E Militants Must Not Die

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•TREGUI The Fascist Franco regime in Spain last Friday announced its intention to murder deliberately by the most feudal barbaric method of slow strangulation (garrotting) five Basque militant of the FRAP (Anti-Fascist Patriotic Front). The five: Rueda, Blanco, Baena, Fernandez and Marco, join two others, Garmendia and Otaegui already under death sentence for the alleged killing of a policeman in Madrid last July. "The "trial' of these militants was conducted with complete arrogant contempt for elementary rights. The "judges" rejected out of hand not aly all defence allegations of lega irregularities - the denial of access to lawyers by the defendants and the refusal to hear defence witnesses, but felt it completely unnecessary for any evidence to be brought forward concerning fingerprints or the actual existence of the murder weapon. Thus, the convictions were based solely on statements which all the defendants stated were extracted under torture.

SENTENCES The sentences have provoked demonstrations of sympathy throughout Europe including Spain itself in hich several demonst BT0NS 1 been shot by police.

The Franco regime, now faced with a massive build up of working class resistance, aided by the Portuguese revolution, has made it quite clear through its treatment of the Basque militants that there can be no peaceful return to democratic liberties in Spain without the enforced overthrow of the Franco regime. As Franco's removal as head of state becomes more and more imminent and struggles by Spanish workers for elementary trade union : and democratic rights, alongside the Basque struggle for national liberation, come out into the open, the working class movement internation ally must take up without reservation the condemnation of the trians and demand the immediate rescin ing of the sentences and the of the

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SOCIALIST PRE hedresis Segtrt:: =_÷INTERNATIONAL nEWS PORTUGAL

Portugal's military dictators

version of the 'domino theory' according to which all sections of European capitalism are threatened by the advances of the Portuguese ITT corporation, who played such a leading role in the overthrow of Chile's Allende regime two years ago, announced on 5th. September that they were withdrawing their entire investments of ten million dollars from the country. It is not surprising that Kissinger told a press conference two days later that he thought recent political developments in Portugal were 'satisfacThe dictators of the Armed Forces Movement are trying to deal with this situation by re-imposing military discipline and other curbs on democracy such as press censorship. On 9th. September it was announced that the ruling council of the Armed Forces Movement had decided to ban all reports of varying political opinion in the army.

The purpose of this decree was not simply to try to tone down disagreements within the officer corps and the Armed Forces Movement itself. There has been increasing indication in recent weeks of the growth of dissention within the army rank and file. There have been more and more cases of troops refusing to go out to Angola, and even revolts among sections of military police who have been ordered to compel them to do so.

On Ist. September several hundred military police marched was seen on a demonstratica = Oporto on 10th. September, whea more than 1500 members :: various sections of the armei forces shouted 'Down with Fabic right-wing commander in chief, ard calls went up for the spread oi such action in order to avoid 'another Chile'. Not only did the demonstration itself defy the AFM decree, but so also did the widespread reports of it which followed in the press.

Though the AFM council or 13th. September could announce the replacement of pro-Stalinist Carvacio as military commander of the Northern region, they were unable even to refer to the widespread defiance of the new decree. All this emphasised that however much the BBC and the British press report every reactionary trend in Portugal, the power of the working class remains strong. The AFM meeting found it necessary to fulminate against Spinola's machinations, but they are not stror enough to do anything to enforc their measures of press censorship UNSTABLE is into this unstable situation that the sixth provisional government will attempt once again through the methods of bourgeois dictatorship to reconcile the com peting class forces. This effort will