Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 08:54:54 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: Peru thread / seminar


On 11 Feb 1996, Chris, London wrote:

> 
> What stance do you take towards an organisation like
> Amnesty International which is opposed to armed resistance and campaigns 
> for bourgeois democratic rights in a world overwhelmingly dominated by 
> imperialist powers and the transnationals? 
> 

Louis: Amnesty International has a very important role to fill. It 
defends victims of political repression. Although I am a enthusiastic 
supporter of Fidel Castro, I pay close attention to what AI has to say 
about the plight of political prisoners in Cuba.

AI has credibility. If it had been around in the 1930s, I am quite sure 
that they would have been defending those accused in the Moscow trials,
and also those who were being jailed by Hitler.

While democracy has a basis in class, there is no such thing as 
"bourgeois democratic rights". Under socialism, the right to put out a 
newspaper free of censorship, the right to a speedy trial, the right 
not be tortured, etc. should persist. Bourgeois democracy is another 
matter altogether. This is simply a form of government that allows the 
capitalist class to make decisions on a collective basis. It has its 
origins in the bourgeois revolutions of France, the US and England.

AI does not get into broader political questions. It does not take a 
stand on economic rights, for example. They don't put out position papers 
on the problems of the trade unions, abortion rights, as far as I know.

The reason supporters of Shining Path get so agitated about AI is that 
the organization has credibility. AI does make mistakes from time to 
time, but their overall record is outstanding.

When Trotsky was accused by Stalin of being a Hitlerite spy in the 1930s, 
an Independent Commission was set up to clear his name. The chair of the 
commission was John Dewey. Dewey was no Marxist but had an impeccable 
reputation. I see AI functioning in the same manner today. AI functioning 
in exactly such a manner is *in* the interests of the working-class since 
the victims of repression world-wide today are *mostly* working people.


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