From: "Jim Yarker" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: October e-edition of Postmark Prague
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 01:09:59 -0400
Via RedNet News - "News and Views from the Communist Press"
Fw: October e-mail edition of POSTMARK PRAGUE
From Ken Biggs, 1/10/02 23:16:14
-------------------------------------------------------
Articles from this e-mail edition of Postmark Prague can be reproduced in the English original or translated for publication in other papers provided
that the source is acknowledged and a copy of the article used is sent to us.
NEWS OF THE LEFT IN THE CZECHO-SLOVAK REPUBLICS
Founded in Prague, Czechoslovakia, June 1991
POSTMARK PRAGUE
No. 372 (Vol.12, No.10) * E-MAIL EDITION No.2 *
OCT.2002
SLOVAK COMMUNISTS IN PARLIAMENT FOR THE FIRST TIME
by Zdenek Horen�
The Slovak parliamentary elections on September 20/21brought several surprises � notably the fact that 182,000 (6.3%) of the 4.1 million electors voted for the Communist Party of Slovakia (CPS), giving them 11 seats in the new parliament.
This is the first time since the party was refounded in the 1990s that it�s won seats in parliament. * Back from square one Without any doubt it is a historic success for this party of the Left.
If it had been up to the renegades, the CPS would have been liquidated as a force in Slovak politics and history. Its onetime chairman Peter Weiss erased the word �communist� from the party�s name and Marxism from its programme. Later, he changed its name to the �Democratic Left Party � and affiliated it to the Socialist International.
It was then that a number of communists decided to refound the party under its original name and with its original programme � literally �starting from scratch� in terms of finance and full-time party workers; they lacked even a typewriter or a
telephone.
The party�s members made extraordinary sacrifices and in a few years they had re-established the CPS�s organisational structure in every one of Slovakia�s regions.
The party�s paper �svit (�Dawn�), based in Humenn� in the east of the country, played a major role in this: it became a symbol of the real dawning of the reborn
Marxist party.
* They don�t want to be EU flunkeys
The CPS campaigned strongly against high unemployment (20%) and for a free health service and education and the return of strategic industry to the state.
It opposed NATO membership on principle. As for the EU, the Slovak Communists will accept it only if it reforms itself and �the Slovaks will not be flunkeys in their own house�.
According to CPS chairman Jozef �vec, the reason for the party�s success in the elections is that the people are no longer afraid to speak their minds
about the country�s future. Another reason, he says, is the disappointment of many voters with the policies of the CPS�s predecessors, notably the Democratic Left Party.
The CPS intends to be a constructive opposition in parliament and play its part in drafting laws which will benefit working people.
* Meciar won, but�
The favourite, the centrist Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (19.5%), may have won the Slovak election, but its chairman and former long-time premier
Vladim�r Meciar did not win enough support to form a majority coalition government.
Another favourite for the post of premier � Robert Fico, leader of the new left-wing party Smer (13.5%) � has rejected an alliance with Meciar, just as the right has rejected an alliance with him.
So Mikul� Dzurinda, chairman of the outgoing ruling right-wing Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (15%), the most successful of the parliamentary parties, could become premier again. The SDCU and three other right-wing parties will have 78 deputies in the 150-member parliament.
Overall then the Slovak elections were a victory for the right and a foreign policy focused on NATO and the EU. The Democratic Left Party, part of the outgoing ruling coalition, won about 2% of the vote and will have no deputies in the new parliament. The fall in its once 20% support is without any doubt attributable to the renegade activities of Peter Weiss and his supporters.
Czech news
At the end of August Czech registered unemployment rose to almost 490,000 � 9.4% of the workforce, a post-1989 record. * Average monthly gross pay at the end of this year�s 1st quarter (Q1) was 14,204 crowns (about $440).
