Brazil: call for

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LATIN AMERICA'S DEBTORS A LIKELY result of bringing back the rope would be communal civil war in Northern Ireland - and in the near rather than the more distant future.

The politics of political martyrdom in a form probably even more emotive than the hunger strikes would be made a permanent and ever-active force for destabilisation • in Northern Ireland. An endless stream of republicans would face the hangman. (So would some loyalists).

Judicial execution and retaliatory IRA execution of hostages would massively intensify the Catholic/Protestant : polarisation.

The hunger strikes did tht in 1981, mobilising one community. to support them and the other against them. It came close to the explosion point while the ten men starved to death and immediately afterwards.

All thöse concerned with British rule in Northern Ireland understand this and are alarmed by it. Fitzgerald knows it too.

Yet the main Unionist parties want to bring back the rope and their 15 members in the British House of Commons will vote for it. Many of this year's 12 July Orange marches will pass resolutions in favour of it.

Some of them want it because they think it will force the British government into a full-scale "showdown" with the Catholic community. Most of then just want eye-for-an-eye vengeance.

When Northern Ireland's powerless Assembly debated capital punishment recently John Cushnahan of the non-sectarian Unionist organisation Alliance reminded them that the hunger strikers by their deaths had created hundreds of IRA militants to take their places.

But the true voice of the Protestant community on this issue - combining Old Testament severity with Boys Own comic psychology — came out of the mouth of Gregory Campbell from Derry, moving the Democratic Unionist Party motion:

•Those who are against and those who say terrorists Meanwhile in Dublin, Taoiseach Fitzgerald refused to meet the parents of the seven children who have died by British plastic bullets.

The parents of Stephen McConomy, who had the back of his head blown off by a plastic bullet fired at close range, are bringing a civil court action against the Ministry of Defence, claiming damages for his death.

Three weeks ago a jury in Derry brought in a verdict that Stephen McConomy was killed "without justification" by the British Army.

Four years ago Lord Mountbatten and three others were blown up in Mullaghmore Harbour, Co. Sligo. Last weekend Sinn Fein and the IRA held a rally there to commemorate the ten IRA hunger strikers who died in 1981.

There was an outcry from the press. And the 26 County government expressed such loud disapproval that it was thought they might ban the rally. In fact they were only shouting so. that the British government would hear them.

The rally attracted 800, many from the North. Thej chanted "IRA, IRA, IRA" and gave clenched fist salutes as they passed Classiebawn Castle, which was one of Mountbatten's homes.

The main speaker was owen Carron, tormer abstentionist MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone. Of the rally's critics he said: 'They fear the hunger strikers and their comrades. They fear that they will bring about a situation in the 26 Counties like that in the North where the hunger strikers have fuelled the imaginations of the young who were no longer prepared to accept the collaborationism of the SDLP."

He called for a radical new solution to the Irish problem. Whether it will be peaceful or violent lies with the British Brazil's militant trade unions have called a general strike for Thursday July 21.

A strike wave started on Wednesday 6, against lay offs and wage cuts threatened as part of Brazil's negotiations with international bankers.

1100 workers walked out at an oil refinery 62 miles from the action' The military government promptly declared the strike illegal and took over the union headquarters. But the next day, Thursday 7, the refinery workers were followed by 60,000 metal workers in the Sao Paulo area.

The leading force in the strike is reported to be the Workers' Party, which emerged from the militant trade union struggles of 1979.

Brazil went through a tremendous boom between 1964 and 1981. It has overtaken Britain as a steel producer, and experts estimate it will be ahead in car production too within a few years. But in the last two years, as the debt squeeze has tightened, the economy has gone abruptly into reverse.

Industrial production dropped by over 10% in 1982 and is still stagnant. Although car production has recovered partly, in early 1983 tractor production was 52% down on early 1982, rolled steel production down 11%, and iron ore down 21%.

Brazil's increasingly important exports of manufactured goods have been restricted by the world recession. So, in order to establish a trade surplus sufficient to meet its huge debt payments, the Brazilian government has curbed imports drastically.

Imports for state-owned industries - central to the economy - have been cut back 35% this year.

Brazil is, however, still an estimated $1.3 billion behind on interest payments. An IMF team is currently in Brazil negotiating further austerity measures with the government.

Wages in Brazil are state-controlled, and regulated by an ЛЕХІСО; billion to overseas $84.6 OMBIA 10:3 PERU $11.2 Countries. c receiving lA emergency CHILE $17.2 Source: Morgan Guaranty Trust Company indexation system raising them periodically in line with prices. Trade unionists have long complained that the price index is rigged so that real wages actually decline; but in January, as part of a deal with the IMF, the government revised the system to reduce wage rises even more.

With price inflation at 130% over the last 12 months, this means serious cuts in living standards.

At the same time as it is challenged by the working class, the Brazilian government also The bulk of Latin America's massive $300 billion in foreign debt has been borrowed by seven nations. Each owes at least 510 lenders.

In billions of VENEZUELA $28.6 223% :213.

BRAZIL $84.0 ARGE faces a hard line by the Bank of International Settlements -which on Monday 11 refused to extend Brazil's deadline for repaying a $400 million short-term loan - and an internal crisis, with the illness of President Joao Figueiredo.

A banker quoted in the Guardian of July 12 said this 'was pulling Brazil close to declaring a moratorium on its $90 billion debts — the largest in the world.' If Brazil does do that, the destabilising effects on the world financial system will be huge.

Joa Between 1970 and 1980, the government's share in gross fixed investment in Britain fea from 26% to 14%. The goverment's share in employment meanwhile rose from 18% so 22%.

No other advanced capitalis country has seen such a drop in public investment. Average figures for the advanced capialist countries were 18% of tocal investment in 1970, 15.5% in 1980.

Gross fixed capital formation was 16% of total expenditure in the UK in 1981. The UK was thus putting a smaller proportion of expenditure into investment, as against immediate consumption, than any other advanced capitalist country except Denmark (also 16%).

The figures for other major countries were: US 18%, Spain 20%, france 21%, Canada 24%.

The number of unemployed women in the advanced capitalist countries increased by i million between 1970 and 1981. according to official figures. At the same time, however, the number of employed women increased by 23.6 million.

Around 40% of the total wage-labour force in advanced capitalist countries is nom female. Exceptionally or figures are S. Ireland and Spain (28%); the highest are Finland, Sweden and Denmark (47 to 44%).

The latest Department of Employment Gazette claims thas 90% of the 460,000 places required for the first year of the Youth Training Scheme have been filled.

Only 93,000 have, however. been vetted, and only 35,000 are occupied or ready for occupation.

The Department of Employment Gazette also confirms that the Tories' effort to force down youth wages has not yet been successful.

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by Martin Thomas

industrial centre of Sao Paulo, in what they called 'pre-emptive