AROUND THE WORLD
EL SALVADOR
Solidarity with political prisoners
The Revolutionary Democratic Front (FDR) and the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN), along with the international solidarity movement with El Salvador have launched a campaign to win the immediate release of two FMLN militants presently being held by the Salvadoran army.
Yanet Samour Hasbun (Commandante Filomena) 34 years old, and Maximina Reyes, 26, were arrested in the town of San Miguel on 30 December 1984, by members of the National Guard.
After having been interrogated and tortured for three days by the commanding officer of the San Miguel
For ne National Guard, the two women were then put into the hands of the intelligence section of the Army High Command on 2 January 1985. The commander in chief of this section is general Onecifero Blandon, who has continued to submit them to physical and psychological torture.
Neither of the two prisoners have appeared before a court and the army has not even officially admitted their arrest, which indicates that their lives are in great danger.
Commandante Filomena, student, is a member of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Army of the People - Salvadorean Revolutionary Party, (ERP-PRS), one of the components of the FMLN.
A communique on the two women's case was transmitted by Radio Venceremos, the radio station of the FMLN on 21 January 1985. It accused the army commanding officer of being responsible for the violation of prisoners rights, rights which the FMLN itself respects in its treatment of the government soldiers it captures. 'Our forces have respected the lives of thousands of soldiers we have captured, officers as well as rank and file soldiers, among which are the ex-deputy defence minister Colonel Francisco Adolfo Castillo, as well as well-known assassins like Napoleon Medina Garay, the communique said.
The FMLN statement appealed to the Catholic Church as well as human rights organisations to conduct an enquiry into the case of the two militants. •We appeal to the international solidarity movement to develop a broad campaign to free Commandante Yanet Samour Hasbun 'Filomena' and comrade 26
Maximina Reyes Vallatoro', the communique concluded
Amnesty International has also launched an urgent appeal for action on the case of the two women.
Telegrams and letters of protest should be addressed to the following addresses: President Jose Napoleon Duarte, Case Presidencial, San Salvador, El Salvador. General Onecifero Blandon, Jefe de Estado Mayor, Estado Mayor de las Fuerzas Armadas, San Salvador, El Salvador. ANTIGUA
Left press on trial For the third time in three years, the government of the Caribbean island of Antigua has initiated a trial to try and gag Outlet, the weekly paper of the Afro-Caribbean Liberation Movement (ACLM). The ACLM, whose president Tim Hector is the editor of Outlet, is the most important left organisation Antigua.
On April 1 nearly all the members of the Antiguan government, led by the deputy prime minister Lester Bird, appeared in court to give evidence against Hector and Outlet. Hector was found guilty under a public order law of 'publishing a false declaration' which could have 'undermined confidence in the conduct of public affairs.' The conviction was based on an article published on the front page of the 24 August 1984 edition of Outlet, which raised questions about an unidentified government minister who was arrested by US intelligence agents at Miami airport with two million dollars in his luggage. The minister had told the agents that he was carrying a suitcase for Peter de Savary, a businessman who has shady business connections with various South African interests. Deputy prime minister Bird had to testify himself in the case, his first appearance in front of a court for 30 years.
In another affair linked to the first, minister without portfolio Molwyn Joseph, brought a court action against
Hector in relation to a speech made in October 1984 in which Hector made reference to fraudulent practices in the local brewing industry.
In addition, Outlet lost its appeal against a 1983 court decision which fined the journal for having reported rumours concerning police brutality after the death of a young man in custody.
Several months before the start of the latest trial Outlet revealed the fact that Ron Sanders, one of the chief advisors of the deputy prime minister, had received large sums of money from the Space Research Company, who had made artillery tests for the South African military. It was the ACLM's revelations in the mid-1970s on the activities of the SRC in Antigua which had forced the Bird government to forbid all further testing on the island.
An article in the April 1985 issue of Caribbean Contact, the newspaper of the Caribbean Council of Churches, noted that the ACLM and Outlet had become the most effective critics of the Bird government.
The journal went on to say that, given the paralysis of the traditional opposition parties, the ACLM had led a most effective battle against the government. Its weekly paper was now the most widely-read in Antigua and its meetings are amongst those which attract the largest audiences. ECUADOR Fourth Internationalists meet The Revolutionary Workers Movement (MRT) recognised as the Ecuadorian section of the Fourth International at its recent World Congress, organised an educational school on the problems of party construction at the end of March. This meeting, which was attended by a member of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, discussed the debate and decisions of the Twelfth World Congress, the previous experiences of building a revolutionary party in Ecuador, the problems of mass work and at the same time started to prepare the national conference of the section.
Presently experiencing a harsh austerity policy agreed with the International Monetary Fund, Ecuador has seen a rise of popular struggles in the last period, in particular the recent general strike called by the coalition of trade union organisations, the United
International Viewpoint 3 June 1985
Workers Front (FRT).
