Vol. 22, No. 6
VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA
25 cents June 1, 1992
[Front page:
Justice for Rodney King!--Punish the cops, not the poor!;
Buying the presidency--PEROT: No threat to the status quo;
Abortion rights: You only have them if you defend them]
IN THIS ISSUE
| Behind the Perot myth: Lies, bribes, insider ties... | 2 |
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| Defend women's rights! |
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| Buffalo: new spirit of clinic defense; Toronto clinic bombed by Right-to-Life...... | 4 |
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| Strikes and workplace news |
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| Thousands march in Hamlet, N.C.; Postal workers protest King verdict; Hospital strike in Oakland, Calif.; Detroit Kroger workers struggle; Washington farm workers; NYC flower vendors; Pittsburgh newspapers; NYC restaurant............... | 5 |
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| After the LA rebellion: the struggle continues! |
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| San Francisco: the 'tolerant tyrant'; Coast to coast protests................................... | 6 |
| American justice - police terror in LA; Racist roundup of immigrants; Who are the real looters......................................................................................................... | 7 |
| Bush blames riots on social programs; They have money for police, not for jobs; Enterprise zones - another boondoggle................................................................... | 8 |
| Communism and the struggle against racism; Farrakhan's black capitalism no solution; Anti-racist struggle at U. of Mass............................................................. | 9 |
| Anti-racist actions in Canada; Demonstrations vs. KKK........................................ | 10 |
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| The world in struggle |
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| German workers simmering despite gains; Workers strike against Malawi dictator..................................................................................................................... | 11 |
| Bush sends Haitians back to military terror; Struggle heats up in Haiti; Thai people defy military rule.......................................................................................... | 12 |
Justice for Rodney King!
Punish the cops, not the poor!
Buying the presidency
PEROT: No threat to the status quo
Abortion rights:
You only have them if you defend them
Behind the Perot myth: Lies, bribes, insider ties
Defend women's rights!
Strikes and workplace news
IN BRIEF
After the L.A. rebellion: The struggle continues
The world in struggle
A racist outrage!
Bush sends Haitians back to military terror
The struggle heats up in Haiti
People of Thailand defy military rule
[Photo.]
The cops' brutal beating of Rodney King was a terrible injustice. But now that injustice is being multiplied a thousand fold. Instead of the cops, it is workers and poor people in Los Angeles who are being punished. Over 16,000 have been arrested, thousands more injured, and dozens killed.
And for what? Because they were so outraged at the racist system that they rose up against police headquarters, burned hated symbols of oppression, and grabbed from stores goods that their poverty had so long denied them.
Protesters were right when they shouted, "There's no justice in America!" They were right when they cried out, "The system does not work!" They were right to stand up and fight back. The institutionalized racism, the orgy of cutbacks and pay slashing, the huge unemployment and grinding exploitation of American capitalism is too much to bear. The entire racist and exploiting system must be overthrown.
But the politicians are trying to put the genie of rebellion back in the bottle. They are talking of a bit of money for social programs. But it is empty talk. Even as they crack down on the masses, Bush and Congress are blaming the meager welfare benefits for causing the riots and demanding "enterprise zones," which is just another program to give billions of dollars of welfare to the filthy rich corporations.
Still, the voice of the oppressed masses of L.A. has been heard. Not by the president or Congress. Oh no! But by the ordinary people, by the workers and downtrodden across the country. Demonstrations and confrontations with police have swept through cities coast to coast. And new protests are being mounted. June 19 has been called as a day of national protest against the King verdict. Workers of every race should join in the mass actions and let their voices ring out: Justice for Rodney King! Punish the cops, not the poor! The racist system must go!
More inside on the aftermath of L.A.:
- Police terror In LA.
- Protests coast to coast.
- Racist roundup of immigrants.
- Police-state measures in San Francisco.
- Enterprise zones a boondoggle for the rich.
- Bush says social programs are to blame.
- Communism and the fight against racism.
And other articles--see pages 6-10.
Everyone is cynical about the politicians. No wonder. The Republican and Democratic parties are nothing but political cesspools. Bush and Clinton are professional liars sold out to the corporate elite. The people see the government as a heartless bureaucracy that doesn't give a damn about the ordinary person. And they're right.
Into this situation steps billionaire presidential candidate H. Ross Perot. He trades on the fact that he has not been a career politician, just a private plunderer of the state and federal treasuries. He promotes himself as new and exciting, although his ideas are just repetitions of old campaign slogans from the past. He goes to the extent of declaring his failure to spell out a definite political platform a virtue. Everyone is supposed to accept that, since he made a lot of money, he will be the Moses leading the country into the promised land.
But wait a minute! In a country ravaged by businessmen and lobbyists, what's so new about buying the presidency?
Perot's political reform
Perot campaigns that he will clean up politics, be a can-do sort of guy, and do everything right. He's not really an autocrat, dictator, blackmailer, and influence-peddler. The proof? He says so.
He campaigns against unnamed special interests with money, while he himself made his millions through buying up politicians right and left.
And how will he clean up politics? He will have "electronic town meetings" in which his administration, Congress and business leaders would present policy issues to the public. After the issues are presented, he says, "the people say let's do it, and now we have a system out of gridlock and a system that works." (Time, May 25, p. 37) He doesn't mean that there will be a direct popular vote, but that people will become informed, talk about issues, and maybe call in a question or write their congressperson.
Why, it's so simple, why didn't anyone think of it before? Actually, they did. There are televised committee meetings, press conferences, Nightline's town meetings, etc. But only Perot could assert that these things would spur the system to solve the people's problems.
Perot campaigns as the outsider, yet his plan is to enlist the politicians, "a cross section of both parties" and Congress, in a "consensus." And, he says, "I will be buried night and day in meetings with the leaders of Congress." (Ibid.) Isn't this just politics-as-usual?
For Perot, the problem is not that the government serves the rich and the powerful, but that it's not run properly. When he runs as an "outsider," it is against "hierarchies" and incompetents, not against the wealthy rulers. And with a few tricks, and calling in some specialists, and whipping some butts, he will end the gridlock and run it properly. Or so he says.
No economic miracle
But let's turn to Perot's views on the economy, if we can find any. He is supposed to have some great insight because he enriched himself. It turns out that he has nothing besides the stock ideas of any politician about fixing the deficit and balancing the budget.
Perot says the number one issue is taming the national debt. He would end budget deficits by, say, using a loophole-free version of the Gramm-Rudman budget balancing law. This is last year's disaster packaged as this year's wonder-working miracle. The old Gramm- Rudman law was also supposed to be ironclad, and it allowed the deficit to grow bigger than ever.
Perot suggests that the tax system isn't efficient, has "a thousand patches by the special interests," isn't fair, etc. But he is on record as favoring a capital gains tax cut which would be a windfall for the rich.
Perot has also suggested a constitutional amendment which would bar Congress from raising taxes without a vote of the people. This is part of the Reaganite plan to keep taxes low on the rich, while cutting spending on the working people. It is similar to plans being pondered by both Democratic and Republican politicians about a constitutional balanced-budget amendment, with super-majorities in Congress needed to vote for taxes.
Perot doesn't campaign on the tremendous needs of the people for social programs, health, education, unemployment relief, and welfare. Nor does he lash the bankers for the S&L and banking fiascoes. He simply repeats the fashionable ideas about the deficit and taxes that are code words for balancing the budget on the backs of the workers and the poor. Indeed, Perot wants a "line- item" budget veto, which is Bush's longtime demand. (New York Times, April 13) Its purpose is to cut funding for social programs even more than Congress has.
An anti-union tyrant
On one issue at least it's clear where Perot stands. He is a slave-driver with no use for unions or workers' rights. When he owned Electronic Data Systems (EDS), he ran it like a military barracks. Employees were not only overworked, but subject to strict conduct and dress codes, and even restrictions on their private lives.
Perot defeated a union drive at EDS. He claims his companies don't need unions because he is so kind-hearted to them. Right. Perot made employees at EDS take out promissory notes for up to $9,000. If they were fired, or quit, they had to pay back this ransom to EDS in the name of reimbursing EDS for training expenses.
Personal rights
But what about personal rights? Perot says he is for them, but he sees no contradiction in restricting them according to the current prejudices of the establishment.
In a TV interview with Barbara Walters on May 29, he said that it's a woman's right to decide about abortion. But he also said that there should be parental consent, thus removing the right to decide from teenage women. And he may back other restrictions as well.
In the same interview, he said with respect to gay people that "as far as I'm concerned, what people do in their private lives is their business." But he ruled out gay people from various cabinet posts or the military.
He also repeated that he would not hire anyone guilty of adultery (the bedroom is presumably not part of a person's private life). Indeed, he tried for a while to enforce this edict when he was head of EDS, but as the company grew, he found it impractical. As president, of course, he would have a much bigger police apparatus to work with.
He also claims to be against racism. But he only recently resigned from segregated clubs (no blacks or Jews) at the urging of his campaign handlers.
The big stick
He says he would have taken faster action than Bush against the police who beat Rodney King. But in 1988, when the Dallas police were being condemned for racist brutality, Perot volunteered to help them out of their difficulties. And, in the guise of the war of drugs, Perot has proposed cordoning off black neighborhoods in Dallas for house-to-house searches.
Imperialist adventurer
Perot has no qualms about extending the big stick around the world either. He was a fanatical supporter of the war against the Vietnamese people.
But didn't Perot oppose the Persian Gulf war? Sure, but he thought that the U.S. should have just assassinated Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile Perot helped organized the "welcome home" parades that glorified the war.
Perot has a real penchant for military adventures. He supposedly rescued two employees from an Iranian jail (see accompanying article for the less than glorious reality). And he was a big fan and financier of the shadowy and bloodstained projects of Oliver North.
No alternative
Clearly, Perot is no alternative to Bush and Clinton, he is simply a more colorful liar and a more brazen blowhard. Behind his catchy phrases against special interests, hierarchies, and the establishment are nothing but recycled ideas from this same establishment and moneyed interests. In a way, he is Reagan the Second -- the same empty declarations without regard to fact, the same arrogant disregard for truth, the same nostalgia for that good old morality.
Perot's appeal is to those who are sick of the speeches, sick of one fiasco after another, and longing for a savior to just kiss the wounds and make them better. It is for those who are unwilling to face the truth about the capitalist system falling apart.
Perot's appeal is not for the working class to build up its own political platform and party. It is not for the poor to get together and put an end to the capitalist offensive that is turning the workplaces into hell holes, devastating the communities, and driving down the living standards of the have-nots. It is not for the minorities, to fight back against the rising racism and discrimination.
It is instead an appeal to corporate America to stop talking and simply impose a "can-do" program on the country. And it appeals especially to those in the middle, who are sick of one crisis after another, but tired of hearing about the injustices to the poor and working class. It is no accident that the bulk of Perot's fervent foot-soldiers are people in the middle -- small businesspeople, managers, professionals. And they seek to draw larger numbers behind them.
Their temporary success shows that it is not sufficient to curse politics in general. It is necessary to confront ruling class politics with working class politics, capitalist politics with liberation politics. It is necessary for the working class to take matters into its own hands as the core of the resistance to capitalist oppression. This is the only real alternative to the politics-as-usual of the Bush-Clinton-Perot circus of liars.
[Box: Behind Perot's catchy phrases against special interests and hierarchies are nothing but recycled ideas from the same moneyed interests.]
With the Supreme Court on the verge of another anti-abortion ruling, people are wondering how to preserve abortion rights. The experience in Buffalo this April provides some valuable clues. Anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue are religious bullies. They are used to harassing women patients, to intimidating doctors at their homes, and to having their way. They said they were going to close down the clinics in Buffalo for a month. But in Buffalo it was OR that was denounced, and hounded, and blocked from reaching the clinics. Hundreds of women, and of men too, came out to defend the clinics. OR could deal with the police, but they couldn't deal with the ordinary people determined to defend their rights.
Keep the clinics in Milwaukee open!
But the anti-abortion groups want to create the impression of popular support when the Supreme Court attacks abortion, so they are planning another round of clinic blockades. They are going to attack Milwaukee starting on June 15, and they have plans for some other cities. It is important to defend the clinics in Milwaukee, to keep them open, and to show that here too the people are pro-choice.
Activists in Milwaukee and neighboring areas like Chicago are discussing what to do. Different views are being put forward. We think that it is necessary to confront OR with mass clinic defense as in Buffalo. Don't muzzle the clinic defenders by telling them to be quiet, say nothing, and not even look OR in the eye, as groups like the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) advise. The rank-and-file clinic, defenders should stand up for their rights. And there should be mass rallies and marches and other actions to show that the working people are pro-choice.
The Buffalo tactics are still opposed by the establishment groups. As we report in a follow-up article on Buffalo, even there tactics are still being debated. Many activists insist on continuing clinic defense against the local anti-abortion bullies, and the experience of April has invigorated them. But the pro-establishment leaders say it's time to go to sleep and even disband clinic defense organization.
Why they oppose confrontation
The establishment may have varying opinions about abortion rights, but it doesn't like to see OR confronted. It doesn't like to see people fight for their rights. You see, if workers and minorities fight for their rights on one front, maybe they will fight for their rights on other fronts too, like health care, higher wages, good jobs, better schools, or taxing the rich.
