El Salvador-the war imperialism cannot afford to lose

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Oct. 16. US State Department declares new regime is 'centrist and March 8. ERP join CRM; military invasion in Chalatenango. moderate', offers military aid. Dozens of workers occupying March 17. 24-hour general strike closes 200 factories; 2 Oct. 18. CP calls for 'popular understanding' with junta; mass organisations (BPR/FAPU/LP-28) denounce coup as a 'ploy'. 195 killed, March 27. Further junta resignations; only extreme right November. Mass organisations occupy ministries and embassies and March 30. 100 killed, 500 wounded at Romero's funeral. launch selective strikes for wage increases, price controls.

Dec. 27. Rightists group around capitalist organisation ANEP to April 4. Formation of Democratic Front of Salvador (FDS) by petty bourgeois groups, unaffiliated unions and bourgeois opposition.

April 18. Formation of Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR) by May 7. Abortive coup by oligarchy (led by Roberto D'Abuisson) succeeds in ousting 'reformist' Colonel Majano as army commander; conspirators released; central power bloc fully cohered.

May 14-16. Some 600 people killed by Salvadorean and Jan. 10. Guerrillas (FPL/FARN/PCS) and mass organisations (BPR/ FAPU/UDN respectively) and LP-28 create Coordinadora RevoluJan. 22. CRM demonstration to mark 48th anniversary of 1932 June 10. ERP/FARN/FPL/PCS unite military operational uprising; 250,000 march; 67 killed, 250 wounded. commands. Junta and FDR send missions to European governFebruary. Spate of ministry/embassy occupations by ERP and ments; FDR receives backing of Second International. FARN guerrillas, increased rural actions by FPL. June 24. 48-hour general strike paralyses San Salvador and major Feb. 26. CRM publishes Programmatic Platform of Democratic cities; over 300 bodies found in university after military attack.

July 10. FARN take over San Miguel, third city, for several hours.

March 1. Chacon (BPR) and Argueta (LP-28) released after capture July 30. Massive anti-guerrilla operation around Perquin and Aguilares; 10,000 peasants 'evacuated'; 1,500 troops deployed; March 5. Moderate' Christian Democrats leave junta army admits heavy casualties. By end of month death toll for 1980 Natinnal Guard stand over wounded prisoners after the March firmed by the discovery of and a vacillating Costa Rica and foreign documents and money Panama) have no desire to play on the corpses of soldiers wear- the role of "seapoys of the ing Salvadorean uniforms). marines'.

that this unholy alliance, which from a seventy year-old peasant can muster at least 50,000 gives an idea of the new 'comtroops, will avoid the interna- bined operations work. The tional embarrassment of sending events he relates occured during , the Rapid Development Force the offensive of 13-16 May idarity shuts French ports Zbignew Brzezinski El Salvador is at war. It is a war that was long ago declared by both left and right but remains ignored throughout most of the world since it has none of the clamour of the Nicaraguan insurrection, none of the international impact of Cuba or the mass deployment of troops seen in Vietnam.

It seems likely that as the imperialist offensive deepens and the military activity of the left escalates the conflict will acquire at least some of these characteristics but in the shadow of Afghanistan and Iran this bitter struggle has gone unheralded.

Brzezinski has been as good as his word; the cost to the Salvadorean masses is a death rate of 40-50 a day. The death toll this year is over 4,000 and the logistical experts of the local ruling class reckon on 30,000 being 'the optimum kill-rate for pacification', a task they can achieve only with the direction and assistance of the Pentagon.

Battleground

Nicaragua has revolutionised the counter-revolution' did Cuba 20 years ago; reeling under the impact of the overthrow of Somoza and the wave of mass mobilisations in the rest of Central America the imperialists have made a stand and transformed El Salvador into the battleground for the region.

The campaign being fought by the Salvadorean left will be very much harsher than that in Nicaragua, distinct if not in the essence of petty bourgeois radicalism then certainly in terms of the resolve and capacity of the enemy and the international impact.

Defeat for the US in EI Salvador will rip apart Central America, threaten the key prize of Mexico and represent a setback to the interests of monopoly capital out of all proportion to the size and apparent significance of this tiny republic.

Deceptive

The marines are, already there, certainly over a hundred and possibly as many as 200, flown in to 'protect the embassy and professionalise the armed However the numbers are deceptive (as they were in the early stages of Vietnam) for although they are a formidable intelligence and training force they by no means represent the scope of the imperialist military commitment.

This is more accurately reflected in the rapid supply of $10.3 millions in military aid62% of total US military aid to El Salvador from 1950-79, handed over in just six months.

Moreover, the Pentagon has internationalised the war long With all the jingoistic hou-ha surrounding the media coverage of the French fishermen's strike and blockade, the basic issues have been obscured.

Unprecedented solidarity has now closed all the channel, Normandy, Brittany and Mediterranean ports and created a major political crisis for the French government.

The demands of the strikers are straightforward enough: 30 million francs of government aid to the ailing industry; wage rises; an increase in the price of their fish in line with rising costs; and a decrease in their fuel tax.

It is the latter demand which has united the workers on the fishing boats and those who 1979 Oct. 15. Colonels oust dictator Romero.

factories killed.

over 400 wounded by army in two weeks.

for 'vigorous action' against left. Dec. 31. Civilians in junta demand that armed forces. 1980 Jan. 3. Army rejects civilian politicians' and Stalinists resign.

Jan. 9. Christian Democrats join junta.

cionaria de Masas (CRM).

Revolutionary Government.

by Guardia Nacional.

repression.

1T46 before the left has.

