U.S. athletes play ball in Nicaragua

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14 SOCALST ACTION MAY 1987 In the 1961 World Series, the New York Yankees defeated the Cincinnati Reds in five humbling games. An epic New York Post headline summed up the series in this manner, "Yanks bomb Reds.' I had mixed feelings about Cincinnati. How could you like a team carried historically on the bare shoulders of slugger Ted Kluczewski? But how could a Brooklyn boy Bar-Mitzvahed on the eve of the Cuban Revolution hate a team called the Reds?

Cincinnati cried out for revenge. In March 1987, I traveled to Nicaragua's World Series to get it—and to, in some small way, make it impossible for Yanks ever to bomb Reds again.

Athletes United For Peace was invited to this year's Nicaraguan baseball cham -pionship because of its work as höst to the 1986 U.S. tour of the "Seleccion" -—Nicaragua's national team—-which visited California last fall and conquered our diamonds and hearts.

Our delegation/team, organized by former San Francisco 49er quarterback Guy Benjamin, included former U.S. Olympic captain Phil Shennick, former Cincinnati Bengal Sherman White, tennis pro Bill Mays, Marathon champion Rick Sayre-and THE-REST-OF-US, who had watched sports with anonymous com -petence on U.S. TV.

We traveled to Nicaragua to see the revolution through sports, to watch and to play, and to initiate a series of sports exchanges designed to promote under -standing and solidarity.

Baseball is Nicaragua's national sport. And though many fans follow the Majors in the United States and root for the few "Nicas" who have made it to the Bigs, the game here has its own history and frenzy.

This year's championship was a confrontation between Managua's tra -ditional favorite, the Boer Indios, and the league's newest team, the Dantos, which is the all-but-official team lutionary army.

The Dantos were favored to win, yet the overwhelming favorite of the local fans was Boer. Throughout the week, disputes about the relative prowess and dignity of the two combatants raged through Nicaragua's sports pages, restaurants, and barrios.

The divisions among the people were also reflected in the Sandinista leadership. The FSLN Directorate seemed sharply divided on the question of the World Series.

During the games, one could see Dantos' No. 1 fan, Defense Minister Humberto Ortega, with a radio to one ear, encouraged by the progress of his club. Yet a scant few rows back, President Daniel Ortega and his companion, poet Rosario Murillo, could be seen agonizing over each Boer miscue or leaping to their feet when the Indios broke through with a run.

But as much fun as it was to watch Nicaraguan baseball, being a spectator in a shaded stadium could never compare to playing in 100-degree heat under a beautiful Central American sun.

Our team managed to book three games while on tour. While wandering through a recently created state farm, managed by 40 campesino families, we encountered a militia unit that put down its guns for a few hours and led us on a one-mile march to the local pot-holed diamond.

Five innings of fevered, fast-pitch softball ensued. The decisive blow was struck by brother Jeff Taft of our club, who drove a strike on the outside corner through the legs of a black bull stationed out in right field.

In our only defeat, we were outgunned by a team of journalists, who, we later learned, had played at the top level of Nicaraguan baseball a decade ago.

In our final appearance, we played a group of convicts, some of them captured contras, at a model prison near the revo -lutionary town of Esteli. Like several of Nicaragua's correctional facilities, this one permitted inmates to return home for unsupervised visits during their sentence.

This game was played in a diamond whose centerfield was on fire (slash and burn) and which was occasionally overflown by Sandinista helicopters return -ing to the front in the mountains to our north.

It is rumored that Nicaraguans learned to play baseball watching the games of occupying U.S. Marines. We ended our trip with the hopes that "Nicas" and North Americans would continue to meet...for sport rather than war.

It is certain, however, that should Reagan succeed in arranging a rematch between the Marines and the children of Sandino, it will be the latter who will do most of the teaching.

Seymour Kramer is a member of the school-bus drivers' union of San Francisco and a steering-committee member of the Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice. In Nicaragua, he played first base, went 11 for 12, and had a designated runner.

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rA DEL RYEBLO Action/Jim Henle UNTS members demonstrate in San Salvador for earthquake assistance and an end to repression. ... AIFLD (continued from page 20: “April 25 demonstrations: Labor defies threats by AFL-CIO's Kirkland”) undeniable fact that April 25 had garnered the broadest labor support ever for a mass demonstration against the international and domestic policies of the U.S. government.

In addition to the formal support of AFL-CIO bodies, the April 25 demonstration was formally initiated by the presidents of 19 international unions and by the heads of several other major local and regional AFL-CIO unions. These unions represent an estimated 35 percent of the AFL-CIO and include five of its six largest national unions.

And if the support of the independent unions is included—such as the 1.7million-member National Education Association-the demonstration has the support of the majority of the organized labor movement in the United States.

Contrary to Kirkland's assertion in his March 23 letter that some m of the international union presidents have "withdrawn their endorsement," not a single initiator has taken such action.

Kirkland's red-baiting attempts Kirkland's letter was preceded by a so-called fact-finding visit to the offices of the Western States Mobilization by David Jessup, a leading staff member of the AFLCIO-directed American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD).

Mobilization staffer Carl Finamore asked Jessup at that time if the AFL-CIO intended to encourage its affiliate bodies to withdraw their support. "Absolutely not," said Jessup. "We are simply gathering information to answer questions we have received."

