Storm signals brew warns CPI

The following article appeared
inthe Communist Party of India’s
central newspaper, New Age,
written by N.K. Krishnan and has
been abridged. —

* * %

Developments that have taken
place in the country since Indira
Gandhi came to power highlight
the extreme urgency of left forces
coming closer together to con-
solidate, strengthen and extend
the unity already built up amongst
them so that such unity may help

jpomarerse BE ee

| The greening of
| “bigniew Brzezinski
Carter's National Security
| Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
| was certainly a Man with a
Mission as he toured the Kyber
Pass last month. In Pakistan
for the President to work a deal
| with the military regime of
+ Mohamed Zia _ ul-Haq,
| Brzezinski was in his element.
i This long-time professional
Soviet-hater had reached a sort
of pinnacle; a kind of Law-
rence of Arabia status that
must have warmed his heart.
Clad in flack jacket with rifle in
hand, Brzezinski told Afghan
rebels, ‘“God is on your side’’,
» as he urged them to greater ef-
fort.
It was a long way from the
college circuit of the 1960's

| “doing something. And to Have
the moment recorded
Brzezinski had his photo taken
“three weeks before the march
on Kabul”’.

atpeig in” era proclaiming
S virtues,in, Vietnam.
Heet in istan he was really

: to ‘support the Afghan Mos-

Brzezinski — the president's
gun-runner.

But it wasn’t all drama.
There was work to do — to
offer the military dictatorship
which had previously been
subjected to a U.S. arms em-
bargo because of its brutality a
new weapons deal. There was
a 21 year-old treaty to dust off
under which the United States
can step in. There was a
1S-man military mission to
leave behind to study present
and future U.S. needs.

In Zia, Brzezinski met his
equal when it came to shrewd-
ness. The Pakistani dictator
wanted the 1959 treaty inter-
preted to mean that America
will come to his aid in disputes
with all of its neighbors (read
India). He called Brzezinski’s
offer of $400-million in military
aid ‘‘peanuts’’, demanding
much more, including the most
modern hardware.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

had
come of age. ;

conference and their disap-

| agreement. The PLO’s Demo-

@ in the Middle East are sus-

for the benefit.of imperialism

forge wider left and democratic
unity. That this is the prime and
urgent need of the hour is be-
coming more and more evident
with every passing day.

The latest act of dismissal of
nine non-Congress (I) state
governments underlines .the
seriousness of the danger facing
the democratic forces in the coun-
try. The plea given that these as-
semblies ‘‘no longer refiect the
will and aspirations of the electo-
rate’’ is a total repudiation of the
country’s federal set-up and is no-

Islamabad — the
yote that wasn’t
The Jan. 30 issue of Tudeh

News, a new bulletin pub-
lished by Iran’s Tudeh (Mas-
ses) Party, contained a story
about the Jan. 19 Islamabad
conference of Islamic foreign
ministers which passed a
resolution condemning Soviet
military intervention in Af-
ghanistan. The western press
front-paged the vote as ‘‘a se-
vere blow to Soviet prestige’’. -
According to the Toronto Star

and other western media re-

ports, one of the supporters of

the anti-Soviet resolution was

the Palestinian Liberation Or-

ganization.

The Tudeh News story,
which arrived last week, con-
tained this interesting item:
“The regimes obedient and
loyal to American imperialism z
in the region have been making |
every effort to conceal the real |
intentions and aims behind the
convocation of the ‘Islamic
Conference’ by pretending
that this conference is.meant

Fe ENO IE OORET RTE LI RN

Sagres eUPUMEU ERT ER

i

lems.

“The countries of the Arab
Resistance Front, such as the
PLO... have made clear from
the very beginning their unwill-
ingness to participate in the

proval of the Camp David

cratic Front issued a statement
Saying: ‘Reactionary regimes

taining their conspiracies
against Iran and Afghanistan

and Zionism. These regimes
have put Washington’s sug-
gestion into practice by or-
ganizing a conference of Mos-
lem countries in Pakistan
aimed at discussing the ques-
tion of Afghanistan...”

