DEMONSTRATIONS IN. SUPPORT OF BELGIAN MINERS
Brussels oo For the first time in many years, violence has flared in workers struggles in the-Flemish (northern) part of Belgium. Barricades were set up on roads, trees were cut down and police. cars burned. Wide-scale fighting occurred between strikers, and: state pplice.
~ This occurred in. Limburg, the most: backward of: Belgium! s “provinces, where the reactionary Catholic party usually obtains between sixty and seventy per cent of the votes in general elections and where even the reformist unions headed by the Social Democrats hardly have a foothold in the plants.
What triggered off this sudden outburst of the class struggle was the government's: decision to close down one of the: six coal mines in Limburg, a pit named Zwartberg (black mountain) near the . industrial center of the province, the town of Genck (where a big Ford truck assembly plant is’ located).
As in the rest of Western Europe, the Belgian coal industry has suffered a continual: crisis of overproduction since 1957 due to $33 the competition of oil and gas-as fuels for homes and industries; (2) the competition of cheap American coal which is delivered at the ports cheaper than most European. Mines can offer it at the pit head.
The Belgian coal barons, who had pocketed more than $1,000,- 000,000 in subsidies from the public treasury, were quite unprepared for the crisis in overproduction. The various governments tnat have been in office since 1957 have. similarly been unable to cope with the problem. Their sole response has been to close down one mine after another without undertaking any serious measures to reconvert the regions industrially. As a result, the industries of the Borinage, one of the first regions to be industrialized in the nineteenth century have been practically wiped out.
Up until the late thirties, the Borinage had one of the most ' militant labor movements in the country. In 1959, in a desperate effort to save their jobs, the Borinage miners went out on strike. The rest of the-labor movement failed to back them up and so. their struggle was defeated.
In recent years the Flemish part of the country has seen -more investment and building of new industries than the Walloon ., sector. The Flemish workers were told again and again by the. government: parties and the trade-union bureaucracy that. they had "“definitively won full employment." a ;
This is why the sudden announcement that the Zwartberg mine was to be shut down provoked such anger, particularly when nothing precise: was said about. new jobs for the workers laid off. When the first ‘ones got their notices , the whole pit went out on strike.
On January 31 the strikers spontaneously resorted to an old
tradition among. the Walloon workers -- they organized a flying squad to go to adjoining enterprises and persuade the workers to come out in solidarity with the strike. os A large contingent of gendarmes (state police under the command of the minister of the Interior) sought to prevent them from reaching the nearby pits of Winterslag and Waterschei. Scuffling broke out. When the gendarmes threw tear-gas grenades, the strikers pried stones loose from the road and threw these along with bricks, chunks of asphalt, branches and whatever else that. was handy. The gendarmes responded with gunfire, killing two young strikers -- one at Winterslag and-the other near Waterschei.
In hope of diverting the indignation of the workers” over these brutal murders, government spokesmen and the leaders of both “- government coalition parties (the right-wing Social Christians and the Social Democrats) claimed that the Limburg incidents were due to agitators who had "incited" the extreme right-wing Flemish nationalists. In this way they sought to divide the Belgian working class over the national question which has been much in the forefront in recent years. However, the attempt failed miserably.
_ The next morning, 10,000 Liege metal workers, alerted by working-class. members of the new left Socialist party, stopped work in solidarity with their martyred Flemish brothers. In Liege. where the federalist tendency of the Walloon Popular Movement is the strongest, the anger of the workers over the ‘killing gave rise to “the most militant demonstrations.
For three successive days one work stoppage after another was interspersed with action in the: streets. The official trade-union leadership identified itself‘with this solidarity movement and sent a big delegation of 300 metal workers to the funeral services for the two miners which were held February 4%. They arrived with a huge banner: "The Liege Workers in Solidarity with the Striking Miners of Limburg." This drew tremendous applause. More than 4,000 persons attended the funeral.
The crowd was addressed by Camille Huysmans. Notwithstanding his age of 95, he made the trip from Antwerp to Limburg to. condemn the government for its repressive action and to:express solidarity with the miners. The old socialist leader received a big ovation.
When the news was broadcast about the murder of the: two miners, the new left Socialist party, the Parti Wallon des Travailleurs (Walloon Workers party), issued a leaflet calling attention to the ‘fact that this was the.first time in the history of Belgium that strikers had been killed as a result of orders. issued by a Social- Democratic minister of the Interior.
The leaflet supported the strike, called upon the workers to support. the miners by extending strike action, and proposed the following slogans:' no layoffs; a 40-hour week ‘without reduction in weekly pay; nationalization, under workers control, of the coal
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mines and all other sources of energy.
A second leaflet was distributed at the funeral calling upon the workers to solidarize with forty-five mine workers of foreign nationality who had been threatened with deportation by the government for participating in the strike and in demonstrations. The Belgian mining industry is a real melting pot, including workers from Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Algeria, Morocco, Holland, Poland and various other countries.
Work stoppages to express solidarity with the Limburg miners -have flared throughout the country. Students have staged street demonstrations in four different towns.
Under pressure of these actions, the government finally granted a concession to the strikers, promising not to close the Zwartberg mine until all the miners have been given jobs elsewhere.
IS.