WEST GERMAN JOBLESS TOTAL GROWS
BONN — More than 279,000 unemployed were registered in West
rmany in January, the Federal Labor Board reported. It said
‘ represents an increase of 3.5 percent in the past two years.
€ Frankfurter Rundschau daily newspaper said that not only
unemployment growing but that West Germany now has nearly
),000 homeless people who are receiving almost no assistance.
said the homeless live in so-called “settlement” areas where they

a up shacks or live in abandoned barns, garages, warehouses
SO on,

GUINEA-BISSAU INDEPENDENCE TO BE PROCLAIMED

ALGIERS — The first session of the National Assembly of Gui-
a-Bissau, to take place soon, will proclaim the West African
untry an independent state, according to the New Year message
flved in Algiers on Wednesday from Amilcar Cabral, General
Benty of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and
4 ape Verde Islands (PAIGC). Guinea-Bissau, or “Portuguese
nea, lies betwéen the Republic of Guinea and Senegal in West
. PAIGC, in its long struggle against the Portuguese colonial-
Pict liberated about 80 percent of the territory, where it has
ee ed a functioning state administration. The National As-
Y was elected last year by universal ballot.

4 OPPOSED PORTUGUESE, CABRAL SLAIN
FClERS — Amilcar Cabral, the best-known !eader of the anti-
Bee liberation movements in Africa, was assassinated out-
A me home on Jan. 20 in the Guinea capital of Conakry, Presi-
4 ekou Toure announced over Conakry Radio.
Dyer nouncement was confirmed in Algiers by sources in the
4 ae which Mr. Cabral founded and led since 1956, the Afri-
a ah encence Party for Guinea and Cape Verde. The move-
7 18s an office in Algiers.
SEES Said that Mr. Cabral, 48, was assassinated in a

aA y, horrible and odious fashion by the poisoned hands of
in guese imperialism and colonialism,” monitors in Dakar,
egal, reported.
(

THIRTEEN MILLION FACE FAMINE
million people in the Indian State of Ralasthan have
The s y declared to be affected by drought and famine.
‘| Pee government in Jaipur said scarcity conditions prevailed
ints than 18,000 villages covering almost all the State, large
Wn, Which are desert.
.. ‘teas of India have been hit by lack of rainfall which cur-
(Ports. grain harvest forcing the Government to resume costly

About 13
€n official

In
Maharashtra State, some 20 million people are on relief aid.

lOus
+ ae are reported to be on the move toward big cities looking
ork and water.
Ho)
Bing theeat the shortfall in last year’s crops would be made up
at onl 1S winter have been dampened by latest official estimates
Y about six million extra tons will be produced against a

Get of 15 million tons.

Th :
hy 4 following wire was sent this week to Gustav Husak,

ene i
‘as a secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
d © Communist Party of Canada:

lS ustay Husak
ed \entra] Committee

2 -Ommunj
unist Party of Czechoslovakia

f oO

n :
OD rine: eee 60th birthday, extend good wishes for your firm,
1 aesd leadership in defense of Marxism-Leninism and pro-
"an internationalism E
f :
i Wm. Kashtan, general secretary,
if for the Central Committee,
s¢ Communist Party of Canada.
= Sa

ce

d

fed? bai:
/ Y act :

st Nstrate ee elite Mercouri (center in fur coat) New Yorkers
ie {nding rel week in front of the New York consulate of Greece

Gras et Political prisoners. The demonstrators carried
ek Vice Premier Stylianos Patakos protesting the

|
i T to
ns! ta’, treq
t sas
é : Ment of political opponents.

0

Two diverging tendencies

Egyptian campus protests

By JACQUES COUBARD

The university fever that
raged throughout Egypt last
week is not entirely new. At least
three times since the 1967 Six
Day War, important student de-
monstrations have poured out
from inside the confines of the
campus and onto the streets.

In 1968 students joined with
actions born in the factories,
echoing with hundreds of thou-
sands of workers their dis-
pleasure at the lenience a mili-
tary tribunal showed to those
army generals responsible for
the Sinai debacle.

However, this conjunction of
student and workers’ move-
ments was not to be seen this
year, nor last, which perhaps
may permit us already to set
out the limits of that week’s
events.

x

The demands presented touch
on two outstanding problems:
liberation of occupied territo-
ries, and the internal develop-
ment of democracy.

Students have not been the
only ones to demand greater
freedom of expression and the
decentralization of power. The
recent: wave of criticism erupt-
ing out of the Egyptian parlia-
ment, hitting even President
Sadat and his group of advisors
in its wake, is another illustra-
tion. What-we have here are the
general aspirations that affect
all areas of public life, but the
specific demands take on var-
ious definitions according to the
different social classes involved.
Those freedoms asked for by the
bourgeoisie don’t run along the
lines of curbing the consider-
able priveleges they still enjoy.
Rather the opposite.

At least the determination to

liberate the parts of their coun- -

try under Israeli occupation is
shared by the entire Egyptian
people, although there are dif-
ferences between this group and
that group as to the methods to
be employed.

