Edgardo Garcia

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country is that the American people should not be counted as supporters of the racism and the oppression in my country.

We want the right to determine how our country will be governed. We want the right just for families to live together. We want the right not to watch children die year after year of hunger in a country that exports food.

We want the right for our children to be given the kind of quality education that exists in South Africa, but from which Black children are barred. That's all we're asking.

We are drawing close to midnight. And if the world community doesn't listen to our pleas, our country is for the dogs.

I think it is important that everybody remember the struggle in South Africa is a struggle for fundamental human rights. It is a struggle for self-determination. It is a struggle to be allowed to have a say in the running of our country. It is a struggle for majority rule.

We hear about President Botha, this poor man who is stuck in the middle. We hear about how he is trying to move forward, but he can't move fast enough for the Blacks and he is moving too fast for the whites.

Botha is willing to give up those things that don't address the fundamentals. Just a few weeks ago the big announcement was that now Black South Africans will be allowed to hold dual citizenship. This is supposed to be a great step forward.

That's no step forward. In accepting dual citizenship it means Black South Africans will have to accept the concept of the bantustans. That means that 13 percent of the land is all that is set aside for the majority and 87 percent of the land is so-called white South Africa's. You can only become a citizen of South Africa--if you are Black--by becoming a citizen of a bantustan.

It doesn't matter if they change the color of the paint of the bantustan, it is still the bantustan policy. We are not struggling to reform apartheid. We are struggling to dismantle it.

I would like to thank you all for your support. I hope that your winter offensive isn't the end. I hope to see you out there in the spring and onward until South Africa is free.

four years. Forty percent of our population still lives in poverty or on its ragged edge, including one out of every four children who go to bed hungry every night.

Ninety-five million citizens in this country have been drafted, conscripted if you will, into poverty and want so that this government can pay for its military budget.

Ponder this: Over a five-year period more U.S. kids die from poverty than the total number of U.S. battle deaths suffered in the Vietnam War. And then ponder this: Just The following are excerpts from Edgardo Garcia's presentation to the Central Amer -ica panél. Garcia is the president of the Nicaraguan Trade Union Coordinating Council (CSN), the pro-Sandinista labor federation.

The first thing that must be understood about Nicaragua is that we are in a state of war. It is a war of aggression from the north and the south. And it is not only a military war. It is also an economic war.

At this time we have only $300 million in export earnings, but we need $1 billion to cover our import needs. We are a country with hunger. Nonetheless, Under-Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs Elliot Abrams declared on Oct. 11 that there was a need for more U.S. pressure against Nicaragua.

Despite the U.S. economic embargo against us; despite its refusal to remove U.S. troops from our borders; despite its bombings of our major means of pro -"IT'$FOOD, MEDICINE AND CLOTHING."

spending $100 million an hour on military weapons and military conflict. Every two seconds somewhere on the globe a child dies from malnutrition or preventable illness. That's the trade-off that's being made.

Meanwhile, the 10 largest weapons makers reaped a 25-percent return on equity last year. Contrast that, if you will, with duction and communication; despite its increased economic and military support for the Somocista troops; despite all this, Mr. Abrams says that even more pressure is needed against Nicaragua!

I was speaking to some friends here who said that during the past two months there was no information about Nicaragua on the news. They said they were surprised to hear about the declaration of a state of emergency in our country. Why was this state of emergency declared so suddenly, I was asked.

I said to them emergency was not enacted lightly." the 12.8-percent return rate for all of U.S. manufacturing. In the case of the weapons manufacturers, most of them never paid a dime in federal income taxes. In fact, some of them made millions in weapons profiteering, and got a tax refund.

And what's more, if Messrs. Reagan and Regan get their way, that phony tax reform plan they are pushing right now will give for these past two months we have not been sleeping in our country. We have been fighting. That is why the contras have been driven outside our borders. But we are suffering many casualties daily.

Contra commander Frank Arama an -nounced last August that the contras were going to step up their terrorist acts against our country. He stated publicly that a largescale terrorist campaign would begin in October.

On Oct. 15, four days after Mr. Abrams' declaration, we captured six contras in Nicaragua. They had been assigned to blow up the only oil refinery we have in our country. They were also going to blow up our largest food storage depot as well as numerous public places, recreation areas, and so on. They declared their intentions to do so to the international press.

Among these terrorists was Mr. Carlos Acevedo, who is a leader of the Nicaraguan Workers Confederation (CTN). [This is one of the unions supported by the CIA through the American Institute for Free Labor Development--The Editors.] But Mr. Acevedo was not walking around with the labor code under his arm. He was walking around with C-4 explosives, which are made by the CIA. It was not a tradeunion leader, friends, who had been detained.

The state of emergency, which we have been compelled to decree, has not been enacted lightly. It results from the need of the government and of the revolution to protect the safety of its citizens. We have had to confront terrorist actions daily in our country.

There is also an international dimension to this whole war of aggression with which the U.S. government wishes to blackmail uS.

On Nov. 20 the Contadora Act will be signed. But that accord has been sabotaged. The U.S. government has refused to accept in this latest agreement the removal of its troops and advisers from the region. It has refused to stop its assistance to the contras.

So this, in conclusion, is why we support the emergency measures decreed by the government. What is involved here at this time is not a case of democratic rights. What is involved is the basic need of the revolution and the government to defend the safety and livelihood of its people.

those corporate Rambos another round of free lunches.

The warfare state doesn't promote the general welfare. It heaps welfare on the generals. You've got the military generals, then General Dynamics, General Electric, General Pinochet-the list is endless. It goes right on down to General Singlaub's private army of outlaws in Nicaragua...