So the establishment columnists and opinion-makers have a new twist to their stories about OR: pro-choice activists should stop defending their rights and instead find common ground with OR. Columnist after columnist talks about how tired they are to see all these fights to defend clinics (we never saw them at those fights), and wouldn't it be better to compromise?
But the pro-choice position doesn't force anyone to have an abortion, it simply insists that each woman must have the right to decide for herself. If "right- to-lifers" don't want abortions (it's surprising however how many prominent "right-to-lifers" are repentant sinners) they don't have to have them.
What the right wing has in store
But that doesn't satisfy the holier-than- thou's. They want to impose their religious extremism on others. And in this issue we carry some articles on how far they are willing to go. Last month, frustrated from defeat in Buffalo, they set off a big bomb in downtown Toronto in order to destroy an abortion clinic. And Bush, head "right-to-lifer," is going to veto a bill funding medical research using fetal tissue, because he doesn't want anything good to come from abortions. He is going to condemn millions of people to suffering in order to impose his conservative agenda on them.
What type of compromise can there be with such heartless people? An agreement to limit the number of pounds of dynamite used to blow up clinics and homes? To only kick and harass half the patients who go to health clinics? Or the main compromise in the making: To allow abortions for rich women, but ban it for working and poor women?
No, thank you. You only have the rights you are willing to defend. Once you let the anti-abortion bullies walk over you, you will end up with no rights at all.
Build a movement of the working people
Mind you, there's more to women's rights, and even abortion rights, than just defending clinics. Operation Rescue is part of a broader right-wing attack on all the people's rights. And "right-to-lifer" Bush is busy cutting social programs and promoting the employer offensive of wage cutting, unsafe working conditions, and speedup. To fight this agenda, we need to base ourselves on the working class, not the big-name groups whose eyes are fixed on becoming part of the ruling class.
We must take the pro-choice cause into working class and minority neighborhoods. We must explain it, show its importance to people, and bring more working people into the struggle.
We must organize in the communities, work places, and schools against the entire anti-woman and anti-worker offensive. We must develop independent organization of the workers, youth and poor.
We must base the movement on the spirit of struggle and reliance on the working people. Back in 1973, the Supreme Court conceded the right to abortion only after seeing year after year of people angry and in the streets on one issue after another: civil rights, anti-war, and women's rights. Roe v. Wadewas not granted on a silver platter, or because of a lawyer's eloquence, but won by the mass struggle of the 60's and 70's. The answer to the coming Supreme Court anti-abortion decisions can only be building up struggle on one issue after another: clinic defense, against racism, against employer tyranny, against the growing stick of repression, etc.
You only have the rights that you are willing to defend!
Defend the clinics in Milwaukee!
Workers, minorities, youth, confront the right-wing offensive!
[Photo: Pro-choice activists defending an abortion clinic in Buffalo, April 1992.]
Presidential candidate H. Ross Perot has been as vague as possible about what he would actually do if elected. Instead his campaign has been based on portraying himself as the heroic maverick, larger than life, the business genius who could set the country right. There is hype galore. But a look at the man behind the myth shows that he is no better than any other fat cat who has used his government connections to enrich himself.
The ultimate insider
Central to the Perot mystique is his portrayal as an outsider, above the corrupt world of Washington politics.
But when it comes to wheeling and dealing with politicians, Perot has few peers. Mr. Perot was a big financial backer of Watergate criminal Richard Nixon. Here's what then Nixon aide Peter Flanigan has to say about those days: "This business about him being an outsider is nonsense....He was the ultimate insider." Flanigan should know as he met over 40 times with Perot himself, and he recommended that Nixon let Perot lead a campaign in support of the Vietnam war.
Perot bought his way into the political elite. White House staff memos in 1969-70 describe Perot as one of Nixon's "financial angels" who was "to be stroked from time to time." Perot had the top official at his company, Electonic Data Systems (EDS), contribute a hefty $200,000 to Nixon's 1972 campaign. Perot even suggested spending $50 million to buy a newspaper and a television network to root for Nixon.
But the ultimate insider hustled both sides of the street. Before Nixon's presidency, Perot hobnobbed with Democratic president Lyndon Johnson. Later, in 1972, in the latter part of the Nixon years, Perot executives sent Democratic congressman Wilbur Mills of Arkansas some $100,000 to finance Mills' failed presidential ambitions. Then in 1974 Perot gave $90,000 each to the Republicans and Democrats.
More recently, Perot was tight with the Reagan administration, and he put in four years on Reagan's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. He also helped finance Bush and Quayle. But, still playing both sides, Perot's family fun- funneled $45,000 to Democratic congressmen in 1988.
If Perot is an "outsider," there are no insiders!
Plundering the government: the secret of Perot's success
But even before Perot was wealthy enough to have a lot of clout in Washington, he was adept at plundering the national treasury. This is one of the secrets behind Perot's business success.
Perot began to amass his fortune of over $3 billion on the basis of his computer services company, EDS. In 1965, EDS was just another minor business with pretax profits of only $26,478, about 3% of its revenues of $865,532. But EDS became a corporate giant in large part from government contracts. After Perot won non-competitive bids for the computer systems to process Medicare claims, its profits soared. By 1968, the profits had increased 92 times over and equaled an incredible 31.8% of revenues.
This rain of money came from highway robbery of federal funds. Perot charged the government nearly three times what Social Security officials estimated it really cost to process claims. Perot stonewalled government efforts to check his books. He brazenly claimed that he was really saving the government money, and told officials that the amount of money EDS was raking in was none of their business. It turns out that Perot's contract with the government omitted the standard clause allowing the government to check his figures.
This vast overcharge was not due to Perot doing a good job or hiring a lot of workers. Social Security officials complained that Perot's firm was grossly understaffed, and "claims are reviewed hastily and shoveled into the computer by the bushel by clerical employees and low-level examiners." (New YorkTimes, May 5, A13) This continued at least until 1980, and a congressional investigation revealed that backlogs on Medicare claims were so high that perhaps 100,000 unopened claims were lost or purposely destroyed. Perot simply enriched himself at the expense of overworked employees and people whose medical care depended on Medicare.
How Perot made his money was no concern to Wall Street investors, however. In 1968 EDS began to sell public shares. The first day, the value of EDS stock went through the roof and overnight Perot's holdings rose in value to $154 million. And Perot was off and running to billionaire status.
The real foundations of Perot's wealth were ruthless exploitation of his employees, cheating the government, and callous mistreatment of needy people.
Perot cashes in on his bribes
Despite all the investigations and complaints over the years, no serious action was taken against Perot's plunder of the federal treasury. He had friends in high places to protect him. His investments in politicians have proven quite profitable over the years.
Perot's ill-gotten wealth allowed him to spend freely buying favors from government officials. When the IRS challenged Perot's efforts to get EDS tax deductions for the salaries of EDS employees who worked on Nixon's 1968 presidential election campaign, Perot turned to Nixon. White House memos say the administration was "modestly helpful" in making a deal between the IRS and Perot. When the Social Security Administration withheld over $300,000 from EDS for overcharging, the Nixon administration twisted arms and the money was released. The Nixon regime also helped Perot by awarding him no-bid contracts in violation of the law and, according to memos, "tried to intercede on Perot's behalf' after EDS lost a $1 million Medicare contract in California.
Perot also used his influence in an attempt to win what Time magazine said "might have been the largest one-time tax break in history." (May 25, p. 34) This happened in 1975, when Democratic Congressman Phil Landrum of Georgia added an amendment to a tax bill. The amendment was designed to enrich Perot, and it passed easily in the House Ways and Means Committee, where 12 members had received $27,000 from Perot in contributions. But the amendment became a public scandal, Perot himself had to disavow it, and the amendment was later removed.
Perot's plunder of the government treasury never ceased. In the last few years, Perot parlayed his financial contributions to former Congressman Jim Wright (Democrat of Texas) and others into government support for a new airport in Fort Worth, Texas. The state and federal governments have spent over $140 million on the Fort Worth Alliance airport, and Perot is pressing for another $240 million. Perot says he donated some land for the airport itself, but it just so happens that the Perot family owns the land around the airport and stands to make $1 billion from the deal.
And let's not forget that EDS got yet another no-bid contract in 1988. This one was with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), and EDS was to make recommendations on making the USPS more efficient (read: slash employees and services). Why, all EDS wanted in return was half the money allegedly saved. If EDS's past history with Medicare was any indication, EDS would have claimed it was saving huge sums for the Postal Service even if the price of service tripled. But there was an outcry, the contract became a scandal, and it was eventually canceled.
Perot, savior of failing business?
Perot likes to pretend that he, can make any company work, and the entire capitalist system work. But if Perot has some miracle cure for business, it will come as news to the Wall Street firm he attempted to rescue in 1970. Perot took over ownership of the duPont Glore Forgan brokerage house that year and installed his own managers. Four years later, the firm was dead. Perot lost $60 million. Poor H. Ross didn't fare so well without Uncle Sam lifting his bootstraps for him.
As well, there was the ill-fated romance between Perot and General Motors. In 1984 Perot sold EDS to GM for $2.5 billion. With a seat on GM's board of directors, Perot was supposed to breathe life into the faltering corporate giant. Perot came up with the analysis that GM had problems with a lumbering bureaucracy, which everyone already knew. Perot had a loud mouth however, and fell out with the other GM honchos over who will wield the whip. The result: GM wasn't changed, but Perot walked off with another $700 million for a buyout of his GM shares.
A can-do figure abroad?
Another fable about Perot presents him as the savior of two EDS employees imprisoned in Iran. Actually, they were in jail because of Perot's corruption.
Perot had just landed a contract to computerize the Iranian health services, thanks to several million dollars in bribes to an Iranian official close to the Shah. But the deal broke down after the Shah fled the country, and two EDS employees were arrested for bribery.
But Perot's cozy relationship with the murderous Shah is glossed over by his image-makers who instead tout his allegedly brilliant plan to rescue the two employees. It turns out that Perot's scheme had little to do with their release. True Perot hired retired Colonel "Bull" Simons to organize a commando raid on the jail. But as the commandos plotted in an Iranian hotel room, an anti-Shah riot took place (it took the better part of a year after the Shah fled before his regime was finally broken), apparently organized partly by an Iranian employee of EDS. The jailed EDS employees escaped with thousands of other inmates as the people stormed the jail. If anything, the credit should go not to Perot, but to the anti-Shah sentiment of the common people of Iran.
Perot has a penchant for secret imperialist conspiracies abroad. He has been involved in some of the dirtiest covert activities of the Reagan administration. He had repeated dealings with Iran-contra criminal Oliver North, for example.
Honest and straightforward?
But what about Perot's vaunted honesty and straightforwardness? When he is confronted with questions about his past shady practices today, he slips and slides like any other sleazy politician.
When Perot is confronted by his swindling of the government he brazenly says that he really saved the government money.
When Perot was questioned about EDS cheating on taxes, he claims that he never tried to make phoney deductions on his personal taxes.
When Perot is asked about why he offered big bucks to Nixon, he simply denies this despite the thorough documentation in White House memos.
When Perot got $700 million for bowing out from GM, he said that he "cannot accept" such money at a time when GM was closing 11 plants, putting 30,000 people out of work. He put the money in escrow -- and then took it out, and pocketed it. To hell with the 30,000 workers.
For someone running on honesty, efficiency, and independence, Perot doesn't have a leg to stand on.
[Photo/box: "This business about him being an outsider is nonsense.... He's the ultimate insider." So says former Nixon aide Peter Flanigan, who had met over 40 times with Perot. White House memos in 1969-70 describe Perot as one of Nixon's "financial angels" who was "to be stroked from time to time."]
The anti-abortion bullies of Operation Rescue (OR) boasted that it would stop all abortions in Buffalo in a "Spring of Life" to start in mid-April. It was going to mobilize from across the country to shut down all the clinics and terrorize all the doctors and patients.
But things turned out differently. Day after day, hundreds of supporters of women's rights showed up in front of clinics and defended them against OR. All together, thousands of people came out to clinics and demonstrations to denounce OR and defend women's right to choice. We reported in our last issue "from the front lines in Buffalo" how OR was forced to close up shop after only two weeks and call off its siege of Buffalo.
This has galvanized the pro-choice activists in Buffalo. Confrontations have continued with local OR forces who still go to clinics. But now the clinic defenders are more spirited than they were prior to the "Spring of Life." There is more shouting of slogans, and a defiant "in your face" denunciation of the holy bullies. More activists have come out for clinic defense than previously, and this despite the fact that it was often mistakenly announced that no actions were planned.
After the siege
The first week after the collapse of OR's "Spring of Life," it was rather quiet at the clinics. Only 40 holy bullies went to the Main Street clinic and 215 to the High Street clinic. The clinic defenders numbered a hundred, and this despite the fact that the main clinic defense coalition, Buffalo United for Choice (BUC), did not organize any clinic defense that week. Compared to clinic defenses prior to the "Spring of Life," this was a threefold increase in the numbers of pro-choice activists.
The following week, OR puffed itself up for a big push, boasting it would get 2,000 people. It managed to get 450 on Saturday to the Main Street clinic; this includes 150 people who had been in jail for blocking the clinic in nearby Amherst, but were released. There were only 30 clinic defenders, but they were resolute and successfully protected as much space in front of the clinic as they could occupy. OR didn't attempt to block the clinic.
