DET Peru PT's stance on Castro's debt policy

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14 SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 1985 mass organization called Fuerzas Populares. They sent a representative, the secretary general of the National Glassworkers Union, Hector Garcia.

There were representatives from inter -national organizations, including the MIR of Venezuela. We received greetings to our conference from the Brazilian Workers Party and from Lula personally. [Lula is the president of the Brazilian PT--The Editors.] They were unable to attend, however, because they are in the middle of an electoral campaign.

Greetings were also sent from the Nicaraguan FSLN. They also were unable to attend because of the war situation in The following message was sent by the Political Committee of Socialist Action to the founding conference of the Peruvian Workers Party.

We appreciate your invitation, but regret not being able to attend your founding conference. We send you revo -lutionary greetings, wishing you a successful conference and hoping your decisions will lay the basis for the building of an authentic workers' party in Peru.

For Socialist Action, the formation of mass-based workers' parties in Latin America has a special significance. In the United States, the working class does not as yet possess its own inde -pendent political expression. For us, the struggle to help the workers build a labor party based on the trade-union movement is a central political task.

The building of mass workers' parties in Brazil and now Peru-despite the great differences in our respective coun -tries-contains many rich lessons for workers in the United States.

The October 1985 issue of El Trabajo, the monthly newspaper of the Peruvian Workers Party, contains a one-page article that exposes the so-called anti-imperialism of Alan Garcia, Peru's new president, on the issue of the foreign debt. Garcia has proposed that the Latin American countries earmark a certain percentage of their export earnings to repay the debt to the imperialist banks.

The following are slightly edited excerpts from this article that deal with the Peruvian PT's position on Fidel Castro's campaign to cancel the debt. Victor Cuadros, pres -ident of the national miners' federation and a leader of the PT, attended the July 1985 Trade Union Conference Against the Debt in Havana, where he presented a motion along these same lines.

Fidel Castro has launched an intense campaign for the Latin American nations to cancel their debts to the foreign banks.

This campaign has been an effort on the part of the Cuban leadership to explore the possibilities of common action, on a con -tinental basis, against the policies of plun -der and famine imposed by imperialism through the International Monetary Fund.

No one who claims to be loyal to the interests of the Latin American people can attack the various initiatives undertaken by Fidel. This is what large sectors of the Latin America workers' movement have clearly understood as they prepare to mobilize on Oct. 23 in a Continental Day of Action to demand the non-payment of the foreign debt.

Alan Garcia, whom Newsweek has called the "new John F. Kennedy of Latin America," has, however, attacked the Cubans' campaign with arguments taken straight from the anti-communist arsenal of McCarthyism.

At the United Nations and in the press, he has stated that the foreign debt must be honored and repaid. "All Peruvians," he affirms, "are responsible for the foreign debt." It is for this reason that Garcia has begun a real "diplomatic war" against the Cuban leadership and against its campaign to cancel the debt.

Whatever our differences with certain aspects of the policies of the leadership of the Cuban Revolution, we must understand that this leadership expropriated im -perialism, reorganized society on new foundations, and began the construction of socialism. And it did all this only 90 miles considerable political space opened up before us given the capitulation of IU to the current APRA government.

off the coast of Miami!

The Cuban Revolution is a deep thorn in the imperialists' side. It points the way forward for all the countries oppressed by imperialism.

For our part, we believe that in addition to not paying the debt, there is no reason why we should offer the imperialist banks a solution to their crisis [a reference to Fidel's proposal to bail out the banks through a 10-percent cut in the U.S. military budget--The Editors].

We also believe that the call for a new international economic order must be given a clear content of rupture with the imperialist order [a reference to Fidel's call to link the cancellation of the debt to the 1974 United Nations resolution on the New International Economic Order--The Edi -tors].

Yet despite these differences, we believe that the proposal of the Cubans to launch a Continental Day of Action Against the Debt is positive. To attack this proposal is ultimately to play into the hands of the imperialists.

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Socialist Action sends greetings