Local coalition example for antiwar movement

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On January 28-29, 1983, the Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) held an extremely important National Coordinators Conference in Washington, D.C.

CISPES, the largest of three Central America solidarity networks in the United States, has recently sought to reach out to broader sectors of the U.S. population for the purpose of building a massive anti-intervention movement. It has played a key role in distributing information and literature, in touring Salvadoran speakers, and in mobilizing protests against U.S. involvement in the Central American region. At the same time, however, in the course of the discussion on strategy for 1984 which the national leadership initiated last summer, the anti-intervention perspective has been increasingly linked to an orientation toward electoral politics.

The January 28-29 conference approved a "Dump Reagan" strategy for 1984, opting to work in close collaboration with the Jesse Jackson forces inside the Democratic Party. The vote was 88 to 2, with 2 abstentions. The only people eligible to attend and vote were members of the national administrative committee, national staff members, regional coordinators, and sub-regional coordinators.

"I felt as lonely as the Maytag repairman," complained the coordinator of the CISPES West Virginia/Western Pennsylvania sub-region. Maytag is the appliance manufacturer which claims its products are so good that its repairmen can only sit around in glum isolation from the rest of the world.

This particular sub-regional coordinator had fully supported the electoral-oriented strategy advanced by the CISPES PLYMPTONI HAVE YOU HOW BOUT SEEN ANY YOU? SEEN DEATH SQUADS? ANY DEATH SQUADS? national leadership. Yet he felt compelled to vote against this very perspective because a clear majority in his sub-region had decisively opposed it. He had two votes to cast, and they were the only votes against the electoral strategy.

The National Conference vote is, of course, simply one stage-though a very important one—in the ongoing perspectives discussions that have been going on in the Central America solidarity/antiintervention movement for over three years. The discussion is certain to continue into the future. It's worth taking a look, therefore, at the kind of thinking which resulted in this dissenting vote.

On Jan. 21, representatives of Central America committees in the West Virginia/Western Pennsylvania sub-region of CISPES gathered in Morgantown, West Virginia to discuss past work and ulure ocisoccurves. lne two larges groups represented were the Central America Mobilization Coalition (CAMC) of Pittsburgh and the Latin America Solidarity Project (LASP) of Morgantown. Both have more than two years of solid experience behind them and have done important labor, religious, community and student outreach.

The primary purpose of the subregional conference was not to discuss past accomplishments, however, but to take a searching look into the future in order to prepare for the new challenges facing the antiwar movement. There was general agreement on the need to see Central America and the Caribbean on a regional level, rather than simply as a set of separate countries. After all, U.S. policy-makers are responding to a regionwide revolutionary upsurge with a regional counter-revolutionary strategy: isolate revolutionary struggles from each other, weaken one by crushing another, eventually defeat them one by one with the help of all reactionary forces in the region. The conference went on record supporting the merger of the El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua solidarity networks in the U.S.

Serious disagreement arose, however, over the best form and target for antiwar outreach efforts during the Presidential election year. Some argued forcefully for a "Dump Reagan" focus, working in the Democratic Party with Jesse Jackson's "Rainbow Coalition." While many were sympathetic to the "Rainbow Coalition," they remained unconvinced, however, that this perspective provided an adequate focus for the anti-intervention movement. The proposal to make "Dump Reagan" a central focus lost 17 to 3, with 1 abstention. The proposal to join the "Rainbow Coalition" lost 13 to 3, with 3 abstentions.

At the end of the full discussion, the following resolution was adopted by a vote of 12 to 0, with 2 abstentions:

"We support the perspective of building a broad-based anti-intervention movement rooted firmly in the majority sectors of the U.S. population. We urge the following:

• "1. CISPES should give particular attention to relating the issue of anti-intervention to the situation of U.S.

ANY DEATH SQUADS? working people, and the slogan "Jobs Not War" should be added those being projected by CISPES.

"2. We must take to heart the understanding of the revolutionaries of Central America regarding the importance of reaching out to those sectors of the working class that are organized to defend the interests and dignity of those who labor. The labor movement has a central role to play in the anti-intervention movement, and we must work to involve unions in anti-intervention activities.

"3. In additon to projecting outreach to labor, the religious community, the Black and Hispanic communities, and students, CISPES should give attention to forging links with the women's movement.

"4. Throughout 1984—before, during and after the elections-we must work to build a strong antiwar movement that will be capable of effectively limiting and finally eliminating U.S. intervention in Central America. To achieve this end, CISPES and its affiliates should refrain from throwing support to any political candidates. By exerting politically-independent pressure, we can have the greatest impact on all U.S. politicians and policy-makers."

Some activists had Jesse Jackson campaign offers the best means for relating to the constituencies identified here. Others responded that political divisions within those constituencies and within anti-intervention coalitions would make such a strategy divisive and counter-productive.

Several insisted, however, that the only "relevant" way to protest U.S. policy would be to dislodge Reagan, which can only be done with a Democrat. That Democrat would not be Jesse Jackson, it was conceded, but some other politician who would presumably be influenced by the "Rainbow Coalition" if Jackson does well in the primaries.

A majority of delegates at the subregional conference felt that "relevance" like this would not be fruitful. They obviously found a different perspective more persuasive, one reflected in the four points they adopted. A position paper circulated at the conference, entitled "A General Perspective Framework for the Central America Movement," attempted to articulate that outlook more fully. It said, in part: "It's through action that other people are drawn into our movement and that the policymakers feel the pressure of mass sentiment....

"We must recognize that there are no gimmicks which will allow us to leap over the task before us: building and maintaining a sustained antiwar opposition. Understanding that there will be both ebb and flow of antiwar consciouness and participation on the part of large masses of people, we must pose a consistent and visible alternative to the war policies of the U.S. government. Those war policies, which will inevitably fail to stop the revolutionary tide, are destructive to the interests of the people of the United States as well as to the peoples of Central America and the Caribbean. This objective reality, combined with the visible and powerful alternative posed by the anti-intervention through its many and variec activities, will create a masssive antiwar pressure to which the policy-makers and politicians must ultimately submit."