MILITANTS
32 Editeur responsable: René Groslambert, 34 rue Nothomb, 1040 - Bruxelles Imprimerie spéciale de l'editeur.
ARGENTINA Three members of the Argentine Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (PST - Socialist Workers party), a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International, were murdered over the weekend of November 1-2 by fascist killers of the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina (AAA — Argentine AntiCommunist Alliance). The murders came just one week after a number of armed attacks on PST headquarters in several cities. Then, on November 6, the federal police took over the job for the fascists, occupying the Buenos Aires headquarters of the PST and arresting at least five comrades. The police occupation in Buenos Aires came one day after the Peronist government declared a "state of siege" under which searches and arrests are allowed without warrants, the right of habeus corpus is withdrawn, and the president is granted the power to order arrests af will and ban all political rallies. A state of siege had been in effect From mid1969 until May 23, 1973, just two days before Hector Cámpora's inauguration as president. Now, less than a year and a half after taking over the reins of government, the Peronist regime has reinstituted one of the "exceptional" masures of the hated military dictatorship. The murder of the PST comrades was part of a wave of assassinations committed by the AAA in the past few months with the clear tolerance and complicity of the regime. The manner in which the murders were carried out makes this obvious. On the night of November 1, Rubén Bouzas, a 20-year-old secondary-school student who had been a member of the PST for a year and a half, was taken from his home in a Buenos Aires suburb by a group of men posing as policemen. The following morning his body was found. He had been killed by shotgun blasts. On the same night, Juan Carlos Nievas, a 26-year-old worker militant at the Nestlé factory and a member of the PST for several months, was taken from his home by a group of armed men. Several hours later he was found dead, also the victim of shogun blasts. On the night of November 3 César Robles, a 36year-old member of the PST's National Executive Committee, stopped at an ice-cream parlor in Buenos Aires after the national convention of the PST. He was kidnapped from there by an armed gang. Two hours later his body was found riddled with machine-gun bullets. Robles, a leader of the dock workers strike during the Onganla dictatorship, was the PST's organizer in northern Greater
MURDERED Buenos Aires and one of the most prominent members of the party. The PST had also been the target of police and fascist attacks on October 22 and 23. On the night of October 22 twenty armed men broke into the home of a PST member in the Merlo district of Buenos Aires. The comrade was not at home. But three of his brothers (all construction workers and not involved in politics) and his mother were. The three brothers were so badly beaten that they were unrecognizable even by members of their own family. On the same day, thirty armed men riding in two minibuses that were part of the cortège of the governor of Chivilcoy (Buenos Aires province) in an official parade broke off from the march and attacked the local PST headquarters. On October 23 at 5:00 a.m. the PST national headquarters in Buenos Aires was attacked by a fascist gang. Some hand grenades were thrown and a burst of machinegun fire struck the metal grating on the front window of the party bookstore. Isabel Perón's declaration of a state of siege was allegedly aimed at ending violence of the left and the right. But the real intent of the state of siege is to crush the militant class-struggle wing of the Argentine workers movement, the only solution open to the Argentine bourgeoisie and its government. There is no doubt that the right-wing terrorists will not suffer from the state of siege, but will simply be given greater freedom of action under a police cover. The November 7 occupation of the PST headquarters is an initial confirmation of this. The bourgeoisie's attack will not spare any militant section of the working-class movement. The workers must respond to it in the only effective way: the organization of the broadest armed self-defense, which has now become a necessary component of every aspect of the working-class struggle. The class battles now looming in Argentina will be decided in the streets, neighborhoods, and factories, and not in the courts or the parliament building. The example of Chile is there as proof. The workers movement throughout the world must organize solidarity with the victims of the fascist violence in Argentina and with the struggle of the Argentine workers movement for the socialist revolution. SOLIDARITY WITH THE PST AND ALL VICTIMS OF THE FASCIST TERROR! ANSWER THE FASCIST GANGSTERS AND THE GOVERNMENT THAT SUPPORTS THEM WITH ARMED SELF-DEFENSE!