Alongside the three official wings of the repressive forcesthe army, the Guardia Nactional and the Policia de Haciendaand the right wing vigilantes of ORDEN are to be found the Israeli-trained and armed troops of Guatemala and Honduras.

(Their presence was long suspected and recently conThe imperialist strategy. is So own their small vessels and scrimp and save to eeke out an existence.

What began as a small dispute between the industrial fishermen of Boulogne and their employers has succeeded in unleashing the first major wave of prolonged strike action against the viciously anti-working class Barre government.

The sailors from Etaples in Boulogne were the first to give assistance in blockading the ports. The dockers of the two main unions the CGT and CFDT have decided to unload no more fish as long as the dispute lasts.

The drivers who transport the fish inland, after their employers had railed against the it take direct control of the set up late last year and tested" in the 'assault' on the US base at Guantanamo on the coast of Cuba.

As a fall-back the US has formally suggested the use of an intervention force from the Organisation of American States, a call that has so far fallen on deaf ears since even those states that actively back the junta (Venezuela, Colombia The following testimony fishermen for killing their profits, blocked off the approaches to Calais in protest at attempts to break through March 6. State of siege declared.

participate in CRM action.

Democrats remain. doctors and teachers. well over 3,000).

the blockade.

And the Touquet March 7. Agrarian reform announced; strike.

March 24. Archbishop Romero assassinated.

April. US manoeuvres in Caribbean.

FDS and CRM-100,000 attend rally.

troops in Chalatenango department. May 20. Urban strike movement strike during which Salvadorean and Honduran troops slaughtered over 600 people.

"I live in El Jicaro, canton of Las Minas, in the department of Chalatenango. On Tuesday May 13 at around 7 am I had gone down from my hiding place from the guard, the soldiers and ORDEN, and began to sow when I saw an olive-green helicopter flying over the huts.

"Moments later a large contingent of national guards, soldiers and members of ORDEN-I should say around 900-approached •.. we were attacked from all sides, two helicopters fired on us from the air and the soldiers blocked any menas of escape.

"The only possibility was to small farmers near airport threatened grows-40,000 out, flee across the River Sumpul to Honduras. In this attack at least 25 people died ... when I jumped into the water I saw seven little children swallowed up in the strong current... Half an hour later the Honduran authorities told us to return to our country by swimming back across the river; there were were herded up, kicked and beaten with rifle butts for nearly eight hours.

"At 5 p.m. the oldest, some of the women and children were set free ... some 25 people remaining in custody. We were 15 minutes into the bush when we heard a loud volley of shots.

"Sure enough, the soldiers had massacred those who remained prisoner" to park their tractors on the runways to stop the extra flights being planned by the English operators.

The fishermen refuse •to negotiate local deals. "It is a conflict which can only have a national solution" declared the CFDT steward in front of several thousand people, Everywhere a political solution is called for.

The main slogan on the demonstration in Boulogne was "Down with Le Theule!" Joel Le Theule is the Minister of Iransport with responsibility for fisheries. He has tried to keep himself aloof from the dispute as having nothing to do with him! Institute for Free Labour Development (AIFLD) staff.

These include Roy Prosterman who directed a similar 'Land of the Tiller' pacification programme in the early 1960sin Vietnam.

Prosterman and his friends have taken over the top two floors of the San Salvador Sheraton Hotel and, armed with hundreds of thousands of dollars and a direct telephone line to the high command, are working in earnest.

It is since the introduction of this 'reform' that the escalation of fighting rose to its present level.

There is precious little, if any, redistribution of land. The ruling oligarchy simply subdivided their estates by formally registering different tracts of land in the names of members of their families, thereby avoiding exceeding the size limits.

In any case 800 government agronomists have been on strike since the campaign began, puttier pimplem entation. Large numbers of the fixed-wave walkie-talkies issued to the reform institute have been found in the possession of members of ORDEN who, unsurprisingly, are oftne taking over that land which is being expropriated.

In recent weeks the tempo of repression has risen still further. In last July large numbers of troops were drafted into the regions around Perquin and Aguilares in what appeared to be an attempt to wipe out a major force of the FPL. However, the army reported many casualties and failed to claim a victory.

The ability of the FARN to take over the city of San Miguel albeit only for a few hours and the remarkable takeover by the ERP of large parts of Morazon province on 14 August suggest a qualitative stepping up guerrilla actions.

Terrain

These, however, still remain limited by the Salvadorean terrain, which effectively prohibits the holding of liberated zones before the final insurrectionary push, an apparently rigid adherence to the strategy of 'prolonged peoples war' which has had the effeot of leaving large sectors of the peasantry vulnerable to reprisal and left thousands of striking workers without clear political objectives or the means of self-defence.

The immediate danger is that the masses, harried with ceaseless repression and lacking concrete examples of success, will become demoralised and withdraw from the struggle.

These tactical and strategic shortcomings do not simply arise from the military position; they relate directly to the politics and programme of the left in El Salvador.

A second article will take up this question in detail and show how the betrayals of the petty bourgeois nationalists in Nicaragua threaten to be repeated in El Salvador.

However it was his proposals to the trawler employers which sparked off the strike wave. He has declared that he is well aware of the deficiencies of the old French vessels in competition with Norwegian, Japanese and Soviet ships. He has offered assistance in return for certain "increases in efficiency"

Several employers of course took this to mean giving them a licence to sack. It was the reduction in hours of work of the crews that provoked the strike in Boulogne.

It is this underlying fear of unemployment and hatred of the government as well as the decisive and bold forms of action taken, which have tapped that well of solidarity withi the French working class for those involved in struggle.

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SOCIALIST PRESS, Wedn ay 27. st 191 Augi ige 4