Unionist refutes AIFLD El Salvador report

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4 SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 1988 On Sept. 1-6, 1987, a delegation of six members of the AFL-CIO Executive Council and three staff members visited Nicaragua and El Salvador. The delegation included Service Employees International Union President John J. Sweeney, who is a member of the dissident National Labor Committee in Support of Democracy and Human Rights in El Salvador.

The purpose of their visit was to gain further insight into political life in thesc two countries and to "explore the prospects for the Central American Peace Accord." Their findings were presented in a report titled "Trade Union Rights, Peace and Democracy in Central America."

The most disturbing aspect of this report for me was the AFL-CIO's failure to recognize the existence of unions in both Nicaragua and El Salvador which it does not support.

According to the AFL-CIO report, the labor picture in El Salvador is "complicated" by the "guerrilla-backed union group, the National Unity of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS)" and by "the UNTS leadership [which] promotes provocative and controntational actions designed to provoke a political crisis."

Pat Hendricks is an Advisory Board member of Hospital and Health Care Union, Local 250, SEIU.

...contras (continued from page 1: “U.S. contra aid vote fuels Nicaragua war”) the contras began an offensive in Northeastern Nicaragua. Hundreds of people were killed or wounded in the fighting, among the heaviest of the six-year war.

The stepped-up war has been made possible by airdrops of guns and missiles from the United States-in direct violation of the peace plan. In October, the U.S. government reported that it had begun carrying out more than twice the number of monthly supply missions to the contras than it had carried out earlier in the year.

The Democratic Party "blinks"

According to an official in the National Security Council (NSC), "The Democrats blinked four times since September" in ways that permitted the United States to gear up the contras for their recent assault. (San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 23, 1987)

The first "blink," said the official, took place in mid-September, when the White House approached the Democratic Party leadership and said that U.S. combat advisers helping the contras "would have to fold their tents and come home unless you fix it."

House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Texas), Mexico antiwar conference slated On Feb. 20-21, the Mexicali Committee in Solidarity with Nicaragua will be holding a Mexico-U.S. conference around the themes: Free Oil for Nicaragua, No U.S. Intervention in Central America; and Solidari ty and Peace for Nicaragua.

All antiwar activists in the U.S.

who wish to attend this conference should contact Miguel Gastelum, Committee in Solidarity with Nicaragua, Pasaje Cozumel 1154, Mexicali, B.C., Mexico, Tel. 57-23-15.

The report goes on to state that "the ultimate aim of most UNTS leaders is the victory of the Marxist-Leninist FMLN" and that "the UNTS demonstrations appear to be attracting fewer and fewer people in El Salvador.' A popular mass movement The UNTS is a popular mass movement formed in 1986. Today it represents trade unions, peasant groups that had supported Duarte under the Social Pact of 1984, the National University, groups that represent the displaced, and the Mothers of the Disappeared.

The UNTS represents about 400,000 people and was brought together by despite his image as an advocate of the peace plan, quietly provided the authority to permit the U.S. personnel to stay in the field.

The second "blink" took place when the Democrats refused to order the administration to compel the contras to comply with the Nov. 7 target date for a cease-fire under the Arias plan. The contras were given the green light to organize for the December offensive.

In mid-October, said the NSC official, the Democratic Party leadership "allowed us to do some creative bookkeeping" in order to continue the transport of arms off the public record.

The fourth "blink" took place on Dec. 20, when the Democrats in Congress made a backroom arrangement with the Reagan Max Alvarez/The Alert opposition to Duarte's economic austerity package in 1986"el paquetazo"-and anger at his failure to deliver on promises of reform, dialogue with the FMLN/FDR, and an end to repression.

The demands of this mass movement should not be responded to with "red-baiting." What is needed is a serious look at both AFL-CIO and U.S. foreign policy, neither of which-along with the Salvadoran government-has addressed the economic, political, and social crisis that for decades has plagued this country.

During my recent visit to El Salvador (Sept. 12-19), I was able to meet with several representatives of the Hospital Workers Union (STISSS). According to the administration in order to ensure that $8.1 million (at the minimum) in aid would be handed over to the contras.

The bill allegedly provides no weapons. However, some $4.5 million of the amount will be used to supply new electronic equipment to counter anti-aircraft missiles and to transport previously-purchased military hardware.