This helps to explain why foreign companies invested $4.9 billion in the Czech Republic last year, making it the 13th most popular country in the world for FDI and the second most popular in central and eastern Europe (after Poland). The biggest investor so far this year is the German company Siemens, with $120 million. *
If stocks and valuables worth 11.9 billion crowns are disregarded, Czech GDP in Q2 this year �rose� by at most zero compared with official claims of 2.5% , wrote V�clav Vertel�r in Hal� Noviny.
* Q2 also saw the Czech state�s internal and external debt rise to 390.8 billion crowns (about $13 billion), compared with 287.6 billion crowns in Q2 last year. The finance ministry estimates that this will rise to 400 billion crowns by Dec.31and continue rising until 2007.
* Visiting Washington in Sept., defence minister Tvrd�k offered to include the Czech Republic in the US Star Wars II project. He also agreed to US fighters patrolling Czech airspace during Nov.�s NATO summit.
Exclusive to PP!
WHAT THE FLOODS ARE GOOD FOR
by Radom�r Silber, a senior CPBM adviser
In looking for funds to make good the damage done by the August floods Vladim�r �pidla�s �right-left� coalition government is not acting very consistently. True, it was forced to announce that it was reviewing its plan to buy JAS 39 Gripen supersonic fighters with the help of a 60 billion crown foreign loan. But it continues to spend large, and in the present European situation unwarranted, sums on defence in line with NATO�s expansionist strategy. Hundreds of millions of crowns are being wasted on maintaining a Czech anti-chemical warfare unit at a US base in Kuwait.
The government�s decision to go ahead with hosting NATO�s autumn summit in flood-hit Prague is very strange. According to the interior minister, the
heavily-policed NATO meeting will clearly create total chaos on the city�s paralysed public transport system.
Demonstrations by opponents of the militarisation of European politics are also expected. The government has rejected the Communist Party�s call for this dubious and highly expensive summit, which according to estimates will cost two billion crowns, to be cancelled.
The ruling parties are looking to all citizens, rich and poor alike, to provide the money needed to replace infrastructure damaged in the floods and to help stricken communities.
The state budget will have to raise over 20 million crowns in the next two years for these purposes by increasing taxes � especially the taxes paid by those who have little or no property � and the poor will be particularly hard-hit. On the pretext of dealing with the flood�s results and calling for �necessary sacrifices�, the government in fact wants to meet persistent EU demands for an increase in the price of food and certain important services. Ministers are exploiting the situation to delay a promised increase in wages in the public sector and restrict the payment of welfare benefits and allowances.
There is even talk of postponing a legally-required COL-indexed increase in pensions. It seems that the main government party, the Czech Social Democratic Party, wants to use the floods to excuse its customary unwillingness to keep election promises. Before the floods, when the Social Democrats were furiously lobbying in parliament for the Gripen warplanes to be bought, they thought it obvious that they would be bought on credit. They knew very well that voters would not support a policy of paying for military ventures directly and obviously with taxpayers� money.
The Swedish and British arms dealers anticipated this by offering compensation in the form of orders for Czech industry. But if there�s no arms deal, cheap foreign loans and offers of orders no longer apply. So an open attack on the population�s living standards has begun.
NATO does not want to ease up on its demands on the Czech Republic, and the EU�s post-flood aid is only symbolic, with no money actually being handed over
and its future aid earning money for it. Faced with a major problem, the policy of the Social Democrats is to retreat from what could be seen as a Left or �social� approach.
The state is failing in its responsibility to citizens. Undoubtedly, all those billions of crowns of damage caused by neglect of the Prague Metro will ultimately be paid for in full by those who bear the least blame for it.
Soon new pictures will appear in the media to replace those of people struggling with the elements and everyday worries. Scenes from the NATO elite�s meeting, protected by the massed ranks of police cordons, living it up at the expense of Praguers and Czech citizens. Regardless of the difficulties which it brings to life in the flood-stricken city.
