Arafat re-elected despite discord

Scan page 12

12 SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 1985 The 17th session of the Palestine National Council (PNC) came to an end on Nov. 29, the anniversary of the United Nations' 1947 Palestine Partition Plan. The 17th PNC achieved very little in terms of solidifying the Palestine Liberation Organization. It did, however, force the U.S. media to cover the PLO as a serious organization in its own right.

The PLO has been deeply divided since its military defeat in Beirut in 1982. This became most apparent in December 1983, when open warfare between Yasser Arafat's supporters in Fatah and the faction led by Colonel Abu Musa, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, took place.

The Syrian government of Hafez alAssad played a critical role in the revolt against PLO Chairman Arafat. The Assad regime expelled Arafat from territory it controlled in June 1983.

But it would be wrong to lay the blame for the revolt in Fatah solely on Syrian intrigue. The Fatah opposition condemned the corruption of PLO officials who controlled funds coming in from the Arab League. They also denounced Arafat for his decision to withdraw from Beirut.

Arafat visited Cairo 'in December 1983, becoming the first leader in the Arab world to visit the Egyptian capital since the Camp David Accords were signed. He also held talks in Amman, Jordan, with King Hussein, who, in September 1970, brutally drove the PLO out of Jordan. During that "Black September, 3400 Palestinians were killed by Jordanian troops. Arafat at the time had described it as "an attempt at genocide against the Palestinian population as a whọle."

Arafat's diplomatic maneuvers with the Egyptian and Jordanian leaders failed to produce any gains for the Palestinian movement. The maneuvers did, however, cause 86 members of the PNC to ask for Arafat's resignation as chairman of the PLO Executive Committee.

Arafat—the bone of contention The PLO became divided into three blocks known as the National Alliance; the Democratic Alliance, which included left currents; and the supporters of Arafat.

In June a series of talks between the Democratic Alliance and representatives of the Fatah Central Committee were held in the city of Aden, in the Republic of Democratic Yemen. A set of accords, some implicitly critical of Arafat, were adopted. These accords laid the basis for convening the 17th PNC.

Abu Musa, representing the National Alliance, rejected the Aden agreements. He said that the Alliance would not attend the PNC unless agreement was reached on "the need to terminate Yasser Arafat's membership in PLO institutions."

What motivated the decision of Abu Musa and Syria to oppose the convening of the 17th PNC? The Assad regime had begun to fear the formation of what could be called a PLO-Jordanian-Egyptian axis for negotiations with the Israeli state. By its very nature such an axis would exclude Syria from the negotiations. And Syria rejects any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that does not include the return of the Golan Heights to Syrian control.

The meeting was finally held in Amman. This brought closer the axis that Assad feared. There never was any doubt that Fatah would be able to put together a quorum of delegates to hold the PNC. Fatah has firm control of the mass organizations.

The delegates to the . PNC were greeted with banners hung about the hall reading "No Tutelage,, a reference to Syria. Yet one of the first speakers at the opening session was Jordan's King Hussein.

Hussein backed United Nations Resolution 242, which was adopted by the U.N. Security Council in December 1967. This resolution called for an Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories, but at the same time failed to mention the plight of the Palestinians or their right to national self-determination. Acceptance of that resolution implies recognition of Israel as a legitimate state and the denial of Palestinian self-determination.

In the days that followed, many PNC members gave speeches rejecting Resolution 242 as a basis for joint PLO-Jordanian initiatives. Salah Khalaf, an important leader of Fatah, was quoted in The Jordan Times as saying, "We are ...Famine (continued from page 16: “Governments play politics while African children starve”) icy or other interests of the United States government are served."

Donation of a water pump for a Vietnamese orphanage was deemed "not in the interest of the United States" and was blocked, according to an article in In These Times.

Applying these criteria, the Reagan administration decided that saving the lives of starving Ethiopians was not in the national interest. The Ethiopian government declares itself to be Marxist. Even more reprehensible in the State Department's view, Ethiopia is accepting Soviet aid and influence in the strategic Horn of Africa.