The Miranda "revelations" • Democrats were able to vote for the Dec. 20 appropriations with "a clear conscience" by using the pretext that the Nicaraguan government was about to violate the peace plan. "They're building up like gangbusters!" screamed Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) after Nicaragua aired a prosposal to increase its reserve army in size.

The administration helped provide a cover for the Democrats when it staged a news conference for a defector from the Nicaraguan military, Maj. Roger Miranda Bengochea. But a senior Defense Department official had to acknowledge that the evidence that Miranda provided of an alleged Nicaraguan plan to invade other nations was "speculative."

The official also conceded that the United States has no documentary evidence that the Soviet Union had promised to furnish MIG-21 jet fighters to the Sandinista government, as the defector maintained.

On Feb. 3, a new vote is scheduled in Congress, in which President Reagan may ask for as much as $270 million in aid to the contras. The vote is timed to follow the Jan. 15 meeting of the five Central American presidents who signed the Arias plan.

If the presidents give Reagan enough political ammunition to conclude that Nicaragua is at fault for the failure of the peace process, the U.S. government could have a pretext to send additional funding to the contras, including military funds. Both Democrats and Republicans have pledged in advance that they would support such aid.

A response is needed It is not an exaggeration to say that the antiwar movement was thrown off balance when the U.S. government endorsed the peace plan and organized the summit.

But following the Dec. 20 contra-aid AFL-CIO report, the STISSS union leadership chose a "confrontational approach" in settling a recent strike, attempting to "take over government buildings with clubs armed with nails."

In reality, the Duarte government refused to negotiate with the STISSS strikers. The facilities were militarized, strikers were fired and refused pay after the strike, and union leaders were arrested.

Duarte excused his illegal acts by claiming that the strike demands were "political" rather than "labor.

Fewer people are fooled Contrary to the AFL-CIO report, it simply cannot be said that "Salvadoran unions appear to enjoy substantial freedom to organize, demonstrate, publish, and go In El Salvador, Duarte is no longer even a façade of a president working for peace. By his actions, fewer and fewer people are being fooled.

We North Americans can no longer be fooled either. Since at least 1985, we have known that the International Affairs Department of the AFL-CIO operates on a budget that nearly matches the Federation's U.S. budget.

We have known that while AIFLD, an affiliate institute of the AFL-CIO, claims it is an independent labor organization created to promote the growth of democratic trade unions in Latin America, that in fact it regularly functions as a surreptitious tool of U.S. foreign policy.

Therefore it is not possible for American trade unionists to support AIFLDanymore than we would give our support to right-to-work legislation.

The Salvadoran people have come very far, and there will be no turning back. Our urgent obligation is to understand this fact and to be willing to understand that the main obstacle to peace in El Salvador is U.S. economic and military aid.

vote, some peace and solidarity groups have switched to "red alert." Several national organizations are meeting this month to plan emergency demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and other cities at the time of the February vote in Congress.

In addition, the Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice (a Northern California coalition of labor, community, religious, and peace groups) is attempting to achieve a united call for nationally coordinated local demonstrations on April 30, 1988.

There are four themes suggested in the Mobilization's draft call for the spring protests: No U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Caribbean; End U.S. Support for South African Apartheid; Freeze and Reverse the Nuclear Arms Race; and Jobs and Justice, Not War.

The co-chairs of the Mobilization are consulting with the Pledge of Resistance, National Nicaragua Network, Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), SANE/Freeze, National Rainbow Coalition, Mobilization for Survival, National Labor Committee for Human Rights and Democracy in El Salvador, and several other national groups.

Al Lannon, Mobilization co-chair and president, ILWU Warehouse Union Local 6, is scheduled to meet with several national peace, anti-nuclear, anti-apartheid, and labor figures in Washington, D.C., and New York City in early January. These leaders have also been invited to San Francisco in mid-January to discuss the feasibility of launching national actions.

For more information, contact the Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice, 255 Ninth St., San Francisco, CA 94103, (415) 626-8053.-The Editors st C ce Box 404830 , NY 11240-4830 IMPACT xOC ISUALS 2-966-9619 Affordable photos, cartoons, caricatures and ilustrattons for the movement and the progressive pres