AROUND THE WORLD
SWP (US) offices target of attacks
In recent weeks offices and campaign headquarters of the Socialist Workers Party in the USA have been the target of a series of attacks.
On April 24, the Los Angeles office was firebombed. Two days later the Seattle headquarters was set on fire, causing thousands of dollars worth of damage. These attacks come at a time when the SWP is waging a vigorous presidential campaign.
Civil rights, black, labour movement and women's movement activists have joined with the SWP in condemning these attacks, of which they are also often the target. The article below, from The Militant, May 11, 1984, reports on the breadth of support won in the protest against the attacks on the SWP offices in Atlanta, Georgia.
ATLANTA - On Saturday morning, April 14, more than 60 people attended a protest rally here against a recent series of attacks on the Socialist Workers Party's Atlanta campaign office.
The rally was held at the Tabernacle Baptist Church and the theme was "Stop terrorist attacks." The Atlanta chapter of Operation PUSH turned over its regular Saturday morning meeting for the event.
The socialist headquarters has been shot into three times between March 10 and April 7.
The Socialist Workers Party is running Maurice Williams for Congress in the 5th Congressional District and Susan Winsten for US Senate. They are backing SWP candidates Mel Mason and Andrea Gonzalez for US president and vice-president.
The rally was an impressive show of unity in the face of the attacks.
The candidates, their supporters and those who support their democratic right to run for office free from harassment and violence have demanded that those responsible be arrested and that Mayor Andrew Young and Gov. Joe Frank Harris make public statements condemning the attacks.
So far, these attempts have been unsuccessful.
While the rally focused on the attacks against the SWP, it also highlighted the role of the federal government, including the FBI and local police agencies, in fostering terrorism against the people of Central America and against Black activists and unionists here at home. 26
The rally also addressed the recent wave of racist violence by the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia.
The rally was cochaired by Rev. Bill Thurston, executive director of Atlanta PUSH, and Maceo Dixon of the SWP.
broad speakers list included: Rev. Ed Loring of the Open Door Proliams and Susan Winsten; Rev. Emory Searcy of Clergy and Laity Concerned and the Coalition of Conscience; Joe Beasley, deputy director of the Georgia Jesse Jackson campaign; Michael Samanga, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) staff and a leader of the New Justice Movement; Ken Miliner, National Black Independent Political Party; Robb Lutton, Atlanta Committee on Latin America; and David Christian, Antiwar Organizing Committee.
Messages of support were read from the National Anti-Klan Network and the American Civil Liberties Union of Geor-
The mayor's office sent Gordon Sellers as a representative.
Joe Beasley of the Jesse Jackson campaign told the audience that Jackson's campaign office in Atlanta had received a bomb threat on the evening of April 11. He stressed unity in fighting these threats. He also spoke about going to see Mayor Young with Maurice Williams the previous week. They were not able to meet with Young, and Beasley drew the conclusion that it was important to have events such as this one to keep pressure on elected officials to take action.
Rev. Ed Loring said violence in this society is rooted in the greed of capitalspoke of the gains of the Nicaraguan revolution as an example to fight
SWP candidates Winsten and Williams had participated in volunteer work brigades in Nicaragua recently. scribed these experiences and the impor tance of opposing Washington's official terrorism against Nicaragua, which creates a climate for other kinds of attacks on progressive political activists.
They also pointed out that these attacks against their office took place right after they had returned from Nic aragua and had begun to speak out at public meetings and in media interviews in defense of Nicaragua.
Williams zeroed in on the responsi bility of the government and police for these attacks. By their inaction they give a green light to violent right-wing groups. By refusing to publicly denounce these attacks, the mayor and governor tacitly condone them. Willimas related how when he and others met with the police, the cops said, "Well, you are an unpop ular group and some nuts are going to do things like shoot into your office."
The positive response so far to the SWP's 1984 election campaigns from working people, however, is the real reason for these attacks on the socialist
The SWP, the Jackson campaign, civil rights activists like Mary Cater, Mexican workers in Cedartown - two of whom have been murdered by the KKK - and others who have been recent targets of physical attacks are not simply the victims of "nuts," declared Williams.
They are victims of illegal attacks designed to prevent them - and by example all Blacks and working people - from exercising their constitutional rights.
The government, whose police often have agents in the KKK and other rightist groups, is obligated to stop these attacks and bears responsibility if they are not stopped, Williams charged.
He also reported that his employer, ITE Inc., has been threatening to fire him for his political activities. He asked for support against this harassment.
Mary Cater spoke about the lack of response from elected officials at all
The Cobb County authorities have branded her a "troublemaker" for her work on behalf of Black rights, and are guilty of condoning the series of attacks
In Greensboro, said Cater - referring to the recent trial of nine rightists who gunned down five anti-Klan demonstrators in North Carolina in 1979 - they had the murders on film and knew an FBI agent participated in the events, "but the Justice Department said there wasn't enough evidence. What do they want?"
Rev. Emory Searcy held up a copy of the Socialist Workers campaign platform and said, "This program benefits you and me and our families. Why did they shoot into their office?
"When they shoot into the SWP office they are shooting into SCLC [Southern Christian Leadership Conference], PUSH, all of us," he said.
Searcy also spoke about the invasion of Grenada as an example of governmentsponsored racist terrorism.
Michael Samanga of AFSCME said that despite political differences with the SWP, it was essential to have unity in the face of such attacks.