The present Ethiopian government was formed in 1974 when a group of army officers overthrew the aging and nearly senile Emperor Hailie Selassie. Famine in the countryside and inept feudal rule left the emperor with no supporters. The committee of army officers, which became known as the Derg, did not head a mass movement of workers or peasants.

The army simply staged a coup that put them at the head of the government and all its agencies of repression. Like the officer corps in Egypt and other Third World countries, the Derg represented the newly educated petty bourgeoisie that developed as western technology spread to Ethiopian cities. They wanted to break out of the stifling confines of the emperor's autocracy.

Nasser and his fellow officers declared themselves to be socialists without understanding the true meaning of the word. The Derg went further, declaring themselves to be Marxist-Leninists. At first they became Maoists in hopes that China would come through with some much-needed aid. When ready to accept the principle of land in exchange for peace, provided that our acceptance will lead to an independent Palestinian state."

Salah Khalaf also talked in an almost ritualistic manner about increased armed struggle against the Zionist state. But one delegate who followed was quoted as stating, "What armed struggle are we talking about? Tell us how you think it can be carried on."

A serious question for which there were no answers.

Farouk al-Kaddoumi gave a report in which he outlined some type of confederation between Jordan and a future Palestinian mini-state. Kaddoumi left the door open to resumption of relations between the PLO and Syria based on "non-interference in each others' internal affairs."

While Arafat was consolidating his control over the PLO, thousands of those prospects fell through they changed their colors slightly to conform to Soviet politics. The workers and peasants played no independent role in these policy shifts. A student group that called for genuine democracy was brutally repressed.

The starving of Eritrea In their domestic policies the Derg is the very opposite of Marxist. A Marxist regime would have freed the province of Eritrea, which was never part of Ethiopia but was annexed to the empire in 1961 against the wishes of the people.

The Eritreans have waged a 20-year battle for their independence. Their freedom fighters control 80 percent of the countryside. But much of the area is laid waste by drought. One-third of the Eritrean population is in danger of starvation. Together with neighboring Tigre AFRICA ERITREA Asmara TIGRAY. «Korem Kobo WOLLO 1211 Dessie Addis Ababa VZ, HIGHLANDS ETHIOPIA province they constitute half famine victims in Ethiopia.

The "Marxist" Derg has responded to starvation in its rebellious provinces just as Reagan has. They saw it as a great opportunity to starve the rebels The Israeli military was, to say the least, unhappy about having Arafat appear uncensored on television. The Israeli border patrol opened fire on a political rally in support of the PNC held at Bir Zeit University, killing one student and wounding eight others.

A negative balance sheet The balance sheet of the 17th PNC is negative. The PNC failed to condemn Arafat's trip to Cairo and did not take any organizational measures to control Arafat's future actions. Moreover, Arafat and the PLO Executive Committee, which is more pro-Arafat than the outgoing one, were given power to carry out joint initiatives with Jordan on the basis of Hussein's proposals.

So although U.N. Resolution 242 was formally rejected, the growing entente with Hussein risks leading the PLO toward a break with its 1968 founding charter, which explicitly called for the establishment of a free and democratic Palestinian state.

Nor did the PNC put forward a clear strategy for Palestinians in the occupied territories. Debate on strategy in the homeland becomes superfluous if the PLO looks in the direction of great-power negotiations to create a Palestinian state.

It was no doubt an error for the left to boycott the PNC. But this error is based on a more fundamental mistake, which is a "tactical" alliance with the Syrian state carried out by all left currents in the PLO. This is the same government that massacred 10,000 of its own people in the city of Hama only two years ago and openly attacked the PLO as a whole in the Lebanese civil war in 1976.

Just as dangerous is the post-PNC rumor that the PLO will move its central offices to Amman, where no PLO members are allowed to carry arms. Both Arafat's bloc with Jordan and the opposition's varying links with the Syrian state are real dangers for the Palestinian revolution.

into surrender by blocking all food shipments to the region.

