[ITALY During a meeting in Florence of the…]

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ITALY During a meeting in Florence of the national councils of the 3 Italian union federations last week, police arrested Luigi Scricciolo, a member of the foreign affairs office of the UIL (the Socialist dominated federation with 8 million members). The police say he is being charged with membership of an "armed group", and with "subversive activities". . This is just one more of the growing number of examples of police using anti-terrorist legislation to hit all forms of opposition and struggle against the bosses state. It confirms yet again that the workers movement should oppose the state in any measures it seeks to step up repression-nominally against the Red Brigades and other groups-even though the actions of these groups are totally incapable of advancing the workers COLOMBIA Workers and militants in this South American state now face a new murdering enemy in addition to the long established forcés of the bosses. The new death squad has been set up by a national conference of drug traffickers and gangsters held in December.

These scum of capitalist society have a deep interest in maintaining the status quo -which means holding on to their huge profits. The death squads have been financed with £3 million.

Already they have claimed at least one victim, a union official in the indusitial city of Medellini, whose bullet-ridden body was found dumped on wasteland last month. In recent weeks, two more union officials have disappeared. The bosses are no doubt very pleased to have another weapon against the oppressed. They and the rotting system which they uphold are facing mounting resistance and The country has been under martial law ("state of siege") for 35 years now. In the rural areas, the army is carrying out a campaign of terror-including torture and indiscriminate executions of peasants.

SOUTH KOREA Last week, the military dietatorship launched a n arrest operation in capital Seoul. More than 11,000 people are reported to have been arrested. According to the blood-stained murderers who rule this country, those arrested were "hoodlums, thieves, robbers, delinquents, and traffic violators". . These are the lies of a government whose system means terror and poverty for the mass of working people.

To protect the profits and the rule of the capitalists (and especially of the imperialist US and Japanese bosses who have huge stakes in the country), the dictatorship of General Chun needs to arrest thousands and thousands of workers and militants, and throw them into the infamous "reeducation" centres.

JAMAICA The country's cracial bauxite industry h is been hil by strikes that have shut down 3 of 1he 4 re fineries.

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Wor a Yews Thursday February 1982 Page