'Campaign against the war

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Reg Race MP spoke to Socialist Organiser about the tasks of the Labour Left in the Falklands crisis THE LABOUR Party NEC and the TUC General Council on April 28 passed resolutions opposing further military action. Yet when the British forces launched their attack last Saturday, Peter Shore appeared on television supporting the action. What do you think Labour's attitude should be?

Our attitude should be to call the fleet back to Ascension or South Georgia to enable a negotiated settlement to be concluded. There is no justification for military action, and the Labour Party should not support it.

What do you think is the view of the rank and file Labour Party membership?

I believe that most of the activists in the labour movement want to see a negotiated settlement with no loss of life on either side. I am confident that that is their opinion: it is also the case that three out of five voters want to see a negotiated settlement and believe that not a single British serviceman's life should be wasted in re-taking the Falklands.

It is also essential to understand that whilst our forces have been firing on the Argentinians, the Bank of England has been rolling over Argentinian central bank debt. In other words, whilst we have been killing and wounding people, the Bank of England has been reshields workers cular youth -stones, tary aggression by Argentina against the Falkland Islands.

Theretore we have a responsibility to ensure that the Falklanders are not physically assaulted or have their democratic rights removed.

However, the Falklanders should not be able to exercise a veto over a long-term settlement of the Falkland Islands question. I believe that they should be offered either re-location or generous compensation for leaving the Falklands; if some of them wish to remain, they clearly have a right to do so under any interim administration which is established.

Do you think sending the fleet and starting a war can be justified as a defence of the rights of the Falkland Islanders?

A short answer to that question is no. I do not believe that the actions of the fleet can be justified in any way. I believe that although military aggression has taken place, one can get a negotiated settlement which removes the problem of sovereignty on either side by exercising economic pressure.

Exiled Argentine trade unionists have appealed to the TUC to meet them to discuss From front page and clubs. - and in partiorking class hit back with bricks and an outpost for British dómination of Argentina. Their seizure was not an issue of Argentine national unity.

Duty-bound

The workers of Argentina to be sure, are duty-bound to fight to defend their own territory and people, under whatever regime, against aggression by Britain. But they should do so through their own, independent methods of mobilisation, and in no way have they an interest in fighting and dying in the cause of Galtieri's mini-colonialism.

socialists in Argentina should be:

1. Io reveal, soberly and coldly, the realities behind Galtieri's nationalist bluster. To show that the invasion was in fact a

STOP THE WAR

Public meeting.

Speakers include

Tony Benn.

Wednesday May 12, 7.30pm, Committee Room 14, House of Commons. i common action for a peaceful settlement. What sort of appeal do you think the British labour movement should be making to the Argentine labour movement?

That's very difficult. I don't really know the answer to that question because haven't seen what the Argentinian trade unionists have been saying.

It's quite clear that the Argentinian labour movement, most of which is Peronist, have been supporting the government's claims 4 - 11 - 1-1. : 1 to the Malvinas, and 1 think that what we ought to say to the Argentinian trade unionists is that we fully support their attempts to rid themselves of a fascist dictatorship.

de petrol bombs. Nearly 1,400 people were arrested — far outnumbering the token regime last week as a gesture of restored manoeuvre to strengthen the armed forces against the working class and against other factions in the ruling class.

2. To denounce Galtieri's junta for leading Argentina into a disastrous war in a false and reactionary cause. To fight for its overthrow.

3. To propose a real fight against imperialism - which should start with the confiscation of imperialist property in Argentina. To fight for democratic rights and for the replacement of the standing army by a workers' • militia -which could not serve as an instrument for the junta's adventures, but which could all the better defend the real interests of Argentina's working people against imperialism.

The British labour movement ought to be doing some other major things, like mounting a campaign against the war. That is going to be done next week, when we hope there is going to be a major rally in the House of Commons, as the start of a campaign to stop the war.

Joan Lestor and some other Labour MPs have put down a Commons motion attacking Tony Benn's call for the fleet to be withdrawn. What weaknesses do you think this crisis has shown in the Labour Left?

ine motion wnien you reter to is slightly different to the one which your question implied. It is silly, because it has been signed by a very large number of Tory MPs, and the people who put it down had one object only in mind, namely to embarrass, as they saw it, Tony Benn and his allies on the Left of the Labour Party.

If people want to waste their time conducting such trivial exercises, then they are welcome to waste it.

What the Labour Left should be doing now is uniting to mobilise a major campaign against the war which Britain is drifting into.

Polish riot police in Warsaw The demands of the demonstrators have been for the release of jailed Solidarnose leader Lech Walesa and the defeat of the Jaruzelski junta.

These same demands should now be ringing long and loud through the British workers' movement - which so far has largely failed the test of mobilising serious solidarity and support for Solidarnosc.

Strike

For the British labour bureaucrats and for Stalinist leaders around the world, this new resurgence of the revolutionar strength of the Polish proletariat must be seen as a body blow.

The task however the development of leadership within .* Solidarnose movenicí and throughout ths: working class in ho Stalinist-ruled states capable of politically overthrowing the Jaruzelski regime, its fellow bureaucracies, and their reactionary Kremlin sponsors.

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So far as we can judge at this distance, the tasks for

1,000 political pris- oners released by the

ance 'normality'.