"TO HELL WITH THE UN!"
Indonesia's withdrawal from the United Nations, officially confirmed by President Sukarno in a speech January 7, is a staggering blow to the organization set up at the end of World War II by Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin as a re-edition of the ill-fated League of Nations.
Sukarno gave as the immediate reason for Indonesia's action the inclusion of Malaysia as a nonpermanent member of the Security Council. In Southeast Asia, Malaysia is a creation of British imperialism corresponding to the South Vietnam sponsored and protected by American imperialism,
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The Indonesian Herald said editorially that besides this, the withdrawal was a protest ‘against the utilization of the UN by the imperialist, colonialist and neocolonialist powers in extending their policy of domination. In the eyes of Indonesia, the entry of Malaysia in the Security Council is an extreme manifestation of the fact that the international organization has become a mere instrument of the imperialist, colonialist and neocolonialist powers, particularly the United States and Great Britain.-...
"Indonesia's gesture is a new manifestation of lack of confidence in the UN as an organization intended to watch over the security and well being of the entire world, of all countries, big and little,"
Sukarno said bluntly January 7, "To hell with the UN}"
On UN assistance, he observed: "The new rising forces, China, North Korea, Indonesia, have no need for the UN. What does UNESCO mean to us? And the UNICEF? It means canned milk. We drink fresh milk." Ds , |
Indonesia's withdrawal met with expressions of dismay from many of the new countries that have joined the world organization. On the other hand, the People's Republic of China and North Vietnam immediately hailed the event.
Washington chose to say little about Indonesia's action, leaving it up to the unctuous Stevenson to make some comments in the UN. But the fact is that Indonesia's withdrawal constitutes a big defeat for U.S. imperialist policy.
With the connivance of Stalin, the United Nations was set up principally to divert the struggle for peace away from the road of revolutionary socialism into the blind alley of pacifism, "peaceful coexistence" and maintenance of the status quo as decided at Yalta, Teheran and Potsdam at the close of World War II.
But the United Nations never succeeded in establishing the “yeace” aura associated with the League of Nations (which Lenin did not hesitate to characterize as a "thieves! kitchen"). ‘
Its standing policy of barring the People's Republic of China from membership made it difficult for the imperialists to Play the carrot game with the Chinese revolutionists.
‘The policy of utilizing the UN as a direct instrument of U.S. imperialist policy in foreign adventures likewise undermined its pretenses as a "peace" organization. U.S. intervention in the Korean civil war, for instance, took place under the flag of the UN. The game was repeated in the Congo.
In other instances, the imperialist powers have simply by-
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passed the UN. This happened in a spectacular way when Britain, France and Israel launched an assault on the Suez Canal in 1956. The U.S. has repeatedly disregarded the UN, as in bringing down the government of Guatemala in 1954 and Brazil in 1964 and in invading Cuba in 1961.
On the other hand, revolutionary movements around the world have had the lesson driven home, often in most tragic fashion (the murder of Lumumba!), that the UN cannot be relied on for help, being in fact a deadly traps
In recent months, the UN was further weakened by Washington's determination to haggle over paying the expenses of the Congo operation. , The financial blackmail placed a big question mark over the continued existence of the UN.
-Gan the White House straighten out the shambles? It would seem highly doubtful. To do so would requiré a major turn in foreign polieys namely, an effective bid for the co-operation of Peking.
- However, Johnson appears to be drifting. If he maintains "creative inertia" as the projection abroad of his domestic "Great Society," it is certain that the glittering structure housing the | UN will-soon be regarded everywhere as nothing but what it was destined to be from-the first -- the world's most imposing mausoleum,
STRIKES FLARE IN ALGERIA
ALGIERS -- In recent weeks strike action has flared. in vari-~ ous parts. of Algeria. In most instances, the workers were encouraged by the tacit support of the government in struggles for economic demands against private owners, generally French,
The strike of 5,000 dock workers which broke out. January 5 in the port of Algiers was somewhat different, On the one hand, the action, organized by a commission set up by the strikers themselves, want a little beyond the regular bodies of the UGTA [Union Générale des: Travailleurs Algériens]., On the other hand, the strike threatened to upset exports of Algerian citrus fruits and thus injure the country's national economy. .
The general causes that brought the dockers to launch this _ economic action were a rise in the cost of living due to speculation just before Ramadan, the religious holiday, in which wholesale dealers succeeded in cornering certain products thus. provoking a rise in retail prices; and the constant threat of unemployment facing the dock workers due to the level of shipping in the port,
Following discussions between the dock workers committee and
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officials of the municipality and the government, including representatives of the Political Bureau of the FLN [Front de Libération Nationale] and the UGTA, the dock workers agreed to return to work January 9.
When this was announced over the radio by R. Djermane, national secretary of the UGTA, he expressed his reservations about the strike action in the following terms :.
Wy am utilizing this occasion to appeal to all the workers in the port. We understand the difficulties they face. I assure them that we are going to seriously take up the problems that disturb them, But we condemn spontaneous strikes and strikes undertaken without reflection which can hobble the national economy,"
In an editorial in the January 9 issue entitled "Prevention Is Better than Cure," Alger Républicain, the organ of the former Algerian Communist party, wrote:
"How then does it happen that ‘the conscious workers come to utilize, in a country that is building socialism for them‘ard. their | children, ‘the ultimate weapon of the strike, in a period:when it “— cannot’ fail to injure the country's finances and development?.. '. 2 Too many economic actions are unleashed without the officials -of the UGTA being consulted or even notified. Without going so far as to talk of a rupture between the ranks and the leaders, one cannot help but be uneasy over this weakening of the ties between the trade unionists and their officials, which is certainly not intended by the ranks, particularly in the case of the dock workers,
"Clearly there is a lack of explanation which leads the workers to make bad judgments; Whatever their degree of consciousness, they need explanations, both détailed and frequent, in order to J understand the complex problems affecting our country, in this period of transition, in which capitalism stands side by side with socialism, in which there is a daily struggle between the private sector and collective property, between the old that is dying and the new that is developing.
"Under these conditions, an order or a slogan is not enough, It is all the more difficult -- let us state it frankly -~ to have to admit that the worst off must continue to make sacrifices when (and this is likewise one of the plagues of transition periods) a fringe of nonproducers pays no attention to the policy of austerity. This makes necessary the promulgation of a law on wages and salaries which, without ending up in equalitarianism, would be in better relation with the means of the country and the necessary and just division of sacrifices." a
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