Workers' Autonomous Federation: Vanguard in Democracy Movement

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The role played by Chinese workers during Democracy Movement '89 should not be forgotten by history. The event with the greatest historic significance must be the formation of [the] Workers Autonomous Federation (WAF) in Beijing and all over the country, raising, for the first time since 1949 in China, the banner of independent trade unions.

The members of the WAFs were comprised mainly of industrial workers, workers in the services, construction workers and worker intellectuals. Their age ranged mainly from 20 to the 40s. These workers attempted for the first time spontaneously to form autonomous organizations outside the official ACFTU.

The Beijing Workers Autonomous Federation (BWAF), in its Preparatory Program published on May 21, 1989, emphasizes the need to form an autonomous organization that speaks for and serves Peter Turnley workers, and stresses that the BWAF should be joined voluntarily by workers, be formed through democratic procedures as a completely independent and autonomous organization, and not controlled by other organizations.

The ultimate aim is to have the right, in state-owned and collectively-owned enterprises, to take all legal and effective measures to supervise their legal representatives and guarantee that the workers become the master of these enterprises, and, in other enterprises, protect the rights of workers through negotiation with enterprise owners and other legal means.

Organizers of the BWAF insisted that its members obey the following pledge: "I voluntarily obey the constitution and laws of the state and work incessantly for the overall interests of workers."

At the early stage of preparation, the leaders of the BWAF had attempted to get it registered with the municipal Public Security Bureau (PSB) and the Municipal Office but were refused on the reason that "illegal organizations cannot be formed."

Although hampered by the authorities, the leaders of the BWAF persevered and in mid-May, in extremely difficult conditions, set up a tent in Tienanmen Square as its headquarters and began recruiting. Over ten thousand workers joined all in all, and several hundred workers became "correspondents" (activists) of the BWAF.

They formed a broadcast station and read out messages from workers and citizens. Later, it strove to link up with autonomous worker organizations in other cities throughout the country and build liaison networks with rank and file workers.

Besides Beijing, similar independent worker organizations were formed in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Xian, Suzhou, Changsha, Fuzhou, Jin and Hohhot.

At the end of May 1989, the tension in Beijing heightened. The secret arrests of three core members of the BWAF immediately triggered protests and demonstrations by workers, students and citizens. Under the leadership of Han Dongfang and legal adviser Li Jinjin, members of the BWAF tried to negotiate with the PSB.

After much difficulty, the three were released the next day. This incident was later declared by the Chinese government as a crime of "attacking the PSB" and is the main charge against Han and Li today.

At the end of May, core members of the BWAF and their families had constantly been followed, harassed and threatened by Public Security Bureau personnel. On June 2, the Beijing government declared both the BWAF and the High Schools Students Autonomous Federation as "counter-revolutionary organizations" and banned [them].

During the June 4 massacre, many members of the BWAF died or were injured. Afterwards, the authorities launched an all-out hunt for leaders and activists of BWAF.

From June 6 to June 20, demonstrations by citizens appeared in over 20 cities in China to protest the bloody repression of the Beijing students and democracy movement activists. Banners of WAF's appeared in many of them. In many places, there were calls for worker strikes in protest and quite a number of factories stopped work for a period of time.

According to estimates, thousands of workers were arrested and detained after June 4 for participating in Democracy Movement '89. Almost all of the main leaders and members of the WAF's all over the country were arrested; most of them have been illegally detained for a long time, tortured and tried secretly. Some were even executed.

Today, WAF leaders like Han Dongfang, Li Jinjin, He Lili and Liu Qiang are still in jail and waiting for trial. To demand the release of these outstanding and brave democracy movement workers should be the most urgent task of labour movement leaders in all countries. Furthermore, we should pay close attention to the right of Chinese workers outside jails to association and other basic rights of worker citizens.

The 1989 workers' autonomous movement is a historic brave act. It marks the first open attempt since 1949 by workers to fight for the right of independent organization.

The aims of the WAF's are revolutionary, their will is sincere, their action brave, their means peaceful, and they have won the hearts of many. The banner of [the] Chinese independent trade union movement will one day see the light of day and fight for rights and democracy for massavit, many ine Uninese working people! the Chinese working people!

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... U.S. in deep morass Iraqi soldiers on the offensive against Kurdish nationalists.

