ARGENTINA slain pst militants. INPRECOR No. 2 (June 20) reported the murder of three worker militants of the PST (Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores -- Socialist Workers party), an Argentine sympathizing organization of the Fourth International. The murders took place at 12:30 a.m. on the morning of May 30, when an armed gang broke into a northern Buenos Aires headquarters of the PST, kidnapped six PST members, and assassinated three of them, Antonio Moses, Oscar Dalmacio Mesa, and Mario Sida. The murder of the three PST members, all of them worker militants playing active roles in the trade-union movement, is part of a mounting campaign of terrorism launched by the fascists and the union bureaucracy aimed of crushing workers apposition to Perón's efforts to "institutionalize" his rule. INPRECOR No. 2 also reported several other instances of violent attacks on the PST. Since then, yet another attack has come to light. On the evening of May 30 -- the very day of the Buenos Aires murders -- eight armed individuals kidnapped three members of the PST in Lanüs. "We already killed three of you and now there are going to be six, " the victims were told. They were beaten, blindfolded, and taken to a house where the abuse continued for about on hour before they were released alive. The attackers identified themselves as being "from the odministration" and "from the Lanüs police." The attacks of the fascists and bureaucrats have fallen not only on the PST. During April and May an estimated fifty attacks were made on offices of left Peronist groups and their sympathizers; death threats were received by leaders of the Frente de Izquierda Popular (People's Left Front) and the emments of 1957 and 1962. Has just returned to Vientiane after eleven years in the hills. Best known political leader of the Neo Loo Haksat. 6. Burchett, op. cit. p. 158. 7. On August 10, 1960, Kong Le was chased out of Vientiane by the far-right coup that initiated the process that was later to lead to the formation of the second coalition government. 8. Phoumi Vongvichit, op. cit. Vongvichit is general secretary of the Neo Lao Haksat and is today vice prime minister and minister of foreign affairs in the new government. 9. Ibid. p.87. (See also pp. 70 and 148.) 10. Ibid. p.128. 11. Le Monde Diplomatique, April 1974. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Le Figaro, June 22, 1974. 15. Ibid. PRC; Ruben Poggione, a member of the Communist Youth Federation was killed in northern Buenos Aires a few hours before the opening of his organization's Tenth National Congress, the previous weekend the residence of a Communist doctor and two of the party's headquarters hod been bombed. In addition to the murders, there have been arrests of militants demonstrating for causes frowned upon by the Peronis: goverment. On May 25 some 250 demonstrators demanding the release of political prisoners still being held in Villa Devoto prison were arrested; on May 29 sixty people were arrested in Cordoba at a rally commemorating the 1969 insurrectional uprising in this city. The funeral for the three murdered PST militants, held June 1, was turned into a rally in solidarity with the victims of the attacks. Between 4,000 and 5,000 people attended, including members of many trade unions and political organizations. Dozens of labor, student, and political organizations throughout Argentina sent messages of solidority. The Buenos Aires daily Noticias quoted Juan Carlos Coral, one of the central leaders of the PST and a speaker at the funeral rally, as stating that terrorism was being "used as an instrument to enforce the Social Pact" (the government's antiworker policy) and as blaming the government for not having taken the necessary steps to prevent assassinations like the ones in northern Buenos Aires. He accused the union bureaucracy of carrying out such crimes in response to the "combative activism" of the workers.
The PST has called on "all workers and people's organizations, and all political parties and their youth groups who are for
29
fracción roia: organize workers the defense of democratic rights to unite in action" to demand an investigation and punishment of those responsible for the killings in northern Buenos Aires and elsewhere. Coral also announced that the PST had demanded that the government grant it the right to have heavy arms in its headquarters for self-defense. This demand was mode at a May 31 meeting between Coral and Minister of the Interior Benito Llambr, during which the latter claimed that the Argentine federal police were the best in the world. If that is so, demanded Coral, "Why haven't they found a single one of those responsible for the hundreds of attacks against the working class?" At the funeral rally Coral summed up the PST's stand on the next sheps necessary to protect the workers and left movement from violence: .. if there is no concrete result within fifteen or thirty days from the promised investigation of these terrorist activities, we will consider ourselves notified of the complicity of the government with the right-wing gangs of assassins. In these days of back-room pacts, secret agreements, hand-to-hand fighting, and conspiracies, we call for the formation of a Pact of Unity in Action for the defense of civil liberties. And as for General Perón, who seems to be self defense: The following leaflet was distributed by the Fracción Roja (Red Faction) of the PRT (Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores -- Revolutionary Workers party), an Argentine sympathizing organization of the Fourth International, and the Grupo Obrero Revolucionario (Revolutionary Workers Group) at the funeral demostration for the three assassinated worker militants of the Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (Socialist Workers party), also a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International. The parapolice armed bands of the bureaucracy have comitted a new crime: Three worker militants, Antonio Moses, Oscar Dalmacio, and Mario Sida, militants of the Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores, were kidnapped from their headquarters and summarily shot. The names of these three fallen comrades, new martyrs in the struggle of our people for workers power and socialism, are added to the already long list of victims of police repression and far-right assassination that have been carried out since Peronism's return to power on May 25, 1973. The very day Campora assumed office Iwo comrades were killed during the demonstration for the release of the political prisoners at Villa Devoto prison. Since then, there have been many deaths in the ranks of nearly all workers and peoples political tendencies: revolutionary Peronists and fighters like Delleroni, Liliana I .anoff, Grinberg, Rozzati, guerrillas of the ERP ("jército Revolucionario del Pueblo -- Revolutionary Army of the People) like Gimenez, Roldan, and Antelo, revolutionary Marxists like comrade Nancy Magliano of the Fracción Roja of the PRT, militants of the PST like Inosencio Fernández, and so on. The exploiters and their allies, the bureaucrats, are thus using rightist terror as a weapon to decapitate the workers movement, the student movement, and the other popular secfors and to deprive them of their militants. This repression is not aimed solely at one organization or tendency but at all those struggling in a determined fashion to defend the interests of our people.