NATO�s Prague summit
The CPBM�s counter-summit has been postponed until Tuesday November 19. This is to allow time for flood damage to the venue to be repaired and a
maximum turnout at the next day�s anti-NATO rally in Prague�s Old Town Square, which starts at 2.30 p.m. Communist Youth leader Zdenek �tefek told
The Prague Post he expected �1,000 or more communists from Greece, Italy and Germany to take part.� Further details available on (+420) 222 897 428 or (fax) 222 897 449.
HAVEL AND THE WAR ON IRAQ
President Havel�s promise to Bush in the White House on Sept.18 of Czech support for military action against Iraq brought this riposte from Social Democrat Senator Richard Falbr: �I don�t like the fact that he is always the first president to back up what Bush says. His statement is nonsense and on a par with his remark that Yugoslavia was bombed for humanitarian
reasons.�
In his regular front page column in Hal� Noviny V�clav Vertel�r wrote: �Bush has unequivocal support only from Blair. V�clav Havel tries to get in
line immediately behind Blair. In whose name does Havel make such promises?
In this respect (and many others) what we have in this country is not a democratic law-ruled state� Havel behaves like an absolute monarch.�
Iraq was on the agenda when CPBM leader Miroslav Greben�cek held talks with Palestinian ambassador Sameeh Abdul Fattah on Sept.13. He said that the
CPBM was against any kind of Czech involvement in a war of aggression against Iraq.
The following news release was e-mailed on Sept.19 to 43 progressive periodicals, websites, on-line subscribers, radio stations and other contacts. The government crisis described in it was �permanently resolved� on Sept.18 when leaders of the three parties signed a codicil to their earlier coalition agreement. Under this the three Freedom Union ministers
will resign themselves if any of their MPs again break government ranks in a vote on a major bill. Their dissident MP, Ms Marvanov�, is already sounding off about her reservations over the Social Democrats� draft budget.
CZECH SOCIAL DEMOCRATS CAME UNSTUCK ON FRIDAY 13
Friday Sept.13th proved just too much for Social Democrat premier Vladim�r �pidla�s 5-week old �right-left� coalition government. Its post-flood emergency package of tax measures failed to get through the Chamber of Deputies. It needed the support of 100 MPs (a majority of the 198 MPs present), but in the event was backed by only 99 of them. One Social Democrat MP � former foreign minister Jan Kavan, the new chair of the UN General Assembly � was in New York and missed the vote, while the former leader of one of the Social Democrats� two right-wing coalition partners
broke government ranks by voting with the opposition. 37 of the 41 Communist MPs voted against the package in line with an instruction from their party�s executive committee, 3 others did not vote and one was absent due to long-term illness.
The CPBM opposed the government package on the grounds that low-paid workers and the poor were expected to foot the lion�s share of the bill for the damage caused by last month�s floods. It was also a backdoor attempt, the party said, to push through tax reforms demanded by the EU.
The party called on the government to raise extra revenue by making the rich pay their fair share through a new tax on incomes of over a million crowns, cancelling November�s NATO summit in Prague and promoting economic growth by stimulating demand.
It therefore also opposed the government�s plan to freeze a legally-required pensions increase until January and reduce a pay increase for 800,000 low-paid state employees from 13% to 7%. MPs approved these measures on Friday in a separate vote.
The tax package�s failure plunged the Czech Republic into yet another political crisis, which remains unresolved despite a weekend of frantic activity. After Friday�s vote an angry �pidla called Freedom Union MP Hana Marvanov�s conduct in voting with the opposition �infantile�.
On Saturday morning she rejected pressure from her party to resign her seat, saying she would only resign her post as the Chamber�s deputy speaker. Her role as a parliamentary wild card means that the ruling coalition�s paper-thin 101-99
majority is at risk. One of the options being considered by �pidla is a two-party minority government of the Social Democrats and the right-of-centre Christian Democrats.
