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| x   x x x   x   x  x  xx  xxx xxx  xxx                   |
| xx xx x xx xx   xx x x  x  x  x   x       Issue #25      |
| x x x x x x x   x xx x  x  x  xx   xxx                   |
| x   x x x   x   x  x x  x  x  x       x   06/16/86       |
| x   x x x   x   x  x  xx   x  xxx  xxx                   |
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|    Newspaper of the Maoist Internationalist Movement     |
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   SOUTH AFRICA REFORMS AGAIN
   
   AZAPO LEADERS AND OTHERS DETAINED IN NEWEST SOUTH AFRICAN 
CRACKDOWN
   The president and former president of AZAPO (Azanian 
People's Organization) were among the more than 1,000 
political leaders rounded up by the apartheid regime on June 
12. Monte Narsoo of the South African Institute for Race 
Relations called it the "biggest concentrated detention swoop 
ever." (Detroit Free Press 6/13/86, p. 1A)
   President Botha declared another state of emergency. The 
police and military have the power to detain anyone up to 14 
days without a warrant. The detained may have no visitors at 
all. All legal recourse is suspended. The South African 
police state is more naked than ever.
   As MIM Notes goes to press on June 15, over 2,000 
activists in South Africa have been detained. Their fate, 
which may be death, is unknown as of yet.
   Once again Western economic and military support 
contribute to that police state and its recent "reform."
   
   PLO PROTECTED U.S. INTERESTS IN DEAL FROM 1976 TO 1982
   According to Lewis Snider in the Wall Street Journal, the 
PLO infiltrated radical Palestinian splinter groups and 
aborted various missions against the U.S. from 1976 to 1982. 
(WSJ 6/12/86). Snider's point is that the U.S. would protect 
its imperialist interests better with warmer relations with 
the PLO.
   "One reason why no American lives were lost to attacks by 
Middle East terrorists between 1976 and 1982 was because of 
covert contacts between U.S. intelligence and representatives 
of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organization. That 
liaison was on of the most serious casualties of American 
support for Israel's invasion of Lebanon in June 1982." 
(Ibid)
   Abu Nidal's groups killed an American ambassador in 1976, 
but he was apparently stymied in his efforts from 1976 to 
1982. When the U.S. received some of the blame for Sapra and 
Shatilla from the PLO, it lost its protection racket with the 
PLO according to Snider.
   Snider would like the U.S. to buy into the PLO protection 
racket more fully again. Obviously the Wall Street Journal is 
considering what Snider says as ideas for protecting 
capitalist class interests.
   
   GOOD OLD FUNGIBLE MONEY KEEPS CONTRAS GOING
   Sometimes the government takes advantage of commodity 
fetishism. What is money? What is bookkeeping asks the 
introductory economics student?
   Money in the hands of the contras is a covert weapons and 
military racket. The Wall Street Journal revealed that the 
U.S. "non-lethal" and "humanitarian" aid is all a bookkeeping 
exercise. The Honduran military alone received over $1 
million of the money for non-lethal assistance to the 
contras, who are fighting to overthrow the Sandinista 
government of Nicaragua. $450,000 went to the commander-in-
chief of the Honduran military. (WSJ 6/12/86)
   Of $4.4 million that went to "three contra brokers and one 
supplier, only $785,674 actually went to Central America. 
Most of the rest was diverted to bank accounts in the United 
States, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands." (Detroit Free 
Press 6/13/86)
   The U.S. government gives money to suppliers that 
supposedly give the contras non-lethal aid. The suppliers 
agree to give the money to the Honduran military and others 
giving military assistance to or condoning the presence of 
the contras. The suppliers in Central American pretend to 
supply contras non-lethal supplies and receive a cut in the 
deal.
   The U.S. government can thus tell its people, the Eastern 
bloc and Nicaragua that it is only giving the contras 
"humanitarian assistance." Meanwhile, covertly, the contras 
receive military assistance and benefit from influence-
peddling in the region. So desperate is the U.S. government, 
it feels that it must fool a public not sufficiently 
jingoistic by making war in the guise of "humanitarian 
assistance."
   This is just another case of the myth of "economic 
assistance" to the Third World. It is beyond the capability 
of the corrupt and imperialist U.S. government to render 
"humanitarian" assistance. It only does that which supports 
the interest of the capitalist class.
   The American capitalist class supports terror in the Third 
World so that it can get workers there to work for a 
pittance. At the same time, it is also making war on its 
competitors in the Eastern bloc. Woe to Nicaragua--the U.S. 
government will support anybody in Central America who can 
help the U.S. keep the lid on things and prevent the Soviet 
Union from getting a piece of the Central American pie.
   
   NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY SUPPORTS
   WHO'S WHO OF WESTERN IMPERIALISM CORPORATION
   What do some Afghani rebels, the "opposition" in Korea, 
some underground Polish unions, a member party of the 
Socialist International in Northern Ireland and the AFL-CIO's 
Free Trade Union Institute, the Center for International 
Private Enterprise of the Chamber of Commerce, the 
conservative Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, El Mercurio of 
Santiago, and the National Republican and National Democratic 
Institutes for International Affairs have in common?
   All support democracy for the bourgeoisie and the freedom 
to exploit, right? Right, but they also receive money from 
the U.S. government's National Endowment for Democracy. (NYT 
6/1/86, p. A1.)
   
