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_WORLD

1,700 businesses hit in
Chilean national strike

By A. ALARD
__ On Oct. 7, Chilean workers affiliated to
the National Workers Command (CNT),
led by Manuel Bustos, were involved in a
National strike, the call for which was first
Siven at a huge public meeting Aug. 19 in
Santiago which was attended by workers
from all sectors.

They carried out the strike, putting for-
Ward economic and social demands with
the support of the majority of organiza-
tions opposed to the dictatorship, among
them members of the Civil Assembly and
the recently-created United Left, in spite
Of the fact that the main cities were cut off
by Police, the full strength of the army and
Intense repression.

At the August meeting, the CNT stated
that ‘‘the standard of living has undergone
4 considerable setback and this means
Workers’ families are eating less and have
€Ss access to subsistence goods.’’ In its
Call for the October strike, the CNT
Charged that ‘‘the political situation, the
Tepressive climate and lack of freedom
Which continues under this authoritative
Tegime means the trade union struggle is
fought on uneven ground.”

The CNT said workers’ petitions sent to
the government last year went un-
answered. The petitions, in summary,
asked for a 22 per cent wage adjustment
for all workers; rejection of the Labour
Code; a just and decent future; collective

argaining by trade; decent work for all;
Teedom of the press; an end to persecu-
tion of journalists and to the sell-out of
Natural resources.

Noted the CNT: ‘‘We have presented
the government with a series of social,
€conomic and political demands. Their
answer is repression and terror.”

Said CNT leader Bustos: ‘‘The leader-
Ship is trying to construct a central work-

ers’ organization which will be pluralist,
autonomous and democratic in character.
He rejected the upcoming plebiscite which
the regime is using in accordance with its
fraudulent 1980 constitution to perpetuate
its own power.

So encouraging was the public response
to the public meeting and the national
strike, that it succeeded among other
things in breaking out of a period of social
inactivity and revitalizing social action in
an outcry against the fascist power of
Pinochet.

National leaders of the CNT and work-
ers’ federations travelled throughout Chile
to get a feeling of the spirit and to set up
strike committees. The Council of Con-
federation, Federations, Associations and
Syndicatés (CONFASIN), a CNT consul-
tative body, had the strike as the only
point on its Sept. 26 agenda.

In spite of the fact that the Confedera-
tion of Copper Workers, one of the coun-
try’s largest, did not respond to the CNT
strike call, the strike movement's leader-
ship considered the day a success, saying
it ‘‘demonstrated that a paralysis of ac-
tivities has very real possibilities” in the
anti-Pinochet struggle.

In a more general post-strike analysis,
the strike command said work stoppages
affected 1,700 businesses which, it said,
showed a high level of worker participa-
tion and understanding. Also: 70 per cent
of all students did not attend class; 80 per
cent of truck drivers struck and transport
in the capital virtually ceased by mid-day.

Two deaths, among them a two year-old
boy, and almost 100 wounded were the
result of confrontations between strikers
and police. Calling the strike a failure, the
regime nonetheless arrested 500 and has
begun legal actions against 39 labour lead-
ers accused of promoting the walkouts.

Students, teachers, deans and
administrators at the University of Chile
also backed the workers’ actions and con-
tinued with their struggle to defend the
university's autonomy. It is about to pass
into private hands following a policy im-
posed by the International Monetary
Fund.

with arrests.

Human rights
leader killed

SAN SALVADOR (SNA) —
Herbert Ernesto Anaya, head of
El Salvador’s non-governmental
Human Rights Commission was
assassinated Oct. 26 by two gunmen
as he was taking two of his six chil-
dren to school. Anaya’s colleagues
place the blame for the murder on
right-wing death squads, but added
they hold the government, the mili-
tary and the security forces re-

| sponsible.

In May 1986 Anaya and other
commission members were arrest-
ed, then released last February as
part of a prisoner exchange. They
immediately resumed their work
publicly presenting evidence of army
killings and other violations.

It is feared the assassination of
Anaya marks a new round of activity
by the right-wing death squads who
are responsible for the murder and
torture of thousands of Salvadorans.
The Duarte government has done
nothing to curb the fascist gangs’ ter-
rorist operations.

