Women leaders jailed by Indonesian junta

=== [PDF page 1] === DAILY WORLD Peru nationalizes U.S. iron holdings Peru nationalized the vast iron ore deposits of the Marcona Mining Company of the U.S. late on Thursday night. Gen. Jorge Femancez Maldonado, Peru’s Minister of Mines, charged the U.S. firm with “immoral conduct’’ and cheating during negotiations with the Peruvian govern ment. Gen. Fernandez announced the nationalization of Marcona’s hold ings in a late Thursday night nationwide radio-TV address. He said a new state-owned company called Ferroperu (Iron Peru) would take over Marcona’s mining and smelting operations. The iron ore deposits are located 200 miles southeast of Lima. Smelting is done at a plant located in the port of San Nicolas, 25 miles southeast of the Peruvian capital. Since the disastrous drop in the Peru vian fish-meal industry, Marcona’s operations have provided 80 percent of Peru’s exports. Marcona had been producing 15 million tons yearly, shipping most of this to Japan. Marcona is owned by two Californiabased corporations — Cyprus Mines and Flour Industries. Gen. Fernandez said: “Marcona caused serious damages to our country by actions typical of the immoral conduct that the great multi national corporations traditionally exercise.” He said Marcona had smelted only a very small percentage of its iron ore in Peru. The corpor ation sent most of the iron ore abroad to be smelted. This prevented the development of a basic heavy industry in Peru, denied industrial jobs to many Peruvian workers, and prevented Peru from gaining the higher earnings that semi-manufactured rather than raw material products would have represented. The Peruvian Minister of Mines also said that Marcona had cheated Peru out of foreign currency by means of bookkeeping tricks. He said Marcona put much of its foreign exchange earnings into its own shipping line, and that it illegally charged Peru a four percent commission for selling its own copper. REACTIONARIES IN THE AZORES ISLANDS OF PORTUGAL on Friday were reportedly trying to seize control of Terceira Island, to de clare it “independent,” and then to ask for immediate annexation by the United States. The Azores are 780 miles west of mainland Portugal, 2,300 miles east of New York. The Portuguese Navy frigate, Joao Belo, with 200 Marines on board, late on Thursday was went from Ponta Delgada, the main seaport on Sao Miguel Island, to Angra do Heroismo, the main city of Terceira, 60 miles to the northwest of Sao Miguel. Terceira is the island where the U.S. maintains its big air-naval base at Lajes. There are 30,000 U.S. servicemen and their dependents on Terceira. 'Hiousands of islanders depend on the base for work and it comes as no surprise that the fake “independence” movement seems to be strongest there. There were no reports of fighting on Terceira. But according to United Press International (UPI), in a Lisbon dispatch, Terceira’s civil governor and the island’s regional council had been forced to resign as a result of threats and pressure from the separatist leaders. The Azores, a nine-island group, have been an integral part of Por tugal since 1432. They take their name from the Portuguese word for Hawk, “acor” (the “c” is pronounced like “s”). The people, called Acorianos, are ethnic Portuguese. The separatist movement is being strong ly, if covertly, backed by the U.S. and consists of big landowners opposed to land-reform laws. The Azores separatist movement has been compared to the quite similar separatist movement in Cabinda, the small, detached enclave north of the Congo River which has always been part of Angola in south west Africa. Since Cabinda accounts for 80 percent of Angola’s petrol eum production, it is fairly clear why a well-financed “Cabinda Libera tion Front” sprang up as soon as Angola’s independence date was set. In the Azores, the imperialists are trying to retain control of a strategic base (Lajes), and the drive for Azores “independence” is just as phony as the one for “independence” in Cabinda. BY A 2t-l VOTE, THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES on Thursday voted to adopt a new article on economic security to be in cluded in the 1947 Rio Treaty. All the OAS states except the U.S. voted for the new article, which was proposed by Peru. The article in effect denounces all forms of economic aggression by imperialist monopoly corporations and groups against the Latin American countries, and up holds the right to the latter to control their own natural resources. The vote was a shattering defeat for the U.S., since even countries like Chile and Paraguay were compelled to go along with the majority. Now the new article must be ratified by the parliaments of Rio Treaty states. MORE THAN 5,500 SOUTH AFRICAN MINERS have been killed in mine accidents in the past six years, it was shown in official statistics released Friday in Johannesburg. In 1974, 485 miners were killed, an average of one miner killed every 17 hours of mine work; 22,000 were injured in 1974. The statistics indicated that nearly all those killed or injured were Black. UNEMPLOYMENT IN BRITAIN TOPPED ONE MILLION, the highest figure in 35 years. Michael Foot, Britain’s Minister of Employ ment, said 1,087,000 persons (4.7 percent) were unemployed, the highest figure since 1940. Foot said “this is extremely serious” and that the fig ure will go higher. The jobless total only counts wholly unemployed; the one million unemployed registered in the first three months of 1972 counted temporarily unemployed in the total. In a related development, the state-owned British Steel Corpora tion, which produces 90 percent of Britain’s steel, announced this week it is facing “unprecedented losses” now running at five million pounds sterling per week ($11.5 million per week) because of inflation, foreign competition, etc Saturday, July 26,1975 Page 9 Women leaders jailed by Indonesian junta Daily World Foreign Department