RENEWED fighting between supporters and opponents of Georgian president Zvlad Gamsakhurdia has broken out in the apital Tiblisi 'wo and a half years atter • murderous attack by Soviet troops on pro-independence Caucasian republic, it was the turn of the police of the nanonalst prestaent to open fire of op ber 2, 1961 ponents on SeptemGamsakhurdia's opponents stepped up demonstrations after the killings, demanding his resignation, access to the media and paramentary elections.
Moscow coup
They accuse the president of a record of anti-democratic nees nswasocolm competence and indecision. expressed by his decision ta disband the Georgian National Guard at the behest of the Oct. 12, 1991 No.9 coup attempt.
There is plenty of Gamsakhurdia's antidemocratic instincts; the of his 'Round Table' coalition in the Supreme Soviet elections in October was followed by a takeover of the media, while opponents from the rival 'National Congress' bloc have faced physical harassment.
On September 18 opposition leader Georgi Chanturia was arrested for organising antisup poscaly l collusion with former Soviet Eduard Shevardnadze. .In an inept response to central attempts to manipulate non-Georgian minorities in the Republic, in which Georgians Poa fation, the Gamsakhur- make up around formally end Abkhazian autonomous hostility of the non-Georgian peoples of these regions to the fledgling independent state. Soviet tanks intervene into the Caucasus The president is a nationalist of the mystical romantic variety, keen to underline the Christian character of his House of Islam, which creates additiona: tensions vis-a-vis the Muslim Abkhazians and the Azerbaijani minority.
The independence of the three Caucasian republics Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan is not yet assured, despite all the shocks the Soviet system has suffered in Nationalism of conflict such as South Osand the Armenian enclave of Nagomo-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. purely nationalist outlook, Which divides the peoples of the region against one anther, severe hindrance to the establishment of national rights and sovereignty. has historically been an area where Russian, Tranian and Turkish interests have collided; thus it is not only from Moscow ¿hat malign interference can be anticipated.
The path indicated by history for the peoples of the Caucasus to acneve indeendence in peace is a union of the whole exononly be realised on the basis of secularism and pluralism Voices calling for progress in this direction, however, have yet to make themselves heard. core director.
he working class had beer reeling under the government': austerity offensive and the of the result of these scandals is that they have lost any tolerance of crooked politicians In the June local government elections, the two main bour"protest" candidates. political crisis is so deep that neither Fianna Fail nor Fine Gael could form a stable government u a generat erecoon were held.
Latest revelations The privatisation policy was emerged that the chairman of Telecom Eireann, ( Michael sale of land to the company. Double the value of the site paid to a company in which he was involved This latest scandal also involthe consultancy airm rvational City Brokers (NCB). They contact toi all the previous privatisations, including Greencore. They vestigate the privatisation Teitem, ot ail. Batasunt the bì companies which sold the siteto
A crucial factor in the success of America's Gulf war was the lack of active mass opposition in the Arab world. Socialist Outlook talked to MOHAMMED, an Egyptian marxist about the struggle for working class politics in his country. Q. What was the response in Egypt to the Gulf war?
A. Egyptian president Mubarak gave strong support to the war, and this was very important to the war, and without his support - the basis of the • imperialism's intervention wouk have been much more poltically difficult. Mubarak was key to giving an Arab face to this intervention Among the Egyptian people expres sions of on to the war were difficult. Communist or socialist parties are topal which creates ones i their organising open anti-imporialist Q. These anti-opposition laws, are they just against socialists and communists?
A. These anti-socialist laws have his successor abandoned them Nasser. , a petty bourgeois nationalist Tre, arsen sumessy suppresse communist and socialist dissent.
The situation is different for the loThe Muslim Brotherhood, the founders of fundamentalem in Egypt, are now semilogal. They are in allance with ganisation which calls Itself. demagogicaly, the Labour Party.
* is a right wing, semi-fascist party n fact, it was Sadat, president alter the death of Nasser who began to reduce repression against the domental-ts as a counter-weight fo the left.
'Post-apartheid' constitution Egyptian president: Hosni Mubarak The Islamic fundamentalists op Aubarak used a lot of Islamic' rhetoric, claiming our Islamic brothers in Kuwait were being repressed. Q. But what about the opposition to the war among the people?
A. The masses wore divided, and this was a big miscalulation by Saddam who seemed to have thought there would be an Arab uprising in his support. The government and the mass media successfully used the repressive nature of the Saddam regime. In particular they used the fact that Egyptian workers in Irag had been - something which Mubarak had kept quiet about unti The demonstrations against the war were not very big. centrated particularly among the stu. dents in the big centres like Cairo and Aleranna. he demonstatons were divided - some organised by the funInternational News damentalists, some by leftists, includ ing Nasserists, communists, and of course the foiskyis. Q. What is your estimate of the strength of the Islamic fundamentalists?
A. The Islamic movements were at their height at the beginning of the 1980s, when you wil remember they assassinated president Awar Sada After Sadat's assassination, regime made a huge offensive against them unisig every formoiropressi This took not only the foem of a state of emergency and mass imprisonment, but also the regular assassination of Islamic militants by government state of emergency has troops. The never been litted.
Rocently the fundamentalists assassinated the Speaker of the Egyp lan parlament. they can stil puli of in kind of operation but they do no have the mass folowing they had 10 years ago Islamic forces have become more isolated from the masses. Egypt s a country with a long secular history. and despite the early gains of the fun damentalsts among young people.
see they have no practical sokitions to the daily problems of the vast numbers of desperatoly poor people in the country.
It is not like Algeria; the fundamentalists are declining in strength.
But apartheid was not only Gulf War: no mass opposition emerged in Egypt as US tanks rolled through deserts Q. Nasserism was a very impor tant phenomenon- the high point of Arab nationalism. Does this Nasserist tradition still exist?
A. Nasser had a huge mass follow. ing. But in the twenty years since his death the memory has begun to tade. Of course there is a Nasserist party, but its mass influence is woak. Nasser left the memory of a great individual leader. but not much in terms of concrete gains for the masses or an ideology which different world situation. Q. What is the situation inside the Egyptian workers movement?
A. There are no independent unions in Egypt. There is one state-controlled union, the Union of Ec otian Workers sonary workers to belong to this union and to do useful work, as do the Egyptian Trotskyists, dillicult to take hertip postins - even at a toa And repression again workers strug gles is strong; last smashed a strike in the stool plant just outsile Cairo by machine-gunning the strikers. Q. What about the lelt?
A. Nasser completely crushed the communists during the 1950g and 50s.
nearly all murdered or h prison. But after the doloat in the 1967 they were war with Israel, a new left began to arise. In 1977 there was a huge mass movement against price rises, Sadat began to repress the left viciously. For five years the left was in and out of prison. In particular the regime tried to break links betwoon the left and the workers.
At the same time the left faced the rise of the Islamic fundamentalist movement. left hasn't really recovered from this situation.
The communists are soll not legal, and have suffered a series of splits over the last couple of years. Now there are two or three contending communist or nisasons, not totaling more than 1000 people. The main party to have come from the CP is the Democratic Peoples Party, which has not more than a few hundred members. There is also the Communist Workers Party. which is of Maoist origin, and the Communist Party 8th January, which is quite movement is in very crisis, with various positions being put forward on the Soviet Union and the crisis of Stalinism. It is clear that this wil no ottoup Trotskyist movement is participating in thin debate - communist or asked us to help larify their postions!
Intervening in this crisis of the Stalinist and ex-Stalinist parties is together with the trade union work, our main perspective for building a revoltionary marxist party.