*----------------------------------------------------------* | | | x x x x x x x xx xxx xxx xxx | | xx xx x xx xx xx x x x x x x Issue #25 | | x x x x x x x x xx x x x xx xxx | | x x x x x x x x x x x x 06/16/86 | | x x x x x x x xx x xxx xxx | | | |----------------------------------------------------------| | Newspaper of the Maoist Internationalist Movement | *----------------------------------------------------------* SOUTH AFRICA REFORMS AGAIN AZAPO LEADERS AND OTHERS DETAINED IN NEWEST SOUTH AFRICAN CRACKDOWN The president and former president of AZAPO (Azanian People's Organization) were among the more than 1,000 political leaders rounded up by the apartheid regime on June 12. Monte Narsoo of the South African Institute for Race Relations called it the "biggest concentrated detention swoop ever." (Detroit Free Press 6/13/86, p. 1A) President Botha declared another state of emergency. The police and military have the power to detain anyone up to 14 days without a warrant. The detained may have no visitors at all. All legal recourse is suspended. The South African police state is more naked than ever. As MIM Notes goes to press on June 15, over 2,000 activists in South Africa have been detained. Their fate, which may be death, is unknown as of yet. Once again Western economic and military support contribute to that police state and its recent "reform." PLO PROTECTED U.S. INTERESTS IN DEAL FROM 1976 TO 1982 According to Lewis Snider in the Wall Street Journal, the PLO infiltrated radical Palestinian splinter groups and aborted various missions against the U.S. from 1976 to 1982. (WSJ 6/12/86). Snider's point is that the U.S. would protect its imperialist interests better with warmer relations with the PLO. "One reason why no American lives were lost to attacks by Middle East terrorists between 1976 and 1982 was because of covert contacts between U.S. intelligence and representatives of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organization. That liaison was on of the most serious casualties of American support for Israel's invasion of Lebanon in June 1982." (Ibid) Abu Nidal's groups killed an American ambassador in 1976, but he was apparently stymied in his efforts from 1976 to 1982. When the U.S. received some of the blame for Sapra and Shatilla from the PLO, it lost its protection racket with the PLO according to Snider. Snider would like the U.S. to buy into the PLO protection racket more fully again. Obviously the Wall Street Journal is considering what Snider says as ideas for protecting capitalist class interests. GOOD OLD FUNGIBLE MONEY KEEPS CONTRAS GOING Sometimes the government takes advantage of commodity fetishism. What is money? What is bookkeeping asks the introductory economics student? Money in the hands of the contras is a covert weapons and military racket. The Wall Street Journal revealed that the U.S. "non-lethal" and "humanitarian" aid is all a bookkeeping exercise. The Honduran military alone received over $1 million of the money for non-lethal assistance to the contras, who are fighting to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. $450,000 went to the commander-in- chief of the Honduran military. (WSJ 6/12/86) Of $4.4 million that went to "three contra brokers and one supplier, only $785,674 actually went to Central America. Most of the rest was diverted to bank accounts in the United States, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands." (Detroit Free Press 6/13/86) The U.S. government gives money to suppliers that supposedly give the contras non-lethal aid. The suppliers agree to give the money to the Honduran military and others giving military assistance to or condoning the presence of the contras. The suppliers in Central American pretend to supply contras non-lethal supplies and receive a cut in the deal. The U.S. government can thus tell its people, the Eastern bloc and Nicaragua that it is only giving the contras "humanitarian assistance." Meanwhile, covertly, the contras receive military assistance and benefit from influence- peddling in the region. So desperate is the U.S. government, it feels that it must fool a public not sufficiently jingoistic by making war in the guise of "humanitarian assistance." This is just another case of the myth of "economic assistance" to the Third World. It is beyond the capability of the corrupt and imperialist U.S. government to render "humanitarian" assistance. It only does that which supports the interest of the capitalist class. The American capitalist class supports terror in the Third World so that it can get workers there to work for a pittance. At the same time, it is also making war on its competitors in the Eastern bloc. Woe to Nicaragua--the U.S. government will support anybody in Central America who can help the U.S. keep the lid on things and prevent the Soviet Union from getting a piece of the Central American pie. NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY SUPPORTS WHO'S WHO OF WESTERN IMPERIALISM CORPORATION What do some Afghani rebels, the "opposition" in Korea, some underground Polish unions, a member party of the Socialist International in Northern Ireland and the AFL-CIO's Free Trade Union Institute, the Center for International Private Enterprise of the Chamber of Commerce, the conservative Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, El Mercurio of Santiago, and the National Republican and National Democratic Institutes for International Affairs have in common? All support democracy for the bourgeoisie and the freedom to exploit, right? Right, but they also receive money from the U.S. government's National