issue of 'ultro-yires' and the attacks on student union autonomy. facilities to the NUM and the local support groups, provide transport to demonstrations, conflict with the law. These are the activities mentioned in the Attorney Generals letter.
it is important to recognise that legal attacks by the State are aimed at discouraging all solidarity activities, not just direct solidarity payments.
The NUS leadership has failed to organise any effective opposition to the use of this law within the student movement. They have called for student unions to stay within the law, have collections and discos for the Miners, and generally avoid the issue of ultra vires' spending. Politically, this is just the same as Kinnock's calls to the Miners, not to defend their picket lines against organised state aggression from the Police.
Recent students have proved that given a lead, students will mobilise to defend their rights. They have also shown, as in the cases of Manchester and Glasgow, the police use against any form of organised expression of opposition to government policies. been a better time for the NUS leadership to mobilise and take on the government over 'ultra vires' than during the Miners' dispute.
It is therefore up to the 'left' in the student movement to organise to take up the capitulation of the Kinnockites in the NUS leadership. Particularly, HOTOS the miners, calling for full legal and financial support tor any union that comes into conce with une ta w in the course of its support work.
We must also organise around the demand for full NUS support for the miners. This should be expressed publicly by participation in a national demonstration along with other youth organisations like the LPYS and YCND.
However, if the Kinnockites of the NUS do not act on this issue, we will have to organise a national meeting with delegates from all the student unions attacked for 'ultra vires' ference in the next academic term aim of mobilising the whole of NUS to fight these blatant political attacks on the student movement.
ACTIVISTS DIARY.
NUS NATIONAL CONFERENCE. BLACKPOOL, 7,8,9,10, December All supporters urged to attend!
Sexual Harrassment Conference. Saturday 1 December.
Brighton, 10.00am - 6.00pm. Contact 0273 -678111 for further details Refuse Cruise! 12 December. 6.00pm Trafalgar Square, called by Student CND. Book transport NOW!
Every Friday, PNL, Holloway Road site, 8.30am onwards.
Student unions that open their picket lines may find themselves in direct occupations and demonstrations by exactly the same violent tactics There has never Dollical we must organise around the December Conference on the spending. Such a conwould have the University of Sussex, Falmer House, Picket the racist Harrington, Socialist Action MATT WILLIAMS, Why did you go to Rugby? The fact that the council had taken out the clause On 'sexual orientation' its 'equal tunities' policy, mattered to me and other Lesbians and Gays.
There's no doubt that this is the start of a more vigorous attack on other groups, women, , and black people, and I, like others, thought that councillor Colletts anti-Gay shouldn't be allowed to Were you pleased with th «usL Dass day?
Besides the arrests, and the police harrassment, the rally and the march were very successful lots of Gays, union members, showing searchwa a big step in the right direc. tiothe rally in particular was very good with promi nent movement 'P, Chi out of a Gay Chris Smith (Islington South) cheer when he intoned enormous himself as Gay.
Why were you arrested? • first the march was unot ficial, then the rally decidback through town, because the first march had been sent through the back streets by the police.
The police said that if we marched again (our right!) they couldn't guarantee our safety. So meone in the rally said this meant against them!
trouble starter when the don. When they succed banner
AS LABOUR spokesperson for overseas development, STUART HOLLAND MP has Nicaragua three times in the last year. His most recent visit was for three weeks during the November elections as Labour's official representative. He told CAROL TURNER how the elections were organised and the way in which Thatcher have tempted to undermine them.
IT IS estimated that there were some 250 foreign observers for the elections on 4 November. All ine socialist internatonal observers declared the technical holding of the elections was excellent. Voting was secret, and the ballot paper listed the coloured symbols of the seven parties who ran, along with the candidates' names.
My election day was typical of many other observers. transport provided at government expense. went on to Chinendega, Corinto, and Leon. I visited some 15 polling stations throughout the day.
I spoke to 50 or 60 people, not only around the polling stations but also on the streets, including people who hadn't voted — it was marked by a red dye on their thumb - and asked them whether the elections were free and fair. Almost all replled thev were free, and fair, and secret. never before had an election of this kind.
Of those I interviewed, only three expressed any reservations. I spoke in Spanish and no one else was present. People were clearly talking straight.
second president Reagan says these elections aren't free and fair, because the Sandinistas had overwhelming media presence before the elections were called. Only one person made a point of that, but they also stressed the elections were free and fair.
On another occasion I went to a man outside his house with a crucifix around. his neck, anticipating answer. He said they weren't there had been intimidation. When I asked him about it, he said it was out in the countryside'. He hadn't personally witnessed it.
The third person expressing reservations said the Sandinistas threatened to lock him up. replied I realised he was swaying on his feet. There was an alcohol ban for the three days during the election. He was drunk! Contradiction The atmosphere on election day. was remarkably serious and sober. The overwhelming impression from the vast majority of sense of the dignity of the occasion.
When I asked about Reagan not thinking the elections were free and fair, I frequently got the comment: 'President Reagan isn't voting here.' Several people made the point that here were seven barles ances i Nicaragua, only two in the States. Someone commented: which in practice are both the same -in their attitude towards Nicaragua, in their opposition to our freedoms and our rights to determine our own In other words, the elections were impeccable. Tharvaod former Norwegian defence minister and senior observer International; and Willi Brandt put out a Statement to tnal erect. Clauce Cheeysson, French prime minister, been free and fait, and so did i.
free and fair O'Higgins, leader of the Irish Labour Party, declared them to be more secret than in Ireland.