There is much talk in the media of such a government having the �quiet support� of the Communists. But their position remains the same as it was after the June elections: they will only support government bills which are in line with the CPBM�s election manifesto and the will of the voters as expressed at the June election, when for the first time since 1989 the majority of Czech voters backed parties which they perceived as being on the Left.
President Havel made determined efforts at the weekend to persuade �pidla to keep the right-wing Freedom Union in the government. Like the Freedom Union, Havel sees Czech membership of the EU in 2004 as the main goal and a bulwark against further strengthening of support for the Communist Party.
* A poll carried out by the TNS Factum agency at the turn of Aug./Sept. showed the CPBM�s support increasing to 20%.
Onetime Munich-based Hal� Noviny columnist DANIEL STRO� asks: WILL THE �SOCIALIST� METRO NOW BE �CAPITALIST�?
It is becoming increasingly clear that the multi-billion damage done to the Prague Metro was caused by the slipshod work and neglect of those who were (are?) responsible for running it. So the police can now be heard talking of �an unprofessional approach� which could put many of those responsible behind bars for several years. But for the time being nothing
has been decided (and how could it be at this stage?): nevertheless, there are already some right-wing hacks who presume to blame the Metro�s current �unusability� on the pre-1989 regime. In the �guaranteed� reliable opinion of Karel Steigerwald (in Mlad� Fronta Dnes, Aug.28), who allegedly once worked on the Metro�s construction, the work was done badly from the very
outset, because it was built in the 1970s by �jailed soldiers�, alcoholics and illiterates.
Apparently this automatically led them to �fiddle� whenever they could and invariably bungle their work. Only someone afflicted with the same silly hatred for everything which even remotely smells of the socialist past could believe what Steigerwald writes. But anybody who is at all familiar with a �giant� construction project in a West European metropolis must reject it out of hand.
The manual work on such projects is usually done by unskilled labourers recruited from the poorest parts of the EU and speaking such a variety of languages that just talking to them is a major problem. During the 60s workers of this kind built the Metro in Munich, and German was spoken only rarely, by the
engineers and supervisors among themselves. Despite this, no one has so far challenged its operability.
Even more repugnant than Steigerwald�s rather paranoid imaginings are the condemnations of Prague�s Metro being penned by �professionals� like Bohuslav Bla�ek, an ecologist who was at one time a member and also chair of the Lord Mayor of Prague�s advisory body.
In an article in Mlad� Fronta Dnes on Aug.24 he even says he regards the flooding of the Metro as a �unique opportunity�to rebuild this radically-destroyed construct of socialism in a different way.�
Nor does he have qualms about nonsensically vilifying its �antique Soviet rolling stock� or being equally critical of the fact that part of �the underground� was used by Praguers as a nuclear shelter. If he hasn�t seen similar shelters in other European cities (he mentions London, Paris and Munich), then this is because their Metros were built in the century before last or because he didn�t do his research properly.
In Munich, for example, he failed to notice that the Metro�s cleanliness and good order is enforced by special uniformed police patrols, while he surprisingly claims that the �constant draught� in Prague stations is caused by �socialist architecture�. In Paris and London he is not at all worried by the disgustingly scrawled walls, the stench and the filth (the waste bins were removed because of the threat of terrorist bombs), or by the down-and-outs and beggars who openly urinate into gutters brimming with waste in the passages leading to the platforms.
The Prague Metro was (and perhaps soon will be again?) one of the most pleasant and most ingenious European underground railways, as every well-travelled tourist will certainly confirm. But it is difficult to talk
about this to people who never stop objecting that the onetime �imposed friendship between the CSSR and the USSR�, as they put it, has permeated this magnificent structure like a cancer.
