The Junta's Land-Grab

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THROUGHOUT the Falklands crisis Socialist Challenge has sided with the Argentine claim to the islands. They have, in one way or another, given support to the Junta's methods for repossessing these territories by stating that the islands were taken by force from Argentina by the UK.

Socialist Challenge brushed aside the criticism that they were giving support to a neo-fascist junta by saying it was not a key factor.

Their analysis reminded me of a speech in the 1930s by a leading European politician:

"For five years we have attempted to open negotiations with our opposite numbers in Prague over the future of these provinces. They have refused.

•We have patiently pointed out that repeated referenda, carried out by independent agencies, have régistered 95% majorities in these provinces for reunification with the Fatherland. Genetically historically and culturally these people are from the same stock as ourselves.

'Before 1919 they were part of the Wilhelmine Empire, before that the First German Reich, before that the Confederation of German Provinces. The same goes for the city of Danzig, for centuries the major port of Prussia.

'These territories were taken from us not through the exercise of the principle of national self-determination by the indigenous populations, but by military force. it is only with great reluctance, and after intensive deliberation that the order has been given to repossess these territories to their rightful owners.

Is this Galtieri speaking? Well, no, it's Adolf Hitler.

Interestingly a strict examinatión of both indiv. iduals' claim ' to • these different territories actually shows Hitler has a much stronger case. Atter all, Argentinians have never populated the Falklands on a settled basis, while Germans did inhabit Danzig and the Sudetenland.

And significantly, Argentina has a similar level of industrialisation today as Czechoslovakia had in the 1930s. One cannot twist either of the two cases into the simple imperialist/ colony mould.

Pickle

So would Brian Grogan (SC 20 May) brush aside 'the political coloration of the regime" (after all, Hitler was elected, unlike Galtieri) and supported the German claim?

Trotsky, of course, would have turned over in his grave to have thought that his followers would end up giving support to the type of regime he brilliantly analysed in "The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany"

But why have our rades in the IMG got themselves into such a pickle of confusion over the Falklands?

They have failed to analyse the real concrete dynamics of the situation. Neither the Argentine nor British bourgeoisie | have significant material interests tied up in the islands. The conflict is about the fact that Galtieri is usurping Thatcher's position in the capitalist pecking order.

If the capitalists were to go to war every time they thought there might be an economic gain, they would not be ruling the roost in the World today. Economics is always mediated by politics and calculated self-interest.

The comrades of Socialist Challenge have failed to move on from the 1930s in their analysis of Latin America's relationship to Western capitalism.

JACK CONNELL •EBU Bury

ALAN GILBERT

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