A number of private relief organizations have gone along with the Derg's policy of starving children in the interest of politics. A section of the Catholic Relief Agency says the Ethiopian government would be very upset if the agency worked directly with the Eritreans. Another relief agency, World Vision, refused a direct request from Eritreans for aid. They did not want to anger the government in Addis Ababa. The anger of starving people counts for nothing when politics overwhelms humanitarianism.

Even now, when television has brought the starving Africans into living rooms on five continents, politics is foremost in the minds of governments extending famine relief. The Soviet leaders, who were slow to send adequate help, are competing with the United States in incurring the starving people's gratitude. The United States thinks it might be able to pull the Ethiopians out of the Soviet orbit if they utilize their aid in the right way.

The Derg has put political advantage ahead of the lives of the starving. Early this year the officers downplayed the famine while they spent $100 million on the 10th anniversary of their coup. How many lives could that $100 million have saved? They are as callous and unfeeling toward their starving citizens as the emperor they deposed.

Now that the spotlight of worldwide publicity is focused on the starving Africans, some lives will be saved. While the crisis of the present famine may be overcome, nothing is being done to prevent the recurrence of famines in Africa and other parts of the Third World.

Another article will explore aspect of the problem.

Scan page 13

—Poland: Three years after martial law— Church-state deal founders as Solidarity leads protest British miners leader retracts charges against Solidarity The balancing act attempted by the Polish Roman Catholic primate Cardinal Glemp in an effort to reconcile the opposing forces of the Jaruzelski regime and the Polish masses grows more and more difficult. The latest frazzling of his tightrope occurred with the assassination in October of the worker priest Jerzy Popieluszko, chaplain of the huge Huta Warszawa steel mill in Warsaw and uncompromising champion of Solidarity.

Glemp hopes to extend the roots of the church, especially in rural areas where its influence has always been stronger than among the urban workers. To do this, however, he has offered to help the regime maintain its control in exchange for the regime's cooperation.

On Jan. 5, 1984, Glemp and General Wojciech Jaruzelski, in their third meeting since Dec. 13, 1981, arrived at terms for an accord between the church hierarchy and the Polish government. In March, returning from a pastoral tour of Latin America, Glemp revealed the intent of the church-state accommodation in two European publications. The Geneva Tribune (March 3, 1984) quoted his explanation to the Brazilian newspaper O Estado do Sao Paolo that the Polish church was not being persecuted by the authorities "who are doing everything possible not to create a new enemy."

On March 16, he told the West German weekly Die Zeit: "Today by any means necessary we must begin peaceful coexistence....The ideological gap [between church and state] is deep, but dialogue is necessary for the continued existence of the regime. Dialogue can lead to at least a minimum of trust between the regime and the citizens."

In exchange for playing a role in keeping the working class under the thumb of the regime, the church, according to Die Zeit, has demanded an agreement that would give legal status to dioceses, parishes, seminaries, and certain religious organizations.

Glemp vs. Solidarity

The Catholic hierarchy is hoping to make Solidarity the major victim of this campaign of accommodation. On March 5, Glemp told the Italian publication Il Giornale that "Solidarity no longer represents the working class."

One prong in the attack on Solidarity has been the attempt to separate the masses from the influence of the worker priests such as Popieluszko and the Rev. Henryk Jankowski of Gdansk, Lech Walesa's pastor. These priests and others less well-known have continued-in underlined the contradictions in Glemp's position. This crime committed by agents of the government-now thought to have been inspired by harder-line factions within the ruling Polish Workers Party (POUP)-might have brought Solidarity and the Catholic hierarchy closer together and thus reinforced the latter's hold over the masses. But this has not happened.

Civil rights defense committees The prestige of Cardinal Glemp has never been as low as during the days that followed the priest's abduction. The ecclesiastical bureaucracy has done everything possible to avoid damaging its political entente with the dictatorship. Glemp's call to "love your neighbor"—when their "neighbors" include the secret police and the assassins of Popieluszko-has enraged the Polish believers.

