Fight for solidarity with Bolivian

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The resistance of the workers and peasants of Bolivia against the Junta is referred to in a separate report in this issue of Socialist Press.

Revolutionaries in Britain must now build a campaign to fight for solidarity action in defence of democratic rights in Bolivia.

The development of this campaign will be covered in Socialist Press.

As a first step the following resolutions are proposed for raising in trade union branches, particularly the NUM, TGWU and other unions with present and potential links with Bolivian workers.

NUM leaders recently visited Bolivia and had a return delegation from the Bolivian miners' union, the FSTMB.

NUM leaders must translate words into material support.

Transport workers and dockers in the TGWU must take up the call for blacking of all trade with Bolivia in defence of the working class against imperialism.

The export of arms to the Junta and the import of Bolivian tin in particular must be stopped. RESOLUTIONS FOR UNION BRANCHES.

1) This (trade union branch) deplores the recent military coup in Bolivia and expresses its solidarity with the struggle of vor meis or Bolivia against the new Junta.

It calls on the union to give maximum material surport to this struggle in:

i) blacking of all trade with the Junta and calling on the TUC to organise a full-scale blacking campaign.

ii) participating in building a national campaign of solidarity;

ili) using all necessary means to ensure that recognition and aid are with-held from the Junta by the British government. RESOLUTION FOR LABOUR PARTIES This (Labour Party) deplores the recent military coup in Bolivia and calls on the NEC to support all trade union action in Britain in solidarity with the miners, peasants and other workers of Bolivia in their struggle to overthrow the new Junta. It calls on the NEC to ensure that all necessary means are used to prevent British government recognition of or aid to the Bolivian Junta, and further calls on the NEC to give active support to a national campaign of solidarity in Britain with the Bolivian working class.

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While the young, the old, the sick and the unemployed face a barrage of cuts, the Thatcher government is unstinting in its allocation of cash to the police and armed forces. Indeed so generous are the spending plans in this field that the all-party Commons Public Accounts Committee last week criticised the decision to spend £921 million on developing a new British Sting Ray torpedo sooner than purchase a similar weapon from the USA for £200 million The Committee points out that spendingı on four undrwater weapons projects has increased tenfold in ten years from £165 The loss of jobs were the Sting Ray to be cancelled is estimated as "negligible". The loss of life were this and other military hardware actually used would of course be catastrophic.

PRESS

Communist Party and Labour Party members had lined up with Tories and the National Front in a conspiracy to sabotage a conference on Ireland called by Tameside Trades Council.

This was explained by Tameside secretary Dave Hallsworth, speaking at the July meeting of Hull Trades Council.

The Tameside conference had been called under the slogan "Bring the War to Britain"

Hallsworth told how the Labour leader of Tameside borough council, George Newton, had intervened to prevent the conference taking place on council premises as had been arranged.

And the local AUEW District Committee had refused to allow its hall to be used.

In late February the TUC itself lent its weight to the witch-hunt of the conference, which had already been joined the Tory press, As National Front fascists threatened a counter-demonstration and to break umthe conference, TUC bureaucrats informed Hallsworth that if the conference went ahead the TUC would withdraw recognition from Tameside.

Despite all this pressure, the Tameside Trades Council voted to defy the TUC's bully-boy tactics, and to reconvene the postponed conference.

On March 7 came the TUC ultimatum: abandon the conference or face disaffiliation. When Tameside stood firm, it was disaffiliated on March 26.

Hallsworth was challenged docks steward in Hull and a member of the TUC General Greendale asked the Hull Trades Council to support. the TUC's decision.

Tameside, he argued, had failed to abide by the terms of TUC Congress policy and to carry out the proper function a Trades Council as set out the Model Rules.

He likened the IUC to a club. If you won't abide by the rules, you should get out, he said.

When discussion was opened up to the floor Socialist Press supporter George Nix spoke in support of Tameside.

He pointed out that although he regarded the slogan 'Bring the War to Britain' to be dangerous since it is open to misinterpretation, the believed that the Irish war was an issue that should be discussed in the labour movement.

A resolution was later carried by 19 votes to 8 declaring that:

•This Hull and District Trades Union Council calls for the immediate reaffiliation of Tameside Trades Council to the TUC and further calls for the freedom of speech of all trades councils to debate questions on all industrial and political issues; it also condemns the dictatorial and bureaucratic measures taken by the TUC in respect of Tameside Trades Council"

The Hull resolution, coming from one of the country's largest Trades Councils is an important step forward in the campaign for the reaffiliation of Tamnside.

We urge our mumbers and supporters to raise this issun throughout the Labour and trade union moment.

It is only by securing the right to debate the Irish war and its implications for the labour movnment that the way can be cleared to argue for the necessary policies of:

*British troops out Ireland now!

*Self determination for the Irish people!

*Restore political status!