International Viewpoint 21 May 1984
need to strengthen the workers.
"If I stand by and let the SWP be attacked, then I am sealing the doom of my own organization," he declared.
Gordon Sellers, the mayor's represen-
Mayor Young deplored the violent attacks and was doing what he
He objected to any implication that Young had to be forced to defend anyone's rights and tried to depict Young as being part of the "movement."
Rev. Bill Thurston from Atlanta PUSH "anti-violence month" and said it would be good to see both the mayor and the governor mark this month with a joint news conference condemning the racist violence and the attacks on the SWP.
Belgian Fourth Internationalists launch
EEC election campaign The Belgian section of the Fourth International, the Parti Ouvrier Socialiste/Socialistische Arbeiders Partij is running a slate of 11 full candidates and 11 alternatives in the French-speaking part of Belgium and 26 in the Flemish-speaking
The candidates in the Walloon country
La well-known militant workers Mandel, a leader of the Fourth Inter-
POS/SAP launched its paign in the May 4 issue of La Gauche and in Rood, respectively the French and Flemish papers of the organization.
is a slightly ened translation of the announcement of
The POS/SAP says plainly that we are against the BEC because we are against capitalist Europe. The EEC arose to meet position of the capitalists in the member countries in international competition)
and it remains an instrument of the capitcapitalists have a lot of differences among themselves, often deepgoing ones. They are so deep that European unity remains blocked. agree about making the workers pay the
All the EEC member states are applying similar austerity policies (cutting wages, cutting back on public services and social security). They are coordinating the industrial restructuration schemes at the expense of jobs, as in the steel in-
They are doing nothing about unemployment. They are pursuing an imperialist militarization policy in the framework of Nato, in partieular installing the new intermediate-range missiles in Europe, which is increasing the threat
In several European countries, workers and their union organizations are waging impressive struggles against austerity, rationalization policies and the stepin the arms race. In Britain, the miners are fighting for jobs. The Italian workers are fighting to keep automatic cost-of-living increases, German workers are fighting for the 35mobilizations of the peace movement be
To unite these struggles on the international scale, the workers movement does not need to strengthen the EEC. To the contrary, proletarian internationalism is as old as the workers movement itself. The fight of workers in one against the bourgeoisie concerns all work-
That was true in the case of the first victorious socialist revolution in Russia
It is true today in the case of the revolution in Nicaragua and in the case of the struggle of the Polish freeunion movement, Solidarnsoc against the bureaucracy. It is also true in the cases of the struggles of the West European
Proletarian internationalism is a tradition that the Fourth International and its
Belgian section, the POS/SAP have maintained in the face of the most adverse conditions.
So, we are against the EEC but we are for a workers united Europe, a socialist united states of Europe.
The POS/SAP will focus its campaign around the theme of opposition to the Martens-Gol-De Clercq right-wing government in Brussels. First of all this is because our program for the European elections is no different from the one we fight for every day. Secondly, we do not to separate what happens in Belgium from what goes on at the level of the EEC.
The European elections give people the illusion that strengthening Europe will lead to progress and peace. We want to say clearly that that is not the way it is. Thirdly, the elections will be held country by country, and so that offers us an opportunity to focus discontent against our execrable government.
In its campaign, the POS/SAP will put forward the following program of
Down with austerity, moderation does not create jobs.
- Get the money where it is; make the big tax evaders cough up; tax the big fortunes; do away with bank secrecy; nationalize the banks, holding companies and key industries.
- Out with Martens-Gol: this government will never change its policy.
Trade-union unity; a plan for a general strike.
For a workers government without any representatives of the bourgeois parties, backed up by a trade-union common front and a mobilization of union membership, a government that will meet the workers demands.
As a revolutionary workers party, our place is in the front line with those who are fighting on the ground. In the election campaign, we intend to publicize the fight for in the concrete We aim to give the workers and trade-unionists a chance to vote in accordance with the struggles they are
French government backs down, Kowalewski can stay Zbigbiew Kowalewski, a regional leader of Solidarnosc, in France at the time of the December 13, 1981, crackdown on union business, has now had his right to stay in France renewed. In addition he has been given the right to travel, which he had also been unable to do for the last year. On March 28 he had been informed that his residence permit would not be renewed, and he was 'invited to leave the country'
This reversal of the French government's decision was a result of the broad international campaign waged for his right to stay in France, and not be returned to Poland where he would face the risk of imprisonment like his comrades from Solidarnosc (see International Viewpoint, No 51, April 23, 1984). International Viewpoint 21 May 1984 waging and the political conclusions they are drawing from them.
In this respect, our campaign is chance to discuss with the people we have worked with in the struggles, in particular to discuss the need for a party that can offer an effective political tool for bringing these struggles to fruition.
But the elections are also a chance to test the programs of the various parties in the workers movement in the eyes of the masses, in particular to test our program against that of the Social Democrats. This is also based on the experience of the struggles. Where was the SP in the struggles? Why doesn't it clearly reject austerity. Voting for the SP can only pave the way for a new coalition government with the bourgeois parties. That is why people should vote for the POS/SAP instead!
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ganisations of social democracy or the Communist Parties.
In Britain they spoke to the 2,000strong national conference of the Labour Party Young Socialists to give short greetings, before addressing a meeting of several hundred conference delegates at
Sandinista youth make