Eventually the police also arrived, and they put up barricades. But was this any help? The police barricades cut the pro-choice forces in two parts, and resulted in forcing any woman who entered the clinic to walk past a gauntlet of OR bullies. This angered the clinic defenders, who denounced the police. The police told some BUC leaders who were present to cool out the clinic defenders, but it didn't work. At one point an anti-abortion "sidewalk counselor" came close to the clinic door, within a fifteen foot area being defended by the activists. She was pushed back by clinic defenders and denounced, whereupon the police gave her an escort out.
The next Saturday was pretty quiet: there were about 50 clinic defenders and 50 holy bullies. The defenders came out despite an erroneous announcement on the BUC hotline that there would be no clinic defense that weekend.
To confront or not to confront
Last time we reported that the pro-choice forces in Buffalo were divided into several trends. There were those who preferred to leave things to the police, and who opposed confronting OR. This included especially the Pro-Choice Network, which opposed people going to the clinics, and NOW, which held that those who go to the clinics should be quiet and passive and not confront the clinic attackers. The victory over OR took place because a different view became widespread, and many activists came out to confront OR and defend the clinics through mass action. BUC itself, the main coalition coordinating the clinic defense, contained varying views. Many BUC leaders wanted to come to the clinics, but follow the line of non-confrontation. In practice, however, clinic defense inevitably turned militant. As time wore on, more and more activists took part in confronting OR.
The inspiring victory of mass clinic defense over the "Spring of Life" showed the value of mass action and militancy. But the differences continue. Many activists in BUC are determined to continue the policy of mass action. But a number of leaders want to go back into the arms of the establishment women's groups like NOW and NARAL.
For example, a BUC leader who is also local leader of a reformist group (the Workers' World Party), advocated that "now that OR's been defeated, there is no reason to keep BUC going." His reasoning was that BUC used to have a "non-violent, non-confrontation approach," but "there has been a change in that orientation by the activists over the last few weeks." He was referring to the defeat of OR by mass clinic defense. Instead of being encouraged by the new spirit of the pro-choice forces, he preferred to dissolve BUC altogether.
A number of activists, including supporters of the Marxist-Leninist Party, denounced this approach to repudiate the tactics that defeated OR. It is precisely the new orientation that saved Buffalo from suffering the fate of Wichita. It is precisely the new orientation that inspired the clinic defenders and demoralized OR. A vote was taken in BUC, and it essentially favored the more militant approach to clinic defense.
Build on the victories of April!
The inspiring defeat of OR in April didn't mean that the battle was over, but instead showed that it is possible to defeat OR with mass action.
But it also showed that the class differences in the movement won't go away. The leaders of NOW and NARAL didn't change their minds after seeing the victory of militancy; this is because their opposition to militancy is simply a symptom of their attachment to the establishment, of their desire to gain access to ruling class circles. The reformist leaders of WWP and others in BUC who want to trail NOW didn't change their minds either.
But the success in April strengthened the spirit of pro-choice defenders. If it is to be a lasting victory, and not a flash in the pan, the defenders of women's rights must base their struggle on the interests of the working class movement, and they must be prepared to stand against the influence of the establishment leaders.
In pre-dawn darkness on Monday, May 18, the "right-to-life" movement set off a powerful bomb in downtown Toronto to destroy the health clinic of Dr. Henry Morgentaler. Over $500,000 of damage was done, and the building was gutted.
Morgentaler is a well-known doctor who has fought for the right of Canadian women to have abortions if they so desire. He has set up clinics in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Edmonton, Alberta; and St. John's, Newfoundland; as well as the one in Toronto, Ontario. He has refused to be intimidated, and has already announced plans to build a new clinic in Toronto.
1,500 pro-choice activists marched in Toronto to denounce the clinic bombing. There was a contingent of activists from nearby Buffalo, New York, just as earlier a number of Toronto activists had gone to Buffalo to help fight Operation Rescue (OR).
"Right-to-life" has always relied on intimidation and terrorism. Besides its blockades of clinics and harassment of patients and its intimidation of doctors and their children outside their homes, it is connected to many bombings and shootings. For example, other clinic bombings took place in Columbus, Ohio and Ashland, Oregon in April, while in September last year a doctor had his home and barn firebombed in Omaha, Nebraska. And last December, a man walked into a clinic in Springfield, Missouri, looking for a doctor performing abortions, and began shooting.
The Toronto clinic bombing may be related to the flop of Operation Rescue's "Spring of Life" in Buffalo. OR had puffed itself up for a month-long regional campaign to close the Buffalo clinics in April, but it was a sorry failure. OR was outnumbered from the start by pro- choice activists in front of Buffalo-area clinics; it failed to close any clinic; and its outside forces finally slunk away after two weeks. But since then, there has been a rash of "right-to-life" vandalism. Four pro-choice activists had their cars trashed. Three clinics had their locks glued shut. And now there is the bomb in Toronto.
[Graphic.]
Thousands of people converged on Hamlet, North Carolina May 2. They came out to protest the deaths of poultry workers in the fire at the Imperial Food Products plant eight months ago.
The marchers chanted demands for the jailing of Emmett Roe, the owner of Imperial Food Products, and his son, Brad Roe, who managed the Hamlet plant. The Roes, claiming the low-wage workers at the plant might steal chickens, had fire exits padlocked. When a fire broke out last September, workers were trapped behind fire exits. 25 were killed and another 52 were injured.
Unfortunately, the Hamlet march was dominated by AFL-CIO union bureaucrats. Instead of calling for plant battles for safety, they lectured workers about electing Democrats to win new safety laws. The AFL-CIO leadership recently endorsed the candidacy of Bill Clinton for president. But Clinton is well known for his close ties to poultry billionaires in Arkansas and his record for leaving anti-union "right to work" laws untouched. Fat chance that he will reform anything.
But the masses who came out to protest were angry and ready for a fight. As one marcher put it, "If you think what happened to Rodney King started something, let Emmett Roe get off and see what happens in Hamlet!"
[Photo.]
The Optical Character Reader (OCR) department at the Fort St. General Mail Facility (GMF) in Detroit is about seven years old. Like the rest of the work force, these workers are supposed to be passive slaves, toiling their lives away for the bureaucrats until they burn out from injuries or retire worn out like an old shoe.
But this very month the supposedly apathetic slaves on the afternoon shift did not look so passive. They spearheaded a drive which printed up and sold almost 600 buttons carrying the slogans "JUSTICE FOR RODNEY KING! PUNISH BRUTAL COPS! UNITE AGAINST RACISM!" The button slogans were planned in the department the day after the King verdict came in. The OCR workers had worked together with Detroit Workers' Voice before, and this time too, consulted DWV on their plans.
The buttons quickly spread to other departments. Some workers took as many as 40. New unity was cemented between black and white, career workers and casuals, and between different departments. Discussions raged condemning the courts and police and over what path the struggle should take.
Part way through the button drive, a racist suburban court sentenced a well-liked, young black male OCR casual to 45-75 days in jail for driving with a suspended license. The activist OCR workers immediately decided to devote the button sale proceeds to getting him out. Collections were also taken up among the casual and career workers. Within six days his $350 fine was paid and he was back to work.
Today, new controversy is raging in this postal department, as the vast majority of afternoon career workers have signed a petition demanding the removal of the new general supervisor, a flighty, nosey tyrant who makes their life miserable.
The activist workers on OCR afternoons try to take a stand on many major political and economic issues.
In the past few months, the OCR workers took other actions. When 25 casuals were threatened with firing for walking out on overtime, a majority of the career workers signed a petition in protest. On the day the South African government held its whites-only referendum on the right of blacks to vote, a majority of OCR afternoon workers, black and white, wore buttons in protest. Last winter, two OCR workers organized a clothing drive for the homeless, which caught on through the whole building.
A core of OCR workers meet informally when needed. They planned the button slogans and the petition to remove the general supervisor.
(Report from "Detroit Workers' Voice", newspaper of MLP-Detroit)
[Graphic.]
On May 27th, 1,700 nurses, cooks, medical techs and housekeepers at Summit Medical Center in Oakland went out on strike. The striking workers are organized into five different unions. They are demanding the right to hold sympathy strikes honoring each other's picket lines. As well, they are demanding that their contracts expire on the same date.
To press their demands, the workers have organized militant mass picket lines where they have been shouting slogans, blocking delivery trucks and confronting scabs who've been brought in from out of town by the Summit administration. Workers also held a spirited rally of 400 on May 28 in front of the hospital.
Summit Medical Center was recently formed by a merger between Merritt Peralta and Providence Hospitals. Since the merger, the workers have been hit with layoffs, short staffing, speedup, supply shortages and increasing overwork. This has led to deteriorating conditions for the workers and the patients.
(Taken from "Bay Area Workers' Voice,"paper of MLP-S.F. Bay Area.)
A striking Kroger supermarket meat- cutter was charged by police May 9 with "consuming food in an un-zoned area" in Troy, Michigan. If convicted, he could face 90 days in jail and a $500 fine. His crime? He ate a Dairy Queen ice cream while walking through the Kroger parking lot on his way back to his picket line.
Over 200 strikers picketed against this outrage on May 14. They also ate ice cream cones and dared the Troy police to arrest them. The police decided not to enforce their obscure zoning ordinance that day.
Now in the second month of their strike, the spirit of the Kroger workers remains high. Mass picketing continues. And public support for the strike remains firm.
(Based on May 21 "Detroit Workers' Voice," paper of MLP-Detroit)
500 people from all over the Northwest gathered in Burlington, Washington on May 3 to support the hard-pressed farm workers. The seven-mile march decried the lousy housing, low pay, unsafe conditions, and other outrages imposed on the farm workers. It demanded that owners of Chateau St. Michelle wines stop their refusal to bargain and concede to farm workers' demands. A boycott has been called of these "award winning," overpriced yuppie table wines.
Over 200 Mexican flower vendors marched to city hall May 4 against police brutality in New York City. In the last two years, police have stepped up actions against the 1,000 flower vendors in the city, who are mostly undocumented Mexican immigrants. Vendors report that even if they are not arrested they are issued a $1,000 fine. Many vendors have reported beatings and the use of racist language by the police.
A strike by 600 drivers forced the two daily Pittsburgh newspapers to stop publishing. Drivers for the Post-Gazette and The Pittsburgh Press walked off their jobs in mid-May. They had worked without a contract since January 1, and are fighting against a plan to eliminate 450 jobs.
On May 14, workers at the Rainbow Room restaurant in New York City walked off their jobs to protest the owners' refusal to negotiate a contract. Last December they organized into a union. They complain that management has been reducing health benefits, taking a percentage of workers' tips, and laying people off. During the busy season, however, they are expected to work 18-hour shifts. Three workers have been fired for union organizing.
But the owners of this posh landmark in Rockefeller Center are now feeling the heat from the strike. Several banquets have been canceled to avoid the picketers.
With the acquittal of the racist L.A. cops in the beating of Rodney King, angry protests erupted across the San Francisco Bay Area. Demonstrations swept the streets of Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond, San Jose and other cities. Hundreds marched onto 1-80 and shut down the Bay Bridge. College, high school and junior high school students rallied and marched. This was an outpouring of anger and disgust at the racist verdict, and a number of sharp confrontations with the police resulted.
State of emergency
This was the first big test for the new regime in City Hall. Mayor Frank Jordan, former police chief and darling of the business community, was going to show his stuff. And it was an even bigger test for his brand new police chief. In March, when Richard Hongisto was tapped for police chief, it looked like a signal from Jordan that he was willing to promote blacks in the police department and to make some concessions to the minority and gay communities. Hongisto came in with a reputation as one of the most liberal politicians in the city; on the Board of Supervisors he was known for promoting such causes as gay rights and affirmative action. But as the new police chief, Hongisto was going to prove that he was one tough cop.
As the Rodney King protests swelled, Jordan and Hongisto announced a new "get tough" policy on demonstrations. A state of emergency was declared Thursday night, putting a virtual ban on the right of assembly and slapping a 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew on the city. Hongisto led the charge of more than 700 police. They broke, up the protests, arrested 1,100 people, holding hundreds in makeshift jails for days.
On Friday, May 1, people rallied at City Hall to protest the racist verdict and condemn the police state suppression of their rights. Hongisto and Jordan responded with a further crack down. When demonstrators began assembling in the Mission hours before the curfew, Hongisto declared the assembly illegal under the state of emergency. The police began a sweep, arresting anyone on the street: workers on their way home, shoppers, people at bus stops along with those who had come to protest. Another 580 people were arrested.
By Saturday, Hongisto and Jordan were basking in the praise of San Francisco's wealthy elite. The corporate media saluted the new "get tough police tactics." What a triumph for the tourist industry! What a success for Nordstrom's and the rest of big business! This was supposed to be a lesson for police departments across the country: Don't let niceties like "freedom of assembly," "freedom of speech" or "due process" get in your way. If you have problems with unruly protests, declare everything illegal, sweep the streets, and pack the jails.
