SPAIN FREE THE POLITICAL PRISONERS Twenty-two political prisoners, twenty-one of them Basque militants, continue to languish in the Francoist prison at Puerto de Santa Maria in spite of the "amnesty" decreed by the Spanish government. In fact, the living conditions of these prisoners have worsened since the amnesty (see the letter trom the Puerto de Santa Maria prisoners published in the preceding issue of INPRECOR, No. 58, September 23.) In response to the continuing repression in Euzkadi (the Basque country), which has included the murder of yet another Basque fighter, the Puerto de Santa Maria prisoners have declared a hunger strike. They have released the following letter to the working class and people of Euzkadi. The essential way the Suárez government has been responding to the struggle of the workers and people of Euzkadi continues to be the same as all the governments of the dictatorship: pure and simple repression. The activation of parapolice terrorist groups granted complete impunity, imprisonments, beatings and shootings of demonstrators, torture in the police stations — such is the real basis of the policy of the government, that is how it is trying to deal with the irresistible advance of the struggle of Euzkadi and the other nationalities of the state. It is in this struggle that Jesus Mari Zabala Erasun has fallen, as other comrades have fallen in Vitoria, Basauri, Montejurra, Santurce, and so many other places. The dictatorship has no means of surviving except to open fire on the people, while at the same time trying to polish up its laws and make some small concessions to the powerful workers and people's movement in a last attempt to control and curb its advance toward genuine freedom and democracy. But these reformist attempts have failed. The demagogic maneuver they tried with the "concession" of "amnesty" fooled no one, and we political prisoners remain in jail under conditions of dispersal and repression worse than ever. And the rest of the "reform" measures, along with the "amnesty, " have been exposed as crass attempts to prolong the dictatorship's death agony. The recent general strike of the working class and people of Euzkadi points to the road to our winning democracy and national freedom: the overthrow of the dictatorship. Without making pacts with any section of it. Without compromising with those who want to limit this freedom and democracy according to their own interests. You cannot make pacts with murderers. Euzkadi is in struggle for national liberation, in struggle for its demands so that Jesus Mari Zabala Erasun may be the last victim murdered by the dictatorship. We intend to unite with the struggle of our people in the only way open to us: a hunger strike of unlimited duration. For the release of all political prisoners and the free return of exiles! For the dissolution of the repressive corps! Exact responsibility for Francoist crimes! Down with the dictatorship! Gora Euzkadi Askatuta! (Long live free Euzkadi!) Puerto de Santa Maria prison, September 17, 1976 32 Editeur responsable: René Groslambert, 34 rue Nothomb, 1040 Bruxelles.