Paris talks on brink of break-down New US demands confirm 'peace' fraud

HARSH NEW DEMANDS from the United States including the withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops from the south have brought the so-called peace talks in Paris to the brink of breakdown.

Though another negotiating session is scheduled for the beginning of next month, reports of last week's discussions make it clear the two sides are now very far apart.

The American side, headed by Dr Henry Kissinger, has vastly revised its demands and supported almost the entire package of proposals put forward by the South Vietnamese puppet President Nguyen Van Thieu.

Now that President Nixon has achieved reelection, partly because of the much-advertised prospect of an imminent Vietnam peace, he is now in a strong position to continue the war at an even more intensive level.

The bombing of the north has reached unprecedented heights of barbarity with wave after wave of B52 bombers dropping their lethal cargo on the industrial cities of Vinh and Dong Hoi.

At the same time, the South Vietnamese regime has been given enormous amounts of new arms and equipment to enable it to continue the ground war against the National Liberation Front and the North Vietnamese.

The outcome of the Paris talks, together with the actions of the US in Vietnam itself, make nonsense of reports from 'Morning Star' correspondent Chris Myant in Hanoi, who claimed peace Dr Henry Kissinger (left) with Le Duc Tho (right) In Parls last wook was just around the corner.

What is being prepared reality is an intensification of the Bolivia: Workers in moves counter-revolutionary Indo-China which is being waged by US imperialism to crush the struggles of workers and peasants throughout Asia.

The Paris manoeuvres indicate that Nixon, whose election was BOLIVIAN bank employees and textile workhailed by the Moscow Stalinists ers called off their strike at the weekend after as a victory of 'peace-loving and realisțic' foreign policy, never had forcing right-wing President Hugo Banzer to any intention of compromising release trade union leaders arrested after he with the Indo-Chinese revolution. imposed a state of siege last Thursday.

At the Paris talks Kissinger reportedly demanded mutual withdrawal of US and North Banzer now faces a Vietnamese troops from clash with the tin-miners south, refused to admit the poswho are demanding the sibility of 'neutralist' participation in a future Saigon administration immediate re-opening of and indicated that the US would the Bolivian Trades 110L 10LCC Thieu to release his Union Federation (COB) 200,000 political prisoners.

and an amnesty for This position is in total con- workers, peasants, studto the nine-point draft agreement reached in October. ents and politicians who The Americans refused to sign are either in exile or in this deal at the time, claiming there were 'points of detail to be cleared up. The COB was closed down by Banzer in August It is clear that this was simply 1971 when he removed a ploy to spin out the talks past General Juan Torres in a the election date before placing coup which costs hundreds the 'radically new' and totally of workers' lives. unacceptable proposals before the North Vietnamese. The heroic resurgence of The new American proposals the Bolivian working class has been provoked by the provoked an angry reaction from massive devaluation of the the North Vietnamese delegation peso, carried through on headed by Le Duc Tho. At one Borders from the Interpoint, he pounded the table with national Monetary Fund. his fist to indicate his hostility to the American turn-about. It is one of the first In retaliation against the US rounds of Nixon's postproposals, the North Vietnamese election onslaught on the side renewed its demand for the masses in the semi-colonial immediate removal of President countries who must now Thieu, a demand it had dropped provide US imperialism in accepting the nine-point draft. with raw materials under slave conditions as a reThe North Vietnamese are quirement of the interopposed to the withdrawal of national trade war. their army from the south, claiming correctly that Vietnam is Drastic cut-backs in jobs their country and they have a and sky-rocketing prices right to be there, which the are faced by Bolivian Americans do not.

They are said to have agreed The National Chamber to withdraw 35,000 of their of Mining has declared that 120,000 troops from the south, 200 pits employing 30,000 but the Hanoi newspaper Nhan workers will have to close, Dan' indicated that further if the terms of the devaluconcessions on troop withdrawal ation are not modified. are out of the question. The Chamber clearly inThe paper said that unless the tends to speed up pitUS accepted the independence, rationalization, pioneered sovereignty, unity and territorial by Soviet and east Euro integrity of Vietnam, as laid down pean technicians, in order in the 1954 Geneva agreement, to make the most of the 'there can be no peace'. advantages of devaluation.