State of emergency lifted, crackdown continued
But all was not well. Heavy handed tactics were only provoking more anger. Over objections from Jordan and Hongisto, the Board of Supervisors voted to lift the state of emergency. Angela Aliotto and other liberals on the board muttered concern about protecting civil liberties. Too bad these fine ladies and gentlemen hadn't shown such concern when they had voted for the state of emergency in the first place, giving Hongisto a blank check for the police rampage against the people. Several hundred protesters, inside and outside the meeting, voiced their anger at the board, the mayor and police chiefs
One week later on May 8, an anti-racist march was organized in the Mission. As it made its way through the Castro District, the march was abruptly declared illegal by the police and 320 people were arrested. The police claimed that the march had veered from the pre-arranged route between Dolores Park and Duboce Park. Organizers and even press reports dispute this claim. Either way, the SFPD was letting it be known that it didn't need a state of emergency, or hardly any excuse at all, to smash up progressive protest.
Seizing newspapers
Meanwhile, that same night, Hongisto urged the police to remove from their racks copies of a free newspaper. On the front page of the gay newspaper Bay Times there was a collage of Hongisto in a police uniform with a billy club coming out of his crotch. The headline read: "Martial law: Dick's cool new tool." This was too much for the martial law commander and he lost his cool. The top SFPD brass ratted on Hongisto. Some 2,000 copies of the "inflammatory" paper were found in a cop's garage.
The city fathers were not pleased. Smashing up noisy protests looks good for business. Stealing newspapers is bad for business (including expensive lawsuits). Martial law tactics against demonstrations was necessary to protect "private property." But pilfering newspapers? Hongisto went from hero to goat. He was quickly fired by the police commission.
Hongisto is gone. That is a victory for all those who came into the street to protest the injustice of the Rodney King verdict. But the ruling class has not backed off its "get tough" policy. There will be more teams like Jordan and Hongisto: conservative and liberal coming together to issue martial law tactics against the people.
( Excerpted from the June 1 "Bay Area Workers' Voice," newspaper of the MLP-San Francisco Bay Area.)
[Photo: 2000 march in San Francisco May 17 against mass arrests and police repression of the anti-racist movement.]
The May issue of The Workers' Advocate reported on many of the demonstrations and other actions that broke out immediately after the acquittal of four cops who had brutally beaten Rodney King. Below are reports of additional actions that we received since the last paper. There were, however, too many actions to mention them all. Protests in some cities continued into the middle of May. And further demonstrations have been planned for this month. June 19th has been called as a day of country-wide protests for justice for Rodney King.
The West
* California: The San Francisco Bay Area has seen huge protests including the takeover of the Bay Bridge reported in our last issue. Protests continued in May against the police repression there. (See separate article below.) In San Diego, 500 university students blocked Interstate 5 for about two hours. In Santa Cruz, students marched on police headquarters. In San Jose, 300 protesters marched to the Federal Building even after police tried to block their way. In Los Angeles itself protests have continued. On May 26, for example, more than 100 people marched through the south- central area demanding amnesty for the people arrested during the rioting.
* Washington: In Seattle, over 500 people rallied at the University of Washington. And several hundred marched downtown via the freeway 1-5, blocking traffic all the way. (For more details see the report in the May 20 issue of the Workers' Advocate Supplement.) In Olympia, hundreds of protesters took over the state capital rotunda.
* Oregon: In Portland, over 800 students and workers attended a noon-time rally at Portland State University. Demonstrators seized the Federal Building in Eugene.
* Nevada: Las Vegas was the scene of days of violent protests. Many fires were set and there was some looting and shootings. Despite the National Guard being called in, and a state of emergency declared, protests continued through May 16.
* Elsewhere in the west: In Albuquerque, New Mexico 700 students and others held a noon-time rally May 1. In Boise, Idaho, 200 people protested inside the State Capital Building. And in Salt Lake City, Utah 100 mostly young people protested on May 1 against the King verdict.
The South
* Alabama: Anger exploded in the black community in Mobile following both the news of the King verdict and word that police had murdered a black man at a bar on the city's north side. Police claimed the black man had wounded a woman in the bar. But ballistics reports showed it was a police bullet that wounded her. Rioting broke out in one of the housing projects. For several hours police were under siege, one cop was shot in the arm, and several patrol cars were sprayed with bullets. 33 adults and a number of youth were arrested before the night was over.
* Georgia: Police tear-gassed nearly 1,000 students at Morehouse college in Atlanta who were trying to march into the community. Five campuses were sealed off by the police in an attempt to stop further protests from breaking out. 350 people were arrested in three days of street fighting.
* Texas: Protesters took over the state capital building in Austin.
* Washington D.C.: On May 11, police arrested a Hispanic man for fighting in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood. This touched off several hours of window smashing and some looting. While Mount Pleasant is a largely Latino community, the crowd was mixed including Latinos, blacks and whites. This neighborhood was the site of three days of rioting last year after police shot and killed a Salvadoran immigrant.
The Midwest
* Minnesota: Demonstrations against the King verdict began immediately in Minneapolis with a protest of 300 people on April 30th. On May 2 a march through a community swelled to 6,000 on its way to a rally at City Hall.
On May 8th, in response to a rumor that a black teenager had been shot by either a white person or a cop, 500 people burst into the streets to protest. There were fights with the police, an attack on a TV news crew, and one shooting before it was over. Several cases of police brutality, and one of a police murder of a black suspect in February, has the black community on guard against more racist attacks.
* Ohio: 300 students mostly from Cleveland State University marched to the Justice Center. The next day, 100 people held a protest at Cleveland's City Hall.
The East
* New Jersey: Several demonstrations broke out May 1, including one involving 500 students at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. 400 students walked out of their classes in Montclair. There were at least three high school protests in Jersey City. In Newark, nearly 300 high school students marched through the city May 4th, stopping traffic on the way. And the next day, protest of 250 mainly black youth chanted "From Teaneck to L.A., no justice in the USA." A Teaneck cop was recently let off for the 1990 murder of a black teenager, Philip Pannell.
* Massachusetts: There were buildingtakeovers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, at Hampshire College and Amherst College. The protests demanded an end to racism on campus. A thousand students and faculty from Williams College marched 23 miles to Pittsfield to protest the King verdict.
* Connecticut: Thousands of Bridgeport High School students marched to protest the racist verdict. In Hartford, 300 high school students walked out and marched two miles to City Hall. In New Haven protesters marched on City Hall too.
* Pennsylvania: In Pittsburgh some 2,000 people marched May 2 to the Federal Building and held a rally.
As soon as the riots in Los Angeles began, the American justice system swung into action. Were the police and courts, backed up by the military, mobilized to deal with the torturers of Rodney King? Oh no, they attacked the black and Latino masses. Everything about the way they dealt with the rioters simply confirms, once again, what the Rodney King verdict showed -- the system is racist to the core. If you're rich, or a paid stooge of the rich like the cops who beat Rodney King, then the system bends over backward to take care of you. But if you're poor or a minority, and especially if you're both poor and a minority -- then you can forget about justice in this country.
L.A. under siege
The repression began with a massive invasion of South Central and East Los Angeles. Some 13,000 National Guard, Army and Marine troops were sent into Los Angeles. There were also some 5,000 cops from California agencies like the highway patrol and county sheriffs. About 1,000 federal agents, including FBI and Border Patrol, were sent in to help formulate charges and to identify and arrest rioters. All this in addition to L.A.'s 8,000 police. Many neighborhoods were surrounded by military roadblocks and checkpoints, where soldiers crouched behind sandbags, automatic weapons at the ready, checking ID on anyone trying to get through. Armored personnel carriers roamed the streets along with armed patrols, and military tanks surrounded government buildings.
Los Angeles was put under martial law, with four days of dusk-to-dawn curfew. Afterwards many people had stories of unjust arrests: parents getting medicine for their children; homeless people waiting for a shelter to open; people walking home from work.
Besides arresting those caught on the street after dusk, the police conducted regular raids of groups they considered to be riot-prone. Homeless people were swept off the streets. Latino workers were grabbed in indiscriminate raids and many of them deported. (See accompanying article.)
And after the street fighting had subsided, police went house to house in targeted areas supposedly looking for stolen goods. Breaking into people's homes without search warrants, the cops would demand receipts for anything that looked new. If the receipts weren't immediately forthcoming, these thieves in blue would simply make off with people's furniture, clothes and electronic merchandise. Of course the media hailed this as "recovering stolen goods."
Many people were hit by police bullets. The cops and National Guard themselves admit to having killed 13 people, while trying to blame other deaths on "cross-fire." There are even reports of police cars shooting into homes as they cruised through the neighborhoods.
Witch-hunt against rioters
After the first roundups, arrests, and shootings, the court system sprang into action to do its part. The problem: find charges that will stick against 16,000 people, the population of a small city. Get them booked, get them processed, collect bail, and make it look like some kind of orderly system of justice is at work.
Of the 16,000 arrested, nearly 3,000 were charged with felonies such as murder, arson, and robbery. Among those facing misdemeanor charges, the city courts were offering "light sentences" if they pled guilty. For example, they offered "only" ten days in jail and a year's probation for those pleading guilty to a curfew violation. That's ten days in jail for being homeless or simply being outside, in one's own neighborhood, in the evening. Those pleading guilty to looting, if they had no previous police record, were "offered" the supposedly light sentence of 30 days in jail. Thirty days in jail for shoplifting, first offense!
Many of those charged with looting got the more serious charge of felony burglary, for which they must post a bond of $5,000 before they can leave jail. Many of the poor will thus spend months in jail awaiting trial.
Los Angeles courts were swamped by the crowd of people arrested during the riots. To make sure the courts got time to charge everyone involved, the California legislature passed an emergency law allowing them seven days, instead of the usual two, to arraign people. The bill was passed without a single dissenting vote in both houses of the legislature. In a direct violation of the U.S. constitution (which prohibits ex post facto laws), the new law was applied to people who had been arrested before the bill was passed. But who cares about constitutional niceties when the importance of defending racism is called into question?
L.A. police suspend political rights
While persecuting all those suspected of rioting, the government moved fast to crush any political dissent, even that unconnected to the rioting.
Police broke up a May 9 demonstration in L.A. called to oppose Governor Pete Wilson's proposed budget cuts in welfare, AFDC, etc. This demonstration had been planned well before the King verdict. After the riots broke out, the organizers checked with city hall to make sure they still had permission to demonstrate, and city hall re-approved their permits. But when they arrived at the site, police ordered them to disperse and arrogantly declared, "We run the city." About 20 people refused to disperse and were arrested.
Police also banned a number of earlier protests. On May 2, for example, they called off a rally that had been planned by a church group to protest the Rodney King verdict. Despite the cancellation, hundreds of people showed up for the rally anyway. They were immediately surrounded by National Guard troops and arrested. All of them were listed as looters and charged with felony burglary. L.A. police and county sheriffs also went after certain leftist groups, targeting them as instigators of the rebellion. Yes, you are ensured freedom of speech to criticize the government in America -- but only as long as you don't say anything that someone might take seriously.
The government's reaction to the riots shows that American government at all levels -- city, county, state, and federal -- is thoroughly racist. And it shows that constitutional democracy is just a veneer to cover the police-state dictatorship of the rich racists. All the so-called guarantees of civil and political rights get quickly thrown out the window when the bourgeoisie feels that the situation is dangerous for them.
[Photo: Two faces of L.A.: Poverty among the black masses and troops to keep the people in their place.]
While carrying out savage repression against the black masses of Los Angeles, the government carried out a war against the Latino population as well. The government at all levels put into effect an emergency plan to rid Los Angeles of many immigrants, and to terrorize the whole Latino population.
Racist crusade against "illegals"
Right at the beginning of the riots, L.A. police chief Daryl Gates fingered "illegal aliens" as "major participants" in the rioting. His statements were backed up by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). And the media joined the lynch party: one news reporter, showing video of Hispanic-looking people looting stores, declared that many of the rioters "appeared to be" illegal aliens.
Meanwhile Bush's Secretary of Labor, Lynn Martin, declared on NBC-TV's morning show Today that "30% of those arrested for looting" were "illegal aliens." It turned out later, of course, that this figure was nothing but a big lie. But Martin's statements, along with those of Gates and the INS, show that there was an organized, racist campaign to scapegoat Mexican and Central American immigrants, and indeed any Latino who "appeared to be" an immigrant.
Arrests and mass deportations
And the campaign didn't stop at mere words. Under Gates' orders the police set out to arrest thousands of Latinos and to deport as many as they could.
In the past, the LAPD had a policy (set by city ordinance) of making the INS do their own work, and not turning immigrants over to them. That policy was simply dumped during the rebellion. Gates and his goons set up an INS office right inside a police station, and began turning over Hispanic-looking people to them. The INS has reported that it took 944 immigrants into custody. And they deported 781 of them so far. Meanwhile others are awaiting hearings.
Many of those grabbed up and deported were arrested, not for looting, arson, or any other criminal activity, but simply for violating the mayor's curfew -- or for suspicion of violating the curfew. During the riots and immediately afterward, police raided the homes of many Latinos and simply rounded up groups of people under the charge that "they had heard" these people violated the curfew.
One of the more underhanded methods was to pick up groups of day laborers, workers who gather at a certain point on the street waiting to be picked up for temporary employment. LAPD officers were picking up groups of laborers and driving them directly to the INS. In a number of cases those picked up were able to prove they were U.S. citizens, and were released; the others were immediately deported. Frequently, the INS refused lawyers access to the people they detained.