involved in so many pacts against the workers and the people, we also call on him to take a clear stand in support of this action, which we must take without delay to ensure democratic rights. Finally, we demand the formation of a parliamentary commission, with the power to arrest and interrogate. This commission must have the support of all organizations under attack by fascist terrorism and of all sectors of the labor movement that have suffered the violence of the bureaucracy's gangsterism." Speaking af the rally for the executive committee of the PST, Nahuel Moreno stressed the need to form worker and antifascist people's brigades and pickets to defend the movement against continuing attacks. Avanzada Socialista, the newspoper of the PST, has reported positive reactions to the PST's call for a united front on this question from spokesmen of the Bloque de Base and Peronismo de Base (left Peronist formations), Pharmaceutical Workers Union, Lista Marrón Metalúrgica from Villa Constitución (a closs-struggle tendency in the metalworkers union), UDELPA (Unión del Pueblo Adelante -- People's Movement for Progress), Partido Intransigente (Intransigent party), and the Communist party. Who benefits from this rightist terrorism? It is always the expleiters and profiteers and the policy that they are currently using to defend their interests: the social pact of the bureaucrats and employers, the Ley de Prescindibilidad (law on security and employment of civil servants), the law on foreign investments, the law on professional associations, the reform of the penal code, the university law, and so on. Repression and intimidation are necessary to succeed in imposing this policy that is contrary to the interests of the workers and the people. This rightist terrorism that is developing with impunity is directed in the first place from the highest levels of the government. The gangs of assassins from the fascist groups and the bureaucracy, like the CNU or the C of O, are armed and furished with ammunition by the police and the army. The ones responsible are those who gather around assossins like Villar and Margaride (chiefs of police under the military dictatorship reappointed by Cámpora and Perón), Lopez Rega and Osinde, Brito Lima and Lastiri. The real responsibility lies with the government, which has nothing in common with a popular government, but is rather a government of the omployers, the bureaucrats, and the profiteers. The responsibility lies with this government, which has never lifted a finger to look into the Ezeiza mossacre and which protects the torturers of the military dictatorship. The responsibility lies with this government that continues to use repression against striking workers, as was done just yesterday at Propulsora, or against those who demonstrate for their rights, like the inhabitants of the slums of the Plaza de Mayo. The responsibility lies with this government that covered for the "coup" in Córdoba and that every day tramples on freedom of the press (El Mundo, Descamisado, Militancia, and the revolutionary press), freedom of assembly, freedom of demonstration, etc. We can expect this government of exploiters and bureaucrats to do nothing to end the rightist terrorism. We must have no confidence in bourgeois legality. We must have confidence only in our own forces. The only inquiry that will bring results is one conducted by the workers and peoples organizations and parties, united without sectarianism in the struggle against repression and assassination.
FUL NDEPENDENCE
Against the fascist groups and parapolice gangs no discussion or beating around the bush is possible. We will be able to halt their crimes only if we are able to confront them in o united fashion and by force. No militant must fall without a retort, no crime must stand without response. Against repression and assessination let us organize workers self-defense. We must not sit with folded arms while the fascists strike. Revolutionary militants and the most conscious militants have a very concrete responsibility: to prepare themselves and to prepare all those ground them. In all mass struggles and all mobilizations let us organize pickets and self-defense groups capable of confronting the attacks of the right in an organized manner. Let us create vigilance committees in the work places and schools, carrying out united AFRICA
LIBERATION MOVEMENIS