Supports AFM Supports
Socialist Press1975 1975-07-24Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 2 →
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ship, backed by the ultra-Stalinist Portuguese Communist Party, are calling demonstrations on the slogans "Dissolve the provisional government" 'Dissolve the Constituen Assembly" "For workers' and peoples' power"
These demonstrations are demagogic and reactionary fraud. The AFM and the Communist Party have done everything possible to straightjacket and suppress the really democratic committees - of workers, soldiers and tenants - except where these are closely tied to their own policies.
What they propose are not soviets - ot any other type of democratic bodies to represent the class strength of the working class • but committees to be formed from above, in the indefinite future, and to act as a transmission belt for Stalinist and AFM policies.
In efféct they are trying to impose - in the here and now - a joint dictatorship of the AFM and Communist Party chiefs.
It is for this reason that they have had to suppress left wing tendencies within the workers' movement - such as the Maoist MRPP. The leadership of the 'security' command within the armed forces, COPCON, last week denounced "infiltration' by the MRPP and other 'leftists' among rank-and-file soldiers.
It is the reactionary policies of the AFM and Stalinist leaders -dressed up in revolutionary phraseology - which created some of the greatest dangers and confusion for the working class in Portugal.
They create the conditions in which Soares and other Socialist Party leaders can launch anti-communist appeals in the name of "democracy, and in which priests in the north can encourage the witch-hunting of Communist Party members and the burning of Communist literature.
COMMITTEES
The struggle for workers' dem. ocracy in Portugal lies neither through the AFM and the Stalinist bureaucrats, nor through the rightwing Social Democracy of Soares, but through the building of unifying of the rank-and-file committees, elected, and recallable by those who elect them.
Prime Minister Michael Manley of Jamaica gave clenched fist salute to cheering crowds when he landed at Hayana earlier this month for his first official visit to Cuba.
The Jamaican premier is the third head of government from a Caribbean country to visit Cuba this year - following the steps of Forbes-Burnham of Guyana, and Eric Williams of Trinidad-Tobago.
Talks during the 5-day visit centred on bilateral relations, and regional problems such as the setting up of the newly-created Caribbean Shipping Company. Also discussed was the proposed meeting of the Economic Commission for Latin America.
Relations between Cuba and Jamaica have developed since Fidel Castro first described Jamaica as a "friendly and progressive country" some three years ago.
Shortly afterwards, Jamaica, a member of the Organisation of American States (OAS) since 1969, decided to establish relations with Cuba, despite the OAS sanctions against the Castro government.
Since Castro's lauding of Manley's . Jamaica the infamous "Gun Law" has been passed which can be widely used against political opponents. Thugs hired by Manley's party have attacked Trevor Munroe, a university lecturer, as he held a meeting among Kingston dockworkers. The viciousness of this assault necessitated 300 stitches in hospital treatment.
But Cuba's other welcomed visitors are also well-known for carrying on the traditions of their colonial predecessors.
In 1970, only the intervention of British gunboats prevented Eric Williams from falling to the general strike in Trinidad-Tobago. This year has seen the first unity in struggle of East Indian rural workers with the black proletariat severely repressed. he has introduced legislation to give only the government powers Castro to import newsprint - a crude but effective method of preventing opposition papers from functioning.