As well, at least one of the people killed during the riots was a Salvadoran man. He drove his car near a roadblock after curfew on May 3 and then sped off, apparently trying to escape detention and deportation. National Guard troops shot up his car and killed him as he tried to drive away.
Who are the real looters?
Bush and Congress, the news media and "respectable" leaders, are portraying poor working people in L.A. as "criminals" and "hoodlums." Why, they looted the stores, and even laughed about it.
But when you look at the list of most stolen items -- like diapers, baby formula, tortillas and other necessities -- it is clear that these arc not some evil gangsters preying on some good property owners.
No, most of them were working people -- slaving at poverty pay or unemployed and hungry -- who were crying out for relief, for change.
Punish the billionaire looters
If anyone should be punished it is the real looters -- the capitalist money bags and corrupt politicians -- who have been living high on the hog off the impoverishment of the working masses.
Let us punish the S&L robbers, and the politicians in their hip pockets, who are snatching some $500 billion from the taxpayers' pockets.
Let us punish the bankers and Wall Street financial tycoons who are looting $268 billion every year from the federal treasury just to pay off the interest on the public debt.
Let us punish the corporate owners who exploit fortunes out of the sweat and blood of the workers and then turn around to grab billions more in tax breaks and other incentives from the government.
Get organized
Of course the punishment of the real looters will take more than a spontaneous outburst of despair, no matter how justified. The workers and oppressed must get organized and consciously target the capitalist system.
Many outbursts of mass desperation have been accompanied by looting. But for revolutionary struggle to be successful, the masses must learn to go beyond snatching merchandise from small store owners who often are only slightly more well-off. They must target the billionaires, the big capitalist bosses, the ruling class that controls the government and makes its fortune off the exploitation of the masses.
And to do this they must build up organization in the factories and other work places, in the neighborhoods and in the schools. Not organization tied to the sellout union bureaucrats, who have been caving in to mass layoffs and concession drives. Not organization dedicated to electing another honey-mouthed politician. But organization based on the actual demands of the workers. Organization built up in actual mass struggle against racism and police terror and for jobs and healthcare and childcare and a decent living. Organization, independent of the politicians and "respectable" leaders, uniting workers of every race in a struggle for their own, working class interests.
The outpouring of rage in L.A. chased the cops from the streets, and put the masses in charge, if only for a short time. It allowed the poor workers to hold their heads high and let their needs and aspirations be heard across the country. But to actually meet those needs, we must go forward to build up an organized and conscious struggle against the whole rotten capitalist system.
It seems there is no lie too big for the Bush government. Was the outpouring of mass rage in L.A. a cry against the racist police and the terrible unemployment and poverty? Oh no, not according to Bush. Why he says the riots were the result of the social welfare programs enacted in the 1960's and 1970's.
He claims these social programs, sometimes called the "war on poverty" and the "Great Society," amounted to the "federal government dump[ing] largess on them." And that instead of federal spending, what is needed is to "weed out the drug dealers and career criminals" and to emphasize "personal responsibility," "family values," and "competition" from private capitalist enterprise. (New York Times, May 7)
Covering up for the offensive against the masses
But to blame policies from the 1960's and 70's is just to cover up the enormous job losses, wage-cutting, homelessness and impoverishment that have grown under the Reagan and Bush administrations.
In the 1980's the richest 1%of families snatched 60-70% of the increase in the country's income, while the bottom 40% of families saw their income plummet.
In L.A. itself more than 75,000 jobs disappeared between 1975 and 1985 and many more have been lost in the current recession. And in south-central Los Angeles, the heart of the uprising, more than 50% of the people aged 16 and older are without jobs and the official poverty rate is over 30% -- both figures are worse than they were at the time of the Watts rebellion in 1965.
Reagan and Bush have spent the 1980's making the masses pay for the high living of the rich, and no talk of bad programs from the 1960's can change that fact.
Justifying further cuts
But worse, Bush is trying to justify the slashing of the few meager benefits that are still left to the masses.
During the 1980's the Reagan and Bush government hacked direct aid to the cities by more than 60%. And now Bush is calling for more cuts -- a total reduction of some $3.6 billion from federal programs in 1993. This includes cuts in welfare, Medicare, money to build new public housing, etc.
Bush is also supporting the enormous slashing of social programs by the Republican governor of California, Pete Wilson. Right now Wilson is demanding a 25% cut in welfare payments to families with an "able-bodied" member, penalizing teenage mothers who drop out of school, and denying aid to new children born to a mother who is already on welfare. This is just the sort of "welfare reform" that Bush is after.
Meanwhile, the Democratic mayor of L.A., Tom Bradley, is also slashing social programs. A new round of $183 million in city cuts is to begin June 1. Bradley's budget includes things like eliminating another 2,100 city jobs through attrition, killing an afternoon childcare program for 8,700 children, slashing hours for recreation centers and more. Little wonder the masses are angry.
Make the rich pay!
The outburst in L.A. was a spontaneous protest against the government and the wealthy, a powerful cry that the needs of the working and poor masses must be met. But Bush is trying to smother that cry with police repression and ridiculous talk about the problems of social welfare programs.
To be sure the welfare programs that exist are no great shakes. They not only fail to provide enough benefits for people to get by, but they are run in the most demeaning, bureaucratic manner. But with joblessness soaring, and with unemployment and other benefits slashed to the bone, welfare benefits are the last refuge for many people. And even these meager benefits were not the product of the "largess" of the Democrats in the 1960's and 1970's. They were won by poor women who picketed and sat in across the country, and whose resistance to police repression ignited riots in several cities. And the benefits have been slashed repeatedly, year after year.
The outpouring of anger not only in L.A. but in many cities across the country shows that the spirit of mass struggle is again awakening. It must be organized into a powerful movement against racism and for jobs, healthcare, childcare and housing. And it must blame, not the social programs of the 1960's, but the filthy rich capitalists. It must declare: No more cuts! Make the rich pay!
[Photo: L.A. marchers denounce chief racist Bush during his recent visit.]
Congress is now debating relief for the ghettos of L.A. and other cities. But no one should expect too much from it.
Although Senate Democrats have called for a $1.45 billion summer job and education program, there is little hope that even this short-term program will get through Congress. And Democratic leaders are conceding that Bush is right that the government can't throw money at the problems. As Democratic House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt put it, "I think what we learned from the War on Poverty is that you can't run things from the top down."(Business Week, May 18) The talk of not "running things from the top down" is just the current code words to oppose the government providing direct relief to working and poor people.
In the present atmosphere, there is even some skepticism about whether Congress will pass the measures called or by Bush and Jack Kemp for enterprise zones and privatizing public housing and education. House Republican whip, Newt Gingrich of Georgia, recently declared: "There's a unanimous feeling on our side that this is not a time to drive up the deficit and raise up interest rates...and it's not the time to raise taxes and cripple the recovery."(New York Times, May 20)
Congress is again crying that there's no money, that helping the poor will just run up the budget deficit. Of course they never think of taxing the rich to provide relief for the unemployed and impoverished workers. Heavens no, you can't touch big business.
But Congress is not shy about spending money for one thing -- more police terror against the masses. Democrats and Republicans alike heartily endorsed the sending of federal troops to clamp down on the minorities and poor in L.A., no matter its costs. And they are united behind Bush's call for another $500 million for more police repression in the name of "weeding out" drug dealers and other criminals from the ghettos. As Bush declared on May 7, "Families can't thrive, children can't learn, jobs can't flourish in a climate of fear, however. And so first is our responsibility to preserve the domestic order." Indeed, the politicians all applauded when Attorney General William Barr declared that they had to put $500 million more into police repression before delivering any new social services.
Although there is a lot of chatter today about helping the poor to help themselves, dealing with urban blight, and what not, it appears the bottom line is more police terror against the masses.
While President Bush denounces social welfare programs for the poor, he is offering up another welfare program for the rich. He claims the creation of enterprise zones will bring jobs and new life to the country's ghettos while costing taxpayers little or nothing. Not government handouts, but free capitalist enterprise -- that's what Bush says we need.
But this is just another piece of Reaganite "trickle down." Experience has shown that if such zones create any jobs at all they are principally low-wage, sweatshop work. Meanwhile, the rich capitalists are given more tax breaks and other handouts. Capitalism means nothing if it does not mean exploitation of the poor by the rich. And this is exactly the story with the much vaunted enterprise zones.
Welfare for the rich
Enterprise zones are designated areas in run-down city neighborhoods where businesses are given tax breaks and other incentives if they will expand or open up new operations. Since 1982 more than 600 such enterprise zones have been launched by 38 states, including five in Los Angeles itself. Bush's plan would, over the next four years, put some $1.9 billion in federal money behind creating at least another 50 such zones.
The Bush administration likes to tell a story of poor ghetto dwellers getting tax breaks, suddenly opening up new businesses, and becoming part of the "American dream." But this story is pure fiction. Working people don't have the income, and can't begin to get the loans, that would make the tax-breaks worth a cent. It won't make much difference even to the marginal small businesses. It is mainly those who are already rich who will benefit from this plan.
First, if a business expands or locates in a zone, Bush would eliminate their capital gains taxes on the sale of investments they made in the zone. As well, anyone who buys stock in companies in the zones would receive a tax deduction for up to $50,000 a year. What is this but more welfare for the rich?
Low-wage sweatshops
And what should people living in the ghettos expect? At most, low-wage sweatshop jobs. In fact, Bush expects the wages to be so low that he is offering tax incentives to convince workers to take the jobs.
Under Bush's plan, a worker would receive a 5% employment tax credit for the first $10,500 in wages he or she makes. If we are talking about full-time workers -- sweating 40 hours a week and 50 weeks a year -- then $10,500 amounts to only $5.25 an hour. That's 85 cents an hour short of what it would take to lift a family of four out of poverty. Bush's tax credit would add, at most, only 26 cents more an hour. So while a rich investor gets a $50,000 tax deduction a worker gets only 26 cents an hour. Such is Bush's help for the poor.
Oh to be sure some of the businesses may have some higher paying skilled jobs. But those won't go to inner city workers. Experience with the zones already created has proven that the skilled work goes to those who already have the training. And they live mostly outside the ghettos. The city dwellers will continue to suffer in poverty, with a few given the right to be super-exploited by the capitalists.
Will any jobs be created?
And there is a real question whether any new jobs will be created by this plan.
Jack Kemp, Bush's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, claims that the enterprise zones that already exist have saved or created 180,000 jobs. But a series of studies cast doubt on that claim. Studies of Maryland zones by the General Accounting Office, of New Jersey zones by a John Jay College economics professor, of Philadelphia zones by the state of Pennsylvania, and others found they could not attribute job gains to the enterprise-zone programs.
As well, it has been found that often jobs opened up in a zone are simply taken from another impoverished area. The supposedly successful Liberty City enterprise zone in Miami got some of its jobs from a depressed area of Brooklyn.
And many of the zones simply have not helped at all. During the period a zone was operating in the Watts neighborhood of L.A., unemployment actually rose. Unemployment for black teenagers still hovers at 60% in Baltimore's enterprise zone. In a zone in Benton Harbor, Michigan, the community's official unemployment rate remains a high 28%. And in Philadelphia's zone, official black unemployment remains above 15%.
Obviously, enterprise zones are no answer to the unemployment and. wage- cutting that are rampant across the country.
A boondoggle
Nevertheless, Democratic Party politicians and many "respectable" black leaders are rallying to the call for enterprise zones.
Mayor Tom Bradley responded to the L.A. riots by saying, among other things, "Now maybe Congress will pass the enterprise zone bill and get some jobs into the inner city." (WashingtonPost National Weekly Edition, May 11-17) Bill Tidwell, the director of research for the Urban League, declared that "Enterprise zones are an idea whose time has come." (New York Times, May 25) Charles Rangel, a leader in the Congressional Black Caucus, actually introduced Jack Kemp's bill for enterprise zones back in 1990 and continues to back them.
Meanwhile, the congressional leadership of the Democratic Party has promised to quickly pass an enterprise zone bill. Indeed, they have come out in favor of Bush's entire urban policy. The Democrats Senate majority leader, Speaker of the House and House Majority Leader sent a joint letter to Bush that was released May 11. It said, in part, "We believe in incentives for economic growth and restoration [i.e. enterprise zones]; the urgent need to combat crime and random violence [i.e. police terror against the masses living in the ghettos]; and a deeper commitment by government, business, and individuals to constructive, supportive family policy [i.e. cut welfare and hound unwed mothers]. All these constitute common ground." (New York Times, May 12)
The reasons for their support of Bush's program is fairly clear. Some of the black leaders hope to get a piece of the action, advancing the business interests of the small group of black capitalists. At the same time, Democrats whine that the budget deficit means there is no money to spend on other programs to create jobs and bring relief to the workers and poor. Therefore, enterprise zones are supposed to offer some help without adding to government spending.
But this is just a boondoggle. Tax breaks for capitalist businessmen cut money going into government coffers and, thereby, increase the budget deficit just as much as direct spending by the government does. What is more, the rich could be taxed to pay for the needs of workers and poor people. But the Democrats serve the capitalists just like the Republicans. Their support for enterprise zones is really just an attempt to give more handouts to the rich in the name of helping the poor.
The acquittal of the cops who beat Rodney King is one more dramatic proof that this is a racist system to its very core.