* Translation of an article published in Hal� Noviny on Sept.3
CZECH VOTERS GO TO THE POLLS AGAIN NEXT MONTH
November will see municipal elections, the first Prague regional council elections and contests for
a third of the Senate�s 81 seats. The Communist
Party is looking to its 120,000 members to consolidate the sweeping gains it made in the June parliamentary elections. The CPBM is defending 6,200 council seats and one seat in the Senate. In the Senate elections its 27 candidates are campaigning among other things for a fairer deal for Czech companies disadvantaged by the government�s pro-foreign capital incentives and its municipal candidates for more support for small and medium-size businesses as a way of creating new jobs. In Prague the CPBM has halved the million crowns it planned to spend on its campaign and donated the balance to its flood relief fund. It�s calling on other parties to do the same.
Marta Semelov� is a Prague schoolteacher and chair of the CPBM�s expert commission on education. She is also the new chair of its Prague Council. Below is a summary of what she told Hal� Noviny about the problems facing Czech schools at the start of the new school year.
NEW PROBLEMS HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE OLD ONES
Old problems like privatisation of state schools,
lack of funds and low pay are still with us.
The previous government�s education minister, an expert in the field, has been replaced by Petra Buzkov�, who has never once spoken in parliament
on major education bills or even been a member of
its education committee. The state�s influence on education is declining and that of the regions and local authorities growing. The Constitutional Court has ruled that the education ministry will no longer have a say in the sale or the subletting of school premises or property for more than a year. This is a clear threat to out-of-school activities.
We live in a capitalist society where profit comes first. Under socialism everyone had a right but also a duty to work. There was no unemployment,
everybody got a wage for their work and they could go on holiday to rest and recuperate. This is no longer true. We have half a million unemployed and, thanks to the new Labour Code, they are now being joined by teachers sacked at the start of the summer vacation. The hundred sacked in 2001 rose to 1,400 this year. They don�t know whether they�ll be re-employed, and they�re lying low in the hope that their heads will re-engage them. The only solution is to amend the Labour Code and allocate more funds to schools. The unions should protest too.
The recent floods are being used as an excuse for not spending more on education. So why was the CPBM�s call for the Prague NATO summit to be cancelled rejected? Why aren�t people earning more than 900,000 crowns a
year being taxed at a higher rate?
State employees, including teachers, earn 13-14% less than workers in the business sector, but the government�s policy is to restrict public sector
pay rises to the inflation rate and postpone restructuring its pay scale to next year. Instead of a 13% rise this year, in real terms public sector
workers will get only a rise of 3% next year.
Unlike the teachers� union, the other unions agreed that the pay increases should be postponed and limited to 7%. The public sector pay scale should be restructured as originally agreed so that teachers in basic schools (for pupils aged 6/7-15) and in middle schools (for pupils aged 15-18/19) are paid the same
basic rate.
The new government says it will treat state and private schools in the same way. In practice this means that Petra Buzkov� will give more support to
private education than her predecessor (� especially since Buzkov� is paying 102,000 crowns a year to send her daughter to a private French school in Prague! Ed.�s note).
Notes from Absurdistan
When a brown-tongued V�clav Havel got back from his latest visit to the Land of the Free-to-Bomb-Anyone, he found his popularity had slumped. Rated the 5th most popular politician in July, he is now 21st (out of 28). Why? His obvious reluctance to cut short his Portuguese holiday to be with �his� people during the floods. As it says on his presidential flag, �Truth will win�.
If the Czechs join the EU in 2004, they will be a net contributor to the tune of about $6 billion. This is because the EU views the Czech economy as �advanced�. V�clav Vertel�r disagrees. He recently , called the Czech Republic a �cochc�rna�. Always keen to enlarge my vocabulary, I asked my Czech better half Simona what he meant.
She explained that Cde Vertel�r, who is a serious man not given to vulgarity, thinks its politicians have turned it into something akin to a �piss-house�. My wife�s respect for him has risen enormously. Having already voted Communist in June, maybe she�ll say No when the government pops the EU question, possibly as early as next June. There�s a lot to be said for a little vulgarity.