Protest Saudi

repressions

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The
Committee for the Defence of
Human Rights has called for inter-
national pressure to end a campaign
of arrests and detention of progres-
sives conducted by Saudi authorities
since last summer.

In an appeal to all world bodies the
Committee charges the regime is
using last July’s massacre of pilgrims
in Mecca as an excuse to jail oppo-
nents. Another letter issued by the
Communist Party of Saudi Arabia
also condemns the repressions, link-
ing them with the growing Saudi ties
to U.S. and NATO operations in the
Persian Gulf.

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INTERNATIONAL FOCUS Tom Morris

It’s not hard to understand
Why Gatsha Buthelezi, chief
Minister of KwaZulu, is the

Buthelezi’s own hand-picked
cabinet.

What’s the problem with this

oe -
He’s Botha’s Natal and KwaZulu. The body Yeg but
j . is inter-racial, they boast, in-
little darling caine five members of and maybe ..

apartheid.

There are others, too, who
have trouble with facing up to

incompetence and corrup-
tion.”

The gist of this reasoning is
that many African states abuse
human rights, many of them
being in the Commonwealth,

Zionism) is pretty threadbare
stuff.

The racist/Zionist link in the
UN’s resolution is as real as
the Israeli-South Africa
connection in economic and

darling of people like Thatcher,
Botha, Reagan and others who
Can’t abide the idea of people’s
Power in South Africa.

Buthelezi also holds out

hope for people like Peter-

Worthington who has just vis-
Ited South Africa and is dis-
tributing a video attacking the
African National Congress.
Not surprisingly, Worth-
Ington’s first venture into film
1S being peddled by the ex-
treme right in Canada who find
Its message comforting.

Buthelezi is seen on Western
television playing his Uncle
Tom role, denouncing ‘‘ANC
Violence’? and ‘‘Marxism.”’
The idea is to set him up as a
“Black alternative’ to the
ANC and keep South Africa
Safe for capitalism, Western
values and exploitation.

‘In this spirit last week
Buthelezi and Botha stood to-
8ether in Durban, shook
hands, and paraded out a 10-
Member Joint Executive Au-
thority to administer affairs in

example of racial harmony a la
Botha?

Just that the ‘‘Executive
Authority’? has no legislative
or fiscal authority. It has abso-
lutely no power. It can only
talk to itself.

It’s a sham, just like Buthe-
lezi.

Julius Hayman, editor of The
Jewish Standard begins his
editorial in the Oct. 1-15 issue
by writing: “Jews have little
patience with apartheid ...”’,
then ends it by asserting: “‘...
the curse of Africa is not the
Bothas but rather the Idi
Amins, the Bokassas, the
Ghaddafis and governmental

and thus have no_ business
demanding action against Pre-
toria. Further, that many of
these also supported the

United Nations resolution on °

Racism and Zionism.

And herein we find the real
purpose in Hayman’s editorial
titled, ‘“‘Travesty in Van-
couver.”’

It would be too much to ex-
pect a Zionist magazine to
admit that Israel’s state policy
toward the Palestinians is ra-
cist, that it practices national
genocide at home and aggres-
sion against its neighbours —
and to then understand that’s
why the UN combined racism
and Zionism in one resolution.

But surely it isn’t too much
to expect unequivocal
condemnation of apartheid in
South Africa from such a
publication?

In his editorial, Hayman
writes that politics make
strange bedfellows. Using
human rights abuses in other
states as the reason to absolve
apartheid (when you're really
angry at the world for exposing

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 11, 1987 e 9

military affairs.
And how do
they know?

The terrible murder of 33-
year-old president of El Salva-
dor’s Human Rights Commis-
sion, Herbert Anaya, Oct. 26
(he was gunned down in front
of his children), has been
placed at the doorstep of right
wing death squads ‘‘financed
and directed by the U.S.”

Anaya’s colleagues, labour
unions, student groups, the
FMNL/FDR — every people’s
organization accuses the
armed forces and security po-
lice with directing this latest
atrocity.

They, of course, as does the
government, deny responsibil-
ity, blaming the killing, as did
Duarte, on “‘some maniac.”

Only the U.S. embassy,
could say with certainty that
Anaya was murdered by ‘“‘four
fanatic tomcats’’ not connect-
ed to either the regime or
armed forces.

Its mastery of detail is inter-
esting.

eae