MONTREAL - Two leaders of the Fourth International were featured speakers at a meeting here July 14 to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the victory of the Nicaraguan revolution. Speaking were Tom Gustafsson, a leader of the Socialist Party, Swedish section of the Fourth International, and Mary-Alice Waters, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States.
The rally was organized by the Revolutionary Workers League, the Canadian section of the Fourth International. Sixty people attended.
Waters, who is also co-editor of Nouvelle Internationale, a French-language journal of Marxist theory and politics published in Montreal, spoke first. She had just returned from a short trip to Nicaragua and gave a firsthand account of events there.
Speaking in French to the rally, Waters recounted the vast mobilization for defense that occurred while she was in Nicaragua. "It was when Washington was whipping up a campaign around the taking of hostages in Lebanon." she said. "The Sandinista government. remembering that U.S. troops invaded Grenada in October 1983 in the days following the defeat of U.S. forces in Beirut, had decided to mobilize the entire country for defense:
"The sense of this vast mobilization was captured by one young participant's message to Washington, saying 'You cannot destroy us. You will never make us pull back from our goals.*"
This, she recounted, was the resolve of tens of thousands of Nicaraguans she saw, despite the economic hardship and dislocation imposed on them by the U.S. economic boycott and the mercenary war being financed by Washington.
Recent decisions by the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to step up aid to the mercenary army at war with Nicaragua and to authorize the intervention of U.S. troops mark a further evolution of U.S. policy.
"The rulers in Washington are now unanimous that they cannot live with the revolutionary government in Nicaragua. But at the same time," she explained, "they are not ready to take the measures necessary for its overthrow — that is. a direct invasion by tens of thousands of U.S. troops.
"A discussion within their ranks is continuing on how best to accomplish their common goals.* There is nothing inevitable about a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua, Waters told the audience. Only the course of events itself will determine the measures the U.S. government employs to try to roll back the revolution.
In this sense, she said, much encouragement can be taken from workers* struggles in the United States and the endorsement by 10 national unions of the large antiwar demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and other cities last April 20.
"We for our part," Waters concluded, "are fighting side by side with Nicaragua for its future and for the future of humanity."
In his talk, Tom Gustafsson affirmed that "today Nicaragua is the decisive battleground
" He in the fight against international reaction. reported on the solidarity with Nicaragua that is developing throughout Western Europe.
Citing just one example of this, he explained that dockworkers in Sweden and Denmark discussed proposals for a one-day boycott of U.S. shipping following the announcement of an economic boycott of Nicaragua by Washington on May 1. Although the proposals were not carried out, "I'm sure that this proposal will come up again," he said.
He also cited a recent tour to 20 European cities by a leader of the Sandinista youth organization.
Gustafsson went on to explain, "the links are being understood more and more widely between the war in Central America and the war being waged against working people in Europe under the guise of austerity.
The West European peace movement is a part of this process, he said, evolving increasingly toward anti-imperialist political positions.
"A new wave of workers' internationalism is being sparked throughout Europe by the events in Central America."