In addition, at the international level, the Ecuadoran government of Febres Cordero is implicated in the events in Central America, through its complete support for Reagan's Nicaraguan policy.
Ecuadoran politics has also been influenced by the radicalisation of the Bolivian working class.
The Central American and Bolivian events are the reference points for the radicalisation which is beginning to develop amongst the Ecuadoran trade unions.
The situation which is beginning to develop inside the country is therefore a favourable one for revolutionaries. In this context the MRT is participating in a discussion with other revolutionary forces organised in the Socialist Front. The principal component of the Front is the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Ecuador (PSRE).
It was for this reason that the secretary general of the PSRE Jorge Reynolds, attended the public sessions of the school. Reynolds, a veteran of the communist struggle was delegated to the congresses of the Comintern on several occassions.
It is important to note that the theme of the public sessions was the experience of building the Workers Party (PT) of Brazi. ITALY
A militant welcome for the royal parasites British royals Prince Charles and Lady Diana recently visited Italy. Among the towns they visited was Livorno in Tuscany, a stronghold of the Italian Communist Party (PCI). The town's mayor, a PCI member, had organised a reception for the occasion of 2,000 people in the town square.
The local branch of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), the Italian section of the Fourth International was standing candidates for the May 12 municipal elections on the Democrazia Proletaria list. (See elsewhere in this issue).
The LCR organised a completely different sort of welcome for the princely parasites. They distributed a leaflet which criticised the mayor for welcoming this family of the idle rich' instead of taking initiatives to support the British miners which her Majesty's government were repressing.
In addition when the famous couple took a cruise in the local harbour, two LCR militants standing in the elections sailed across the princes prow. At the moment when the two boats were side by side the two LCR comrades hauled down the British flag that they had hoisted before and replaced it with an Irish tricolour and a placard International Viewpoint 3 June 1985 which declared 'Coal not Dole'.
The Italian national press the next day widely featured this rather spectacular and unusual solidarity action. SOLIDARITY
Support the prisoners' fund Only a few contributions have come in so far to the fund we launched three issues ago to finance free subscriptions for class-war and poltical prisoners. Nonetheless, even this small amount has made it possible for us to provide subscriptions for a half dozen sacked or imprisoned British miners. It is hard to think of anything else where a little money can have such an immediate good effect.
In the longer term, in times of deepening crisis, it is important to revive the tradition of mutual aid in the revolutionary and workers' movement, the tradition of providing for, and politically supporting those who have to bear the burden of battles.
So, we are not discouraged by the slow response to our appeal. It is obviously going to take some time for people to get used to the idea that there are a growing number of fighters who feel a need for revolutionary information and analysis but cannot pay for it. We will do what we can to assure that our readers understand this by reminding them regularly about the needs that exist.
We hope that in coming issues, we will be able to report that the contributions to our prisoners fund are increasing and give our readers a precise idea of the good use their contributions are being put to. AUSTRIA
Austrians protest
Reagan's aggression Reagan's trade boycott against Nicaragua is a further step toward direct military intervention by the USA, and it has not gone unanswered in Austria. On May 5 in Vienna, some 700 people took part in a rally for free Nicaragua organized jointly by the Austrian Confederation of Unions (OeGB) and the Austrian Solidarity Movement. The rally was addressed by Francisco Campos, a representative of the Juventud Sandinista, among others. Other rallies took place in Linz and Innsbruck.
At the Vienna rally, where 50,000 Schillings [about US 2,500 dollars] weme collected, a resolution was adopte addressed to the Austrian governmen On May 8, a delegation delivered the resolution to State Secretary Loesch who represented the chancellor. menting on the discussion ti place, delegation member Dworezak said: "Further actions necessary to get the government to anything concrete." On May 8. Vienna office of IBM, a multinati that always speaks in the name of principle of "free trade," was occupied. (From Die Linke, paper of the Austr section of the Fourth International. ISRAEL
Defeat for zionism The exchange of 1,150 anti-Zionis political prisoners held in Israeli jail in return for three Israeli soldie captured in Lebanon has been se both by Arab nationalists and Zioni as an important political defeat for Zionist regime. In its May 27 the West German weekly magaz Der Spiegel reported: "In Nablus Palestinian town under Zionist occu pation], placard read, We have defeated Israel.' In the liberal (Hebrew] daily Ha-Aretz, columnist Joel Markus wrote: "Jibril has won.'"
The exchange was negotiated from the Palestinian side by Ahmed Jibril commander of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. Obviously, the outcry in Israel over the number of casualties in the Lebanoo war was an important factor inducing the Zionist government to accept such a lopsided exchange.
Jibril also dealt the Zionists another defeat by insisting that an anti-Lions Israeli Jewish fighter, Udi Adiv be included among those released.
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