INTERNMENT: 1921 STYLE. Dublin citizens are rounded up while the body of a dead "Sin Feiner" Bes on the powment, when the TRA mr fre to the Dublin Chatoms He BLACKON hA The Government of "Union Jack" Lynch in Dublin has announced the discover of a "kidnap plot; on the strength o this they have re-opened the internment camps, preparatory to detaining unspecified people without trial. The brunt of the witch-hunt has been borne by a group whose name up to now has been practically unknown to the British left-Saor Eire.
In this interview, obtained in Ireland by a Red Mole reporter, a leading Saor Eire militant explains the nature, and politics, of the organisation. In publishing this interview, we express our militant solidarity with the comrades of Saor Eire in face of the witch-hunt against their group. We agree with them that this latest act of repression in Ireland is not directed against Saor Eire alone but aims to smash all who challenge the Green Tory regime. It is necessary for the British left to prepare to mobilise for action if even one person is put in the Curragh.
Note: Soor Eire - Free Ireland Saor Uladh = Free Vister Can you tell us something about the origins of Saor Eire?
I'll have to go back to the "60s and trace the development of the Republican movement. After the failure of the mid-S0s military cam paign in the Six Counties, a certain amount of disillusionment set in within the IRA and Sinn Fein. People saw the futility of a purely military campaign not backed up by some form of political action. In the early 60s some people connected with the London-based Irish Democrat" joined the movement. Their Stalinist politics were not accepted overnight, but on account of the lack of clear-cut politics within the Republican movement, the position was that any brand of politics was accepted. With the influx of these people, political classes were started, which were good in themselves, as they. gave many members of the Republican move ment theit first knowledge of left-wing politics, but hand in hand with the growing political awareness, there began a running-down of the armed section, the IRA. This unfortunately led to a lot of people equating left-wing politics with reformism. Many of our members at this stage started to voice their objections to this running down of the IRA. These people were either dismissed on trumped-up charges or left of their own accord. Other members saw through the politics of Stalinism and left on a political basis.
At this time too, many English-based revolutionary groups started to spring up. People saw in these groups alternatives to the Irish Communist Party and to the current Stalinist orientation of the Republican movement, and thought that maybe, through such organisations, a new fusion could be made between left-wing polities and the traditional militancy of Republicanism Some people who had been involved in the Trotskyist English-based Irish Workers" Group formed an important section of Saor Eire and began to form links with these dissident elements of the Republican movement. This resulted in a loose organisation being formed in Dublin about three to four years ago, which carried out some arms raids and some bank raids in an attempt to try and get a militant, politically conscious, armed group off the ground. After these initial actions there was not such a mass movement towards this grouping as was expected. since its actions were seen as more in the tradition of the international revoJulionary movement, as opposed to the Irish movement. The next period was spent in discussion with various political groupings, and vanous members of the Republican movement, in an attempt to win them over to this new concept of political action. -Could you describe very briefly just what kind of a movement Saor Eire is?
Saor Eire is a left-wing armed group which is attempting to act as a fuse or detonator to the Irish revolutionary struggle: It is attempting to sep up the tempo of development of political life. It is part of the Republican tradition but also draws from the international revolutionary movement, both politically and in a military sense. As opposed to pust forms the Repablican struggle took, Saor Eire is centred around the cities and could be called an urban guerrilla The Red Mole 1-15 Jan. 1971 Page 6 House, headquarters of the British Civil Service in freland.
group, inasmuch as it sees the main strugg!
taking place in thie-cities, and within the working class directly, and doesn't hold to the old conception that the fight is in the countryside, or that the classic kind of rural guerrilla warfare can bring about a Workers Republic in Treland. We do not ignore the problems of the struggle in the countryside between the smal!
farmers and the large ranchers, but we see the leadership of this struggle coming from the cities. and the final blow to capitalism in Ire tand coming from the working class. For this reasont we hase ourselves in the cities as opposed to the countryside.
-What kind of activities is Saor Eire involved in at present?