14 SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1991 22222 (continued from page 1: “U.S. in deep morass despite Gulf victory”) their fight for self-determination, their forced exodus, and their anger at the lack of support by the U.S. government and its allies, Newsweek (April 15, 1991) reported that the Kurdish peshmerga "were not asking for weapons; they captured a small arsenal from Saddam's forces a month ago. But they did want air support against Iraq's helicopters and tanks, as well as more food and medical aid."

The Kurds —and people of other oppressed nationalities from the region—were trapped on the northern mountainsides. On one side were the Iraqi government troops. On the other were the Turkish forces, who robbed, beat, and shot at the refugees. The Turkish government, fearing that the exiles would link up with the oppressed Kurdish people in Turkey, refused to let them pass to safety.

Some relief agencies claim that 500 to 1000 people were dying a day. Finally, after an international outcry, the allies began to organize airlifts of food and blankets. What irony! These same "world philanthropists," the imperialist governments, had been largely responsible for the food shortages in the first place!

According to Newsweek, the U.S.-initiated economic sanctions against Iraq "hit Kurd'Peace conference' As we go to press, the Israeli government has retracted even the minimum commitment it made to U.S. Secretary of State James Baker on a "Middle East peace conference."

Few diplomatic endeavors have been so futile. The reason is that there is a basic contradiction that is unsolvable in the context of the status quo. The state of Israel is based on the denial of the rights of the Arab populations of the territories seized by the Zionists, with the help of the imperialist powers. The Palestinian masses will never accept the Israeli state unless Arab nationalism is crushed.

But the imperialist powers, as well as the Zionists, have insufficient resources to do that. The imperialists thus have no choice but to try to negotiate a deal with the neocolonialist Arab regimes, which they can only do at the expense of the Israeli state-by twisting the arms of the Zionist rulers. But they cannot twist their arms too hard, because Israel is their basic bastion in the Middle East.

So, the dance continues without leading anywhere. The only way out of this vicious circle is a deep-going revolution that could offer the basis of a democratic settlement for the peoples of the region.

-GERRY FOLEY istan hard. So by the time the Kurds "liberated' themselves in early March, their economy was in a shambles. ... Even before the Iraqis retook Zakho, people were talking about fleeing to Turkey simply because of the lack of food."

President Bush's first reaction to the plight of the Kurds was to go fishing. Later, forced to explain himself, he said: "I do not want to see United States forces, who have performed with such skill and dedication, sucked into a civil war in Iraq."

But in mid-April, the administration rapidly reversed itself. National security advisor Brent Snowcroft told reporters that they had made a "blunder" in not doing more to prevent Kurdish suffering. They had "underestimated," he said, the severity of the Iraqi government's counterattack against the Kurdish rebellion.

U.S. strategy backfires

Yet the action behind the scenes was far more complex than the White House wished to reveal. During the war, The Voice of Free Iraq (operated by the CIA and Saudi intelligence) had encouraged the Kurds to rise up and establish a second front against the Hussein regime. British commandos, who were dropped behind Iraqi lines, also had made contact with the Kurds and other resistance groups for this purpose.

"White House strategy all along," reported Newsweek, "was to encourage the revolts as a way to weaken Saddam during the war for Kuwait, then have the Iraqi Army hold Iraq together against the Kurds and Shites-then have the Army turn on Saddam."

In other words, from the very beginning, the U.S. government viewed the struggle of the Kurds and other oppressed groups as expendable. In the meantime, the U.S. military-and their Saudi surrogates—were grooming "captured" members of the (Sunni Moslem) Iragi officers' corps to take over from Saddam Hussein. Some troops of Iraqi POWs, headed up by turncoat officers, were even infiltrated back into Iraq.

But the U.S. government's strategic design failed to materialize. Instead of seeing the Iraqi Army chop up the Kurds and the Shites and then execute a tidy coup d'etat, they witnessed a full-scale popular rebellion-in which the officer corps rallied to Hussein's defense.

"The rebellion is strengthening Saddam, not weakening him," Phoebe Marr of the National Defense University pointed out in the Washington Post. "No military is going to overthrow him while they are fighting a rebellion."

As the Kurdish fighters continued to hold major towns in the north, the Bush administration grew increasingly apprehensive. In retrospect, one State Department official told Newsweek: "It probably sounds callous, but we probably did the best thing not to get Democracy?

Four Iraqi Kurdish leaders, including Jelal Tabalani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Nashirwan Barzani of the Kurdish Democratic Party, announced on April 24 that they had gotten a promise from Saddam Hussein to introduce democracy into the Kurdish area.