But why is the racism so ingrained, so systematic, so institutionalized? Some black nationalists say the problem is simply that white people are racist and the solution is to establish separate institutions based on black capitalism. But a deeper look at the question shows that racism is inherent to the capitalist system itself -- the system based on a handful grabbing profits from the wage slavery of the vast majority.
Huge profits from racism
Take a look at the question of wages. The capitalist makes his profit by exploiting his workers. The profits increase the further wages are pushed down to the absolute minimum. And racism is a major tool of the capitalists to keep black and Latino workers at minimum pay while dragging down the wages of all workers.
The average earnings of all black men is 34% below that of white men; and for Hispanic men it is 37% below that of white men. The capitalists reap the benefits of that wage gap.
Calculations based on wage and salary differentials give a very rough idea of the extra profits from racism -- about $150 billion. Some $80 billion of that is extra profits from the exploitation of blacks, $64 billion from the Hispanics and $6 billion from other oppressed nationalities. (Figures based on calculations from "Current population reports, consumer income, series p-60," February-March, 1992, by the Census Bureau)
And these rough calculations don't take into account the fact that lower wages for a section of the workers help drag down the wages of all workers. Right now the capitalists are on an offensive to drive down wages. Minority workers have been the hardest hit. But the attacks on them have helped the capitalists drive down all workers' pay. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, when adjusted for inflation, the average earnings for all non-supervisory employees have been cut from $8.03 an hour in 1970 down to $7.53 an hour in 1990. (New York Times,May 15)
In short, the capitalist system perpetuates racism because it's profitable. If you want to eliminate racism, you have to eliminate the incentives for racism that are a basic part of the profit system.
Racist poison to split up the working class
Blacks and Latinos are kept as a specially oppressed section of the workers -- thrown out of work when business is bad and super-exploited when there's a boom -- by a whole system of racial discrimination and police repression. Bush's denunciation of welfare and the vilification of the minorities in L.A. as being "hoodlums" and "criminals" is just part of that system.
While oppressing blacks and Latinos, the racist poison is also used to split up the working class. As long as some white workers believe their problems stem not from the rich but from the poor on welfare, they cannot mount a serious struggle against their own exploitation. As long as they believe the propaganda that L.A. represented a horror of "looters" and "hoodlums," instead of a spontaneous uprising of working people against the racism of the rich, then they will be kept in chains.
Karl Marx, the founder of scientific socialism, long ago stressed that labor in the white skin cannot free itself as long as labor in the black skin is still enslaved. This is just as true now as it was during the days of black slavery. The struggle against the capitalist bosses requires that the entire working class rally in support of the most oppressed sections of the workers and champion the fight against racism.
What alternative?
Ultimately, racism can only be done away with by a revolution against the whole system of wage slavery. This is the path of socialism, of the workers themselves running the state and organizing the economy to meet the needs of the masses instead of profits.
By doing away with the profit system, the workers will put an end to the incentive for racism. At the same time, they open a struggle to eliminate the legacy of racism and for special measures to ensure that the most oppressed are raised up and ensured real equality.
The fight against racism -- a basic part of the socialist revolution
Of course some complain that you can't praise socialism since the Soviet Union did not get rid of national oppression. Why, they declare, look at all the republics separating away and the shooting breaking out among nationalities in the socialist world.
The truth is that, despite its socialist label, the Soviet Union was not socialist. It was a state capitalist system. A system based on the wealthy bureaucracy exploiting the workers, which has used national oppression for this end, just like the racist rulers in the U.S.
That was not always true. Back in 1917, when the working class rose in revolution and began the march towards socialism, a bitter fight was waged against racism. Upon taking power, the working class immediately gave equal rights to all the oppressed nationalities. Finland used those rights to secede and formed a separate state. Many other nationalities formed republics that united in a voluntary union of Soviet republics.
And the new socialist workers' government did not stop at providing legal equality. It took measures to prevent racist pogroms, which had been a constant feature of Tsarist Russia, and smashed the KKK-type organizations. It took measures to protect the languages and culture of the separate nationalities. And it made special economic provisions to lift up the most oppressed areas.
Unfortunately, the poverty and war-devastation of the whole country limited how far these measures went. And with the ebb in the revolutionary movement of the workers, by the 1930's Stalin and the other bureaucrats turned the country away from socialism. The preaching of Russian chauvinism and discrimination against other nationalities again began to rear its ugly head and was a vital part of the push to create a state-capitalist system over the workers of all nationalities.
The experience of the workers' revolution in Soviet Union shows that it is capitalism -- whether the "free market" variety in the U.S. or bureaucratic state-capitalism in the Soviet Union -- which breeds racism. Meanwhile, socialism is a revolutionary struggle which, in overthrowing the profit system, eliminates the incentive to racism and opens up the way to put all discrimination and all oppression in its grave.
On May 16, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan gave his first public statements on the rebellions following the acquittal of the police who had brutally beaten Rodney King.
Speaking at Southern University in Baton Rouge, he eloquently denounced racism. And he pointed out that poverty, unemployment, and racist police mean that "Every city is a potential Los Angeles."
But when it came to the question of what to do about the problems, Farrakhan fell far short of addressing the needs of the masses of black people.
He declared he was speaking "to offer some guidance...to offer a solution to the problem." But his only solution was an appeal for black people to get involved in economic self-reliance. "You could not set up a shop in Korea Town and take money from their community," he cried out, but "Everybody can set up shop in your community." (Pittsburgh Courier,May 23)
Now it is true that while African-Americans represent over 12% of the population they own only about 3.2% of the small businesses in the U.S. And it is true that all-round discrimination, including in getting business loans, is terrible. Certainly black people should have the same rights as anyone else to own and operate businesses, and anywhere in the country, not just in black ghettos.
But does it help to inflame passions against other nationalities like the Koreans who also suffer from racist oppression in this country? And, further, how will opening more black businesses help the vast majority of black people?
Oh a few black people, some of the up-and-coming "middle class," might get a leg up. But a lot of small business people in poor communities just scrape by. And for the few who make it, their affluence hardly helps the masses. Indeed, from 1974 to 1990, black families.with incomes above $75,000 (when adjusted for inflation) rose from 1.4% to 4.7% of all black families. But the growth of this better off stratum did not help the masses. In fact, during the same period the proportion of desperately poor black families -- those with incomes under $5,000 a year -- rose from 5.8% to 11.8% of all families. (See "Current population reports, consumer income, series p-60," February-March 1992, by the U.S. Census Bureau.)
Most black people are workers. They are suffering from enormous layoffs and unemployment, wage-cutting, the slashing of social programs, terrible police brutality, and all-round discrimination. They can only defend themselves and win some relief by waging mass struggle against the rich white capitalist rulers. They can only liberate themselves by building a revolutionary movement to tear down this whole racist system.
But Farrakhan did not call for building up the mass struggle or organizing a revolutionary movement. His appeal for more black business is just a nationalist version of Reaganite "trickle-down," a kind of black enterprise zones, an illusion that will not advance the interests of the vast majority of black people. Instead of appeals for black capitalism, it is time to organize a struggle to tear down the entire capitalist system and all the racism it breeds.
Dear Workers' Advocate,
I am writing to report on the anti-racist struggle as it exists here at the University of Massachusetts and at the surrounding colleges and towns.
The Friday after the blatant racist decision freeing the LAPD officers, this campus erupted in spontaneous protest. Hundreds rallied that day which led to the takeover of the administration building. After an eight-hour takeover (and without compromise) the student protests forced the administration to accept their demands (the hiring of ten minority faculty, five women and five men, over the next two years). With this spontaneous upsurge, students organized themselves to continue the struggle to destroy racism on this campus. For the next week, students conducted actions against the UMASS daily paper which has a long history of racism, sexism and homophobia. Actions included rallies, protests, sit-ins and the actual shutting down of the paper on Monday, May 4, by physically disrupting its distribution. Students at Amherst College and Hampshire College also took over buildings to protest racism on their campus.
The actions of the students have succeeded. The restructuring of the UMASS daily paper has begun. The movement on this and other campuses has not been the movement of just the black students, but has been the movement of the people to fight this completely corrupt and racist system. Through the organization and action of the people, we will change our world. Many students have learned a great deal and will take those experiences in the struggle with them to the next semester and on into the real world.
Yours in struggle,
D.B.
U. of Mass, Amherst
On May 4th, 3,000 people turned out for a militant demonstration against racist police brutality in Toronto, Ontario. The protesters first rallied outside the American consulate where they chanted, "From L.A. to T.O., racist cops have got to go!" They were enraged at the Rodney King verdict as well as a recent racist murder by Toronto police. This murder brings to nine the total shootings of blacks in the Toronto area in the past four years. None of the cops involved have been convicted.
The anti-racist activists then turned their attention to a few "white power" nazis across the street who had thought it would be fun to taunt the demonstrators. The nazis were quickly taught a lesson when hundreds of the demonstrators went after them. The nazis barely escaped with their skins when Toronto riot police took them under their wing.
The demonstrators then took to the streets, blocking traffic during the evening rush hour. They marched to city hall and police headquarters, and then continued marching through downtown Toronto until attacked by squads of riot police. At a certain point during the demonstration, groups of youth -- provoked by police attacks, it appears -- began to smash store windows, and some looting took place.
The police arrested 30 demonstrators that night, and continued to harass black youth throughout the city during the following week. The establishment used the trashing of store windows and looting as a pretext to denounce militant anti-racist struggle.
A second demonstration was held on May 7, but this time the speakers' platform was dominated by bourgeois politicians who bored the crowd with their professions of belief in "unity." The reformist New Democratic Party's Premier of Ontario, Bob Rae, used the occasion to preach about "tolerance." But this same Rae had just recently come to the defense of the Toronto police, denying the racism of the police department. Activists in the crowd quite justly heckled Rae. They demanded, "Jail the killer cops!" The New Democrats are no help for the anti-racist struggle.
Protests against racist police brutality also took place in Montreal and Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Everywhere the Ku Klux Klan raises its ugly head there are those who confront it and denounce it as racist scum.
In Putnam, Connecticut more than 500 anti-klan demonstrators confronted about 20 KKK members outside a high school on May 9. The KKK was there to support a student who had been suspended for shouting racial slurs at a black student during an argument.
In Birmingham, Alabama, over 700 people gathered May 4 to remember a homeless man. He died after he and other homeless people were beaten by white supremacists shouting racial slurs. The demonstration also denounced the growing presence of racist skinheads in the area. Last November there was a gathering of Nazis, racist skinheads and other white-supremacists on the property of John Handley, a former head of the KKK. And in February there was another rally of racist scum. Opposition is mounting to the plans of the Aryan National Front to march through downtown Birmingham on June 13 to show white supremacist unity.
There were also anti-klan protests in Dubuque, Iowa and Janesville, Wisconsin, over the May 30 weekend.
[Graphic.]
German workers simmering despite strike gains
In early May, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl retreated in the face of the strike by public sector workers in the western part of Germany. He agreed to award them a wage increase of 5.4%.
As reported in last month's Workers' Advocate, Kohl previously refused to consider any raise over 5%. But the pressure of an 11-day strike was too much for Kohl, especially when he realized that public sentiment was on the side of the strikers.
The workers in western Germany are angry at Kohl and his promise that unification with East Germany would not cost them anything. Like Bush, Kohl had promised "no new taxes," and as with Bush it turned out to be a lie. In April '91, workers' contributions to the unemployment fund went up by 2.5%. Then in July '91, Kohl imposed a 7.5% "solidarity surcharge" on income tax. At the same time, he increased taxes on gasoline and tobacco. Then in January '92, the national-value added tax went up by 1%.
This resulted in falling purchasing power for the workers. At the same time Kohl cut taxes on corporate employers.
This gave rise to an angry mood among workers. The strike by public sector employees was the first one since 1974. The victory over Kohl's wage restraint showed that, even in conditions of recession and growing unemployment, workers can win victories if they can mount an effective strike.
The public sector strike was organized among the workers in the western part of Germany; their eastern counterparts are not part of the same labor agreements. However, workers in the east supported the strike too. In East Berlin, transit workers walked out in a solidarity wildcat on May 4. The workers in the east have been devastated by unemployment since unification, but they know that any labor victories in the west will help them.
Workers reject pact, labor bureaucrats on the spot
But many workers were not satisfied with the settlement. During the strike union leaders indulged in a lot of militant rhetoric and promised workers they would fight like hell for a 9% raise. Monika Wulf-Mathies, leader of the largest public sector union, OTV, had made headlines with her fiery declarations that the days of class struggle are not over.
Of course, as soon as Kohl budged a little bit from his wage restraint policy, the bureaucrats quickly agreed to a settlement. They called the strike off and sent workers back to the job.
But many workers were upset. They had taken the bureaucrats at their word and demanded a serious fight. In voting on the new contract, the 5.4% settlement was voted down by the members of OTV. Rejection was especially strong among the lowest paid members of OTV, the transit workers (including drivers) and sanitation workers (drivers and laborers).
This threw the bureaucrats into a tizzy. Wulf-Mathies in particular was caught with her militant rhetoric exposed as nothing but hot air. Her members had voted to continue the strike, but Kohl refused any further bargaining. Submitting to Kohl's dictate, Wulf-Mathies turned her attention to trying to calm down her union's rank and file.