Unfortunately due to publicity given to us try the bourgeois press, people seem to think that we are only involved in robbing banks and diving high lives, etc. etc. This could not be further from the truth. We have robbed many banks and taken responsibility for them. But wo have also been involved in armed maids, int industrial disputes, in direct confrontations with the state and its agents, also in local disputes and tenants disputes. The money expropriated fron the banks is used to purchase arms and equipment for the forthcoming struggle in Ireland. A lot of our finances have gone to aid the Catholic population of the North who have been under attack from Beitish imperialism. This took the form of money, ammunition, weapons and equipment. The money is also used for the maintenance of our revolutionaries in the field, who, at the moment, mumber quite a few. It is also used for political education, the arrangement of classes, camps, and all of the other running expenses that any armed group is table to. We te also involved in military training of members of other left-wing groups in Ireland, people from the North, and the broad Republican movement, who have not been able to get this training within their own orpanisations. -How would you define Saor Eire in terms of the various strands of the revolutionary move. ment on an international scale, i.e. Macist, Castroist, Fourth International, ctc.! While not falling into any particular pohitical category, we have learned much from all the Main revolutionary tendencies at work in the world today. For example there's a lot of Mao, especially on guerrilla warfare, which is very relevant to Ireland. However we reject much of their politics, their Stalinist orientation, and their role in such defeats as Indonesia: The Cuban revolution had a profound and deep poing effect on the Republican movement and on the development of our own members While it brought a new conception of action into the world revolutionary struggle, that of the guerrilla foco, we feel that it has certain limitations, The same land problem does not exist in Ireland upon which the guerrilla movements are based in Latin America. We don't believe that the foco itself can become the party of has any monopoly on the revolution. But small guerrilla groupines, to a certain extent independent of the working class, can help to raise the level of the working class and so help to create the party.
As regards the Fourth International: wo recognise the revolutionary role it has played since its inception; how it came to the aid of the Algerian revolution with arms and weapons while other so-called revolutionary organisations failed to fulfil their duty. We also admire how they came to the sid of the Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions and defended them against imperialism, in America and throughout the world, We are particularly sympathetic to the political assistance it is giving the Irish struggle at the moment. While the Stalinists have consistently dilly-dallied and vacillated on the question of Ireland and on the role of armed struggie in Ireland, the Fourth Intentional is probably the only organisation which has consistently given it support. A lot of our mombers have been, at some time or other, members of Trotskyist groupings. We recogniso that the Trotseyiss arpuments against Stalinism and reformism are the only consistent political arguments which lead to revolutionary conclusions. We recognise that the Fourth International among the "Trotskyist" groupings internationally is the only one which can properly be termed Trotskyist; for this reason I suppose we are more sympathetie to the Fourth International than to any other political international group It is worth noting that in the witch-hunting against our group in Ireland over the last six months, the smail League for a Workers Republic and the Young Socialists were the only groupings which consistently fought and defended us against these attacks and slanders. While recog nising that these groups have differences with the Fourth International, we still feel that their prncipled stand aruse from the tact that they base themselves on the main current of Trotskyist ideas. -How would you define Suor Eire in terms of the Irish revolutionury tradition? Specifically, does your name signify an attachment to the tradition of the old Saor Eire and or Saor Uladh?
We see ourselves as an inherent part of the Irish revolutionary and Republican tradition. We have heen deeply influenced by the Fertians, by the Irish Volunteers, by all the progressiv movements up to the present-day IRA. We feel that we have certain points in common with many of the splinter groups which have arisen, and possibly originated for the same reasons as we did. To take specifically the old Sane Bine. we have mich in common with the their attempts to weld militant Republicanism, that is armed guerrilla warture, with left-wing politics. This does not mean, of course, that we agree implicitly with the political line or tactics at the time As regards Seor Uladh, again we have much in common with them. This was a group which broke away from the Republican movement specifically on the question of armed action, which is a revolutionary featuro. We also believe in their concept that the resolving of the Irish national struggle could not take place in the Six Counties alone, hut would be resolved in a Thirty-Two County context. However, unfortunately, with Saor Wladh, this military outlook wus not accompanied by the relevant and neces sary political framework. For this roason they tailed - Do you do any open political work? And if not, do you see this as an important field of activity?
We are not participating directly as Saor Eire it any open political work. Some of our members who are an yet unknown to the police are Involved in open political work, but our organisation has to be close-knit and very security:
conscious. We are unwilling to risk our members THE FORERUNNERS. A member of James Consolir's Citizen 4rmg on gand is 1976.
identity and the security of our whole network just to have a number of our members in open politica work. This has been one of the things that has made the present-day IRA so open to
BRITISH TROOPS IN IRELAND 1916 and what they left of Duban afher giving the irish Law and Onder, Special Branch infiltration. This is a lesson we have learned from them which we have no desire to repeat. —Do you see Saor Eire as a revolutionary party in the Leninist sense? If not, what is your attitude to the building of such a party in Ireland? And if you do see the importance of such a party, how de you see Saor Eire contributing to this?