This statement was contradicted a week later by Kirkland's letter, which not only pressed for disassociation, but included a torrent of false accusations designed to associate the April 25 demonstration with the "Marxist-Leninist guerrillas in El Salvador" and the Sandinista government.

Since Kirkland could not substantiate these accusations, he chose to veil his red-baiting in more general terms. He stated: "Among those invited speakers are representatives of organizations supporting the guerrilla forces seeking to overthrow the democratically elected Duarte government in El Salvador, as well as representatives of the Sandinista govern -ment of Nicaragua....

The charge regarding "representatives of the Sandinista government" speaking at either the Washington, D.C., or San Francisco demonstrations is patently false-although spokespersons for both actions have indicated that a decision to have such speakers was not ruled out as a matter of political principle.

In San Francisco, the views of the Nicaraguan people will be presented by a representative of the Mothers of the Heroes and Martyred of Nicaragua, the organization currently touring the United States to present detailed evidence of torture and murder inflicted on the people of Nicaragua by the U.S.-backed and illegally financed contras.

As to the charge ihat April 25 speakers will include people who support the guerrilla forces of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), there can be no refutation.

The FMLN is today supported or "The Palestinian Revolution" endorsed by governments and national union federations throughout the world, as well as by tens of thousands of persons prominent in public life on every continent on earth. There is no doubt that its struggle against the death-squad Duarte regime, under which 5000 trade unionists have been murdered without a single conviction, is supported by many of the 52 national religious leaders and others who helped initiate the April demonstrations.

AFL-CIO backs company union The Western States Mobilization has invited a representative from El Salvador's largest trade-union federation, the National Union of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS), to speak on April 25.

This federation was formed a few years ago when El Salvador's most prominent unions merged with a number of key unions that broke from the pro-Duarte and pro-employer policies of the AFLCIO/AIFLD-sponsored union confederation. The UNTS has led several major union struggles involving hundreds of thousands of workers over the past year. It is labeled "pro-guerrilla" by the AFL-CIO.

The AFL-CIO, in fact, has been on a national campaign to isolate the UNTS and its major affiliates, such as ASTTEL, the telephone workers' union which had been associated with the AFL-CIO-financed federation but subsequently broke with it.

In an October 7, 1986, letter to U.S. Congressman Ted Weiss protesting Weiss' endorsement of a public statement of the New York Labor Committee for Democracy and Human Rights in El Salvador, New York State AFL-CIO President Edward J. Cleary had the following to say about UNTS and its affiliate telephone local:

"There are two unions of telephone workers in El Salvador. The first to be formed was ASTA, which is affiliated to the same international bodies as the AFL-CIO....The second is ASTTEL, which was initially favored by the right-wing, anti-Duarte manager of the telephone company, and which currently collaborates with naallic copper DORADES Exio The response recounted the seven-year history of ASTEL, including its heroic struggle to organize El Salvador's telephone workers; the loss of its central leaders by death-squad assassination, torture, and abduction; and finally, after five years of "barbaric repression," its winning of a union contract.

The Labor Committee concluded:

"This recognition of ASTTEL did not mean that the government or the company truly intended to grant the union the right to exclusive representation. Indeed, one month before the ASTTEL recognition, a rival union called ASTA was formed.

"The ease with which it received legal approval has raised some questions of management influence and domination. As far as anyone has been able to determine...this rival union represents only eight workers, which is all that remains of a company-created executive council...

"This brings us to an important misconception in your letter. Yes, there are two unions of telephone workers in El Salvador. One has been fighting for its life for seven years and has majority status. The other is a company union, and a pitifully weak one at that. How in the name of principles that we cherish and hold in common can we support the latter?"

The Labor Committee's letter is signed by 23 New York labor officials repre -senting most of the key unions in the metropolitan area.

U.S. government funds AIFLD Tragically, the top leadership of the AFL-CIO does not determine its foreign policy positions based on "principles"

PIGG LUCHA 7090 ESTUDIO Socialist commonly recognized by honest trade unionists throughout the world. Instead, the AFL-CIO bureaucracy, through its International Affairs Department, largely carries out the international policy objectives of the U.S. government.

Of the $43 million spent yearly by this AFL-CIO department, 90 percent comes directly from two institutions directly funded by the U.S. government-the Agency for International Development (AID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). This amount virtually equals the entire domestic budget of the AFL-CIO, which in 1985 was $45 million.

The main recipient of these government funds, AIFLD, is the same organization which last month "collected" information for the AFL-CIO allegedly to inform its affiliates about the April 25 protests against U.S. policy in Central America.

In 1985, according to Business Week magazine, AIFLD, which has been closely associated with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), received $13.5 million and $4.8 million from AID and NED respectively.

Truly, the policies of the U.S. government and the AFL-CIO hierarchy are not representative of the will of the American people, who oppose the U.S. war in Central America and who recoil at continued U.S. support to the racist apartheid regime in South Africa.

The refusal of the great bulk of the labor supporters of April 25 to buckle under the pressure of the AFL-CIO misleaders is an important indication of the mood of U.S. workers.

Today more and more working people are associating the bipartisan war policies of the U.S. government with the same policies which increasingly threaten and undermine their jobs and future at home. I

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