Referendum campaign spurs Boston antiwar movement

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6, speaks to "U.S. Out Now" teach-in at San Francisco State University on Nov. 28. The meeting was sponsored by various campus organizations, BOSTON-At the same moment that the press declared Reagan's "right-wing landslide"' nearly 70 percent of the voters in the greater Boston area approved a referendum that condemned U.S. military involvement in Central America. Despite a blackout in the major newspapers, the referendum won in every representative district in which it was on the ballot-including relatively conservative areas like South Boston. It won by 10-1 in Cambridge and in the Black neighborhoods of Boston.

The "non-binding policy" resolution called for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops and advisers from El Salvador and Honduras and an end to all military aid to El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and the Nicaraguan contras.

Planning for the referendum was begun last spring by members of the Boston Central America Solidarity Association (CASA). We were inspired by the successful ballot initiative sponsored by the San Francisco Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador in November 1983. Many of us believed that-regardless of the size of the final vote-the referendum would provide an opportunity to give information about the war in Central America to large numbers of people.

We decided to set up a steering committee to coordinate our work. We wanted the committee to include people with the broadest possible range of views, and agreed it would give no endorsement to any political candidate. At first we found few volunteers willing to spend hours in the streets collecting signatures to place the referendum on the ballot. But the response of the thousands who agreed to sign the petition dum will be on the ballot in November. You will want to make up your mind how to vote. We'd like to give you some information on what is going on."

The referendum campaign has transformed the Boston antiwar movement. We built a grassroots network that is many times larger than the circle that the traditional solidarity groups had been able to reach. It is unfortunate that the Socialist Workers Party refused to build the campaign (calling it 'petty bourgeois') and called for abstention on the vote. But many other participants have become convinced of the necessity for mass actions to build on the momentum generated by the referendum. Accordingly, a conference has been called for Dec. 15 in Boston in order to plan demonstrations and other activities protesting U.S. intervention in Central America. ..Labor enlist (continued from page 1: “April antiwar actions enlist support from labor”)

ommended a reversal of a previous decision to exclude the People's Antiwar Mobilization (PAM) from representation on its national steering committee.

Although PAM has organized several large antiwar protests, an earlier coalition meeting accused them of "being an untrustworthy partner in the coalition process". Rejecting this exclusion will strengthen the coalition's ability to unite broad forces for the national demonstrations it has called on April 13 for Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Denver.

There are also indications that this national coalition will agree to expand its steering committee to include representatives from local coalitions building the spring actions. Gus Newport, mayor of Berkeley, and Al Lannon, president of International Longshore and Warehouse Union local 6 (ILWU), have both indicated that they will raise this issue at the Nov. 29 coalition meeting. Lannon is a member of the International Execuincluding Students for Socialist Action.

committee for a Spring Peace Mobilization and elected a temporary coordinating committee. Al Lannon and two other leading unionists; Charlene Tschirhart, the director of the San Francisco Freeze; the Rev. Howard Gloyd, the head of the Rainbow Coalition; and John Moyer, the director of the San Francisco Ecumenical Council, have all agreed to serve on this 10-person committee.

Most of the unionists first became involved in this effort when they supported the Emergency National Conference, which was held in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sept. 14-16. By assuring the labor movement of a major decision-making role from the beginning and by focusing the April 13 demonstration on opposition to the war danger in Central America, the emerging Bay Area coalition has received unprecedented labor participation. The ILWU has contributed office space and equipment. Most of the local and statewide labor bodies are also expected to support the spring action.

Pledging its commitment to building Socialist Action/ May May Gong a unified coalition involving all the anti-intervention forces, the Bay Area organizing committee has patterned its four slogans after those previously adopted by the national coalition. These slogans are the following: Oppose U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Caribbean; Freeze and Reverse the Nuclear Arms Race; Jobs and Justice, Not War; and End U.S. Support for South Africa Apartheid.

Growing involvement in the peace movement by labor is a sign of the deep opposition to Washington's war plans. During the Vietnam war, the mass mobilization of antiwar sentiment was one of the decisive factors that forced the Nixon administration to withdraw U.S. troops.

The ruling rich in this country understand the need to reverse the so-called Vietnam Syndrome for the war drive to succeed. Building local coalitions with heavy labor participation-like the one in San Francisco-can once again force a government of warmakers to retreat.