We would not fall into the category of the party as Lenin understood it. We do not believe that we are the party that has a monopoly on the revolution or is going to lead the working class to socialism in Ireland. Rather, we see ourselves playing a part in creating the objective condibons in which such a party could take power, and help in the formation and creation of such a party, In this, we do not see ourselves in opposition to any of the present-day groups; rather as an aid to help them build a party which can lead the working class to power. -What is your analysis of the crisis in Fianna Fail? And do you regard the Lynch or the Blaney-Haughy wing as the most dangerous for the Irish revolution!
Well, considering the present conflict within Fianna Fail, it must be understood that there is a distinct difference between the leadership and the ordinary members. The rank-and-lie believe Fianna Fail to be a Republical party: we have received help from rank-and-file Fianna Failers who are staunch militant Republicans, in the old Fenian tradition; who support, for example, the breaking up of large estates, militant campaigns against the border, and take many other progressive stands. For this reason wo believe that there are very progressive sections of Fianna Fail rank-and-file who could be won to a militant revolutionary political position if the proper tacties are applied. The leadership makes no such pretensions. By its very history over the last forty years, it has showmitself to be completely hostile in practice and in theory to Republicanism. Whereas the new technocrats of the purty, such as the Colleys, the Haughy's, ctc., use Republican phrascology to advance their own political careers.
As regards the present split in Fianna Fail: Lynch on the one hand has stated his own position plainly: he is anti-Republican, anti-revolutionary, and makes no pretences. On the other hand, the Blancy-Haughy wing are obviously more dangerous since they make Republican sounds, and are capable of preserving the Republican image of Fianna Fail. They have sent some aid to the North, but we know that they have sabotaged twice as much as they have sent. For example, as regards this recent controversy about arms deals, we know that they have subotaged certain arms deals and that through a member of their military intelligence, Kelly, they infiltratod certain Republican circles, found out the source of arms suppers to the North, and then either bought off these suppliers with money (God knows where it came from or operated in such a way that these arms never found their way to Ireland And they have also set up numerous individuals to be grabbed by the police. As this involves our own secarity, we are unable to nare names or dates at this present moment, but they can be made known at some future date.
If this is Republicanism, it is not what we stand for. Definitely in this present split they are the most dangerous element. At least with Lynch we know where we stand; the BlaneyHaughy faction is quite another matter. -What is your attitude to the recent split in the Republican movement? Which section do you see as the most progressive?
Well, we have seen the inevitability of such a split occurring for the last eight years. We did not particularly favour it since, unfortunately. it happened over wrong issues. In the official section we have an amalgam of peaceful roadmen, reformers, and left-wingers; and within the Provisionals, we have more militant elements, but right-wing politics. In practice, wo have found ourselves more closely aligned to the Provisionals, it is among those elements that BRITISH TROOPS IN IRELAND 1970 protecting ali rights" by inanding the Falls with armoured cars and CS gos we draw a lot of our support.
Of course, it is important to draw a distinc tion between the leadership and the rank and. file in both these organisations. Both leader ships seem equally opposed to us and equally capable of spreading slanders abort us, whercas with both rank-and-files we have very much in colton. We ure grateful for the help that Cathal Goulding, the chiefof staff of the official IRA, sent in relation to Frank Keane's case. But we condemn unequivocally their actions in issuing disclaimers and thereby helping the police to finger our organisation for the Arran Quay robbery.
The issue of these disclaimers met with hostility within both organisations and shows the support we were able to command among the rank-and-file.
-What is your attitude to the attempts of sections of the Irish left to win over the Protestant workers in the North? And what is your policy in relation to the Protestants! While recognising that the unity of Protestant and Catholic workers is essential in the interests of the Irish Revolution, we do not believe in the present situation that it is correct to hold off or to disclaim any militant action by the Catholic working class for fear of allenating the Protestants. We do not believe in pandering to the hackwardness of the Irish Protestants. Rather we think the situation in Northern Ireland today has a lot in common with the struggle of the black working class against fascism and racism in the United States.
It must be understood in talk of Catholic Protestant unity, there are two strands at work. One section has been cpitomised by the Coopers and Humes, who will use this fear of alienating the Protestant working class as an excuse for holding back on any revolutionary action.
