US, UK sail to the Gulf Why Lebanon exploded

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HAVING been forced to reconsider their role in one part of the Middle East, the imperialist powers prepare for intervention in It seems that the US and Britain are preparing to intervene in the Gulf if this happens.

Both countries are moving ships closer to the The fighting has also intensified in the Hence US recriminations against Britain three-and-a-half year old Gulf war between Iran and Iraq. The Iranian Islamic government The labour movement must oppose any has threatened to shut the Straits of Hormuz, such intervention by the US and British through which about one-third of all Western WORLD Sam Nujoma, leader of the Namibian liberation movement SWAPO, has declared that the agreement made between Angola and South Africa last Thursday, 16th, will not halt the movement's struggle.

South Africa continues to rule over Namibia although its authority was supposed to derive from a League of Nations mandate which has been repudiated by the UN. Neighbouring Angola provides bases for KILLING, arbitrary imprisonment and the torture of citizens is normal police practice in Paraguay under the "state of seige" decree which has been in force since Alfredo Stroessner seized power 30 years ago.

According to reports received by the human rights organisation Amnesty, night torture sessions take place in a police annexe in Asuncion, known as the "laboratory" Political suspects are reported to have been beaten, whipped, given electric shocks with cattle prods, had their heads held under water polluted with excrement, been hung by the ankles, and confined to cramped boxes for long periods.

Amnesty knows of 50 political prisoners now being held in Paraguay.

'Torture and ill-treatment are not restricted to political prisoners" Amnesty International said, "we are increasingly concerned at reports that prisoners held for non-political reasons are being tortured in attempts to force them to sign incriminating statements, which may form the basis of prosecution.

ACCORDING to the Observer last Sunday, 19th, "Britain and Argentina are on the verge of an agreement to normalise relations after the Falklands war"

For sure informal discussions are underway. And it seems that the Argentine government has dropped its previous insistence that sovereignty over the islands be on the agenda of any more formal talks. It asks only that sovereignty not be excluded from the agenda.

Argentina's immediate objectives are removal of the 150-mile exclusion zone around the islands, and replacement of British forces there by a UN force, or at least a halt to the British relations and an end to Argentine government supervision over British companies in Argentina, and reintroduction of air and sea links between Argentina and the islands.

THERE is no new information, from Poland, as we go to press, on the Solidarnosc hunger strikers in four of the country's major prisons.

They have been on hunger strike since December 5, demanding political prisoner status and better conditions.

Among them is the Trotskyist Edmund Baluka, jailed for founding the Polish Socialist Party of Labour.

25฿ Falange party of the Gemayel family.

Israeli raids into southern Lebanon forced thousands of mostly Shi'a to flee to the north, swelling the belts of misery.

In 1975 all the central tensions that existed exploded into civil war in which some 50,000 people were killed. It was a war in which the Maronite militias, especially the Falange, were attempting to maintain their domination, or failing that, partition Lebanon along sectarian lines.

The Falange were mostly backed by the Israelis, although the Syrian invasion of 1976 was a deliberate attempt to prevent the imminent defeat of the right wing forces.

Because of the sectarian nature of the Lebanese system, and because of the strength of traditional leaders amongst the Muslims, the conflict became increasingly a sectarian, religiously based one. In 1976 the Muslim-dominated Lebanese National Movement dropped its anti-sectarian programme, unable to see a way out of the situation as it had developed.

Lebanon was effectively partitioned between rival militias and areas of Syrian occupation, with the South run by the right-wing, Israeli-backed Major Hadad who died a few weeks ago.

The Israeli invasion of 1982 as in 1978, was an attempt to destroy the PLO and instal a more stable, i.e. pro-Israeli, pro-imperialist government dominated by the falange Party.

The conflict now is still communally based. As Walid Jumblatt, leader of the so-called Progressive Socialist Party (actually a capitalist party based on the Druze community) put it last week, "The trouble With our country is that all our leaders are warlords and godfathers and I am one of them."

The unity established between the Muslims and Palestinians, always temuous, has been severely damaged. The Islamic fundamentalist Amal militia has always been anti-Palestinian.

Right now it is the Muslims, especially Amal and the PSP who are threatening the aims of the imperialist powers. For an end to the sectarian conflict, a concerted fight against the war lords and godfathers on both sides is desperately needed.

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