[Yes, we Harry IN THE bluntest official statement…]

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Yes, we Harry IN THE bluntest official statement yet of the USA's belligerent attitude, Reagan's top national security advisor Robert McFarlane has declared willingness to support "any decision" by reactionary Central American regimes to invade Nicaragua.

Mclalane was being questioned following a top level secret meeting of the formerly defunct Central American Defence Council (Condeca), which includes El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama and Honduras.

Condeca was formed by the USA in 1963 and its reemergence is part of Reagan's offensive against Nicaragua which formerly - under Somoza -was part of the alliance.

At the meeting it appears that military commanders discussed what "legal" pretexts might be available to them were they to mount an invasion against countries.

ut there is confirmed evidence that Honduras - where over 4,000 US troops are currently staging "exercises" and which harbours an estimated 6-7,000strong CIA-funded army of "contra" mercenaries - and Costa Rica - where another concentration of CIA-run "contras" are based - have been relentlessly seeking to "export" counter-revolution to Nicaragua.

Now, according to Defence Under Secretary Fred Ikle, the USA is to send another 1,000 military personnel to Costa Rica to engage in "civil action" "such as road building. At present around a dozen army engineers are building barracks and support facilities for 2,000 contras on the Coast Rican border with Nicaragua:

So great has grown the US involvement in Costa Rica that the country's Foreign Minister, Fernando Volio Jiminez has resigned, apparently in protest at the extent of the anti-Sandinista operations from his country. Costa Rica itself has no army - LAST week's retreat by the Executive of the Post Office Engineering Union in the face of Tory anti-union legislation is a sell-out of the POEU and of the whole working class.

It was a sell-out that had been worked for both by the POEU right wing, headed by Bryan Stanley and by the TUC bureaucracy: but the Broad eft majority on the NEC split at the most crucial point of the struggle and handed the right wing an easy victory at the conference.

Stanley and his cronies knew - as did Len Murray - that to maintain the union's "blacking" of the private Project Mercury in defiance of the Appeal Court injunction would have abruptly switched the fight from its restricted, selective level to an all-out battle for the existence of the union.

Faced with the prospect of possible seizure of the union's assets or even imprisonment of POEU leaders, an all-out strike would have been both necessary and achievable: and the whole labour movement would have been brought forcibly into a recognition of what Tebbit's Act really means.

It would have been possible to fight for solidarity action by other unions and mount a challenge to this vicious legislation.

The very idea of such a fight terrified Stanley, Murray and the TUC right wing: but they were helped out of their anguish when the Broad Left cracked, and four executive members (one a Communist Party member) capitulated.

The Executive's decision to bow to the injunction and call off the "blacking" effectively kills off any serious fight against the privatisation of British Telecom. Tebbit's anti-union Bill will now help Tebbit in his new existence as Minister for Privatisation to force through the sale of the giant corporation.

The reason is clear: though a POEU appeal against the injunction goes before the House of Lords in three weeks' time, nobody seriously believes it will be upheld.

This means that BT management can choose their time to seek a further injunction against the remaining selective action Continued page 15

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fines and claims for damages, By Ricky Houston