fringe events
Dave Spencer attended the European Nuclear Disarmament conference this year in Perrugia Italy. He brought back armfuls of information on campaigns around the world. We will carry more of this material in the next Socialist Viewpoint. APPARENTLY the town of Perrugia in Italy was chosen as the venue for this convention because the City Council is run by a coalition of the Communist and Socialist Parties, and nearby is Assissi to please the Christian element of the European Nuclear Disarmament movement (END). This symptomised the official structures which tried to dominate the Convention. They had already cut down the number of delegates from the 3,000 plus of Berlin in 1983 to 1,200 this year. And to make matters worse, delegates of the Official (government-run) Peace Movements of Eastern Europe were present for movements on the contrary were refused visas to attend. enthusiasm of rank and file delegates still broke through attempts to impose notions of "non-alignment" and "dialogue". The traditional parties' approach of discussions at State, town-twinning OI trade union bureaucrat-level was listened to politely, but the overwhelming feeling was for immediate solidarity and for direct action.
This seemed to be the case even among the ordinary members of the mass parties, who have clearly been influenced by the dynamism of the European peace movement.
There were of course Jim Mortimer and Ron Todd from the British labour movement, New Zealand THE ANNUAL conference of the New Zealand Labour Party, held early in September, voted to pull the country out of the ANZUS military alliance (an equivalent of NATO).
They have also called upon the newly-elected Labour government to shut down the US airforce base at Christchurch which serves the Antarctic Deep Freeze Programme, and to conduct a full public enquiry into other defence interests in New Zealand which might be aiding US nuclear strategy.
The Labour Prime Minister David
Lange spoke against these resolutions in debate, but they were still passed by huge majorities. The fight is now on to
TERZA CONVENZIONE 023111 60 20 M One of the plenary meetings at the Convention along with their equivalents from other European countries; but there were also young grassroots members in the cafes rubbing shoulders, swapping information and addresses in a most non-sectarian way. This has always been the case with END Conventions since the Greenham women first made their presence felt at the Brussels Convention of 1982. The whole five days were full of workshops and fringe meetings; the plenaries run by the traditional structures were not so important.
The seriousness and mass actions of the European peace movement has shaken up the mass working class parties. It's time Trotskyists took note of this in our struggle for a new leadership in the labour movement. force the Labour government to implement these decisions. Already the new government has banned all nuclearpowered and nuclear-armed ships from New Zealand ports — a policy which the US has said makes the ANZUS alliance unworkable
The delegates however want more action. In addition to the above resolutions, they also demanded the withdrawl of the NZ infantry battalion from Singapore within a year, and with-
drawal from all military exercises and alliance with nuclear powers. They also strongly condemned the US inva-
sion of Grenada and the US financing of the Contras in Nicaragua. Socialist Viewpoint, No. 1, Autumn 1984. Page 16
EUROFER PER IL DISARMO NUCLEARE PE Turkey ON THE very day the Cruise missiles arrived at Greenham Common, a martial law tribunal in Istanbul imposed savage prison sentences on 23 members of the Turkish Peace Movement (TPA). They had been on trial for 17 months. Sentences ranged from 5 to 8 years in jail followed by long periods of
Perhaps the best-known activist is former ambassador Mahmut Dikerdem (68), president of the TPA. Suffering from cancer diagnosed during his arrest in 1982, Mahmut is now serving an 8-year sentence to be followed by 2½ years internal exile: virtually a death sentence.
The TPA were charged under articles 141 and 142 of the Turkish Penal Code. These are known as the "Mussolini Laws" because they were adopted in 1936 from the "Special Laws for the Protection of the State" passed by the Italian Fascist regime. The military judges argued that the TPA's anti-nuclear campaigns and criticisms of NATO and military pacts "weakened the resistance of the Turkish state and nation", and that this benefitted "subversives" and "the enemies of Turkey".
Turkey, whose civilian government was overthrown by a military coup in 1980, is a member of NATO, the Council of Europe, and an associate of the EEC. Turkey has also signed the European Convention of Human Rights and the UN Declaration; but its ruling junta is never criticised on human rights by the Thatcher or Reagan governments.