On the other hand there have been organisations such as PD in its carly stages who, for lack of understanding of the Irish national question. placed too much emphasis on this aspect of the struggle, and thereby fell into a Walkerite position. While we believe in the necessity of Catholic-Prolestant unity and while recognising that much of the Progressive movement in Ire land through the years has been made up of sections and members of the Protestant working class, we do not believe in this present poch and in the present course of events that there can he a breakdown in this pro-imperialist consciousness of the Protestant working class. -Whar is your viewpoint in the discussion on the irish left about the resumption of civil rights demonstrations?
We accept the need to keep up the pressure on imperialism and on the puppet regime in the Six Counties, but we do not believe that solely a resumption of civil rights marches is the most effective way to aid the strugule. While disagree. ing with the arguments of some sections of the Northern left that the creation of more factories means less violence, we recognise that unless the civil rights marches are acoompanied by a greater revolutionary political awareness of the necessity to take this form of protest to a higher stage of development, it will shortly lead to disillusionment among the Catholic sector of the population. We recognise that civil rights can never be obtained within the present framework of the Northern state since this state itself is based upon the very denial of these rights to • Is substantial minority of the population. Unless it is coupled to an all-treland revolutionary strupgle against capitaliam and imperialise, tho 7 7 civil rights struggle can never be successful.
What is the attitude of Saor Eire to the struggle for Caclic culture and the language question in Imperialism exploits not only politically and acconomically but also culturally. This is evident • in Ireland where British imperialismo over the centuries attempted to smash the Irish language and Irish culture. We do not agree with the present methods adopted by the Fianna Fail government and its front organisations such as Conradh na Gaelse which, under the guise of attempting to preserve the language and our culture, are in actual fact condemning chem to death. Fianna Fail have adopted the guise of protector of the language as a cover-up for their sell out to British imperalism.
We recopnise that we can never hope to revive Irish us a spoken language withm the framework SECOND PRIZEA HARRINCTON • R. REVOLVER, :22 Cal., nickelled 3-inch barrel.
Ticket of capitalisiti-it involves the tight for a workers republic. Thus, it becomes a revolutionary slogan, just as the creation of the Gaelic League in the 1900s gre birth to the Irish Volunteers and to the Irish War of Independence. Undoubtedly, this is in the mind of Fianna Fad and the other reactionary forces. They are afraid of any. form of political awareness growing out of a cultural reawakening. As the Gaeltacht, the Irish-speaking areas, becomes more economically depressed, the attitude of Fianna Fail Towards the cultural question and their attempt to fossilise the thing as some form of a tourist attraction rather than as a living cultural force within the country, is exposed. —What is your attitude toward Fianna Fail reintroducing the Offences against the State Act? This basically just legalises the position that has existed for us for some time. While we conderon most vehemently this piece of legislation, we welcome it to a certain extent: inasmuch as if strips the Fianna Fail government of any liberal and pro-Republican facade.
Although the government is using our past actions and fear of our future activities as a reason for opening their concentration camps, we do not believe that it will just be used against our activists and sympathisers. Rather, this is an outright assault on all progressive forces. Undoubtedly, we will be the first people to end up in these cartips (if we re lucky, that 1s, as already we have been sentenced to death unofficialy by certain memhers of the Special Branch, notably one Spt. Joly Walker, a prominent Special Branch harrier in Dublin, who says that he would rather shoot the lot us than ever try and arrest us). The government Tears that our activities may lead to a new resurgence of militancy within the Republican movement and new concepts of action directed against the so-called Free State. This means that this act will be used against people at all levels of the Republican movement. This act will also be used, not only against Republicans, but against anyone who speaks out aguinst the regime, against any progressive group, any trade union leaders, any unofficial strikers, in fact against anyone who opposes Fianna Fail or they consider dangerous enough.
Fianna Fail's information about so-called kidnappings and bank robberies is spurious-it is supposed to be based on information from an informer in Dublin. The Special Branch could not infiltrate our organisation; they were forced to invent an informer and to invent this information which has provoked the threats of internJULEILL -What do you think revolutionaries in Britain should be doing in solidarity with the Irish struggle?
This depends, I think, basically on the stage of development of the struggle in Ireland. At present undoubtedly the greatest asset they can give is political solidarity: bringing the question to the British working class, explaining the problem, explaining its relationship to them, how it affects them, how they fight the same enemy - imperialism and capitalism how in actual fact they are comrades in the same struggle. We believe in the old Marxian concept that a nation who oppresses another nation can never itself be free. It is very important that the British left stress this point and impress this point upon the British working class. As the struggle develops, I think that this solidarity should take a more positive physical form by sending if possible arms, equipment, medica supplies, cle. to the comrades in Ireland.