Given this obvious ‘contra-
diction, the Tribune contacted
a spokesman of the PLO who
set the record straight. He ex-
plained that the PLO Head of
Office in Pakistan attended the
conference as an observer and -
did not take part in the vote on
the resolution: He said the
PLO maintained its reserva-
tions on the resolution because
*‘the issue is not Soviet actions
in Afghanistan, but is the con-
tinued Zionist occupation of
Arab territories. The confer-
ence’, he said, ‘“‘was a U.S.
manoeuvre to divert attention
from the Camp David agree-
ments.”

Would there be any value in
contacting the Star’s ‘‘Accu-
racy Bureau’*?

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 21, 1980—Page 6

thing but a fig-leaf to cover up the
drive towards absolute power,
towards a regime of personal
power. It is an attack against
democracy, against national un-
ity, against the federal set-up en-
shrined in the constitution.

The plea of the law minister
that the non-Congress(I) state
governments and assemblies
were dissolved because a situa-
tion of confrontation between the
states and the centre on the ques-
tion of continuation of reservation
for the scheduled castes and
scheduled tribes was developing,
is totally false and has been
cooked up only as an after-
thought...

It is no excuse to put out the
argument that the Janata govern-
ment did a similar thing in 1977.
The Communist Party of India
had strongly denounced the
Janata government at that time
for its action.

Prices of all essential com-
modities are continuing to soar at
an even more alarming rate than
before. Sugar, kerosene, diesel,
etc., are disappearing from the
open market. The rate of inflation
over the past one year has crossed
the 20% mark. :

Yet, far from taking any action
against the monopolists, hoarders
and profiteers who alone are re-
sponsible for this situation, far
from taking even the minimum
steps needed to bring into exis-
tence and ensure an effective pub-
lic distribution system for all es-
sential commodities, the Con-
gress(I) leaders have been con-
centrating all their time and ener:

- gies last month on engineering

“operation topple’ against all
non-Congress(I) ministries.
There is need for utmost vigi-
lance and for building up the
widest left and democratic unity

“with an iron hand,

to strengthen the ministries of

West Bengal. Kerala and Tripura -].

in the coming period. The ‘opera-
tion topple’ gang has given suf-
ficient indications about its next
targets.

Meanwhile the Indian mono-
polists and the multi-national cor-
porations have mounted a big of-
fensive. There are powerful cir-
cles within the new government
who are responding favourably to
this offensive.

The Federation of Indian

Chambers of Commerce and In- -

dustry (FICCI), the most
representative body of Indian
monopolists, has come out with
its blueprint of ‘‘a minimum pro-
gram of economic action’.

- According to this blueprint, the
FICCI wants a radical revision of
India’s industrial policy to make
possible the entry of monopolists
into ‘‘industries including coal,
power-generation, road trans-
port, steel etc.”’ as well as ‘‘in the
field of trade also, whether
domestic or foreign’.

The FICCI wants entry .of
monopolists on a big scale into the
board of directors of public sector
enterprises and it wants ‘‘final au-
thority’’ to vest in this board of
directors.

It also wants monopolists to be
entrusted with the management of
““some public sector enterprises
on a long-term contract basis.’’

FICCI finally wants a ‘‘firm
labor policy’’ to be implemented
in order to
eradicate what it calls ‘‘labor in-
discipline’’.

All this, it will be recalled, is the
same package deal the World
Bank had presented in its report
last year.

In the context of this offensive,
it is ominous to find old-time
operators of the multinational

Indira set to bare her fangs: —

corporations descending on In-
dia, one after another, courting
the new cabinet ministers W'
express their approval .of “‘neW —
favourable trends of policy”
which ‘have appeared since thé
coming into power of the new
central government.

All these developments indeed
indicate that in the coming periot
in India the battle for democracy
and for democratic and t
union rights; the battle for de- '
fence of the Jiving standards of the
working-class and working
masses, the battle for more jobs”
and to bring prices down, the bat
tle over the whole issue of the
direction of economic develop
ment itself, will sharpen more an@
more. _ =

Left unity and the ability of the
united left to draw to its side wider
democratic sections and the mas-
ses belonging to the various ©
bourgeois parties will play a cru:
cial and decisive role in these
coming. battles. .

: Spanish workers demand wage hike

Over 250,000 Spanish workers hit the streets of Madrid in a demonstration for jobs and improved working and
social conditions. In an austerity move by the Spanish government which has become typical in the western
world a ceiling has been put on wages and social benefits have been slashed.

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