PEACE MOVEMENT-
to restore dignity to black people. Some people, deeply affected by the events of
October 1983, will vote for Gairy's party because they are sure that he, at least, is anti-communist.
It is very unlikely that the election
The peace movement results will produce a very score for the MBPM. There are several reasons for this.
in Western Europe
Even though a wind of change has begun to blow across the island, disillusion at a crossroads ensuing from the events of October 1983, political confrontation and hesitation are still the most dominant attitudes among the majority of the population. This is so even amongst fervent supporters of
The opposition of the peoples of Western Europe to the deployment of
Bishop, whose popularity is still consider-
American nuclear missiles and, more generally, to the militaristic policies
Moreover, many people may wonof their respective governments, is far from abating.
der what would prevent any future revothe demonstrations in West Germany, France and Spain, which attracted lution from ending as the last one has.
hundreds of thousands of people in recent weeks.
And it is unfortunately true that the
However, there is no point in denying that the anti-war movement is
MBPM does not provide all the answers going through a difficult phase in some countries at the moment.
to these very understandable doubts.
recent demonstrations sometimes fell short of what the organisers had
The benefits that the revolution prohoped and the police occasionally took advantage of this by physically vided are numerous, but they did not harassing demonstrators, especially in the context of activities opposing change Grenadan life in a fundamental way, at least not in the countryside, where support for the revolution was always lukewarm.
Under these conditions, to present oneself as the party that will introduce the social programmes undertaken by the revolutionary government will not be enough to draw the immediate support of large sections of the population.
especially true in the majority of constituencies where the MBPM has insufficient forces to conduct a really thorough propaganda campaign.
For a large section of the Grenadan population the most important goal in the elections will basically be to prevent the return of Gairy. The polarisation this
Will produce will lead a lot of people to
Finally, it is also necessary to underline one very important aspect. The elections will not be free and democratic.
The electoral register is not going to be reopened, and this will affect, most of all, supporters of the MBPM who were not, at first, interested in the elections.
The United States is taking measures to ensure that the electoral machine operates in accordance with their interests.
Most importantly, the elections will be taking place while the country is still under foreign military occupation. The electorate will be aware that the US could react forcefully if the election results do not go according to their wishes. This is an additional pressure on the population.
It would be difficult today for the
Grenadan government and its imperialist backers to openly repress the left, which is beginning to reappear and to organise
This is especially so in a pre- election period.
But there is reason to fear that once a new government is in power that enjoys a certain authority, measures might be taken to put a stop to the dynamic that has begun to develop
After these militants of the Grenadan left will have an even greater need for our international solidarity.
International Viewpoint 26 November 1984 the role of Nato.
The huge mobilisations in the autumn of 1983 were not able to prevent the deployment of the first missiles in Great Britain, West Germany and Italy. From that point on, peace activists in these countries have been forced to confront the need for new perspectives for action. The process of elaborating these has brought about deep political divisions.
In West Germany, several spokespeople of the movement, including the social
Lafontaine writer Heinrich Boll, came out explicitly against the demonstrations against Nato 50,000 people in Fulda at the end of
The aim of the action was to block the deployment of British, Bel gian, French and German troops which were being assembled for the largest ever
For the reformist leaders such activity seemed to express an unvarnished 'No to Nato'. This, of course, is exactly what it did represent. But this strong medicine did not prevent these same people from taking part in the demonstrations one month later against the deployment of missiles, which attracted 400,000 people throughout the country.
In Bonn, Oskar Lafontaine proclaimed himself firmly for unilateral disarmament, while Heinrich Boll proposed that the German peace movement adopt a goal of bringing down the conservative government of Helmut Kohl and setting up a Red-Green alliance between the Social Democratic Party and the Greens capable of forcing the withdrawal of the missiles.
There is every indication that new and large mobilisations can be expected to tie in with the deadlines for the second phase of deployment of Pershing missiles in West Germany, planned for autumn 1985. In the meantime, the most advanced sections of the movement must fight for a hearing for their view. They
This was shown in have to explain that there is no hope of a real victory in the fight against the deployment of the missiles without challenging the militarist policies of the present government in their entirety. British and Italian peace face similar problems.
Despite the huge mobilisations in Italy last year, the Rome demonstration on October 27 this year only attracted 6,000 people, that is about a fifth of what was
This mobilisation was, nevertheless, called by a broad spectrum of organisations, ranging from the coordination of the local committees to the three main union federations, and including several Party (PS) and the Communist Party (PCI). Furthermore, the date fixed was the day of the meeting of the Western European Union (WEU) in the Italian
At this meeting the defence ministers of the European countries in Nato were to reaffirm their total allegiance to the military policies of the
Furthermore, the peace committees in Italy, which have a long tradition of solidarity with the peoples of Central America, had stressed the importance a massive mobilisation on this theme on the eve of the Nicaraguan and American
A meeting called at the initiative of several delegates to the Perugia conference (1) had been organised for evening before the demonstration in Rome, on the theme of the politics of the WEU and Nato. It was not a great
It has to be noted that the Italian Communist Party (PCI) was absent from this meeting, as they were from the demonstration. They made no secret of 1. See IV, No 61, October 15, 1984.
