Ett y 4 a y 3 % h. WORLD Chile’s Socialists, Communists meet SANTIAGO — Delegations of the central com- Mittees of the Socialist Party of Chile and the Communist Party of Chile met here in mid-January and emerged with the following joint statement, €xtracts which are printed below: e Both parties agreed to orientate their membership in order to strengthen and develop in all fronts, (organic, social, and geographic zones), the unity and the socialist-communist joint work. his unitarian objective has fundamental impor- tance for the victorious struggle of the people. e The meeting made a good estimation of the Merging of the PDM (Popular Democratic Move- ment). Both parties consider the PDM to be a fundamental vehicle for their political alliance; both parties understand the PDM to be the base of the popular movement strategic alliance towards Socialism and the central element in the struggle to unify the whole opposition to end the dictatorship. In this regard, compromise is needed to develop the PDM organically and politically. e The perspective of the popular struggle during 1984 is seen by both parties as a powerful global and eruptive force against the dictatorship. In this regard, the national strike is the central objective of the popular mobilization for this period. This na- onal strike must contain all forms of struggle, developed by the people in 1983. Thus, all our militants must take the national strike preparation I unity with all the opposition forces in order to sure its success. e Finally, both delegations took the opportunity to send fraternal and revolutionary greetings to €ach militant of both parties. All the combat that has occurred during 1983 has had communists and SOcialists in the first barricade. This unitarian work is the nucleus of the necessary political direction to Make decisive steps toward victory in 1984. Faith- ful to Salvador Allende’s political legacy and €xample, we his comrades will accomplish our Nicaragua’s communists mark 40th anniversary MANAGUA — Few people are aware that there is a small but vigorous communist party working and fighting in the revolutionary conditions of Nicaragua today. It is the Socialist Party of Nicaragua, this year celeb- © rating its 40th anniversary. The SP works closely with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), parti- cipating in the government coalition and supporting the FSLN’s revolutionary program for transforming Nicaraguan society. The Socialist Party has a long-standing base in the working class of the larger cities, such as Managua and Leon. Its weekly newspaper, El Popular, has a circula- tion of 10,000 — with a readership of maybe four times that — which is quite respectable in a land of just 2.5 million people. During my recent stay in Nicaragua, I had the oppor- tunity to discuss with leading members of the SP some of the potentials and complexities of the situation there. ‘“‘Our relationship with the FSLN is very good’’, SP central committee member Roberto Gusman Baskes told me. ‘‘We are working together with them to build a ' new, independent and democratic Nicaragua. We fully support the basics of the FSLN program: the policy of non-alignment, the mixed economy, and the ‘pluralistic’ multi-party political system. The Socialist Party is pres- ently gearing up to fully participate in the upcoming general elections’’. Together with another left-wing party, the Popular Social Christians, the SP is proposing to the FSLN that they all run together on a common ‘‘Patriotic Front’ program this November. The object is to attain maximum popular unity in the face of what will almost certainly be a concerted right-wing drive to discredit the revolution and its achievements. Many FSLN activists that I spoke to were positive in their descriptions of the contribution made by the Socialist Party over the past 40 years of difficult struggle inside Nicaragua. Indeed, many current FSLN leaders came from a Socialist Party background. In the early sixties, militants like Carlos Fonseca Amador and Silvio Mayorga, stimulated by. the success. of the, July 26 Movement in Cuba, broke with the SP over the question of armed struggle and founded the Sandinista Front. They took to the hills to organize guerrilla warfare, while the Socialists remained in the cities, building a working class movement and engaging in political strug- gle against the dictatorship. When the revolutionary situation developed in the late seventies it was the FSLN, not the SP, which was in a position to take leadership of the rebellion that led to ‘Somoza’s overthrow. ‘‘The decision to launch an armed insurgency is a grave and complex calculation’’, a Chilean communist living and working in Managua explained to me. *“The Nicaraguan Socialist Party erred on the side of demo- cratic, constitutional activity, and failed to recognize in time that armed resistance is a valid form of struggle in some circumstances. It is a mistake that many of us in Latin America have shared in the past.” Nicaragua’s Socialists are frankly self-critical about their tactical errors in the past, but they stress that the critical