Police invade Euskadi

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thousands ist" armed Guards.

Governm that "broad bestowed commanders that a form paramilitary Adolfo Suarez, the "democratic" Francoist premier in Madrid, has used the ambush of six members of the Spanish Civil Guard, to launch what amounts to an invasion of Euskadi (the country) by of "anti-terrorpolice and Civil Cent statements say powers" have been on the police making it clear of martial law and occupation of Euskadı has been imposed.

It is in this state of armed occupation by Francoist police that Euskadi approaches the elections due on March 9 for the Basque parliament, established under the recently approved fraudulent Statute of Autonomy.

The pretext used for last week's invasion was the killing of six members of the Civil Guard in an ambush near San Sebastian.

The attack (bringing to 12 the number of the security forces killed this year) bears all the marks of the work of ETA (military).

The two vehicles in which the six Civil Guards were travelling were machine-gunned in such a way that the two civilian drivers were unharmed.

It is this kind of pin-point accuracy of ETA (military)'s political terrorism. which has contributed to the respect which the organisation has in Euskadi.

Contempt

Its renewed campaign takes place, as the Madrid government is only too well aware, in an atmosphere of widespread disillusion and contempt among Basques for Suarez's professions of support for Basque autonomy.

Virtually none of the very limited powers promised to a new "autonomous" Basque government have in fact been devolved.

The absence of any progress on devolved powers has severely embarassed the bourgeois nationalists of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) to the extent that in order to repair its damaged prestige it has been Iriven to boycott the Madrid parliament.

The political significance of the new Francoist invasion is immense.

It is such a provocative gesture that it must indicate that the Suarez regime believed that the alternative to such action would have been a military coup.

But the invasion, although carried out in the name of the fight against terrorism, and although Suarez says it does not threaten the agreements about autonomy and the elections, Suarez will certainly be regarded by the vast majority of Basques as a vicious attack on their national rights.

It is bound to provoke a new wave of militant mobilisations by the working class and petty-bourgeoisie of Euskadi against Francoist national repression.

At the same time workers in the rest of Spain will be increasingly aware of the real dangers of military coup if Suarez lets up in the slightest on the repressive military occupation of Euskadi.

The most massive mobilisations are now . required to demand the end of Francoist police repression in Euskadi and in the rest of Spain and against the dangers of military coup.

*Troops out of Euskadi! Dissolution of the Francoist repressive apparatus!

*Build workers committees to combat any military coup!

*For national self-determination in Euskadi!

*Force the Communist and Socialist Parties to call a general strike against repression in Euskadi and against a military coup!

*For the building of a Trotskyist Party in Spain and Euskadi. policies.

Without only three nificant reshuffle, announced turing , of warning, and weeks after a sigministerial Castro suddenly a major restructhe government. several ministries were abolished and absorbed into others.

Eleven Cabinet ministers lost their jobs and power was concentrated more than ever in the hands of Castro himself along with the two second most powerful men in the regime-Castro's brother Raul and veteran Cuban Stalinist (a minister in Batista's "popular front" government in the 1940s) Carlos Rafael Rodriguez.

• Fidel Castro not only remains the President but also becomes Minister of the Armed Forces, the Interior, Public Health and Culturea sign that he does not even trust the rest of his top bureaucracy with wielding power, let alone the working class.

This move towards centralisation is the reversal of the direction of policy in the tew years since the disaster of the 1970 sugar harvest.

It appears to coincide, however, with a reinforcement rather than a reversal wages.

At the same time the bureaucracy is encouraging a new development of the private sector in retail trade and other small scale activities.

This whole approach to allieviating Cuba's economic problems may demonstrate a further reason for Cuba's lukewarm reaction to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The economic 'reforms' were undoubtedly scheduled to culminate in the reestablishment of trade relations between Cuba and the United States-a step which has been under diplomatic preparation by both sides for the last two years.

The development of cold war policies in the United States, however, may now be a serious threat to the lifting of the US embargo on trade-in force since 1961.

So, while for the first time for over ten years, Fidel Castro doesn't seem quite so willing to shine the shoes of Brezhnev, for the first time in even more years unemployed workers have been forced to try to earn a bit of cash by offering to shine the shoes of Castro's bureaucracy on the streets of Havana.

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Pa IST PRESS Wednesday