Four leading Indonesian progressive women were sentenced to long prison terms last month by a Jakarta court. This was one of the most recent manifesta tions of the anti-Communist and anti-democratic terror policy pusued by the Indo nesian government for the last 15 years. After a five-month-long trial, the Jakarta civil tribunal on June 16 rendered the following ver dicts: —Sulami, general secretary of the Indonesian Women’s Move ment, was condemned to 20 years imprisonment; —Sudjinah, editor of the maga zine of the IWM, was condemned to 18 years in prison; —Sri Ambar, in charge of the Women’s Section of the Indone sian General Confederation of Labor, was condemned to 15 years imprisonment; —Suharti Alimarkaban-Harsono, former parliamentary deputy and leader of the Indonesian Pea sants’ Front, condemned to 15 years in prison. Heroic roles In rendering these verdicts, the Indonesian tribunal did not take into account the fact that all four women were arrested in 1966 and had spent rifhe years in prison under the rule of “preventive de tention,” that they are between 50-60 years old, and that all four women had played heroic roles in the Indonesian national-libera tion struggle against the Dutch imperialists. Apparently the only thing the tribunal took into account about them was the fact that they are militant Communists. The charges against them were “conspiracy” to re-establish outlawed organiza tions, i.e., the Communist Party of Indonesia and CPI-related groups banned by the coup re gime in 1965. The CPI in 1965 had close to three million members; the mili tary coup which began on Sept. 30 of that year produced one of the most frightful bloodbaths of modern times, with estimates of the number of Indonesian Commu nists killed ranging from 600,000 to 1,000,000. Sri Ambar, outstanding Indone sian women’s trade union leader, gave an example of the courage of her convictions in 1967 when she was dragged forward as a witness in the trial of CPI lead er Sudisman (executed October, 1968). Savage tortures Sri Ambar refused to utter a word against Sudisman. Instead, she showed the military court the scars she had on her body as a result of the savage tortures she had undergone to “persuade” her to testify against Sudisman. This year has been designated by the United Nations as Inter national Women’s Year. The brutal regime in Indonesia has convincingly shown how it honors this year, by condemning four wo men leaders of the Indonesian workers’ movement to long terms in prison, after they had endured years of torture and prison be fore even being brought to trial. The Communist Party of In donesia, in a recent message to the CPUSA, pointed out that a decade-long terror campaign against Indonesia’s Communists, and all democrats and anti-im perialists, is continuing. “More than 100,000 political prisoners remain in concentration camps,” the CPI said. “Far from decreasing, the number of political prisoners is growing... The military regime fears world public opinion and criticism by it, and is careful to try to dis guise the anti-democratic actions it is taking.” Brought to ‘court’ The CPI said Communists who had spent years in concentration camps “were brought to ‘court’” whenever new economic difficul ties arose in the country, when workers went on strike, students demonstrated, or because of other open actions' by the forces oppos ed to the regime. “The aim of such frame-ups is clear: by inciting anti-Communist hysteria, the regime wants to di vert the attention of the masses of people from the existing diffi culties,” the CPI said. “Indonesian Communists and other democrats are fighting for the release of all political prison ers and for an end to the politi cal repressions. But this just struggle will be successful only if it has the broad support and solidarity of all honest people to whom freedom, democracy, just ice and humane ideas are dear. We need your support and soli darity,” Indonesia’s Communists concluded. After 1965, the Indonesian mili tary thugs controlling the country established the eastern island of Bornu as one giant concentration camp. Thousands of prisoners were dumped ashore there with neither food, clothing or other necessities. Bomu was described in 1869 by English naturalist Al fred Russell Wallace in his book, “The Malay Archipelago,” as a fearful place, swarming with snakes 20 feet or more long. ARMY BACKS GONCALVES FuH support or Promior Vasco dos Santos Goncalvos (lot) was ghron ones again by the Armed Faces Movement at a meeting off army representaHvos July 24. Noxt to Promior Goncalvos is Prosidont Francisco da Costa Gomes. Chicano group blasts treatment of rillegalsf SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Confederacion de la Raza Unida (CRU) has demanded a Congressional probe into charges that “illegal aliens” are being mistreated in the United States. “We cannot and will not sit idly by and condone these brutal abuses upon our brothers and sisters,” they said at a new con ference Tuesday, July 8. The demand was one of five regarding “illegal aliens” issued by the CRU. The others urged: * A moratorium on the depor tation of “illegal aliens.” * An immediate end to any harassment or abuse of persons of Latin descent by local police seeking “illegal aliens.” * That “illegal aliens” receive treatment equal to that provided for Vietnamese refugees. The moratorium on deporting “illegal aliens” (economic refu gees) would be sought while the proposed congressional hearings are in session, according to Ray Gonzales, CRU spokesperson. He stressed the CRU was not opposed to the presence of Viet namese refugees in this country but that “illegal aliens” should also be considered refugees and receive the same treatment pro vided the Vietnamese. “Illegal aliens are refugees from poverty,” he pointed out. The Confederacion de la Raza Unida is an umbrella group rep resenting more than 70 Chicano and Latino organizations in Santa Clara County.