the Spanish Morazan during the national democratic struggle against the oligarchy and the British colonialists, Wainright and Calix Herrera, Lorenzo Selaya and Manuel Rodriguez in the present struggle for national liberation, is the same fight for which the brave leaders and militants of the PRTCH and FAP have recently
It is with great sadness that our party and our armed forces announce the death in combat of a group of comrades, led by Jose Maria Reyes Mata, top political and military leader of our two revolutionary organisations. They fell fighting the enemies of our nation and people. Their blood will not flow in vain.
Commandante Jose Maria Reyes Mata and the other comrades we mourn, whose identities, and the circumstances in which they died, we will reveal at the right moment, have given an undying example. They have planted in the hearts of the people the flag of national liberation flourished by the Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers of Honduras and the Unified National Leadership of the Honduran Revolutionary Movement. By their unremitting efforts and their heroic sacrifice they have raised the strug gle of the popular movement to a new level. Abandoning the anti-imperialist pen of Froylan Turcio to take up the liberating guns of the patriotic guerrilla struggle in Olancho, they have put into action the words of our national hymn, which we sing today in their memory: *Honduras, numerous will be your deaths, but they will fall with honour. For Honduras, to win or die.' Revolutionary Party of Central American Workers (PRTC-H) People's Armed Forces (FAP) Honduras, Central America September 25, 1983
William Walker was an American adventurer who landed on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua in the mid-19th century. He became master of the country thanks to his mercenaries, proclaimed himself president of Nicaragua, got himself recognised by the US, and re-established slavery in the country. Overthrown by the military forces of the Central American state, Walker was shot in Honduras in 1860.
Honduran origin, Francisco Morazan was the promoter of a project for a federation of Central American states in the first half of the 19th century.
### HUMAN RIGHTS
ORGANISATION -
MARIANELLA GARCIA
KILLED BY
SALVADORAN ARMY Salvadoran human rights activist Marianella Garcia Villas was murdered in Salvador in March 1983. At the time the Salvadoran government claimed that she was involved on the guerrillas' side in a clash with the army.
However, the Paris daily Le Monde reported on 5 October 1983 that a recent report by Pax Christi, the international Catholic organisation, stated that Marianella Garcia had been 'tortured to death by the armed forces'. The Pax Christi re port, Le Monde continued, states that "The victim was captured during an attack on the village of La Bermuda, by a contingent of the elite battalion Atlacatl, where she was making an investigation of previous violations of human rights, particularly the use of chemical substances by the army. Then taken to the military school at San Salvador, she must have died after having been tortured for some six hours.'
This is not the first time that an international human rights organisation has challenged the version of her death given by the government. Although Marianella Garcia was originally an activist of the Christian Democratic party, she had been a continual target for repres sion by the government, who profoundly disliked her work in revealing human rights violations in El Salvador.
SOLIDARITY WITH
ISRAELI ANT-WAR
SOLDIERS We publish below a statement by the Political Bureau of the Revolutionary Communist League (RCL), section of the Fourth International in the state of Israel, calling for solidarity with anti-Zionist militants who have suffered repression because of their refusal to serve in the Israeli Army in Lebanon or the occupied territories.
For a more complete understanding of this struggle, and particularly the action of the activists of Yesh Goul
('There is a Border' or "There is a Limit'), refer to International Viewpoint No 34,
11 July 1983, where we published an interview with anti-Zionist militants in been sentenced to 35 days in the No 6 military prison.
These 35 days could be renewed indefinitely by a new decree authorising the military authorities to immediately recall any soldier who has ated democratic statutes for
Francois Mitterrand even promised to reduce military service to six months and grant certain democratic liberties to sol-
Today, Francois Mitterrand and the Israeli Army.
The Israeli Army is getting ready to spend its second winter in Lebanon. Since the massacres the Israeli govern- go on. ment is completely bogged down, and unable to withdraw its troops without completely losing face.
The longer the war goes on the more it loses the little popularity it still had among the population of Israel. In every unit soldiers are deserting, or refusing their call-up, because they do not want to run the risk of dying in a war that 'is not ours'. Among them, and at their head, are the militants of Yesh Gul who, since the beginning of the war have stated their refusal to take part in an adventure as criminal as it is unrealistic.
Our comrade Yigal Vega, 31 years old, the father of two children and a metalbeen in prison for territorial insubordination (refusing to serve in Lebanon or the occupied territories), and so it could
The only way of preventing the Israeli from condemning to unlimited prison terms is if a broad solidarity movement, local and international, develops. In this sense, Ygal's case is a test for the whole of the soldiers' movement.