This is a pledge of democratic rights for Kurds from a bloodsoaked dictator who has driven a good half the Kurdish population into headlong flight by present atrocities and the memory of past ones, who has imposed a virtual totalitarian dictatorship on the whole of Iraq.

How can he permit democracy for the Kurds, without allowing democracy in Iraq as a whole? Thirty years of history attest to the impossibility of this.

The Kurds were the first to be attacked when the anti-imperialist revolution in Iraq lost its democratic thrust. What the long suffering of the Kurds has shown is that there is no solution for the Kurdish people without a real revolution that can offer liberation from neocolonial tyrants and imperialist domination.

-GERRY FOLEY near [the Kurdish revolt]. They're nice people, and they're cute, but they're bandits. They spend as much time fighting each other as central authority. They're losers."

But the most candid officials revealed that their major concern was that the Kurds might be winners rather than losers. One member of the Bush administration-who may have some understanding of how mass struggles can snowball-exclaimed: "It's "autonomy' today, but a "separate state' 10morrow. We all know that!"

A successful fight for self-determination in the Iraqi portion of Kurdistan would provide the Kurds within Turkey and Syria-whose central governments are U.S. allies—with an inspiring example. A victory for the Kurds in Iraq, in fact, would encourage and strengthen the struggles of oppressed nationalities throughout the Middle East.

(Unfortunately, Kurdish leaders gave assurances to Turkish President Turgut Ozal that, in return for his support, they would not allow liberated territory in Iraq to be used by Kurdish groups fighting in Turkey. Such guarantees only serve to further divide the Kurdish national movement-and are thus self-defeating.)

Bush grins and bears it Back in the United States, the president was undergoing a lot of criticism-including some from former supporters of the Gulf War. New York Times columnist William Safire wrote: "Not since Jimmy Carter's Desert One has a failure of nerve resulted in such ignominious defeat. Not since John Kennedy failed to provide air cover at the Bay of Pigs has a president made such a costly blunder."

This was the first time since the beginning of the Gulf War that so much dissent toward U.S. government policy had been allowed into the mainstream press. But the White House chose to grin and bear it until it was certain that the Kurdish national movement had been defeated.

Even when Hussein's troops began to push back the Kurdish rebels, the White House did nothing. And later, after authorizing the first limited food drops, President Bush continued to speak out against establishing refugee campsalleging they might become "staging areas" for guerrilla fighters.

At the time, the Bush administration strongly criticized the plan put forward by British Prime Minister John Major (and the other European allies) for a Kurdish "enclave" in northern Iraq. An "enclave," said Bush, could be used later by the Kurds to claim an independent state.

Besides, the administration's spokespeople said, such a concept might have uncalled-for effects. "You're talking about invading Iraq!" one U.S. official told the Los Angeles Times in mock horror.

"Think about the implications," he continued, in a more serious vein. "Let's say there are riots in Armenia and Georgia. Then the Red Army comes in and puts them down. Is that genocide? Does the UN come in and put up safe havens in Armenia and Georgia?"

Just a few days later, having reassured the Kremlin and other allies on the issue, the administration put such arguments aside. The British Prime Minister's proposal was adopted in all its essentials.

Plans for a refugee zone in northern Iraq (not to be called an "enclave") were soon put into effect. Over 7000 Army and Marine troops were lifted into the area. The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and its battle group were sent into the eastern Mediterranean to bolster the "quick reaction" forces.

As part of its "antiterrorist" operations, the U.S. troops were ordered to disarm the Kurdish guerrilla fighters. Col. Jim Jones, Marine commander in northern Iraq, explained in the Chicago Tribune: "If we are operating in this area, and are going to be the guarantors of safety, we will not have any competition. We can't disarm the Iraqi army and allow the peshmerga to have arms."

Thus, legitimate relief efforts for the Kurdish refugees have been manipulated by the U.S. military as one more way to enforce George Bush's New World Order. U.S. soldiers will supply tents to the people whose cities they bombed. Food rations will go to those whose borders have been blockaded. And little more will be said about "democracy" or the rights of the Kurds and other oppressed nationalities.

The United States has a long-term Middle East settlement in mind that will require the continued presence of U.S. troops (or substitute UN forces). But to achieve this, the U.S. government will pay a price; resentment will grow among working peopleboth at home and abroad-who are weary of the bloodshed as well as the ebbing away of our living standards.

The rulers of this country may yet find that the "Vietnam Syndrome" has not been laid to rest, as people cry: "End the blockade against Iraq!" "Bring all the troops home now!"