Organiser Special: the Ther Americi

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WARMONGERS.

Ronald Reagan represents one America - the Amer- A similar spirit had been shown by the US miners ica of the military advisors in El Salvador, the multi- in their 105-day strike in 1978. They faced an order national corporations exploiting the world, the to return to work under the Taft-Hartley Act, conmassed nuclear weapons threatening our lives, and the demned it as "this rich man's law" , defied it, and with nght-wing dictatorships in many con- went on to win a goou part or men ucmanus. For a long-time, rising living standards and prosThere is another America - the America of the perity, based on the US's world domination, made it working class, of organised labour, of a powerful possible for this fighting spirit of the US working women's movement, of black militants who see their class to stop short of generalising politically, and to fight as linked to that of the liberation movements of coexist with ideological acceptance of capitalism.

That heritage is still a long way from being disLast September 19 there were 250,000 of them on carded. But the prosperity has faded - US real wages the streets against Reagan - the biggest demonstration ever seen in Washington. Among the speakers Our demonstrations against Reagan should also be was a member of the air controllers' union PATCO. demonstrations of solidarity with the other America. His speech conveyed their spirit of defiance - despite For when they move - and move they will - the US working class will be a greater force for progress than all being sacked, down 1 to the last member, by Reagan's decree, they fought to the end. and its ni*s • (l. 17$3' RIGHT HEATAR GUATEMALA SALVADOR NICARAGUA alliances tinents.

the Third World.

waitin THE STFPIII.

OW mandanst of thai damanda have been stagnant for a decade.

Reagan can ever be for reaction.

Worer 111** are Secter iSe Everywhe FOR decades the US has seemed to be the world's strongest and most secure bastion of capitalism.

Yet that strength can quickly be reversed. US capitalism has two great enemies potentially mortal enemies - its own strong and often militant working class, and the workers and oppressed peoples exploited by it all across the world.

In 1953 the US socialist leader James P. Cannon outlined 'America's Road to Socialism"

By 1914. ''It was becoming clear that America's rise to the position of first power in the world, involved it in all the affairs of the world. The United States was no longer isolated and alone, secure on an island protected by two oceans. Its investments and its interests extended all over the capitalist world, and all the crises and revolutionary disturbances in any part of the world became lodged in America's own foundations.

And by 1953 it was clear that 'There are not going to be any victories. There are not going to be any conquered peoples to sweat and slave to make America rich enough to maintain a high standard of living for the workers and fatten up the labour fakers.

'On the contrary, American imperialism will encounter opposition everywhere; it will fight losing battles against revolutionary peopies, as already shown in Korea.

•There will be terrible casualties and incalculable expenditures, and the whole damned foreign LILYW 121r policy, instead of enrich ing America and giving some crumbs to the work ers, will have to turn bacl against the workers, t squeeze them to the bone t get the money to pay fo America's barren anc hopeless adventures OI foreign fields.

"And that will signif the complete and utte bankruptcy of the labou bureaucracy in the matte of foreign policy.

''The workers, unde such conditions, must an‹ will turn to militancy an‹ throw up leaders of a nev mould, just as the worker: in the thirties threw up nev trade-union leaders out o the ranks."

"By far the most prob able line of development i the final break-up of thi Democratic-labour coali tion, and the launching o an independent labou party by the workers."

'In my view, a labou party will be formed unde conditions similar to thos under which the CIO Ith industrial union movemer of the 1930s] was organis ed. And the party forme under such conditions an by such means cannot be conservative party an more than the CIO could b a conservative union c the old type.

"Such a party will be c necessity, from the ver first start, a radical, sem revolutionary party, wit the most militant worker and the conscious revolt tionists pushing it to it left.

"And in this situation c political awakening of it workers, when for the fir: time the American worke: as a class begin to turn : politics on their account - then the revor tionary Marxist part which has forseen whole development, whic has theorised it long befe: it began, will find its oi native environment. natural field of work.

"It will become, ir. = great expanding situatic: what is said in the scre tures, the leaven that lea: eneth the whole lump.

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Organiser i%. bavador the US ps up a regime in which ading role is played by an described by a formIS ambassador there as →sychopathic killer" . In temala it has given se muted support to a - me reckoned to have id thousands in system* political murder.

• Honduras the US is ring in $10,650,000 of tary aid this year, and staining "advisors' to • d up an army which is closely with EI ador's armed forces.

duras also serves as a , for former members of itor Anastasio SomoNational Guard in rague, who carry out tant harassing actions ss the border into ragua.

e US blocks and camas against economic to Nicaragua i and ada, maintains a/trade argo on Cuba, and tries zep up the pressure constant threats and ays of military bigth in the Caribbean. IS ice the Nicaraguan to ation in July 1979, *a ral America has been re. harp end of the conig struggle against US •ration by oppressed Les across the world.

NICARATUA As Jenny Pearce points out: "Strategically the region's proximity to the United States gives it a unique position in America's national security considerations. US bases in Guantanamo Bay on Cuba, San Juan and Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico, and in the Panama Canal Zone, as well as dozens of smaller air and naval bases in the region are . considered vital to American defence ...