We call on all the sections of the Fourth International to mobilise their members and the democratic forces in their countries, in solidarity with Ygal Vega and the absentees of Yesh Gvul, to organise pickets in front of the Israeli Embassies, and to send telegrams detheir immediate release to:
Charles Hernu have forgotten their democratic pronouncements of yesterday. Not wanting to be outdone by their predecessors in power, they had the homes of the and friends of the two charged soldiers searched. Searches have also been carried out in Metz, the home town of another solidier, Etienne Patoor, from the 13th Engineers Regiment at Treves, who will also be brought before the TMA once more the whole soliders movement which is targeted through the charges against these two soldiers. 1968 when the movement re-emerged on the political scene, it has been the target of the military hierarchy and reactionary
But, with each wave of repres sion, the stand and activity of the workers movement, and the tenacity and courage of the soldiers in struggle, in worker, is the ninetieth soldier to have Moshe been sentenced to a prison term for hav-
He has rejoin his unit.
ing refused to
Minister of Defence, with a copy to:
Yesh Guul, B.P. 4172, Tel Aviv.
1974 and 1975 turned these police operations into a political rout for their promo
The present repressive attitude is in line with the pro-imperialist policy Mitterrand is implementing, through his recent speech in Brussels reviling the European peace movements, the increased de. fence budget presented by Hernu at the same time as the workers are forced to accept austerity, or the neo-colonial interventions in Chad and Lebanon.
By the same token these attacks on soldiers rights are an attempt to strike a blow against the anti-war movement as a
The struggle of French soldiers
THREE SOLDIERS CHARGED WITH 'INCITEMENT TO INSUBORDINATION' Two French soldiers doing their compulsory military service, Olivier Lecour Grandmaison and Laurent Fritz, stationed in the 32nd Engineers Regiment in Kehl in West Germany, have been on charges since October 14 of incitement to insubordination' under articles 423 and 429 of the Military Code of Justice.
They incur from two to ten years in prison for simply having been found in possession of an information sheet from the soliders committee of their regiment, entitled Les Sapeurs en Lutte (Sappers in Struggle), and of a petition demanding the withdrawal of French troops from West Germany, as well as all foreign troops from the two Germanies.
They are presently imprisoned in Landau fortress, and on charges before the Military Tribunal of the Armies (TMA) in Germany, the last survivor of the Permanent Tribunals of the Armed Forces (TPFA). This jurisdiction, in part abolished by the Mitterrand government, is in the line of descent of those who assassinated hundreds of soldiers for rejecting the imperialist butchery of the 1914-18 War, repressed the Black Sea organised the Mayence trial in of the soldiers who rejected imperialist occupation of the Ruhr. A veritable war machine against all those who fight for democratic rights within the barrack
More recently, in 1974, it took the soldiers Ravet, Taurus and Pelletier in front of the TPFA in Draguigan because they had demanded better living conditions and greater freedom in barracks. Baradox of history, at the time it was Charles Hernu, present minister, who came, in the name of the Socialist Party, to speak in favour of the three charged.
following year, 1975, Jacques Chirac, then prime minister under Giscard d'Estaing, organised a huge police operation, dragging some thirty civilians and soldiers in front of the State Security Court. In both these cases a campaign of activity made the government and the military hierarchy retreat, forcing them to suspend their action against the accused soldiers and civilians.
When in opposition the Socialist Party and Communist Party made great declarations on conscripts liberties, and elaborfor the withdrawal of all foreign troops from German soil and, in the first place, of all French troops, is an integral part of the struggle of millions of workers and youth against the imperialist arms race, the Cruise and Pershing nuclear missiles and the militarisation of their countries.
the responsibility of the workers movement and anti-war movement throughout Europe as well as in France, to act demanding the release of these French soldiers. The mass demonstrations in the next month are an oc-
Faithful to the tradition of international co-operation established by French and German Communist Parties at the time of the Mayence trial, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire Gruppe Internationale Marxisten from France and Germany, European sections of the Fourth Inter. national will act to force the military hierarchy to retreat and release the soldiers imprisoned by French militarism.
Solidarity messages should be addressed to Olivier Lecour Grandmaison, Laurent Grandmaison and Etienne Patoor, Landau Military Prison, Mangin, Dorenberg St., Landau, FDR.
Protest messages should be sent to: M. Lateve, Examining Judge, Mangin, Dorenberg St., FDR, and Minister for the Army, 14-16 rue Saint-Dominique, 75007 Paris.