As regirds the Trish section of the population in Britain, it is very very important that they should be organised, and this fails within the scope of the British left, since there is no Irish organisation which can do this. We welcome and support the creation of the Irish Solidarity Campaign in Britain as a way of mobilising the Irish workers as a step to getting through to the British working class. 05l515 na heireann-Irish Volunteers "•- GOT., HA BATTN., GALWAY REGIMENT DRAWING OF PRIZES culpelt ine AL HEADQUARTERS, BALLYCANALAN, CORT, De. GALWAY, On FRIDAY, 17h MARCH, 1814, at 7 d'olaek pum Ist Prize-A MAGAZINE RIFLE THIRD PRIZE A BEAUTIFUL PIKE HEAD, of the best Itateel, mosty Anished Sixpence Each Wang wonder yill be guladed a the Drink Soluter" of Merch ab, 2000 The Red Mole 1-15 Jan. 1971 Page 7
a tupamaros manilesto The manifesto of the Tupamaros which we print below was read out in the Uruguayan parliament by Senator Zelmar Michelini. The latter stressed in his own remarks that he was totally opposed to the methods lie, violence) of the Tupamaros, though he shared some of their aims. The Red Mole does not share the Senator's qualms regarding armed struggle and in printing this document reaffirms its solidarity with the comrades of Tupamaros. A more detailed analysis of the politico-economic situation in Uruguay and the effect of the Tupamaros will be appearing in the next number of International. the bi monthly theoretical journal of the International Marxist Group, British section of the Fourth International.
Everyone knows of the exthange proposal we made to the Goverriment. Everyone also knows of the Government's itresponsible replyWhile the Government was telling the people that "it was not prepared to negotiate with criminals", it was secretly initiating negatiations with us; at one time it would not agree to our terms, at another it would abandon them midThe people were not informed, for example, that just betpre. the deadline ran out, the chief of police, Colonel Rivero, prevented the judge, Dr. Diaz Romeu, from suggesting to a mediating committee that the deadline be extended by 72 hours in order to continue negotiations over Mitrione and Diaz Gamide.
Nor were the people told that high-ranking police officers with the Minister of Culture had intervened in the Punta Carretas negotiations, when the Government accepted a proposal that kidnapped foreign officials should be exchanged for student prisoners, the others brought to trial. and a manifesto published.
The lives and personal safety of our prisoners have been jeopardised, not in defence of any high principle, as has been alleged, but as the result of an infamous and wretched piece of haggling. This then was the so called "principled" conduct, and this the people were not told In the meantime, they launched an unprece dented campaign of repression against our organisation and the people as a whole, they put the country on a war footing, brought troops into the streets, breaking into thousands of homes at all times of day and night, invading hospitals, schools and colleges, sports clubs, and churches. They suppressed this time formally-the few individual guarantees still Jaft to us: they arrested and humiliated thousands of citizens; they closed down the secondary schools; they clamoured fin the most high-flown languagel for the use of torture. Selling information has been made official, and millions of "pesos", which the workers have systematically been denied, have been paid to the stool-pigeons. Through the press an unprecedented smear campaign and reign of terror have been unleashed. They have turned heaven and earth upside-down.
This is not the first time they have attacked the people and their organisations. They have been doing it for nearly three years. During this time they have closed down daily news papers, dissolved political parties, forced down the workers' wages, held thousands of Uruguayans in prisons or barracks, and beaten up and assassinated students and workers in the most cowardly manner, establishing torture as a normal and regular procedure, as parliament.
itself has been able to verify. They have censured daily newspapers, broadcasts and passages quoted from Artigas; they have forbidden the use of certain words and songs;
they have interfered in education and every aspect of culture. They have parliament, the constitution and individual and collective rights under their thumb, like traitors, they have sold the country to foreign interests, closed down unionio pronored de secto any union activity, etc.
All this, of course, has been perpetrated in the name and defence of a social order and way of life. The order of this minority which has taken possession of our country and is exploiting the mass of the population is the order of unproductive latifundo which condemns the tural peasants and the small producers to remain on the borders of poverty. It is the order of the great banking octopi with their financiers and administrators, police chiefs and the poncing thieving politicians; the order of undmployment and luxury dwellings; the order of the youth denied any goal, forced into delinquency or emigration, and wining and dining in Punta del Este**. It is the order which tosses old people and pensioners into poverty and oblivion, where the poor die in hospital of starvation just as in the Colonia Etcheparre, the order of the Uruguayans with no roof over their head, no culture, no salvation, no work; the order, in short, of a minority which grows rich at the expense of the suffering of a great majority.