Reagan's allegations predated the elections themselves. Coat-tailing the Reagan administration, Mrs Thatcher decided not to send observers. This is scandalous. They both gave a clean bill of health to the El Salvador elecBs will we certake menely different circumstances. It is clearly an example of the double standards of the British government: legitimating questionable elections in one country, visited alIn Nicaragua We all had LICL They had that Was his free, had As he people was a United 'two elections in Nicaragua.
were not contesting.
Arturo Cruz fact Staltenberg, pressure on both for the Socialist the elections.
each. Even weren't — as support tor those parties.
position alive There is no way in tion did not take place. and deriding what were clearly free Reagan objected that some parties This included for the Conservatives and Virgillio Godoy for the Liberals.
it is admitted that the American embassy was putting direct of them not to stand, thereby trying to delegitimate Both those parties picked up 20 per cent of the vote, roughly a tenth though candidates withdrew — their status was unclear: first they were standing, then they their names were on the ballot paper and votes were counted Other parties picked up about 10 per cent.
The implications are that the opkicking Nicaragua. It got a significant vote.
which the sandinistas, who got 67 per cent of the vote, are guaranteed such support in a future election. In a real sense it is quite fantastic to claim that an elecThe elections called February, and there was a period of some seven or eight months in which the opposition could have fought the campaign. In the so-called 'Mother of Parliaments' (if not democracies), it is accepted that the governing party has the right to call elections within four weeks and at a time which will be to that party's advantage. Whereas in Nicaragua that schedule was set months ahead and kept to.
Reaction In Britain Mrs Thatcher is seeking to undermine the financial basis of the Labour opposition and its ability wage an effective election campaign by the anti-union legislation requiring a ballot on unions' political funds. In Nicaragua , each of the parties was given $250,000 from government funds for the election campaign. All of them had equal access to television and radio during the campaign period.
A further criticism made by the Americans is that there is overwhelming media coverage dinistas, that it is a Sandinista press and radio. It is not. For instance, the church hierarchy knows is opposed to the Sandinistas - runs its own radio station.
There are three main newspapers: La Barricada which is the Sandinista paper, to the Sandinistas, and La Prensa, an oppositional paper with a circulation of some 65,000 -a population of 3.3 million. La Prensa has consistently complained about censorship sored is military material. There is no other country foreign incursion, which does not have such censorship material is usually cleared for release within 24 to 48 hours.
South Atlantic, were on the beaches in Grenada, there was no way they allowed a 'free press' to independently report have access to - what was happening.
Socialist Action 30 November 1984 Nicaragua in Rights killed couldn't Goals unarmed; against investigation.
STUART HOLLAND Led. tained.
of the Sanabout which everyone , another which is sympathetic proaching freighter. - not insignificant in across words, In fact 85 per cent of material cendefending itself from this time by When Mrs Thatcher was in the For the Americans une way.
For even by the In Nicaragua, on all my visits, I've been free to see anyone at any time and frequently without any foreign office or party officials present.
recentl Jeremy Corbyr wasn't allowed access to those who'd been detained by the Americans.
The international press has claimed that there are human rights derrogations in Nicaragua. This is distortion and misrepresentation. For example, Marcel Niedergang, in one of a series of three 2,000-word articles on Le Monde, reported without qualification that there had been 15 deaths last year, by implica. tion attributable to the Sandinistas spoke to the Permanent Humar Commission, which independent of the government and church-aligned, about them These were 15 deaths which had not been investigated by the Sandinistas. This is for the whole of 1983, a whole year Six were in provinces subject to contra incursion. I asked whether those were carrying they contirm that; asked whether or not they were contras, they couldn't confirm that.
There were three cases of people shot while resisting arrest, or trying to escape. One of the cases, where I could gain information, was a teenage boy told to stop running by armed police. The commission couldn't tell me whether the boy was armed o they not tell me whether the police had fired a warning shot which went wrong, or if they had shot to wound.
In the United States - - as happens several times a week - if someone running to resist arrest had been shot by the police, this would be the case of a civil action against the police, no for an indictment of the government for human rights derilictions. I asked whether such cases had been brought the police, the commission couldn't tell me.
There was a further case of a hanging in a prison cell. In Brixton prison there have been several such deaths. I tried to raise them with the Home Secretary and met with his stone-wall refusal to launch a special The last case was of a 79 year old man who died in prison. The average life expectancy in Nicaragua is 55. The commission granted he might well have died from natural causes. but he'd been ill and not been releas • I regret that, but it can't be considered a case of human rights The fact is that every time Amnesty International has raised a case witt the Nicaraguan government, they have got a positive response - including the release of several people who clearly should not have been de I was in Nicaragua for three full days after the election. The abstention rate in the US elections was 45 times more than in which was about 8 pe cent. People are under no illusion:
what propaganda use the United States would have sought to make of a 45 per cent abstention in They regard this another case of the double standards being applied to their own country.
Everyone in Nicaragua was aware during the presidential election campaign of the claim that MIGs were apCorinto Bulgarian It was constantly flashed the screen in the States throughout the elections. In other at a time when the US public should have been able to hear of the Nicaraguan results, the overwhelming support for the Sandinistas, , all lne heard was the claim that MIGs were approaching Nicaragua.
This of course was denied at the the Nicaraguan foreign minister and the Soviet Union. It has ultimately been acepted by One atay. hul him as part or on 'dirty propaganda war' being pursued hard-liners in Washington, people who are intent on crushing the Nicaraguan revolution.
Socialist Action 30 November 1984 support for the women's