The strike wave is not over
Meanwhile, other German workers are preparing to strike.
Textile workers were considering a nationwide strike, and printing trade workers have been holding token strikes, shutting down newspaper production in some areas.
Metal workers (steel, auto, shipyard, etc.) held warning strikes in which they displayed a militant mood. Employers in the metal trades were insisting on holding down wage increases to 3.3%, but the warning strikes -- in the midst of the huge public sector action -- made them reconsider. On May 17 the metal trades union reached an agreement with the employers which gives their nearly four million members a raise of 5.8%. Although this falls short of the workers' demand for a 9.5% increase, the bureaucrats are hoping this is enough to enable them to avoid a strike.
The surprising militancy of the public sector workers, and the rejection of the wage settlement by OTV members, has inspired the German labor movement. Before, workers were feeling frustrated and angry by Kohl's mistreatment. Now they realize that organized action can have an effect.
The German capitalist bosses are in a tizzy. The bankers and their mouthpieces are complaining that the workers are not being kept under the 5% wage increase limit. For the time being, their calculations that cheap labor in the east would help keep wages down in the west have backfired.
Striking factory workers in the commercial center of Blantyre rioted on May 6. Next day the rebellion spread to the capital, Lilongwe, where striking tobacco workers clashed with police. The police opened fire with live ammunition, and 38 people were reported killed. Then on May 12, workers on tea plantations went on strike demanding higher wages and political reform.
The mass upheaval was spurred on in part by the government's arrest of a trade union leader who had just returned from abroad. Workers suspected that the government murdered the union leader after arresting him.
The strikes have shaken up the corrupt tyranny of "President for Life" Hastings Kamuzu Banda, who has ruled Malawi since independence from Britain in 1964. Banda had been head of the nationalist movement, but after coming to power, he set up a dictatorial regime which followed a slavishly pro-imperialist policy. Banda banned opposition political parties and appointed members of parliament himself. Malawi maintained very friendly relations with apartheid South Africa and functioned as a staging ground for the Renamo terrorists in their war against neighboring Mozambique.
For decades the U.S. and British imperialists had a love affair with this tyrant. He kept wages low on their plantations and factories and stood by their side in the Cold War rivalry. But now power politics, globally and in the region, have shifted; Banda's support is no longer important for imperialist maneuvers in the region. What is more, he is coming under increasing mass opposition and may have become a liability for regional stability. So now the imperialists are talking about casting him aside. A recent meeting of Western aid donors to Malawi (mainly Britain, the U.S., and Germany) decided to cut off all aid except emergency food relief.
After decades of propping him up, the Western powers today have the gall to say that they are pushing Malawi towards democracy and respect for human rights. What hypocrites!
The cruelty of George Bush's policy of forcing Haitian boat people back to Haiti was dramatically demonstrated at Port-au-Prince harbor on Saturday, May 30.
A Haitian refugee who was being forced back jumped off a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, tried to hang himself, and fought off rescuers, shouting, "I prefer to die."
The man was one of a record 909 Haitians sent home in one day. He jumped off the ship into the water and when Coast Guardsmen threw him a rope, he wrapped it around his neck. When two sailors jumped into the water, he held them off. As if to confirm the callousness of U.S. government officials, an arrogant U.S. official watching from shore shouted, "Cuff the clown!" The man told reporters that he was a policeman who had followed ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's call to desert.
Bush's idea of humanitarianism
George Bush never tires of shouting about "freedom." But in his new world order, there is to be no freedom for Haitians fleeing the bloody terror of military despotism. At the end of May, Bush ordered a new outrage against Haitian refugees. He declared that from now on, the Coast Guard will intercept all Haitian boat people and immediately return them to Haiti.
After the Haitian military overthrew the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, thousands of Haitians began to take to the sea to seek refuge in the U.S. Quite early on in the crisis, Bush decided that he wouldn't let them come to the U.S. mainland. He ordered the Coast Guard to intercept them and place them in a temporary camp in Guantanamo Bay. Now under the pretext that the camp there is full, Bush has decided to outright ship them all back.
Bush says he's acting on "humanitarian" grounds. He says he wants to discourage Haitians from making the dangerous trip on overcrowded boats. And he also claims that most of the refugees are simply economic refugees and are not fleeing political persecution.
The truth is, the U.S. is simply shutting its doors on desperate Haitians fleeing tyranny because they are poor and because they are black.
Even the U.S. government cannot deny that some of the refugees are indeed fleeing political persecution. If not, why have they allowed several thousand to pursue asylum claims so far? Since Aristide's ouster, more than 34,000 Haitians have fled. About 14,000 have been sent back and 12,500 are in Guantanamo Bay, which means that 7,500 are pursuing asylum claims here. But with the new policy, everyone is being returned to Haiti without giving them any chance to even go through any type of due process on U.S. territory.
Bush says, this is no problem. They can make their claims at the U.S. embassy in Haiti. That has to be the cruelest joke of all. Everyone knows that if you are walking into the embassy to apply for political asylum, you are declaring yourself an opponent of the regime. How many are likely to do something as suicidal as that?
Why no refuge for Haitian "economic refugees"?
What is more, there is nothing in the least bit humanitarian about the quibbling over whether the Haitians are economic or political refugees. The fact is, hardly any Haitians left their country during Aristide's eight months in office, when Haitians felt some hope. But with the military coup, conditions became intolerable. Hence the departure of tens of thousands.
Why is Bush making a big song and dance about economic and political refugees? During the Cold War, the U.S. government gave asylum to any well-off ballet dancer or musician fleeing the Soviet bloc. Why, even desperate people were given refuge if they were fleeing a revolution whichthe U.S. opposed, such as the Vietnamese boat people. No one quibbled over whether they were political or economic refugees. And if you're a rich tyrant fleeing a foreign land, you've always been welcomed by the U.S. -- as was Marcos of the Philippines. Why, to get the Haitian dictator Jean Claude Duvalier away from the Haitian people's uprising in 1986, the U.S. even provided him with an Air Force plane to take him to his villa in France.
But none of these apply to the Haitian refugees. They are not rich, nor are they dictators. And they are not fleeing a land which the U.S. considers to be in "the enemy camp." Quite the contrary. For all their criticism about the coup, the U.S. government has in fact been coming to terms with the current military regime. After all, the Haitian military is their long-standing friend, which they supported and built up over many decades. They preserve order in an island where many U.S. multinational corporations make super-profits off cheap Haitian labor. And order -- to preserve exploitation -- is after all the real content of Bush's New World Order.
[Photo: U.S. authorities force Haitians, including this seriously ill man, back into the grip of the military dictatorship.]
During May, the struggle heated up between the Haitian people and the military dictatorship which overthrew President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last fall.
High school students defied the authorities and held demonstrations demanding the reinstatement of Aristide. In January, the schools had opened three months late because of the political crisis engulfing the country.
The police have been sent into the schools, and they have beaten students and arrested scores of them. Then on Monday, May 25, the government closed all public schools for a week. After schools reopen, students are to take their final exams, which effectively shortens the school year from the traditional eight months to five. But students have declared that they won't take their exams unless Aristide is returned. A nationwide school strike has been called for the first week of June.
Meanwhile, more and more people are being killed by the regime. Almost nightly, bodies are being dumped on the streets of the capital. They have included known supporters of Aristide. The police and military and the death squads linked to them are being blamed for these deaths.
But it also appears that the Haitian people are finding ways to hit back. At least five soldiers have been killed. A crowd was reported to have stoned soldiers in one part of Port-au-Prince. Some of the soldiers killed may have been killed by other soldiers. There are reports of increasing discontent among the soldiers. They have- apparently not been paid for two months, and they are getting more and more fearful about being lynched by the people.
On May 27, the government banned civilians from carrying firearms, and soldiers set up roadblocks, searching motorists for weapons.
Meanwhile, the military and politicians are still trying to patch together a government which they hope will look "democratic" enough to have the Organization of American States lift sanctions. Several months ago a deal had been worked out, brokered by the U.S., which would have made Rene Theodore of the tame reformist "Communist" Party the new prime minister. Aristide had also agreed to this plan, although it did not even suggest that he was to be reinstated. But the plan fell through, when the power brokers in Haiti refused to agree to it.
Now a new plan has been worked out which removes virtually all powers from the president and creates an all-powerful prime minister. It does not say that Aristide will be reinstated either; it simply leaves the presidency vacant. But the implication is clear: even if Aristide were to return, he would have no power and would simply be an adornment for the military regime. It is widely expected that the prime minister would be one of the conservative bourgeois politicians allied to the military.
Aristide's supporters in Haiti have refused to support this new plan. But they don't have much of any idea about what to do. Aristide can do little else than exhort the military to "step aside before Haiti explodes," as he put it, before 8,000 Haitians in West Palm Beach, Florida, on May 27.
Both what is going on in the streets of Haiti and in the backrooms of the parliament show that democracy in Haiti can only come through revolutionary struggle which smashes up the existing institutions of power. Without destroying the military and police apparatus, there will be no freedom for the Haitian people.
May 1992 is another memorable chapter in the Thai people's struggle against military dictatorship.
Tens of thousands took to the streets in the face of murderous police and troops. Over 500 people may have died. In the end, the people forced the military tyrants into a partial retreat.
What led to the confrontation?
For six decades, the military has dominated the Kingdom of Thailand. The generals have either directly run the government or ruled behind a thin civilian facade. And they also control the big business houses which stand at the apex of the country's capitalist economy. The military's power over Thailand has been supported since World War II by military aid from U.S. imperialism.
But there is also a long tradition in Thailand of fighting for democracy. Usually spearheaded by the students, the mass movements have also mobilized the workers and urban poor.
After a relatively quiet decade, General Suchinda Kraprayoon organized a coup in February 1991. He denounced the previous civilian government as corrupt, which was true, and eventually promised new elections -- as all military tyrants in Thailand routinely do.
This March, new parliamentary elections were held. A coalition of military- backed right-wing parties came out on top. No surprise there. Elections are won by votes bought in the poverty-stricken rural areas.
But when the ruling coalition nominated its prime minister, it turned out to be none other than Suchinda himself. He had not run in the elections. What is more, the new cabinet included many who Suchinda had earlier denounced for corruption.
Those were the sparks that led to the popular upheaval.
Eight days of protests
On May 4, as the new government prepared to present its program to parliament, 70,000 protesters rallied in Bangkok to denounce General Suchinda's appointment as an unelected prime minister. For eight days, the crowds came back again and again, and their numbers grew. Meanwhile, opposition leader Chamlong Srimuang announced the launching of a hunger strike.
At first,, the government tried to ignore the protests. It used its control of the media to make sure the uproar was not broadcast, especially to the country's interior.
But the size and momentum of the protests clearly worried the military. On May 9, the governing coalition and opposition parties came to an agreement. From now on, prime ministers would be elected and the military-dominated Senate's powers would be curbed. The opposition declared a one week "cease-fire" in the protest movement.
The people vs. repression
Sunday, May 17, the protests resumed. A huge rally gathered at Sanam Luang, a public field, to keep up pressure on the government. Many demonstrators were not happy with the compromise agreement. They wanted Suchinda out -- immediately.
After the rally, protesters tried to march on Suchinda's office. But they were blocked by police and soldiers. At the Phra Pinklao Bridge over the Chao Phraya River, the security forces decided to violently attack the protesters.
They charged with batons and sprayed the people with dirty water from the canal. Troops arrested hundreds, including Chamlong. They killed many people and injured hundreds. The government declared a state of emergency.
For days, the repression intensified. And so did the rage of the people. Demonstrators fought back with rocks and bottles. The confrontation at the Phra Pinklao Bridge went on for days. Protests sprang up at Ramkhamhaeng University and in other parts of the city. The military entered temples and hotels where protesters had taken refuge.
And the movement also spread to at least seven other cities in the country. It was no longer Bangkok fighting alone.
Another compromise
Fearing a countrywide eruption, the establishment gave in. The ruling coalition cracked and the military decided to cut Suchinda loose. The king mediated an agreement between the government and the opposition. Suchinda resigned on May 24.
However the deal also included a general amnesty -- not just for the jailed protesters but also for Suchinda and the other officers responsible for murdering demonstrators. It's no wonder the military wanted such an amnesty. While official figures claimed only 48 deaths, nearly 600 other people are reported missing. Protesters have charged that the military took away many bodies and cremated them. Doctors have declared that most of the dead they examined had been shot in the back.
Today, while the opposition politicians support the amnesty and are busy wrangling over the new government, many activists have not forgotten the bloody crimes of the military. They want Suchinda and all those responsible for the massacres to be brought to justice. As we go to press, another military man has been nominated prime minister, and the students are threatening new demonstrations.
The future?
While Suchinda's resignation is a victory for the people, it is a small one. Nothing has yet changed in the military's traditional domination of Thailand.
There is some sentiment within the pro-democracy movement for thoroughgoing change. But the domination of the movement by the opposition politicians kept its aims limited.
The opposition parties are not much of an alternative. Many opposition politicians are corrupt. And whether corrupt or not, they merely represent the interests of the medium-sized business people, who have grown in the economic boom of recent decades but want a better distribution of the spoils of political office. The middle class opposition has no plans for a serious fight which would do away with the power of the military.