"(And) ultimately, if the United States cannot maintain its supremacy in its own backyard, its ability to do so elsewhere in the world is open to serious doubt...

Investments

'Commercially, the Caribbean basin is an important trade route...

i'The economic importance of the basin is considerably less than its geopolitical significance •..' But there are sizeable investments; the Caribbean is the US's source for important minerals like bauxite; it is a major area for oil refining; and it probably has considerable l unexplored oil and gas reserves.

US domination in the former Spanish and French colonies of Central America and the Caribbean began ate in the 19th century. It was around the same time as the big capitalist powers of Europe completed their colonial seizure of most of Africa and Asia, and the motives and (despite formalities) the content were much the same.

US imperialism latched onto the social structure it found in these countries -small landowning oligarchies ruling over an impoverished peasantry. (Costa Rica's structure did not fit this pattern, and its development has been somewhat different). It turned the countries into plantations or sugar.

The Dominican Republic is an example. To this day the US corporation Gulf and Western owns over one-seventh of the cultivable land, using it for sugar; for other export crops, and for ranching. Another 50%-plus of the land is owned by a small oligarchy.

75% of the peasantry is landless or lives on tiny subsistence plots. A survey in 1970 found that the average protein intake was 62% of the recommended minimum for health, and in some of the poorest communities as low as 34%.

On El Salvador, Jenny Pearce quotes Marcel Niedergang, writing in 1971:

•'There are fourteen of them (the oligarchic families). Their names are emblazoned outside the airconditioned office blocks, the banks, the trading firms and the insurance companies of San Salvador. They play gold. They give parties by their swimming pools. They join exclusive clubs.

Coffee industry

"You find them, their sons-in-law, their nephews or their cousins, running every business, and most of all the coffee industry, which is Salvador's greatest wealth...

'The Duenas, the Regalados, the Sol Millets, the Guirolas, the Alvarez, the Melendez, the Menendez Castros, the Deiningers, the Quinonez, the Garcia Prietos, and Vilanovas: this oligarchy runs the lives of three million mestizos."

Meanwhile 60% of rural families earn less than the minimum required to buy sufficient food for a healthy diet.

All this century US capital has poured in to profit from cheap labour. After World War 2 it. became totally dominant in the area. Just as it had established its domination by force (see inset), it used force to maintain it.

In 1954 the CIA backed a coup to overthrow the Arbenz government in Guatemala when its land reform threatened (unused) United Fruit Company land. In 1965 20,000 US marines were sent into the Dominican Republic to overthrow the nationalist reforming government of Juan Bosch.

But in the 1960s the pillars of US domination were beginning to crumble. It was not only the impact of the Cuban revolution.

There was a limited but real industrialisation in Central America. Industry's share of output rose from 13% in 1960 to 18% in 1970. New middle classes and working classes, each from their own angle, began to challenge the entrenched oligarchies. Its losing battle • in Vietnam underlined for the US ruling class the need for it to find other options than fighting to the end in defence of discredited and corrupt dictators.

Alternatives

Jimmy Carter's 'human rights" policy was an expression of this search for alternatives. So was the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977.

Since 1903 the US had run the Canal Zone as a state within a state. Panamanian nationalist feeling against this became more vocal after Omar Torrijos took power in 1968.

So Carter decided to make concessions. The US came out of it well.

Panama regained sovereignty over its entire national territory. But it would not get full control of the canal until the year 2000.

The US retained the right to keep military bases in the country - only having to reduce them from 14 to 3 by the year 2000. And the treaty gives the US the right to intervene militarily at any time 'if the neutrality of the Canal is threatened' Best option Many strategists for imperialism still believe that this sort of accommodation with nationalist regimes is the best option. Governments like the French and West German have maintained relations with Sandinista Nicaragua and pushed for a negotiated settlement with the FDR-FMLN in El Salvador. The Socialist International, working closely with states like Venezuela and Mexico, has been a major agency for this policy.

But Ronald Reagan bitterly opposed the Panama Canal Treaty. His team came to power vowing there would be "no more Irans" • The counterparts XICO Puerto Barrioso GUATEMALA Quezaltenango Guatemala o Sta Ana San Salv EL SALVADOR PACIFIC OCEAN of the Shah in other countries would be defended to the hilt.

Already Nicaragua had

been "lost". After over a year of civil war against the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, whose family had not only ruled politically but also dominated Nicaragua's economy since 1933, the Sandinista Liberation Front triumphed in July 1979.

US policy had wavered ineffectually between backing Somoza; trying to construct a new regime that would include Somozists (but not Somoza) alongside some of the Sandinistas' bourgeois allies (but not the Sandinistas); and finally dumping Somoza..

In March 1979 the New Jewel Movement had already overthrown the Gairy dictatorship in the BEliZE Belmopan sm (pr hu: the poi els Ha has ref wit hac She der Cha Gui who mili hun dict squ ing enel mor

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