   PENTAGON BUYS NBC NEWS
   Conservative zealot and media magnate Ted Turner pointed 
out that the merger of GE and RCA put a major television 
network--NBC--in the hands of a company with major defense 
contracts and a vested interest in the arms race. (Detroit 
Free Press 6/14/86, p. 2B.) This in effect put NBC in the 
hands of a company dependent on the Pentagon, which of course 
is the only source of military contracts available in the 
United States.
   The purchase of NBC may not be a conspiracy because the 
media under capitalism are all subject to being bought by the 
highest bidders. Anyone willing to pay the price for the 
company's shares can own any newspaper, radio station or 
television channel.
   Of course, it's not really quite open to anybody. One must 
have the money and the ability to continue outbidding other 
people for the company. If a capitalist wants to stay in the 
media business, s/he must run that business better than 
competitors.
   For example, Detroit's major two newspapers--the Detroit 
Free Press and the Detroit News--have competed with each 
other for years and have both made millions of dollars in 
losses. Now they are filing with the federal government to 
become jointly operated. Both papers will have the same 
business operations, so there will be no more commercial 
competition. Detroit will continue to have two newspapers 
that duly report on what people within the government are 
arguing over, but their economic backers will be the same.
   In the Detroit area, the smaller and medium sized 
capitalists who own smaller newspapers are complaining that 
the merger will make for even more unfair competition 
conditions. Of course, they are right. However, those who 
cannot afford to own their own newspaper under capitalism can 
hardly shed any tears.
   Recently, in Baltimore, one of three major newspapers 
closed down. In the United States, there is supposedly a 
"free press," but in reality the press is just another big 
business.
   Under socialism there will be a media to help effect the 
mass line crystallized by the vanguard party. Years of 
bourgeois ownership of the media will be made up for through 
proletarian administration of the major press, which no one 
will be able to own.
   A truly free press (under communism) will only arise when 
it succeeds in proportion to the extent it politically 
mobilizes the masses instead of the extent that they attract 
advertisers, make a profit and run their staffs into the 
ground. Even conservatives will have their own press to the 
extent that they work to feed themselves and put their 
remaining time into running their own press. Socialism will 
thrive where there is truly a free press that does not serve 
those with the money, but instead serves those with the 
energy and political commitment to put out a newspaper or a 
television show.
   
   WILLIAM VIGIL AND MARIA HOOKER EXPELLED FROM U.S.
   The U.S. expelled two Nicaraguan envoys--William Vigil and 
Maria Hooker--in retaliation for charges that four American 
diplomats were spies in Managua. (NYT 5/23/86). Maria Hooker 
was first secretary of press relations. She had taken issue 
with an AP article that was exposed in the Michigan Daily 
(University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) and circulated by the MIM 
network as an example of non-communist but critical and 
progressive work.
   While the events are probably not connected, it is a form 
of information control that the U.S. sent the top press 
relations officer home. It will only be that much more 
difficult to get information about what is happening in 
Nicaragua, especially in relation to the U.S..
   
   U.S. REORGANIZES CONTRAS
   Forty one former Somoza National Guardsmen continue to 
dominate the military structure of the contras. However, the 
civilian leadership is undergoing grooming to appeal to 
international public opinion. The new organization is called 
UNO--United Nicaraguan Opposition. (NYT 5/23/86, p. A1, A20.)
   The State Department says that UNO is not primarily made 
up of former Somoza supporters.
   The New York Times cited the respectable opposition to the 
State Department in response. "Robert Leiken, a senior 
associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International 
peace... [says] they are concerned with recovering the land 
and property lost. The politics they practice is the style of 
Somoza--relying on cliques rather than institutions." (Ibid.)
   In other words, the former National Guard people are 
petty-bourgeois fascists and bureaucratic capitalists without 
enough concern for their image and political capital. Thank 
you New York Times for teaching yet another lesson in how the 
U.S. could be a bigger and better empire if it only supported 
image-oriented capitalists instead of just fascists.
   According to the New York Times, two of the top three 
leaders of the UNO have long standing ties with the CIA. Of 
those two, the military hard liner Adolfo Calero Portocarrero 
is the former manager of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in 
Managua. The other leader who has managed to pull CIA support 
in the past is a successful businessman. The third UNO leader 
is Arturo Jose Cruz, a former Sandinista. He is a banker.
   Perhaps it is wise to concede that the U.S. has cleaned up 
the image of its pawns. After all, even the New York Times 
says that the U.S. forced on Ricardo Lau out of the contras 
because of this reputation for brutality in Honduras. (Ibid.)
   The U.S. is managing to create its own UNO public 
relations leadership. That leadership does not come from the 
former Somoza National Guard, but it does come exclusively 
from the capitalist class. What a coincidence.