It is against this social order and this life. style that we rise up in rebellion; and our rebellion cannot be stifled by raids, nor by truth drugs, nor by informers however highly paid.
Gentlemen of the Government: once again you have made a mistake; once again you have been irresponsible.
The present-day situation in this country demands political economic and social solu tions. Repression is no answer, We hope that now, having mobilised all your available forces against us, and having utilised every imaginable police method, you have understood once and for all that the National Liberation Movement is not a gang of criminals. The NLM is nothing other than the armed political organisation of the students, the workers, the employees, the rural wage-earners, the intellectuals and the unemployed, in short, of all those social sectors which are exploited and discarded by your order of injustice.
It is from these sectors that we draw our militants, In these sectors we organise and have our base. And it is in defence of the interests of these sectors that we struggle.
There is no need for you to look beyond this country for explanations to define and classify us. Our struggle is the natural and logical continua tion of the struggle of our most worthy prede cessors, and we use the means most suited to the historical moment in which we live.
Our tate lies in the barrels of our clandestine guns just as yesterday it lay on the points of the lances we fought with in the hills, but with this difference: yesterday our victories were taken from us, today this can no longer be done. For today is clearly and definitively against you. Now it is a matter of the dispossessed masses consciously entering history in order to forge their own destiny.
And our programme comes from these sectors and this historical tradition. Wa balieve that this country's problems will be solved when the land is at the service of society as a whole and not of a handful of privileged people: when we produce the wealth that should be produced and use it to serve the people's needs; when the land is and remains, as Artigas wanted more than 150 years ago, at the service of the most wretched: when monopoly capital of the banks, industry and commerce has been eradicated, and when these three key sectors of the national economy are at the service of the workers and the people as a whole; when those contemptible strings tying us to foreign exploitation have been cut and we develop a patriotic and truly independent foreign policy; when the right of every person to a roof, to good health, to work and to a culture is realised-a right that at present exists only in theory but which could become a reality when the riches which today are channelled abroad, into luxuries, speculation and unproductive activities, are returned to the people; when all the money gained fraudulently in big political and economic settlements is returned to the people and the country as a whole, and the ones guilty of these crimes are punished: and when the workers can genuinely fulfil the role which is theirs by right, of determining their own destiny and that of the country.
These are the general lines of our programme The same things have been demanded for many years by the most representative popular organisations.
Our struggle will not cease until this becomes reality.
In the name of these exploited sectors of society, in the name of our historical traditions and in the name of this programme, we say to you:
We no longer have any respect for your order. We no longer accept our condition as marginal human beings. Now we demand the right to forge our own destiny, and the weapons in our hands guarantee us this right. Some time ago the Uruguayan people decided to begin to respond to the blows that were being dealt. The war of repression will be answered in the only possible way: by our revolutionary war, This is our task nobody wants, but which we have resolved to undergo for this we have our reasons, our I'D LIKE TO SEE JUST ONE OF THOSE TUPANAROS!.
arms and our martyrs-we publicly declare tha We are ready to discuss a cessation of nostlities for a period of time in order to seek an agreement on the following points:
1. The release of all political prisoners.
2. The restitution to their posts of all those dismissed from their offices and the comper sation for all earnings deducted from the workers for trade union sanctions.
3. The elimination of all wage-freeze laws and dacress.
4. The cessation of all acts of intervention especially those directed against educationa Institutions, 5. The restitution of all individual and col lective rights and guarantees violated by the present government.
6. The elimination of all the reactionary an regressive measures adopted by the present government.
We must say in advance that under no circu stances do we accept any argument regarding our possession of arms and the existence of ou organisation, as we consider both to be the on guarantee that the people have in the last We are therefore taking this initiative public Now it is up to the government; if it accept we shall negotiate and fulfil our part of the agreements. if it refuses, it will have chosen war, and in th case: "IF YOUR HOMELAND CANNOT BE FOR EVERYBODY, THEN IT WILL BE FOR NOBODY". This is our battle cry.
This is all *Artigas: 1746-1826. Uruguayan hero of the war of independence against Spain **Pun ta del Este: Internationa/ summer resort for the rich-Uruguay's equivalent of Cannes.
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Lastly, and as a demonstration of our desire to spare the country from suffering which