Amnesty for British miners!

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The following statement was adopted by the jobs. Victory against this wave of victimization United Secretariat of the Fourth International would help in a significant way to roll back management's attacks against the National After a year of heroic strike action the Brit- The miners' strike was a strike for the whole ish miners were forced back to work. Their international working class. The defense of strike, the longest mass strike in the history of those victimized is a fight to defend all workany imperialist country, inspired working peo- ers, including those millions who will, in the ple around the world with its determined years to come, emulate the British miners' intransigence against capitalist policies of But the cost to the miners and their families was high. Two miners were killed on the picket lines; 11,000 were arrested by the police; over 700 miners have been sacked as a result of their participation in the strike; and nearly 100 minU.S. Army deals popcorn Hundreds of other miners will appear before the courts in the next months. Already severe "This isn't Dogpatch, and we aren't stupid," the mountain peojail sentences of up to five years have been ple say in Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau. But if General Carl D. inflicted, such as that of Terry French of the Kent miners. Even harsher punishment awaits Wallace has his way, the U.S. Army will soon act out World War III games on their land. The general noticed that the plateau resembles terrain in Germany's Black Forest and would make a However, those found guilty face not only perfect target range to prepare for the next Big One in Europe. jail sentences but also a lifetime of unemploy"I believe the general's desire to protect us from communism ment. Those sentenced in the courts have been automatically sacked by the coal industry has gotten out of hand,' protests Floyd Cope, who is one of sevemployers. They are also denied state benefits eral hundred people who would lose their homes. But General Wallace is trying to woo the populace to his point of view. He on the pretext that they are still on strike.

Demands for an amnesty have been rejected, handed out free popcorn and soft drinks at a recent exposition and and instead the sackings are being made part of gave the public a chance to fire machine guns.

"He's good at what he's doing," concedes Dorothy Cope, who is a campaign to weaken the organization of their Floyd's mother and a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. "But he's selling Army, and I'm not buying."

There is now a need for an international campaign of solidarity to demand an amnesty Third graders in Clermont County, Ohio, can resume rehearsals from the British government for the sacked of their class drama project, a U.S. district court judge ruled last and imprisoned miners and to raise funds for month. The school board had halted production of "Sorcerer and Friends" after critics charged that the play is un-American, unThe enormous solidarity that the strike Christian, unpatriotic, antimilitary, pro-Satan, pro-homosexual, received internationally marked the identification of millions of workers with the miners' Teachers and parents wonder how last year's third-grade prostruggle. Now the same energy must go into the duction, "The Pied Piper,' was able to escape controversy since it urgent defense of the victims of that struggle.

portrays the defeat of a corrupt city council.

The goal of the British state and the coal Rumor has it that second graders are considering a production employers is not solely to victimize militant of "Cinderella,' the story of a malcontented domestic worker miners. If this campaign of vengeance is not prevented, the political result will be intimida- who—duped by a fem-lib fairy godmother-assumes a false identity to gain access to the head of state.—MICHAEL SCHREIBER tion of workers in Britain and internationally from fighting in a determined way to save their at its April 25 meeting.

Union of Mineworkers.

courage, combativity, and determination. unemployment and austerity.

No victimization!

Amnesty!

ers are serving prison sentences.

some strikers. their families.

and pro-treason.

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SUVA, Fiji—A nuclear reaction is spreading across the Pacific. But it is not the kind likely to please the generals at the Pentagon.

The nuclear-tipped foreign policy of the Reagan administration-and ongoing nuclear testing by France-has provoked a pan-Pacific campaign for a "Nuclear Free Pacific" that is winning widespread support in many of the island nations in the region.

The fallout from the Reagan adminSocialist Action sions in Tahiti, New Wallis/Futuna.

But things have not been going well for the French overseers. French-sponsored subversion failed to prevent Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides, a joint French-British condominium) from gaining independence in 1980 and declaring itself a nuclear-free zone. And in New Caledonia, where the indigenous Kanaks are waging a fight for independence, the days of French rule appear numbered.

The Kanaks live as second-class citi-