ping pong with Phnom Penh The political crisis in Argentina In getting steadily worse.
A maste devclopment has-been mation of the AAA (Argenlet-Communist Alliance), indrashed a wave of murdering working ach as Alilio Lopez nor of Cordoba). i such as Silvio This new SELF-DEFENCE The maponar of evolutionary Marxists ban bees to push for the formation of workers self-defence bodins. As the Liga Comunista Connedy the Red Fraction of the PRT, and a sympathising organisaton of the Fourth International) said recently: To unite forces to conf ront the white terror means not only the formation of self-defence organisations, but also means organising and taking forward the mobilisation of vast sectors around cach working class demand so as to defeat the ultimate objectives of this campaign of terror and intim idation".
Another centre of the crisis -the University of Buenos Aires -has however been marked by a setback for the mass movement. Massive repression was unleashed It the students who had d the University, and 370 The revolutionary lefl & now proposing a coherent "plan of stroggle" to fight the take-over of the Univenity by the Government and to break the repression unle ashed an the campus. The road is now open for the regroupment -of forces around a Revolutionary Current which is emerging at this MOONE.
The main workers" struggles of The Sultan is supported by over 1,000 the past period have been those of the Cordoba car workers and the Tucuman sugar workers. After four months of strupee the Cordoba car workers have heen split by a series of manoeuvres and now face a difficult situation with their uncon SMATA taken over by state trustees Its Cordoba leaders have been jailed.
Even though the IKA-Renault alled, This move workets are back at their johs, the car workem are now regrouping SLAY LE CO BEAT TE The strike of the Tucuman sugar workers against a rationalisation' of the sugar industry imposed by the military dictatorship of Ongania in the late 1960's has brought out many goneral lessons, and its full effect has still not heen felt. The demands, _apart from a wage increase, centre around the re-opening of the closed sugar mills and other measures to increase employment in this depressed region.
struggle.
COORDINATION Back control of bodies.
Last week the Labour Government vetoed a resolution expelling South Africa from the United Nations. Next on the agenda is a reso lution calling for the recognition of the Sihanouk Government in Cambodia, and the expulsion of the puppet Lon Not regime. There are already indications that Labour will be balling out the Here DAVID JOHNSON looks at the situation on the ground, and explains why the liberation forces have so far been unable to In Cambodia there is a stalemate which is a direct result of the polities of detente" pursued by both PeThe last few months have seen an is being wrought by widespread increasingly monotonous pattern beavy fighting around the capital, Phnom Penh; the Red Khmers cup ture a few small towns from Lon others. Recently they are reported to have lost the psychologically im portant city of Angkor Wat, wilch Lon Nol maintains his regime by relying largely on US support in The Government has already put state trustees into the sugar workers union, FOTIA, and launched a violent police repression. But this has only served to reinforce the unity of the supir wotkers and has drawn new layers, such as the students, into the Such recent upsurges in the mas movement have shown the send for co-ordination of the fight against the Goverument, and to this purpose a National Assembly of Unions in Struggle was held in mid-September. In spite of the repression directed against this move, a national co ordinating body is heing formed which will ensure the unity of the militant unions, Our comrades of the Lipa Comunista are pressing for the involvement of even wider forces and the formation also of local co-ordinating Two of the main clements - Peking plays both the financial and military sease.
American planes and advisers" have been prominent in recent fighting.
Inside the capital itself, bavoc discase, malnutrition, corruption and growing political opposition.
Ondy the last is dealt with hy being viciously crushed.
Lon Nol's conscript army, which contains hundreds of children, is so demoralised that bardly a week goes by without desertions of whole battalions and even mutinies.
The real trapedy is that the liheration forces, the National United being fought for within this emerging campaign are the sliding scale of wages which will protect workers from the roaring inflation and workers democracy powerful weapon against the Peronist bureaucracy which now has a strangle-hold on most usions.
It is these moves towards uniting the militant sections of the workers movement which have broken from l'eronist ideology. together with the building of workers self-defence orpanisations and the defence of the guerrilla movement, which are crucial for a successful solution to the prosent crisis. Absolutely nothing will be gained by the workers movement from the "multi-sectoral conferences which the povernment is busily calling to combat violent terrorism. subversion and ideological oxtremism and which are nothing but a cover to legitimise a further rapid escalation of the repression.
Front of Cambodia (FUNK), have neither the arms not the resources to dislodge this over-ripe apple from the tree with a well-aimed shaft. And while China has resumed aid in limited quantities, the liberation forces are still too weak to launch a sustained offensive without overstretching theniscives.
This weakness is an important factor in the burguining which takes place between Peking and Washing ton. No doubt Kissinger's next halt in Peking will see more pressure being applied and inducements offered to compel the FUNK to negotiate with Lon Nol.
However the likely fall of Thieu and the subsequent strengthening of the NIF in Southern Vietnam could act as a tremendous boost for the FUNK, particularly if this cables the NLF and North Victnam to lend a helping hand David Johnson