Of course, students don’t es-
cape these political divisions.
In the past two years, students
have become polarized around
two diverging tendencies: the
“left” and the “right,” to use
the terms popular in Egypt. Dur-
ing this period the official stu-

dent organization has lost its:

credibility and at the same time

its role of pacifier and appeaser

between the two factions which

it more or less exercised before.
*

On the “right” are those who
say that the only real issue in
the present situation is that of
returning to the rigid applica-
tion of Islam. All Egypt’s woes
have come about because the
Koran has not been applied to
the letter. The social laws for-
mulated under the late Gamel
Abdel Nasser, the “attacks” on
private property all figure in
the list of sins. Not surprising,

CANADIAN BANKS AID
GREEK GOV’T
A consortium of 10 banks,
three of them Canadian, have
agreed to lend $70 million to

Greece for major development .

projects in that country.

Canadian Imperial Bank of
Commerce, Toronto Dominion
Bank and Bank of Montreal,
(Bahamas and Caribbean) Ltd.
are members of the group.

The 10-year loan is being

made to the central bank of
Greece.

Former Egyptian president Nasser.

anti-communism and anti-Soviet-
ism are other features.

On the “left” are those who
have taken up the idea of an al-
liance of all progressive forces;
who have, quite notably, de-
manded government respect for
trade union rights; and have
criticized the concessions given
the petit-bourgeoisie (the grand
bourgeoisie was stripped of its
power in the course of the
60’s).

The “left” has condemned the
return to office of judges, func-
tionaries and journalists dis-
charged by Nasser; the aid
granted to small landowners
who dominate the Egyptian
countryside; and the attempt to
create a bank where local pri-
vate capital can be generated
outside state-owned banks. On
the Arab-Israeli conflict, they
criticize the “paralysis” of the
government, and condemn the
Oct. 22 UN security council re-
solution calling for the im-
mediate return of occupied ter-
ritories. They reject any thought
of a political solution. Needless
to say, the “right” has not been
silent here either.

What is new, however, is that
for the first time the “left’’ has
attracted a great number of stu-
dents around it.

x

If the university has. long
been the weather-vane of Egypt,
the sign that something is going
wrong, itisnow a reflection of
the confusion that has reigned
triumphant since the death of
Nasser, who had guided Egypt
through stormy weather for 12
years.

And during the brief period
since then, Egypt has passed
through a series of events that
have overturned the cohesion
achieved during Nasser’s leader-
ship.

e First was the purge of the
former president’s closest col-
laborators. A number of pro-
gressives were also expelled
from the Arab Socialist Union
(Egypt’s only political party—
tr.), accused of being involved
in a “plot” against Pres. Anwar
Sadat.

e Egypt’s intervention in the
Sudan. (Aug. ’70) allowed Gen-
eral Jaffar Nimeiry to install a
dictatorship on the blood of
Communists. The result was
that both reactionary Arab gov-
ernments and the United States
began to court Nimeiry. But
Egyptian. ‘“‘aid” seems to have
backfired. They have been forc-
ed to close their military acade-
my and air base in the Sudan,
losing an important strategic
position.

e 1972 was marked by viol-
ent attacks against the USSR,
a systematic campaign of deni-
gration which was culminated in
July by the expulsion of Soviet
military advisors training the
Egyptian army in modern tech-
niques, and trying to impart
lessons of the June 1967 defeat.
As a consequence, the weaken-
ing of the Egyptian defensive
potential-has only added to the
notion of helplessness in the
minds of people who were pro-
mised that last year would be
“the year of decision” (which
was the origin of the student
demonstrations of Jan. 1972). -

e For the first time in a long
while, the spectre of confronta-
tion emerged between fanatical
Muslims and Copts (the Chris-
tian minority, with 3 million
adherents in a population of 34
million). This religious conflict,
which was severely condemned
by Pres. Sadat, took place in a
climate where one hears now
more frequently official voices,
no doubt encouraged by Li-
bya’s Pres. Gadaffi (a religious
fanatic in his own right) calling
for a return to the Koran as a
panacea for all ills.

e Finally, a number of news-
paper editors have accused the
editor of the influential journal
Al Ahram, Mohamed Heykal, of
“defeatism” by elaborating in
the pages of his paper the differ-
ences among Egyptian leaders
and the many currents of opi-
nion among the bourgeoisie.

*

This tableau of Egypt would
be incomplete if the struggles
of the workers and fellahs (land-
less peasants) against the en-
croachment of the bourgeoisie
were not underlined. The class
conflict in which Nasser played
the role of “referee” is now
quite apparent. But it has been
pushed to the background by
the main question: liberation of
occupied territories.

On this outstanding problem
there seem to be few perspec-
tives for the Egyptian people.
The national bourgeoisie now in
‘power sails dangerously close to
the reefs of greater collabora-
tion with the U.S. The progres-
sive and patriotic forces which
could be the’ catalyst for popular
mobilization are not united un-
der a clear and realistic pro-
gram.

It is in this context that one
must place the demonstrations
of impatience and adventurism
of the student “left.” They are
the expressions of a_ general
malaise, of a crisis of confidence
that has seeped into the depths
of Egyptian society. (’Humanité)

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 1973—-PAGE 9

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