Date: Thu, 6 Mar 1997 14:16:10 GMT
Subject: M-G: Re: M-I: Case Study in Prissy Preaching


>Here is an example from M-G. 
>
>The first article is from Weekly Worker. I don't know of their current
>position, but obviously they are not Maoist.
>
>What happens, Fujimori comes to London. I guess there is widespread
>agreement that he is foremost among those responsible for the suffering of
>the Peruvian people, a true enemy of the people.
>
>>Alberto Fujimori, the President of Peru, was in London between Sunday, 9
>>February, and Tuesday, 11 Feb. He came to Britain to attract foreign
>>investments and to receive support for his hard policy towards the MRTA
>>guerrilla forces still holding 72 VIP hostages at the Japanese Embassy in
>>Lima.
>>
>>He decided to make only one public appearance. He choose to do it at the
>>London School of Economics. However, the LSE's authorities didn't want to
>>give information about it until some minutes before. Nearly all the people
>>who attended the LSE's Old Theatre were diplomats and businessmen. Most LSE
>>students were not allowed to enter in the place in which they normally hold
>>their Union General Meetings.
>
>A picket is organised at the last moment. Of course, Weekly Worker goes to
>pains to point out;
>
>>Most of them [picketers ] were LSE students and Latin American exiles such as
>>members of the Colombian Refugee Association (CORAS), Poder Obrero
>>supporters and friends, as well as many Peruvian activists. However
>>supporters of the Peruvian armed groups didn't come.
>>
>>It is quite remarkable that the PCP-Sendero Luminoso supporters didn't do
>>any single protest against Fujimori and neither did they come to the LSE
>>picket. ...
>
>Lists the names of the good guys; (it is very important, takes 1/3 or more
>the article is about who did and who didn't come.
>
>>The most active British groups were the Workers Internationalist
>>League and LCMRCI supported by the Spartacists, Socialist Workers Student
>>Society and the LSE Labour Club, who sent sizeable delegations while members
>>of Socialist Outlook, Revolutionary Internationalist League, Socialist
>>Labour Party, Revolutionary Communist Group and Workers Power also attended
>>the picket. There were some clashes with the police and they tried to arrest
>>one comrade for possession of a drumstick.
>
>We get a smaller paragraph about the demands:
>
>>The main demands were against the terrible conditions of the 5,000 political
>>prisoners (who could be imprisoned until the end of their lives in "living
>>tombs" without access to the Radio, TV or literature and with only one half
>>an hour visit per month) and for their unconditional release; for the
>>cancellation of the foreign debt and the re-nationalisation of the
>>privatised companies; etc.
>
>In the end, if we didn't get it, the message is repeated.
>
>>Ps.- No PCP-SL supporter or Mr. Olaechea come to the demo or made any single
>>protest action against Fujimori visit. They were informed about the picket.
>
>Does this look like good politics? I'm sure readers of Weekly Worker are now
>really concerned with the plight of the Peruvian people.
>
>I get the feeling that the foremost concern is to advertise the "correct"
>groups and "denounce" the wrong ones.
>
>
>Of course, another voice from the other sides comes out in protest to say
>what? Well the following;
>
>
>>It is a very good thing that honest people didn't come to this picket line
>>that was not organized to support the revolution in Peru-that is currently
>>going on-but to support the false solutions proposed by the old and rotten
>>"official left" in this country (cancellation of the foreign debt,
>>re-nationalisation of the privatised companies, and so on).
>
>>So, it took at least 10 Trotskyist sects (or apparently) to mobilize some
>>70 people? What about splitting again, folks? Maybe 20 of these
>>organizations will be able to gather one or two more persons?
>
>>Jacques Beaudoin
>
>Apparently, he is happy that only some 70 people were there to picket
>Fujimori. Protesting Fujimori is the sole privilige of the "real
>revolution", and if they are not doing the protest, rather than Fujimori get
>protested from the "wrong people" it is good that..
>
>..that Fujimori, the real enemy, comes to London to leave, largely unprotested.
>
>Nice. I'm sure Messrs. Mayor and Fujimori were rather pleased.
>
>
>Zeynep


Zeynept Tufekcioglu thinks that she has stricken a cord.  The wrong cord.
When there is a war is not against a man, as awful and disgusting as
Fujimori is.  It is a war of the oppressed classes against a ruling class
state, and at present the "engagement" between Fujimori and the MRTA is an
engagement "in the heights" and in fact a "marriage engagement" geared
AGAINS the revolution.  

That Fujimori came to London to hobnob with Major on account of his problems
with other bourgeois forces who are trying to overthrow his personal
dictatorship in order to butress the reactionary state is precisely the
occassion in which the true revolutionaries can stay on the side-lines and
expose the real situation by various other means, as we did in this list and
in many other places to the concrete political effect that is needed for the
advantage of the people's camp.  

That is how a war is politically directed by those who have a concrete idea
of the class forces involved and the political consequences of every step
they may take.  The silly canard of the Trotskysts sects who after 16 years
of war are only mobilised in order to score points in exposing a dictator
which even the bourgeois imperialist press is already exposing, only shows
they take their cue from imperialism and not from the revolutionaries.

Of course we do not and would not object to "rent a mobs" outfits of the
Trot persuassion to spend their idle time chasing after the world tyrants
with a placard when they finally consider there is some political mileage
for themselves in doing so.  They are themselves citizens of these countries
and that - if only belatedly and with 16 years of delay - they may come to
oppose even just Fujimori and his "neo-liberal" policies (when they praised
Belaunde as a democrat and Garcia as a "socialist") can be taken as a sign
of how much we have advanced on our work in unmasking the old Peruvian state
and its crimes.

However, as to real political mass actions against the old Peruvian state
these cannot be divorced of actions in support for the new state of the
workers and peasants and of the political leadership of a revolution.  

Therefore the opportunist Jonnhy-come-latelies have also a
counter-revolutionary agenda linked to support to the "peace negotiations"
and the MRTA action, support for the "overthrow" of Fujimori to give way for
an Apra regime of even more concentrated fascism.  

That is why we shall continue to retain firm control of our political agenda
and olympically ignore their circus antics.  We said that the Fujimori-MRTA
situation is a counter-revolutionary circus act, and the presence of these
Trots in the "reception" of British imperialism to Fujimori playing their
usual clownish acts, only shows that we were absolutely right in
characterisng this as a circus, even down to the fact that these fleas of
Fujimori would follow in the wake of his political corpse jumping up and
down in the most hilarious fashion.

Finally the question:  Where were the gentlemen Trotskyites the last 16
years in which Committee Sol Peru and so many other true revolutionary
organisations in Britain have mounted real and substancial demonstrations of
support for the People's War at a time dictated by the needs of the war and
the political agenda of the revolutionaries in charge of it, and not by the
travelling schedule of a kaput and clownish dictator who is parading his
failure all over the world for people of all walks of life to see?

Zeynept Tufecioglu does not know the political reasons behind anything going
on in Peru.  However, she sees her role as that of a school marm preaching
her own stilted and inneffectve rules of behaviour on those who do not need
and have not needed her advice to advance to the peak from which they can
contemplate her own political achievements with sufficient equanimity to
dismiss her absurd suggestions of unity with those who are, and have always
been, in cahoots with imperialism, for the ridiculous nonsense these are.

Adolfo Olaechea



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