Mexican socialists mark new gains

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Solidarity with the Lebanese The following interview with Margarito Montes Parra, a member of the Political Committee of the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT-Revolutionary Workers Party), the Mexican section of the Fourth International, was obtained in Paris on January 31 by Les Evans. It has not been corrected by companero Montes.

Socialist Action: After the great success of the PRT in the July 1982 elections, could you tell our readers something about the ongoing work of your party?

Montes: Before the elections our party had branches in 26 cities and towns. Today there are branches in 95 cities and towns, with a large implantation in peasant sectors and in the colonias[working class districts]. We believe that we are about 1,500 actual members, but there is a much large number of sympathizers and afiliados.

These afiliados were mainly people who organized to support the PRT in the elections. Approximately 4,500 of them affiliated with the PRT. They consider themselves members of the PRT, but we do not count them as members at this point....

In addition, our trade union work has been strengthened among the electrical workers in Toluca near Mexico City, and among the railway workers. We carried out some work in auto in the Renault plant, where the president of the strike committee was in the PRT, but 2,500 workers were fired, including PRT members, in February 1983. At a recent strike Jerry tain NS to electoral work. Now they have changed their position. In Durango in June they called on the colonia they influence to vote for the PRT in local elections. In December the PRT put OIR candidates on our electoral slate in Guerrero. We plan a 1986 electoral alliance with the OIR. We describe this relationship as a privileged united front.

S.A.: Could you come back to the PRT's peasant work and the national coordinating group it participates in?

S.A.: What was the relation of the PRT to the massive October day of protest? And what other areas of work does it engage in?

Montes: The October protest was headed by a committee of 12 from various organizations. I was one of two PRT members on the committee. I represented the CCRI.

Outside of the work 1 have described, the PRT is also in the process of forming a national women's organization in alliance with other organizations. This was initiated by women members of the BPR and is being taken up by a national group of women from the existing coorparty, which was won by the mandates of hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens who voted for us in the last elections. We are convinced that the government is trying to take it away. There are constant attacks on the PRT in the press.

The government falsely accuses us of being terrorists. Under the election law we are entitled to one 15-minute television program each month. The last six have been sabotaged by the studio-the sound mysteriously disappeared when it was broadcast.

The government is distributing a free book attacking Rosario Ibarra. This scurrilous book is entitled "Rosario por Popeye," making a joke about the comic strip character who in the United States is called "Olive Oyl." Popeye's girlfriend is called Rosario in Mexico. This book claims that Rosario is a member of the PRT, which is not true. It claims that the PRT lied about her membership, which is not true. It claims she drinks, that she stole money, that she is a lesbian. Some 10,000 copies were distributed at government expense.

The PRI government has rejected all the electoral victories of the PRT and of the far left in the last two years. You need 1.5 percent of the votes to win a local deputy. In Baja California, the PSUM put an initiative on the ballot to raise the minimum to 5 percent. The PRT in Baja got 3.5 percent of the vote. Here the PSUM and the PRI are in a common bloc. The PRI agreed to give 1000 of its votes to the PSUM to guarantee that it would get a deputy.

The government has refused to permit the PRT to take office in the towns where it has won the local elections. In most cases it has annulled the elections! We won 2 municipal elections in the north; 13 in Guerrero; 1 in Guajapa. In Guerrero the army took away the ballot boxes. We appeal to the readers of Socialist Action to participate in an international campaign in our defense, as these moves raise the threat of still more serious repression yet «‹ come their own public opinion, some of the powers involved in the multi-imperialist force are pulling out their troops. Great Britain and Italy have done this. The Reagan administration has also found itself compelled to announce the withdrawal of its troops from Lebanese soil. But it is continuing to intervene by means of its naval artillery, savagely pounding the anti-Gemayel positions in the Lebanese mountains.

As for the French government, it is trying to extricate itself from the affair without losing face, asking that the multi-imperialist force be relieved by a UN one, in which French troops might participate and which would try to succeed where the Multi-National Force failed, that is, in consolidating the bourgeois order in Lebanon. Such a UN force could also favor the partitionist schemes of the Phalangist far right.

The victorious offensive of the Lebanese opposition calls for anti-imperialist forces throughout the world to redouble their efforts to mobilize opposition to imperialist policy in Lebanon under the following slogans:

All imperialist forces out of Lebanon, including its offshore waters!

Zionist troops out of Lebanon!

No UN intervention!

Solidarity with the Lebanese and Palestinian masses in struggle!

United Secretariat Bureau of the Fourth International Feb. 16, 1984 Socialist Action March 1984 5