S.F. Mobilization defies FBI spying, calls April 30 action
1988 1988-02Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 12 →
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Tobilization For Peace 12 SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1988 (continued from page direct cease-fire talks between the Sandinistas and the contras. Alfredo César, a leader of the Nicaraguan Resistance, spelled out the contras' negotiating position. "No cease-fire will take place in Nicaragua if..simultaneously the democratic reforms have not been achieved," he said.
Ernesto Palazio, another contra leader, in an op-ed article in The New York Times (Feb. 1, 1988), shed further light on what the contras--and their U.S. patrons-mean by "democratic reforms."
"Last November, Nicaragua's internal opposition, ranging from the Communist Party to the conservative parties, detailed the minimum criteria for such reforms," Palazio said. "The Nicaraguan resistance has endorsed this position."
The internal opposition document which Palazio refers to calls for the Sandinistas to step down and permit the creation of a "provisional government of national unity."
"Constructive pressure"
The inclusion of the two small pro-Moscow Communist parties, the PSN and the PCdeN, in this anti-Sandinista front should come as no surprise. Both parties The FBI is up to its dirty tricks once again. On Jan. 27, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), the San Francisco Bay Area Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice; and nearly 100 other organizations that oppose U.S. policy in Central America learned that they had "CONTRA Tr have long called for "power-sharing between the Sandinistas and the 'patriotic capitalist class."
The contras' negotiating stance reflects the position of the U.S. government, whose spokespersons have repeatedly stated that the "democratic reforms" in Nicaragua must be "irreversible" before the United States is willing to abandon the contras.
The contra-aid vote this month, whatever its final outcome, will not modify the overall objective of the U.S. capitalist class of Democrats and Republicans alikewhich is to overthrow the Sandinista government and reverse the gains of the And Justice been targeted during a six-year sweeping investigation by the PBI.
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that the FBI surveillance included wiretapping, harassment, and infiltration. Al Lannon, one of the Bay Area Mobilization co-chairs (photo above), Nicaraguan Revolution.
The Democratic Party's alternative contra-aid proposal accepts the premise that aid, and the threat of future aid, are useful vehicles for putting what The New York Times called "constructive pressure on the Sandinista government to keep its grudging movement toward democracy."
All the Democrats need to open the floodgates for increased aid to the contras, including military aid, is a signal from someone like Costa Rican President Oscar Arias that the Sandinistas have not lived up to their promises of "democratization."
Arias, in fact, has already warned the Sandinistas to implement more than "merely cosmetic democratic reforms." He, too, is for wrenching more and more concessions from the Sandinistas with the purpose of providing the contras' internal front, the Democratic Coordinating Council, with unfettered freedom to organize against the revolution.
Tasks of antiwar movement The U.S. capitalist class has never been willing to tolerate the Nicaraguan Revolution. It cannot live with a revolution that overthrew the U.S.-supported Somoza dictatorship, destroyed the old army, distributed land to the peasants, and gave out over 300,000 rifles to the workers and peasants.
The U.S. government Demonstrations on April 30."
-Al Lannon, Pres. IL WU Local 6 protested this surveillance at a press conference held at the San Francisco Federal Building on Feb. 1. "I had thought that in the post-McCarthy, post-Watergate America, government no longer spied on citizens democratically exercising their constitutional freedoms," Lannon said revolution that would serve as an exan nple to the oppressed of Central America and beyond.
Today, thanks to U.S. intervention, the energy of the Nicaraguan Revolution has been sapped. The economy has virtually collapsed. Inflation ran at 1800 percent in 1987. And if it continues to rise as it has since November, annual inflation for 1988 will reach 13,000 percent.
The Central American peace plan has offered the revolution no reprieve. In fact, the fighting has intensified since the plan was signed, and now the Nicaraguan government is on the defensive, with the onus placed on its shoulders to accede to further imperialist demands.
Today, more than ever, the task of the American antiwar movement is to organize mass mobilizations to demand an end to contra aid and an end to U.S. intervention in Nicaragua.
As the U.S. government and its contra surrogates step up their mobilization against the Nicaraguan people, we must respond by mobilizing the mass antiwar sentiment here in the United States. Only by staying the hands of the U.S. imperialists will the Nicaraguan Revolution be free to live in peace.
No Aid to the contras!
Hands off Nicaragua!
No U.S. Intervention in Central America!
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groups were kidnapped en masse and taken to Honduras. In Honduras, they were armed and trained. U.S. imperialism had a plan to occupy the Atlantic Coast as a beachhead,
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Ryan/Soci: contra aid
"I have a have tip for the FE for the We'll be organizing