Iran/Iraq

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week, promising further casualties in this conflict which has already claimed tens of thousands on each side.

Also last week, Amnesty International published a report on repression in Iran.

Since the revolution in 1979, there have been more than 5,000 executions by official figures. Amnesty notes that this total must be far below the reality. The Mujaheddin opposition say that 30,000 have been killed .. an average of nearly 20 a day.

The main victims of the executions have been members of the Kurdish national minority in Iran; political oppositionists; and adherents of the Bahai religion.

Adultery, homosexuality, and drug trafficking have also been made subject to the death penalty. ments. US troops arrive for exercises in Costa Rica BEHIND the ritual references to "improving the human rights situation" and real purpose of the Kissinger Commission's report on Central America is clear -beefing up and integrating the activities of the Central American military establishPublished by Socialist Forum for Southern Africa Solidarity.

Available (at 9op plus 20p post)

G/o SO, 28 Middle Lane, London N8. 90p Bob Fine

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Militants face death on hunger strike We can still win struggles' important thing is not to allow the price rises to take place. Compensations - no high - will never be full, and they will not halt the continuous fall in living standards. of the level of life and, in general, the whole economic situation, is our current says Solidarnosc leader Zbigniew Bujak THE MOST matter how The matter priority.

I am deeply convinced that huge protest actions - strike actions - will occur in relation to the price rises. Everything points to the fact that people have had enough, and that they will defend themselves.

Apart from the struggle against the price rises, we await a struggle for cost of living allowances the continuous fall in living standards.

At the present time, we cannot win cost of living allowances through any centralised country-wide protest. They can only be effectively demanded at work enterprise level. Well-organised enterprises, with access to different departments, have by far the best chances of exerting pressure.

Even at those enterprises where there is no organisation, effective actions can be conducted. A very fruitful leaflet campaign can be waged by as few as two or three people; managements greatly fear such actions, and are therefore prepared to make concessions to avoid them. Poster actions — although they demand more people -evoke a similar response on the part of management. We cannot provide more detailed directions than this, because the situation differs in every establishment.

If we see enterprises commencing a struggle for cost of living allowances, we will support them with both regional and eventual national actions, which will continue until everyone has won appropriate compensations. Thus even when a region's largest enterprises have succeeded in this, we will continue our actions until we have affirmed that everyone else has also done so. in the near future compensating for Edmund Baluka THE POLISH government admitted last week that Solidarnose militants are on hunger strike in all four of the major political prisons.

In Strzelin prison there are 13 hunger strikers. Four of them have been transferred to hospital because of their condition. One, Janusz Palubicki, now weighs less than 8 stone.

In Barczewo, nine are on hunger strike, including Trotskyist Edmund Baluka.

The hunger strike started on December 5. To prevent the authorities torturing and injuring the prisoners by force-feeding them, the hunger strike is organised in shifts. One group strikes for two days, and then another group relieves them.

They are demanding political prisoner status. At present they are treated worse than ordinary criminal prisoners. They demand the right to buy food in the prisons once a week, as ordinary prisoners can. Normal prison food is inedible.

They also demand to be allowed four visits a month. At present they have two hours a month with relatives, in guarded cells. These shortened excerpts from an interview with Zbigniew Bujak are taken from Voice of Solidarnosc, c/o 314-320 Grays Inn Rd. London WCI. The interview appeared in the underground publication 'Tygodnik Mazowsze'l last November.

Socialist Organiser no. 166 February 16 1984 Anna Walentinowicz (1965 photo above) has been in Katowice prison since December.

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