even if none exists.
to sustain healthy life'. ed by goverment forces.
try's 'popular organisations; many were peasants.
killings.
seventh such test this year.
Australia enact horrific anti-abortion laws has failed.
tion.
The right-wing coalition government гаре.
stringent anti-abortion laws in Australia. land and are assumed to be supported by a male relative, The report said that only if a woman 'can prove total destitution' will she be able to apply for discretionary pauper's rations', and even these are "medically insufficient THE right-wing junta in El Salvador in Central America is continuing its campaign of terror. The acting Archbishop of San Salvador, Arturo River y Damas, revealed last week that in the first two weeks of May 215 people had been killHe said that all the victims were members of the counThe El Salvador Green Cross has also testified to the THE US Government exploded another nuclear weapon in an underground test site in Nevada on 22 May. It was the THE attempt of the regional government in Queensland to Among the proposals in the Bill, which was defeated in Parliament last Thursday by 45 votes to 30, was a possible 14 year sentence of hard labour for carrying out an aborproposed that abortions would be limited to women facing death or suicide, or to women who had been victims of incest or Despite the Bill's defeat Queensland still has the most a country ripe for revolution. THE SOUTH Korean army should by now be the best educated in the world. It has spent more time universities than South Korea's students. Divide Ever since the United States intervened in the peninsula to divide Korea southern part has been ruled by a succession of dictators of whom the first, Syngman Rhee, was also the most notorious.
Despite democracy the Rhee regime was based on open repression of the mass movement and relied on coercion. The South Korean army was backed by a number of Us troops, main aim was to keep a puppet regime in power On 19 April 1960 there were massive demonstrations every South Korean city against the rigged election results which had, usual, Syngman Rhee to power. Since по opposition allowed it was the universities and the schools which became the focal point of resistance to the dictatorship.
In country democratic rights did not exist and demonstration. public meetings were allowed it surprising campuses were spearhead the political opposition. The scale of the resistance surprised the administration. Rhee was forced to resign. Liberties In June a new constitution was adopted and free elections took place on 29 July 1960. A certain measure of democratic liberties now. prevailed, could spread their roots military struck 1961 the generals led a coup d'état and in July of the same year a new strongman emerged: Park Chung Hee.
strations were easily suppressed and Park consolidated his rule by the use of brutal force. For 18 years Park presided over one of the most brutal and corrupt military in the most of fought on the Haven 1950, the At the same time of the country investment, multinationals. cheap pretence of tion costs.
large whose cent and the peasants decreased per workforce in returned The student parties were precious ally, links began to be forged brought that the utilised to movement, the vital.
plosion extend decades, but post-Park regime to government. but organisations students are the democracy. Kwangju, On 16 May, the best-known leader of democratic Dae Jung. demon- The ago receiving support dictatorships in the The South Korean military received massive economic and military aid fron. the United States and the West.
In return, South Korean troops side the Americans in the Vietnam war.
South Korea was a haven for foreign especially It provided a without trade-unionism. It offered the multinationals enormous profits and extremely low producFrom 1960 to 1977 the proportion of the labour force in industry rose from 9 to 33 per number from 66 to of the total This sharp increase in in- dent struggle dustrialisation and the growth raising of the urban proletariat created a new situation in the cities. the movement that it had and clandestine The assassination of Park Chung Hee by his former secret police chief in October last year the simmering crisis within the South Korean state has already to a head. Fearful that these divisions could spark off a mass (which has 30,000 troops in the Doo Hwan. country) 'recommended' that a measure of democratic rule was The roots of the present exback immediate cause was the failure of the accelerate a return to an elected civilian Options The main demands of the concerned the city which is the focus of the upris- the ing, is also the home town of Japanese the indicated his opposition, Kim the Chon main difference bet- Japanese ween the present struggle and the one launched two decades little is that the students are 'displeasure' • TOM the Korean working class. The stutators. run is consistently Sung the slogan *For the Three Rights of Labour' and student-worker-peasant alliance has now reached explosive proportions the Kwangju uprising indicates.
Kwangju uprising is remarkable on every count. It represents the most advanced struggle in terms of uniting the workers with the students; it seen the masses arming themselves and combatting the riot police and troops coval to the new dictator. Chor At its peak the number of people fighting the troops numbered 200,000 The Kwangju masses also seized the key points in the city and destroyed the radio station in an effective demonstration of their hatred for the heavilycensored pro-military media.
At the recent talks between chieftains of US and ching Carter displeasure with distasteful methods of Doo Hwan. The itself. leader, Ohira, concurred. But both powers have option except with the methods employed by Chon Doo Hwan. Their options are limited.
Carter knows full well what happens when support withdrawn from corrupt dicThe lessons of the February insurrection Tehran are seared on his consciousness. The Japanese and American ruling classes can do little except support the main prop of the South Korean state: the army. The alternative, for them, is fraught with dangers Reality It is true that by not backing the democratic movement they the risk of a growing radicalisation. But there factor of assistance character regime in North Korea.
While the existence • of North Korea is regarded as a threat by the South Korean military, in reality the Kim Il grotesque parody of Stalinist Russia in the 30s, is not seen as a particularly attractive alternative by the South Korean masses. A Nortl Korean Castro would have been somewhat different, but the existing regime presents no threat at the level of the masses.
As we go to press the crack regiments of the South Korean army have encircled Kwangju. There can be little doubt that they are planning a bloodbath, but their victory in the medium term is by no means certain.
The combination fight for democratic demands and the continuing economic crisis reflected in an 18 per cent inflation rate, growing unemployment and stagnant production is likely to remain explosive And if the struggle and the revolutionary forms that it has taken — in particular the raids on armouries, the capture of army vehicles and armoured personnel carriers, miners marexplosives spreads to as a whole it could begin to see rifts and mutinies inside the army The imperialists in Washington and Tokyo should listen carefully to the bells that are being tolled in Kwangju. For they toll not just for Chon Doo Hwan, but also for them
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shaken the US backed dictatorship in South Korea. TARIQ ALI examines the background of