problem now is to forge left unity, and to defend the gains of the Revolution against its enemies — both inside and outside the country. In this, they recognize the leading role the FSLN has played, and continues to play. ? The Nicaraguan experience has had a profound effect upon Latin American politics in general. Partly through an examination of events in Nicaragua, the Communist Party in El Salvador joined the armed struggle against the dictatorship in 1980. It is now a major component of the FMLN, and has won a large share of the liberated territory in that country. Despite the strong bonds that unite Nicaragua’s Socialists and the FSLN in a common struggle to defend the Revolution, they are not ready to merge into a single party. ‘‘We are a Marxist-Leninist party with the goal of building socialism in Nicaragua’’, says Roberto Baskes. ‘The FSLN has yet to clearly define itself. Within the Sandinista Front you can find at least four distinct lines: a strong and influential Marxist current, but also social democrats, Christian radicals and left-liberals’’. In today’s difficult circumstances, however, they stand united, fighting for common objectives. Nicaragu- a’s Socialists appear confident that time and experience will bring them even closer together. — Fred Weir International Focus Tom Morris International gangsters “Up to this point I have con- tended that the Reagan administration’s secret war against Nicaragua is morally indefensible,’ speaker of the J.S. House of Representa- tives Thomas O’Neill said April 9. ‘Today it is clear that It is legally indefensible as Well.”’ What O'Neill was talking about was the April 8 U.S. note to the World Court, chief judi- cial body of the United Na- tions, that it would not recog- © nize the court’s jurisdiction on Central American affairs for _ the next two years. The following day, Nicaragua took its case to the World Court in the Hague, ask- ing for a halt to U.S.-backed attacks, including CIA-or- ganized mining of Nicaraguan sea ports. Speaking to the press April 9, Nicaraguan Foreign Minis- ter Rev. Miguel d’Escoto said his country ‘‘seeks a complete and open examination of all the facts’? and that U.S. support for the murderous attacks is ‘“‘an issue of force in clear violation of international law.”’ Few other Reagan acts are as brazen as this latest one — when the U.S. is breaking international law, the solution is clear: refuse to accept any ruling that might prove Reagan to be the gangster he really is. d’Escoto reported that con- . tra attacks have cost 1,300 Nicaraguan lives since 1981. Mining of Nicaraguan ports have damaged seven merchant ~ ships in recent weeks. Public criticism of Reagan’s not-so- secret war have come from Britain, France, the four Con- tradora countries (Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama) — as well as from the socialist world and dozens of other states. Can anyone imagine another nation mining New York har- bour, supporting armed at- tacks against the U.S. across the Mexican and Canadian borders, and then refusing to accept an American complaint lodged with the World Court? Can anyone even imagine the U.S. simply taking its case to - the World Court? There’s a dangerous, mal- evolent gang of pirates in the White House. Hopefully for world peace the American people will recognize this on election day next November. For want of a shovel A, This instrument kills people. ‘““Which of the above instruments would you guess is too hot for the Canadian government to send to postwar Laos today?’’, asks the Cana- dian Friends Service Com- mittee in a press release. “If you guess ‘A’ only, you’re wrong: the answer is both ‘A’ and ‘B’’’, the CFSC reveals. It goes on: “The story begins in 1982 when the Canadian Inter- national Development Agency (CIDA) gave CFSC a grant for our Shovels for Peace program in Laos. CIDA agreed to match our contributions generously — three to one. But in 1983, CIDA told us its 1982 grant to us for Laos had been a ‘mistake’ — that not only were PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 18, 1984 e 9 Vietnam and Kampuchea being blacklisted for any government grants, but Laos as well ...”’ CFSA points out it isn’t CIDA’s fault, rather policy is made ‘‘by political officials”’ in Ottawa. That’s true. Also true is that the blacklisting of those nations is direct ‘U.S. policy in an ongoing CIA operation of destabilization in Southeast Asia. This column reported on CFSC Shovels for Peace in Laos campaign in Oct. 1982 explaining that Laotian far- mers are still being blown to bits by U.S. unexploded bombs in the soil as they till with the traditional hoe. In one province alone, 4,700 people have been killed and injured since 1964. Shovels, it turns out, are far safer — they save human lives. * “*They will help make reusable the one-third of the country’s land which today sits idle be- cause of bomb danger’’, we re- ported at that time. The CFSC campaign, under the slogan ‘‘For Want of a Shovel’? and CIDA’s 1982 agreement to cooperate were a fine humanitarian effort. Ottawa’s 1983 decision to blacklist Laos is a cruel, sense- less act.