But there is more to Thailand than the military and the big bourgeoisie or the middle class opposition. There is also the Thailand of the laboring classes. The majority are the low-paid workers whose exploitation is the basis of Thai capitalist growth; the peasants who still live in harsh poverty; and the marginalized poor.
Many workers and poor people did join the pro-democracy protests; but the movement, dominated by the middle class, did not take up their class concerns. It is this majority that could provide the social basis for thoroughgoing change in Thailand. Only when the struggle becomes a working people's movement will it provide a real alternative to the corrupt Thailand of today.
[Photo: Demonstrators tear at barricades with bare hands in the struggle against the military government in Thailand.]
Striking factory workers in the commercial center of Blantyre rioted on May 6. Next day the rebellion spread to the capital, Lilongwe, where striking tobacco workers clashed with police. The police opened fire with live ammunition, and 38 people were reported killed. Then on May 12, workers on tea plantations went on strike demanding higher wages and political reform.
The mass upheaval was spurred on in part by the government's arrest of a trade union leader who had just returned from abroad. Workers suspected that the government murdered the union leader after arresting him.
The strikes have shaken up the corrupt tyranny of "President for Life" Hastings Kamuzu Banda, who has ruled Malawi since independence from Britain in 1964. Banda had been head of the nationalist movement, but after coming to power, he set up a dictatorial regime which followed a slavishly pro-imperialist policy. Banda banned opposition political parties and appointed members of parliament himself. Malawi maintained very friendly relations with apartheid South Africa and functioned as a staging ground for the Renamo terrorists in their war against neighboring Mozambique.
For decades the U.S. and British imperialists had a love affair with this tyrant. He kept wages low on their plantations and factories and stood by their side in the Cold War rivalry. But now power politics, globally and in the region, have shifted; Banda's support is no longer important for imperialist maneuvers in the region. What is more, he is coming under increasing mass opposition and may have become a liability for regional stability. So now the imperialists are talking about casting him aside. A recent meeting of Western aid donors to Malawi (mainly Britain, the U.S., and Germany) decided to cut off all aid except emergency food relief.
After decades of propping him up, the Western powers today have the gall to say that they are pushing Malawi towards democracy and respect for human rights. What hypocrites!
The cruelty of George Bush's policy of forcing Haitian boat people back to Haiti was dramatically demonstrated at Port-au-Prince harbor on Saturday, May 30.
A Haitian refugee who was being forced back jumped off a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, tried to hang himself, and fought off rescuers, shouting, "I prefer to die."
The man was one of a record 909 Haitians sent home in one day. He jumped off the ship into the water and when Coast Guardsmen threw him a rope, he wrapped it around his neck. When two sailors jumped into the water, he held them off. As if to confirm the callousness of U.S. government officials, an arrogant U.S. official watching from shore shouted, "Cuff the clown!" The man told reporters that he was a policeman who had followed ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's call to desert.
Bush's idea of humanitarianism
George Bush never tires of shouting about "freedom." But in his new world order, there is to be no freedom for Haitians fleeing the bloody terror of military despotism. At the end of May, Bush ordered a new outrage against Haitian refugees. He declared that from now on, the Coast Guard will intercept all Haitian boat people and immediately return them to Haiti.
After the Haitian military overthrew the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, thousands of Haitians began to take to the sea to seek refuge in the U.S. Quite early on in the crisis, Bush decided that he wouldn't let them come to the U.S. mainland. He ordered the Coast Guard to intercept them and place them in a temporary camp in Guantanamo Bay. Now under the pretext that the camp there is full, Bush has decided to outright ship them all back.
Bush says he's acting on "humanitarian" grounds. He says he wants to discourage Haitians from making the dangerous trip on overcrowded boats. And he also claims that most of the refugees are simply economic refugees and are not fleeing political persecution.
The truth is, the U.S. is simply shutting its doors on desperate Haitians fleeing tyranny because they are poor and because they are black.
Even the U.S. government cannot deny that some of the refugees are indeed fleeing political persecution. If not, why have they allowed several thousand to pursue asylum claims so far? Since Aristide's ouster, more than 34,000 Haitians have fled. About 14,000 have been sent back and 12,500 are in Guantanamo Bay, which means that 7,500 are pursuing asylum claims here. But with the new policy, everyone is being returned to Haiti without giving them any chance to even go through any type of due process on U.S. territory.
Bush says, this is no problem. They can make their claims at the U.S. embassy in Haiti. That has to be the cruelest joke of all. Everyone knows that if you are walking into the embassy to apply for political asylum, you are declaring yourself an opponent of the regime. How many are likely to do something as suicidal as that?
Why no refuge for Haitian "economic refugees"?
What is more, there is nothing in the least bit humanitarian about the quibbling over whether the Haitians are economic or political refugees. The fact is, hardly any Haitians left their country during Aristide's eight months in office, when Haitians felt some hope. But with the military coup, conditions became intolerable. Hence the departure of tens of thousands.
Why is Bush making a big song and dance about economic and political refugees? During the Cold War, the U.S. government gave asylum to any well-off ballet dancer or musician fleeing the Soviet bloc. Why, even desperate people were given refuge if they were fleeing a revolution whichthe U.S. opposed, such as the Vietnamese boat people. No one quibbled over whether they were political or economic refugees. And if you're a rich tyrant fleeing a foreign land, you've always been welcomed by the U.S. -- as was Marcos of the Philippines. Why, to get the Haitian dictator Jean Claude Duvalier away from the Haitian people's uprising in 1986, the U.S. even provided him with an Air Force plane to take him to his villa in France.
But none of these apply to the Haitian refugees. They are not rich, nor are they dictators. And they are not fleeing a land which the U.S. considers to be in "the enemy camp." Quite the contrary. For all their criticism about the coup, the U.S. government has in fact been coming to terms with the current military regime. After all, the Haitian military is their long-standing friend, which they supported and built up over many decades. They preserve order in an island where many U.S. multinational corporations make super-profits off cheap Haitian labor. And order -- to preserve exploitation -- is after all the real content of Bush's New World Order.
[Photo: U.S. authorities force Haitians, including this seriously ill man, back into the grip of the military dictatorship.]
During May, the struggle heated up between the Haitian people and the military dictatorship which overthrew President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last fall.
High school students defied the authorities and held demonstrations demanding the reinstatement of Aristide. In January, the schools had opened three months late because of the political crisis engulfing the country.
The police have been sent into the schools, and they have beaten students and arrested scores of them. Then on Monday, May 25, the government closed all public schools for a week. After schools reopen, students are to take their final exams, which effectively shortens the school year from the traditional eight months to five. But students have declared that they won't take their exams unless Aristide is returned. A nationwide school strike has been called for the first week of June.
Meanwhile, more and more people are being killed by the regime. Almost nightly, bodies are being dumped on the streets of the capital. They have included known supporters of Aristide. The police and military and the death squads linked to them are being blamed for these deaths.
But it also appears that the Haitian people are finding ways to hit back. At least five soldiers have been killed. A crowd was reported to have stoned soldiers in one part of Port-au-Prince. Some of the soldiers killed may have been killed by other soldiers. There are reports of increasing discontent among the soldiers. They have- apparently not been paid for two months, and they are getting more and more fearful about being lynched by the people.
On May 27, the government banned civilians from carrying firearms, and soldiers set up roadblocks, searching motorists for weapons.
Meanwhile, the military and politicians are still trying to patch together a government which they hope will look "democratic" enough to have the Organization of American States lift sanctions. Several months ago a deal had been worked out, brokered by the U.S., which would have made Rene Theodore of the tame reformist "Communist" Party the new prime minister. Aristide had also agreed to this plan, although it did not even suggest that he was to be reinstated. But the plan fell through, when the power brokers in Haiti refused to agree to it.
Now a new plan has been worked out which removes virtually all powers from the president and creates an all-powerful prime minister. It does not say that Aristide will be reinstated either; it simply leaves the presidency vacant. But the implication is clear: even if Aristide were to return, he would have no power and would simply be an adornment for the military regime. It is widely expected that the prime minister would be one of the conservative bourgeois politicians allied to the military.
Aristide's supporters in Haiti have refused to support this new plan. But they don't have much of any idea about what to do. Aristide can do little else than exhort the military to "step aside before Haiti explodes," as he put it, before 8,000 Haitians in West Palm Beach, Florida, on May 27.
Both what is going on in the streets of Haiti and in the backrooms of the parliament show that democracy in Haiti can only come through revolutionary struggle which smashes up the existing institutions of power. Without destroying the military and police apparatus, there will be no freedom for the Haitian people.
May 1992 is another memorable chapter in the Thai people's struggle against military dictatorship.
Tens of thousands took to the streets in the face of murderous police and troops. Over 500 people may have died. In the end, the people forced the military tyrants into a partial retreat.
What led to the confrontation?
For six decades, the military has dominated the Kingdom of Thailand. The generals have either directly run the government or ruled behind a thin civilian facade. And they also control the big business houses which stand at the apex of the country's capitalist economy. The military's power over Thailand has been supported since World War II by military aid from U.S. imperialism.
But there is also a long tradition in Thailand of fighting for democracy. Usually spearheaded by the students, the mass movements have also mobilized the workers and urban poor.
After a relatively quiet decade, General Suchinda Kraprayoon organized a coup in February 1991. He denounced the previous civilian government as corrupt, which was true, and eventually promised new elections -- as all military tyrants in Thailand routinely do.
This March, new parliamentary elections were held. A coalition of military- backed right-wing parties came out on top. No surprise there. Elections are won by votes bought in the poverty-stricken rural areas.
But when the ruling coalition nominated its prime minister, it turned out to be none other than Suchinda himself. He had not run in the elections. What is more, the new cabinet included many who Suchinda had earlier denounced for corruption.
Those were the sparks that led to the popular upheaval.
Eight days of protests
On May 4, as the new government prepared to present its program to parliament, 70,000 protesters rallied in Bangkok to denounce General Suchinda's appointment as an unelected prime minister. For eight days, the crowds came back again and again, and their numbers grew. Meanwhile, opposition leader Chamlong Srimuang announced the launching of a hunger strike.
At first,, the government tried to ignore the protests. It used its control of the media to make sure the uproar was not broadcast, especially to the country's interior.
But the size and momentum of the protests clearly worried the military. On May 9, the governing coalition and opposition parties came to an agreement. From now on, prime ministers would be elected and the military-dominated Senate's powers would be curbed. The opposition declared a one week "cease-fire" in the protest movement.
The people vs. repression
Sunday, May 17, the protests resumed. A huge rally gathered at Sanam Luang, a public field, to keep up pressure on the government. Many demonstrators were not happy with the compromise agreement. They wanted Suchinda out -- immediately.
After the rally, protesters tried to march on Suchinda's office. But they were blocked by police and soldiers. At the Phra Pinklao Bridge over the Chao Phraya River, the security forces decided to violently attack the protesters.
They charged with batons and sprayed the people with dirty water from the canal. Troops arrested hundreds, including Chamlong. They killed many people and injured hundreds. The government declared a state of emergency.
For days, the repression intensified. And so did the rage of the people. Demonstrators fought back with rocks and bottles. The confrontation at the Phra Pinklao Bridge went on for days. Protests sprang up at Ramkhamhaeng University and in other parts of the city. The military entered temples and hotels where protesters had taken refuge.
And the movement also spread to at least seven other cities in the country. It was no longer Bangkok fighting alone.
Another compromise
Fearing a countrywide eruption, the establishment gave in. The ruling coalition cracked and the military decided to cut Suchinda loose. The king mediated an agreement between the government and the opposition. Suchinda resigned on May 24.
However the deal also included a general amnesty -- not just for the jailed protesters but also for Suchinda and the other officers responsible for murdering demonstrators. It's no wonder the military wanted such an amnesty. While official figures claimed only 48 deaths, nearly 600 other people are reported missing. Protesters have charged that the military took away many bodies and cremated them. Doctors have declared that most of the dead they examined had been shot in the back.
Today, while the opposition politicians support the amnesty and are busy wrangling over the new government, many activists have not forgotten the bloody crimes of the military. They want Suchinda and all those responsible for the massacres to be brought to justice. As we go to press, another military man has been nominated prime minister, and the students are threatening new demonstrations.
The future?
While Suchinda's resignation is a victory for the people, it is a small one. Nothing has yet changed in the military's traditional domination of Thailand.
There is some sentiment within the pro-democracy movement for thoroughgoing change. But the domination of the movement by the opposition politicians kept its aims limited.
The opposition parties are not much of an alternative. Many opposition politicians are corrupt. And whether corrupt or not, they merely represent the interests of the medium-sized business people, who have grown in the economic boom of recent decades but want a better distribution of the spoils of political office. The middle class opposition has no plans for a serious fight which would do away with the power of the military.
But there is more to Thailand than the military and the big bourgeoisie or the middle class opposition. There is also the Thailand of the laboring classes. The majority are the low-paid workers whose exploitation is the basis of Thai capitalist growth; the peasants who still live in harsh poverty; and the marginalized poor.
Many workers and poor people did join the pro-democracy protests; but the movement, dominated by the middle class, did not take up their class concerns. It is this majority that could provide the social basis for thoroughgoing change in Thailand. Only when the struggle becomes a working people's movement will it provide a real alternative to the corrupt Thailand of today.
[Photo: Demonstrators tear at barricades with bare hands in the struggle against the military government in Thailand.]