On the other hand, bonds Edmund Baluka, one of the leaders of the 1970 Szczecin strikes, had been on various hunger strikes before his release from prison last October.

between the masses and the worker priests who support Solidarity and who contest more and more openly Glemp's politics in their actions, have been reinforced. And the crime has inspired the setting up of several civil rights defense committees to monitor allegations of police violence.

One of these, the Szczecin Committee for the Defense of Law and Order, was formed on Nov. 23 by Edmund Baluka and Jan Kostecki. The Polish government announced an inquiry into the activities of the two men at the same time that it released two Solidarity activists, Bogdan Lis and Piotr Mierzewski. Lis and Mierzewski had been exempted from the amnesty declared last July and kept in prison.

Baluka and Kostecki, according to the Polish press agency, had refused to stop their activities despite an official ban on such committees. According to the Dec. 9 New York Times, "the agency said the two men had distributed 'leaflets of a libelous and slanderous character.' "

At the annual Trade Unions Congress (TUC) in September 1983, Arthur Scargill, leader of the British National Union of Miners, attacked Polish Solidarity, characterizing it as "antisocialist" and thereby legitimizing the repression against the banned trade Last June, at a meeting in Manchester, Scargill retracted this statement and said he owed an apology to Lech Walesa. With the continued shipments of coal from the Jaruzelski regime to Great Britain, on the one hand, and the support offered the British miners by Solidarity, on the other, Scargill was merely expressing the appreciation of thousands of striking miners to their Polish brothers and sisters in Solidarity.

At a recent rally for miners in Sheffield, Yorkshire, Scargill denounced the Polish authorities for continuing to export coal. In a letter to the official Polish trade-union federation, he stated, "My advice to you is to stop behaving hypocritically and in a way that can only be described as anti-socialist. The Polish government has dramatically increased the amount of coal imported. And you've ignored repeated requests to stop exporting coal..."

In contrast to the Polish authorities, Solidarity has been unswervingly on the side of the striking miners. The August 24 issue of Front Robotniczy, an underground Polish bulletin, expressed this support in the clearest of terms. The following are a few quotes from this article.

"In Great Britain miners are being killed by police serving a conservative government; miners just like the ones killed not long ago in Poland. Would we have the right to expect the help we need so much from them if we remained indifferent today to the tragedy they are suffering?

"Unless we go beyond statements of support, which are necessary but in themselves have no practical effect, will these not be just empty courtesies? The political bosses of the British monopoly Such independent activity as this can succeed only if it is supported by a large mobilization of workers. In Wroclaw, two Solidarity leaders of Lower Silesia, Wladyslaw Frasyniuk and Jozef Pinior, who have just finished serving a new two-month term in prison, called upon the workers to fight the repressive apparatus. And Lech Walesa has reminded Solidarity that it must maintain its independence from both bureaucracies— church and state-which support the repression. bourgeoisie and the Polish totalitarian bureaucracy-the Thatcher and Jaruzelski governments—have rediscovered the antiworking-class language that is traditionally common to ruling groups...

"Internationalism-international workers' solidarity—will remain only a slogan, and with it our freedom will remain only a slogan, as long as we cannot build a practical bridge connecting our common struggles, connecting the various national detachments of the working class. If we want to really help the striking British miners, we can do so effectively in only one way-by stopping or at least reducing the deliveries of Polish coal to Great Britain for as long as the miners' strike goes on."

in the forefront of a Dec. 15 demonstration of 3000 people in Gdansk, Poland. The march, called to commemorate the Poles killed while protesting food price increases 14 years ago, was savagely attacked by Polish police using tear gas, riot sticks, and smoke bombs.

Bogdan Lis, who was released from prison only on Dec. 8—months after the 600 other political prisoners were freed by a general amnestytook part in the march. When he had not returned home after the police attack, relatives expressed the fear that he had again been detained.

At least 12 other people were reported detained after the Gdansk march, including prominent Solidarity leaders Andrzej Gwiazda and Gregorz Palka. Both men had been arrested after the declaration of martial law in December 1981 but, unlike Lis, had been released in the general amnesty last July.

----- pull-quotes -----

Solidarity takes to the streets Solidarity leaders were once again