Labour Poland rally BUILD TRADE UNIOI SOLIDARITYON

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AFTER a prolonged period of shamefaced inaction, at last an official labour movement. event has been staged to mobilise solidarity for Solidarnosc.

A Labour Party rally will be held in Central Hall, Westminster on the evening of Wednesday March 16.

Chaired by Joan Lestor,

the meeting will feature a mixture of speakers ranging THE Thatcher government has been the only European government to lend its backing to the farcical • "elections' scheduled for El Saivador at the end of March.

Two British observers will fly to the country where, according to the latest Amnesty International reports, the savage activities of right wing murder squads against working class militants and opponents of the regime are backed up more or less openly by the so-called "forces of law and order" _ the army and police.

They will spectate from a safe distance on elections which are boycotted by the main progressive political opponents of the regime, the Democratic Revolutionary

from Dennis Healey and Roy Evans of the ISTC on the right, through Clive Jenkins (representing the TUC) to Eric Heffer on the left as one of the few Labour MPs to have taken an active interest in. building labour movement support.

Solidarnosc activist Zbigniew Kowalewski iS

expected to fly from Paris to speak at the rally.

US-backed candidate Duarte Front (FDR).

The political strength of the FDR flows from the mass popular support of the war in the countryside being

But there does not appear to have been as.much work devoted to building the attendance at the rally as there has in assembling a platform of speakers.

It is vital that socialists support the . event and prevent any attempt by Labour bureaucrats to use a poor turn-out as an excuse

for further inaction on Sa waged by the guerrillas of the FMLN - a war which junta chief Napoleon Duarte now admits his army is losing.

Dragged

As a result the Reagan government is being dragged more and more into open involvement through economic and military aid, the provision of equipment and advanced training, and the sending of US "advisors" to the battle zones.

But as the tide continues to flow towards the anti-imperialist fighters, the "hawks" of the Pentagon and in the junta are looking increasingly to direct US military support. '.

An opinion poll conThe target must be the mobilisation of the Labour Party and TUC in concrete solidarity action - fund raising, demonstrations and propaganda in support of Solidarnose, and the fight for trade union blacking of trade (with the exception of food and medical supplies) with the Jaruzelski junta.

ducted last week by the right wing magazine Newsweek reveals overwhelming hostility within the US to any such intervention.

Now is the time to step up the fight to turn such anti-war sentiment into an active campaign by the international labour movement in solidarity with the fight in El Salvador.

demonstration in London with this objective has been called on March 28 - to coincide with the phony elections.

It begins at Speakers corner at lpm, and wili go to a rally in Tratalgar Square.

And all labour movement bodies should affiliate to the El Salvador Solidarity Campaign. "WE feel that British Labour policy should support majority rule in Ireland and the establishment of an independent, democratic state there, which could allow for safeguards for minority rights and local autonomy.

"It is important to appreciate that the overwhelming majority of the Irish labour movement endorses this policy.

Matt Merrigan, a District Secretary of the Amalgamated TGWU • in Dublin, was explaining the views of Irish trade unionists to a 400strong labour movement conference on Ireland in London on February 27.

The conference was attended by 274 delegates, about half from trade unions and half from Labour Parties.

Inez McCormack, NUPE official from Belfast also spoke in the morning session and pointed to the sad reality of a divided working class in the North. British socialists who ignored the Glasgow demo: should they ha ence of at least one meetded by leading Socialist Challenge supporters, he falsely claims that the demonstration was called "with no attempt to consult" activists who have been organising support for Solidarosc.

Concealing the fact that the march is backed by the London Region Labour Party, he claims that there has been 'no attempt to take such a proposal through the official structures of the movement.

Meteyard goes on to make the ludicrous suggestion that the march could "seriously set back" the fight for solidarity because it could be used by lunnamed) "supporters of martial law |?!] as an example of how little 'national jabour movement backing' there is for Solidarnosc.

Following this catalogue of falsifications and inventions. Meteyard announces that - for all his earlier pronouncements in favour of building "local labour movement support for Solidarose now - the policy of Socialist Challenge is not to build this

Bruce Robinson reports ol Movement Conference on

colonial aspect of the relations between Britain and Ireland, and the real, it marginal privileges enjoyed by the Protestants in the North and their impact on the Northern Ireland labour movement, fly in the face of reality, she said.

The alterpoon session was given over to a discussion of what could be done in the British labour movement.

Union groups But it was only after a Socialist Organiser supporter insisted, from the floor, that it was agreed to put aside time for delegates from different unions to meet. The groups that met must form the core of Irish solidarity caucuses in the unions.

It was also decided that the committee which organised the conference should remain in existence and organise another conference at the end of the year. we waited for the TUC? campaign for support in London, but to urge us to call it off!

What do they offer instead, "now"?

'We urge the organisers to... commit themselves to working with other supporters of Solidarnosc in Britain to force the TUC and Labour Party leaders into action on this question"

Beneath the fig-leaf of quibbles and objections, therefore, Socialist Challenge proposes no tangible course of action for socialists to build support for Solidarnosc in the London area!

Minimise Blinded by sectarian and factional motives, their prime objective is simply to minimise support for the march that has been called.

This single-minded sectarianism reaches.the level where this whole page supposedly on building labour movement solidarity fails seriously to advertise the Labour Party's own national rally in support of Solidarnose in London on March 16!

» the La Ireland

If the conference is not just to be a re-run of this one it is important to focus it on deciding on activity and in the meantime to organise a solid base of support in the unions and Labour Parties to make it really representative.

To this end, the Labour Committee on Ireland National Council last weekend decided to call on the committee to focus on building up the trade union groups initiated at the conference.

We realise of course that Socialist Challenge has problems deciding its policy on Poland. A heated dispute is raging among its supporters on whether or not to fight for trade union blacking of trade with the Polish junta - a policy supported by Socialist Organiser and by Solidarnose activists.

And with many Socialist Challenge readers bemused by . their paper's uncritical support for the sell-out strike leaders in the recent Leyland Vehicles dispute, obviously there are sectarian currents in their organisation pressing for a policy of isolating their militants from SO supporters. But the fight for solidarity with the Polish workers movement is too important to be transformed into a sectarian battleground.

We urge Socialist Challenge o reverse their factional stance and to participate jointly with our supporters on the March 13 demonstration. For our par we will continue to press for the broadest possible joint work towards principled labour movement solidarity with the Polish workers.

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ing on solidarity work convened by SO and atten-