Max Dillinger of the Solidaritaetskomitee fuer Nikaragua put it: "This is the first case of mass internationalism in Austria since the Spanish civil war."
Most of the brigade members were white-collar workers or students. But they also included a locomotive engineer and a farmer. From the political stand-
The new internationalism point, the entire spectrum of the Austrian left was represented. Alongside members of the Socialist and Communist parties, there were members of the Catholic Worker Youth, the Alternative [a grouping similar to the West German Greens], Trotskyists and unorganized activists.
Volunteers from many countries are going to Nicaragua to help the besieged country bring in the harvest of vital crops.
the notable movements of international volunteers in our time.
lowing article describes the response to the call for volunteers and the departure on January 8 of the first contingent from Austria. It is from
Die Linke (January 18, 1984, No 1), the magazine of the Austrian section of the Fourth International.
Georg CHAMETIS
For a few hours, the Schwechat airport had an internationalist atmosphere.
It was not just the red banners that were unfurled.
Surrounded by many friends and reporters, the forty members of the
Jura Soyfer Work Brigade were getting
They were goready to fly to Managua.
ing to help in the cotton harvest, which will last until the end of February, and in other agricultural projects.
This brigade was formed in response to the call of the Nicaraguan Rural Workers
Union (ATC). The brigade members are to replace workers who are urgently needed at the front, often not far from the plantations, to fight the counterrevolutionaries.
The response to this appeal in Austria was unprecedented.
Originally, it was hoped that about 15 people would go.
But in a few days more than 300 applications were received.
Since this sort of rush was unexpected, the Solidaritaetskomitee fuer Nikaragua, which organized the expedition, had to make a selection.
Only a hundred people will be sent. The second contingent of 60 people is flying
This is already one of out at the end of January. The voluncovering all their own costs, including flight insurance.
What sort of people are making this kind of effort? Carrying their knapsacks, they looked more like campers than political fanatics. they have in common is the desire to help
Beyond that, their
Susi is a 21-year-old student from Graz. She wants "to finally get to know the country from close up. Eva, a 14year-old high-school student, is the youngest of the group. She is looking forward to seeing again the country where she spent part of her childhood For the Kovatsch's, two old-age pensioners, the trip is sort of a family exeursion. Their son Gerhardt, who has already worked three years in Nicaragua, was with them. Erwin, an unemployed social worker, felt a "certain quest for adven-
But whatever the personal and political motives of these people maybe, their mission is both welcome and useful to the revolution. And it will not fail to have effects on the left in Austria.
Political convictions, however, were not necessary. A lot of brigade members were acting out of purely humanitarian motives.
It will not be easy for the brigade members to accomplish their task, which they describe as work for peace. It is true that the risks that they will run as a sort of "human wall" (in Dillinger's words) against the counterrevolutionaries are considered relatively slight. But they will have to cope with difficult living and working conditions, as a circular of the Nicaragua committee makes clear: "In the morning, there will be one water tap for every fifty persons. Brigade members will have to live crammed together in one room infested with insects. For breakfast, lunch and dinner, they will get one tortilla with beans and maize, with a beverage vaguely resembling coffee or water. They will work a seven-day workweek, from sunup to sundown, for four to six weeks. Along with this, there will be one or two excursions into the countryside."
According to the most recent reports from Nicaragua, the brigade has been sent to the tropical southern part of the coun try and had to cope with greater difficulties than originally expected
At the beginning of January, 2,500 brigadistas from Western Europe (France, Italy, West Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland) as well as from Japan and North America were doing their work for peace.
Popular support for the new law on Patriotic Military Service (DR)
The number is growing steadily. Some 600 brigadistas have already come from the US. Deserving of special mention are those who are maintaining a symbolic guard on the Honduran border. They are the ones most threatened by counterrevolutionary attacks. But they have at least tried to insure themselves against a "larger scale" sort of attack. They sent a statement to the governors of their states saying that under no circumstances did they want to be "liberated" by US troops like the American students in Grenada.
Can the brigadistas cope with so many problems? Obviously the completely alien geography and climate will not make it any easier for them. But they are highly motivated. "You should feel as if you are in your own country," the Nicaraguan ambassador said at the farewell ceremony. Undoubtedly they will. There is no place where internationalists are not at home.