ETA tweaks the erals' noses Gen

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Send to: WSL, BM Box 5277, London WCIN 3XX who might be considered worth assassinating!

But - Reagan faces tensions and divisions within his Cabinet team -particularly the intense competition for power between the Secretary of State, General Haig, and the Vice President, former CIA Director George Bush.

The weeks prior to the shooting had seen unseemly squabbles over Reagan's decision to announce that Bush, rather than Haig, was the man in charge of "crisis management" at the White House in the absence of the President.

In command Haig was almost visibly licking his lips when, in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, he was able to take advantage of the absence of both Reagan and Bush to declare to television cameras that he was in command.

Workers the world over shuddered at the prospect of this flamboyant sabrerattler taking over control of the US military machine:

But Haig had made a blunder in explaining the basis for his new found (and short-lived) power he is number three only in Reagan's appointed executive, not in the order of precedence embodied in the US constitution.

As Bush arrived back in Washington it was plain that Haig had once again put his ETA (militar) has continued its military campaign against the Spanish armed forces, despite their increased role in policing Euskadi (the Basque country).

And with every successful attack Spain holds its breath-to see if the army general staff will decide that this is to be used as the pretext for the next coup d'etat.

• But at present there is a chance they will hold off to see how much the civilian politicians will dance to the military tune.

At present in the aftermath of the failed coup of February 23, political leaders of virtually ail the parliamentary parties are doing everything they can to please, flatter and placate the Francoist military.

The military have been given an even stronger role in repression in Euskadi. ment erprocess of deveiopregional autonomy has been slowed down. The main workers' parties (Socialist and Communist) and their respective national trade unions are calling for moderation so as not to provoke the anger of the generals-and they are organising reactionary demonstrations against ETA.

And the government is strongly resisting any strong move-verbal or otherwiseagainst the military plotters of February 23.

Military court

They are supposedly being "investigated"-in private, and at snail's paceby a military court.

But there will be no attacks, no purge and no public investigation.

In taking such a conciliatory line towards the plotters, however, the government runs the risk of losing all its authority rather than share it with the military.

That problem has been highlighted by the fact that the plotters of January 23 are becoming objects more of worship than of contempt.

Lt. Colonel Tejero, who shot his way into parliament, has become the object of a Francoist cult.

Fascist paint pots have named streets after him all over Spain.

And 350 people a day have been making the pilgrimage to visit him in prison.

Embarrassed by creating this fascist Mecca the government has moved Tejero to a remote part of Galicia in the far north west of Spain.

But if they stop the pilgrims they will not, of course, stop the pressures which continue to build up towards another coup.

The only way in which that danger can be fought against is through the mobilisation of the working class through the building of a militant united front against Francoism. Name . Address Labour Partv, within which Marxists will argue for an adequate programme of transitional demands to mobilise a struggle for a workers' government. The Transitional Programme in Today's Class Struggle The founding programmatic document of the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee.

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