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the fact that they consider the WEU could provide a useful framework for discussion aimed at allowing Europe a greater autonomy from the USA. It is understandable then, that they would not mobilise their supporters to demonstrate against an institution that they judge to be, 'on the whole, positive'. Nato key issue
In fact, one of the major problems which has appeared lately within the Italian peace movement is precisely the • difficulty that local committees have in putting into practice decisions of the national coordinating body, if the PCI happens to be opposed to them. This shows the weakness of the local committees, which allows the PCI room for
Because they cannot deny the existence and the radical character of the peace movement, the PCI seeks rather to exercise tight control over it. The committees recently rejected the PCI's proposal to replace the existing secretariat of the national coordinating with a consultative body, which would give increased power to the political organisations and to individual personalities.
Instead they decided to organise a National Assembly for next January built on the basis of documents, so as to be able to have a thorough discussion on perspectives for the peace movement.
In Great Britain, the local committees of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament face a right-wing offensive by their leadership. The latter refused to support the call for a national demonstration on the fifth anniversary of the decision of the European parliament in 1979 to deploy Cruise missiles. Their alternative proposal was for a national action...against Soviet arms.
Moroever, the CND leadership did nothing to mobilise British peace activists for the Greenham Common women's initiative entitled 'ten million women for ten days against Nato manoevres'. action attracted 40,000 women to the military base on the last day of the September 20 to 30 week of action.
The leaders of CND even refused to inform the press about the police violence to which the women had been treated. In Britain, as in West Germany, the refusal to support the mobilisation was due to its political message. Not only are the CND leadership not prepared to participate in actions against Nato, but they spread the illusion that it would be possible to convert Nato into a defensive pact based solely on conventional arms.
This offensive won a first round with the adoption of the document Defence and Security for Britain' at the annual conference of the Labour Party in early October. After very little discussion, this document was endorsed by four fifths of the delegates at the conference. Several left-wing delegates voted for it because it still contained the position for unilateral nuclear disarmament. 18
LRT
Nato protest (DR)
However, the real significance of the text lay in the fact that it strengthened the Labour Party's commitment to Nato, and reversed the position for cuts in military spending. All this was done in the name of a 'non-nuclear' Nato.
trade-union leaders argued against a reduction in defence spending on conventional weapons on the pretext that this would create unemployment for workers in the industries con-
Far from criticising the increased commitment to Nato, the leader of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), Ron Todd, confirmed Atlantic Alliance from the inside seemed to him to be 'much more fruitful than to leave it under the control of the USA, who are the ones with their finger on the
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the CND leadership rejected a motion from 19 local groups calling for a campaign against Nato, and that they also refused to put this proposal on the agenda for the annual conference of CND, which is due to take place at the end of November. About twenty local committees met in October to prepare a fight at this conference on the issue of 'Britain out of
Today we are witnessing a process of political differentiation within the West European peace movements. committees determined to maintain a perspective Of mass action and to integrate fully the issue of Nato into the struggle are increasingly running up against the reformist leaderships that are digging their heels in and advancing the perspective of negotiations between gov-
This is particularly striking in the case of the Netherlands today. ership of the Interdenominational Coun cil for Peace (IKV) has refused, up until now, to take a position on the proposal for a mass demonstration in the autumn of 1985, the date when the first missiles are supposed to be deployed in the coun-
This has not come about through any lack of determination on the part of Dutch activists, especially those in the organise an independent referendum.
From this point of view, the situation in Belgium seems much healthier. This is another country where the first missiles are due to be deployed in autumn 1985. The main peace organisation in this country, the Flemish VAKA, retains an uncommitment to unilateral disarmament, in contrast to the illusions being peddled by the Walloon organisation, the CNAPD, which wants to play the proposal for a huge demonstration on the streets on October 20, 1985, has nevertheless been
All those who are convinced that the future of the Western European movement lies in its capacity to integrate all aspects of the militarisation policy of the imperialist governments, must turn their attention, above all, to developments in the Spanish state.
After the spectacular mobilisations in the spring of this year, peace groups in that country have drawn up new plans for action in the struggle to force the Socialist Workers Party of Spain (PSOE government to keep its electoral promise to organise a constitutional referendum on the question of American bases in Spain and on the question of the integration of the country into Nato.
Spain has participated in the policymaking bodies of Nato since 1982, but not in the integrated military structure. The government has just renewed this po-
On December 2, there will be a day of action throughout the country, which has been being built since October through various decentralised activities, such as torchlight processions and puppet parades. activities have already attracted tens of thousands of
Everyone is agreed that these activities have been a great success, demonstrating the spread of the movement to new social
It is important, for example, to underline the significance of the 'self-organised" referendum held in the Miniwatt factory in Barcelona. This was a test of the type of action that can mobilise workers around the peace issue. Of the one thousand workers in the factory, 70 per cent participated in the referendum and of those, 90 per cent answered 'yes' to the question 'Are you for withdrawal of the Spanish state from Nato and for the dismantling of the American bases?' The way for this result was prepared by intense propaganda work on the part of the •Workers for Peace and Disarmament' group, which was set up in the factory at the beginning of October.
This is an example of the sort of initiatives that could be taken in all coun tries to link up the workers movement with the peace movement. This could also lay the basis for new developments in the peace mobilisations called for next spring and autumn, when the question of the deployment of the Nato missiles will again be posed concretely.
International Viewpoint 26 November 1984
groups concentrating discussions with case-hardened Nato politicians.
The way forward is marching together with millions of people. No elite groups but only a genuine mass movement can stop the step-up in the arms race. That is