[That same night, a public meeting chaired by Daniel Mayer, a member of the League for the Defense of the Rights of Man, was held at the Mutualité. The call was again read at the gathering, and the plans of the International Jury were discussed. This meeting launched the work of the jury, which will conduct, on a Europe-wide scale, activity in defense of Czechoslovak political prisoners. This will include holding meetings, publishing documents, and forming commissions to investigate particular cases, all building toward the holding of plenary sessions of the jury.
[We have translated the appeal from the June 10 issue of Rouge, weekly newspaper of the Ligue Communiste, French section of the Fourth International.]
When the Warsaw Pact armies rolled into Prague at dawn on August 21, 1968, millions of people contested their advance with dumbfounded indignation. Today, more than three years after the invasion, several dozen, perhaps several hundred, persons have been imprisoned because they did not accede to this state of affairs. A number, it is difficult to say how many, have lost their jobs and are reduced to living by their own devices. They also did not accept the existing state of affairs. All are, or will be, threatened with being brought to trial because of their activities during or after the Prague spring. No faith can be put in Husak's claim that "there will be no prefabricated trials." Apart from the fact that reality itself has already demonstrated this (the trials of Petr Uhl, [Jan] Prehlik, [Vladimir] Skutina, [Jiri] Lederer, etc.), the logic of the intervention can only lead to repression. Lacking the power to convince people, the government is compelled to attack: "prefabricated," or simply "fabricated" trials will remain a necessity.
The current Czechoslovak government presents this as being necessary for the defense of socialism. But there is nothing more monstrous or more effective for discrediting socialism in the eyes of the masses in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere. Because we understand that socialism has nothing in common with this police conception, because we know that the intervention of an army — even if it goes by the name "Soviet" - against the entire Czechoslovak people did more against socialism in a few hours than all the years of anticommunist propaganda and "plots" it allegedly came to combat, we cannot grant Husak, Bilak, and Strougal the right to decide who is a partisan of socialism and who is a counterrevolutionary. The defense of socialism is the province of those who fight for it, not of those who cut its throat.
Today, this struggle involves the defense of imprisoned Czechoslovaks.
It is in fact impossible to be content with expressing isolated "disapproval," as though the intervention remained "isolated" and as though it were not followed by "normalization" and then by "consolidation." The same reasons that moved us to "disapprove," today force us to fight against the trials - the defense of socialism can tolerate no compromise, no ambiguity.
Therefore,
• Conscious of the serious threats weighing on the imprisoned Czechoslovaks, against whom the government is again using the police methods of the 1950s,
• Aware that the repression in Czechoslovakia gives socialism an image that can only inspire disgust,
The undersigned call for the constitution of an "International Jury" which, by collecting the greatest possible evidence, will bring to light the methods and objectives of the current repression in Czechoslovakia, will undertake to defend the accused, and will turn the accusations against the accusers.
Claude Aveline,
France; Robin
Blackburn, Great Britain; Marguerite
France; Claude Bourdet, Bonnet, France; Peter Bruckner, West Germany; Andreas Buro, in the name of the Left Federation of West Germany; Igor Cornelissen, Netherlands; Claude Courtot, France; Tamara Deutscher, Great Britain; Hans Magnus Enzensberger, West Germany; Roger Garaudy, France; C. Gavras, France; Wilfried Gottschald, West Ger-
Daniel Guérin, France; Gisèle many; Halimi, France; Georges
Haup,
France; Edmond Jaguer, France; Simone Jaguer, France; Vladimir Jankelevich, France; André Jeanson, France; Serge Jonas, France; Yves Jouffa, France; Alain Krivine, France; Henri Lefèbore, France; Eric Losfeld, France; Jacques Madaule, France; Ernest Mandel, Belgium; Franz Marek, Austria; Dyonis Mascolo, France; Léo Matarasso, France; Matta, France; Daniel Mayer, France; Dr. Minkowski, France; Yves Montand, France; Claude Morgan, France; Maurice Nadeau, France; Pierre Naville, France; Valerio Ochetto, Italy; Theodore Pangalos, Greece; Jiri Pelikan, Czechoslovakia; Jean Picart Le Doux, France; Michel Piccoli, France; Petkoff, Venezuela; Sibylle Plogstedt, West Germany; Jean Pronteau, France; Michel Rap-
France; Madeleine Reberioux, tis, 848
France; Michel Rocard, France; Laurent Schwartz, France; Jean Schuster, France; Jorge Semprun, France; Simone Signoret, France; Hans-Rudolph Sonntag, West Germany; A.G. v.d.
Spek, Netherlands; Mikis Theodorakis, Greece; Charles Tillon, France; Raymonde Tillon, France; Jean- Pierre Vernant, France; Vercours, France; Zaroubine, United States.