Endowment for Democracy. (NYT 6/1/86, p. A1.) PENTAGON BUYS NBC NEWS Conservative zealot and media magnate Ted Turner pointed out that the merger of GE and RCA put a major television network--NBC--in the hands of a company with major defense contracts and a vested interest in the arms race. (Detroit Free Press 6/14/86, p. 2B.) This in effect put NBC in the hands of a company dependent on the Pentagon, which of course is the only source of military contracts available in the United States. The purchase of NBC may not be a conspiracy because the media under capitalism are all subject to being bought by the highest bidders. Anyone willing to pay the price for the company's shares can own any newspaper, radio station or television channel. Of course, it's not really quite open to anybody. One must have the money and the ability to continue outbidding other people for the company. If a capitalist wants to stay in the media business, s/he must run that business better than competitors. For example, Detroit's major two newspapers--the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News--have competed with each other for years and have both made millions of dollars in losses. Now they are filing with the federal government to become jointly operated. Both papers will have the same business operations, so there will be no more commercial competition. Detroit will continue to have two newspapers that duly report on what people within the government are arguing over, but their economic backers will be the same. In the Detroit area, the smaller and medium sized capitalists who own smaller newspapers are complaining that the merger will make for even more unfair competition conditions. Of course, they are right. However, those who cannot afford to own their own newspaper under capitalism can hardly shed any tears. Recently, in Baltimore, one of three major newspapers closed down. In the United States, there is supposedly a "free press," but in reality the press is just another big business. Under socialism there will be a media to help effect the mass line crystallized by the vanguard party. Years of bourgeois ownership of the media will be made up for through proletarian administration of the major press, which no one will be able to own. A truly free press (under communism) will only arise when it succeeds in proportion to the extent it politically mobilizes the masses instead of the extent that they attract advertisers, make a profit and run their staffs into the ground. Even conservatives will have their own press to the extent that they work to feed themselves and put their remaining time into running their own press. Socialism will thrive where there is truly a free press that does not serve those with the money, but instead serves those with the energy and political commitment to put out a newspaper or a television show. WILLIAM VIGIL AND MARIA HOOKER EXPELLED FROM U.S. The U.S. expelled two Nicaraguan envoys--William Vigil and Maria Hooker--in retaliation for charges that four American diplomats were spies in Managua. (NYT 5/23/86). Maria Hooker was first secretary of press relations. She had taken issue with an AP article that was exposed in the Michigan Daily (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) and circulated by the MIM network as an example of non-communist but critical and progressive work. While the events are probably not connected, it is a form of information control that the U.S. sent the top press relations officer home. It will only be that much more difficult to get information about what is happening in Nicaragua, especially in relation to the U.S.. U.S. REORGANIZES CONTRAS Forty one former Somoza National Guardsmen continue to dominate the military structure of the contras. However, the civilian leadership is undergoing grooming to appeal to international public opinion. The new organization is called UNO--United Nicaraguan Opposition. (NYT 5/23/86, p. A1, A20.) The State Department says that UNO is not primarily made up of former Somoza supporters. The New York Times cited the respectable opposition to the State Department in response. "Robert Leiken, a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International peace... [says] they are concerned with recovering the land and property lost. The politics they practice is the style of Somoza--relying on cliques rather than institutions." (Ibid.) In other words, the former National Guard people are petty-bourgeois fascists and bureaucratic capitalists without enough concern for their image and political capital. Thank you New York Times for teaching yet another lesson in how the U.S. could be a bigger and better empire if it only supported image-oriented capitalists instead of just fascists. According to the New York Times, two of the top three leaders of the UNO have long standing ties with the CIA. Of those two, the military hard liner Adolfo Calero Portocarrero is the former manager of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Managua. The other leader who has managed to pull CIA support in the past is a successful businessman. The third UNO leader is Arturo Jose Cruz, a former Sandinista. He is a banker. Perhaps it is wise to concede that the U.S. has cleaned up the image of its pawns. After all, even the New York Times says that the U.S. forced on Ricardo Lau out of the contras because of this reputation for brutality in Honduras. (Ibid.) The U.S. is managing to create its own UNO public relations leadership. That leadership does not come from the former Somoza National Guard, but it does come exclusively from the capitalist class. What a coincidence.