JUAN Thirty - two cotton - producing co-operatives and leaders of the Bolivian timber industry have also threatened closure.

The Bolivian capital, La Paz, is full of rumours of coups and counter-coups. Banzer has arrested members of the National Revolutionary Movement (MNR) of Paz Estenssoro which is part of the ruling coalition.

He has also jailed supporters of ex-President Barrientos and accused them of conspiracy.

Opponents of the regime are making great play of Opposi THIRTY Czechoslovak oppositionists sent to prison in a series of show trials last summer have had appeals against their sentences rejected by the Supreme Court, according to sources in Another three out of the total of 46 people convicted have had sentences cut as a result of appeals. They are Anna Sabatova (3t years reduced to 3 years), her brother Vaclav (25) (his 2-year term was suspended for 3 years) and Karel Cejka 2 years reduced to 18 months). Most of the rest received suspended prison against Banzer the speculation which ceded the devaluation.

Banzer's wife and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces made small fortunes by buying dollars.

However, the main danger to the renewed workers' struggle does not come from the vying rightwing forces, but the leadership of the working class.

The POR of Guillermo Lora was in large part responsible for Banzer's initial victory.

Lora spread the illusion that the nationalist general Juan Torres would arm the working class.

ionists' rejected sentences and did not appeal, the sources said. Among those whose sentences were confirmed are Professor Milan Huebl, former head of the Communist Party College, former Central Committee member and a one-time friend of party. leader Gustav Husak. He received 67 Another is Professor Jaroslav Sabata, former Party chief in Brno and a leading supporter • of the Liberal Party leader Alexandr Dubcek in 1968 and 1969. His 67year sentence was confirmed as was a 2t-year term passed on his son Jan. General Banzer After the August defeat, Lora proceeded to form a so-called Anti- imperialist Revolutionary Front (FRA), uniting with Stalinists, petty-bourgeois nationalists, revisionists and Torres supporters.

In a recent analysis pub. lished by French revisionists of the Organisation Communiste Internationaliste (OCI), the POR claims the gain of the recent strike movement was that 'the masses were on the streets again'.

The POR added that the limate was being created for a military coup d'etat under the slogan 'democratization'.

Many young officers in Banzer's army are said to have welcomed the call nade recently by Genera Eduardo Mendez Pereira Minister of Mines under the governments of General Ovando and Torres, for 'the installation of a national imperialist governmentanti democratic and are The clearly clearly hoping to The POR and the FRA agree on increasing PLANS to encourage the export of capital to countries with low wages and high unemployment were laid at a meeting of European Ministers of Labour in Rome at the weekend.

They were vigorously supported by Tory Minister of State at the Department of Employment Robin Chichester-Clark. The policy is in line with the British government's plans for investment in the Common Market and Mediterranean countries.

This involves setting up factories in Spain, Portugal, Greece, southern Italy and other areas where wages are low and unions outlawed or weak. The investment can then be used to create unemployment in Britain in order to whip workers into line at home.

Proposals from the conference, which was attended by Ministers from 17 countries, will be put to the European Council of Foreign Ministers when it meets next month.

LABOUR won a resounding victory in the New Zealand election at the weekend, taking over office for the first time in 12 years. Led Party has a majority of 25 seats over the Nationalists, who have ruled without interruption since 1960. The new government is pledged to withdraw military advisers from Vietnam, scale down other military commitments abroad and keep a tight rein on foreign investment.

channel the workers' movement once more behind the 'democratic' demagogy of Torres-style generals.

The construction of a section of the Fourth International in Bolivia, which can break the working class from these creators of illusions by fighting for socialist policies, 1S an urgent necessity.

GENERAL Carlos Prats, Chilean Minister of the Interior, will be in control of government in Chile when Salvador Allende and his wife Hortensia leave next week on a round-the-world tour which will take them from Mexico to Moscow. This is the President's third trip abroad since he was elected. His first visit was in July 1971 to Argentina to speak to President General Alejandro Lanusse. Obviously impressed by Lanusse's statesmanlike qualities, Allende now entrusts the peaceful road to socialism in Chile to Prats, commander in chief of the armed forces.