LEFTSwrite*leftsWRITE*LEFTSwrite*leftsWRITE*LEFTSwrite*leftsWRITE
Thanks from Slovakia
The Slovak CP�s Pre�ov District Committee and Milan Krajca of the Czech Communist Union of Youth thanked PP for the help it gave their successful campaign to stop an amendment to the Slovak penal code banning the
�propagation of communism� (see PP September, pp 4 and 7). �The campaign resulted in all deputies of the so-called Party of the Democratic Left voting against the amendment, while only two Social Democrats voted for it as against six in July, say the Pre�ov comrades. �We got 33 replies to our campaign.
The British YCL held a protest outside the Slovak Embassy in London on Aug.19. The chairman of the Slovak parliament got hundreds of protest letters from progressive Slovaks. A few young leftists held a picket outside the Slovak parliament on Aug.19 and they tried to contact deputies. The original penal code still applies.
This makes it a crime �to propagate a movement which promotes class hatred.� The Constitutional Court has ruled that the communist movement can be punished �only� if it �advocates or tries to take power by violent means, bans free elections, outlaws political parties and recognises the doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which until now has always meant the dictatorship of a political party, especially its leader�.�
They warn that if right-wing and nationalist parties win the September elections, they may well resurrect the amendment. �This is a real threat for all rogressive people and communists in Slovakia.�
Bush, Iraq and the Prague Connection
US reader Mike Munk e-mailed an article from the Washington Post (Sept.10 2002: �US Not Claiming Iraqi Link to Terror�). �I hope you can now
understand,� he writes, �why I�ve been badgering you to do the work on (the 9/11 terrorist) Mohammed Atta�s alleged Prague connection.
Bush has tried to make that a fundamental justification for war!� In a second e-mail Mike wrote: �Just yesterday (Sept.10) the New York Times says that Atta first came to the US from Prague in June 2000, after he was first denied air entry from Germany because he didn�t have a visa. So he went back to Bonn,got a visa, took the bus to Prague, stayed overnight and flew to Newark the next day.
The piece goes on to say that the April 2001 meeting between Atta and Iraqi diplomat Khahil is �controversial�: on one side, interior minister Gross has confirmed it 3 times on behalf of the Czech government; on the other, the US has no immigration records that Atta traveled out and in that month and that the Arab student (who informed the Czech authorities of the alleged meeting) is not reliable.�
In fact, PP raised this matter in the Dec.2001 PP (p2). The then Czech Social Democrat premier, Milo� Zeman, promoted the idea of a �Prague connection� possibly because he had already decided to run as V�clav Havel�s successor as Czech president, a post which would need US support. So he was trying to do Bush a favour.
Editor�s Notes
Requests for sample copies from Australia, Belgium, �British-occupied Ireland�, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Pakistan, Poland, San Marino and the US show that interest in PP remains strong. Our first e-mail edition was sent to dozens of communist and left parties and well-received. It is also
available to individuals: see p8 for subscription details.
The 8-page printed version costs 7,500 crowns ($250) to produce and distribute, so we must raise this amount every month. Income from donations
and subscriptions last month was a very healthy 16,200 crowns, thanks to new subscribers Dennis (N.Ireland) and Gilbert (Belgium), US reader Teja and British readers Renate, Betty, Mike H. and very generous Dave Hanna, and to the Morning Star, The Guardian (Australia), Workers� World (USA), Islip Newsletter (UK), Halo Noviny, Nase Pravda and Steve McGiffen
(Brussels) for promoting our Sept.issue.
Four news releases were issued last month and widely circulated to left publications, websites and online subscribers. They dealt with the Czech government crisis and the response of the CPBM and independent unions, international solidarity actions involving the CPBM, the CP Slovakia and the German PDS and the Slovak elections. They, and earlier PP releases,
were used by eight papers in Australia, the USA, the UK, Germany and Belgium.
The Czech Communist Youth paper Mlad� Pravda published an article by Editorial Board member Geoff Bottoms on the Miami 5 (translated by Vladim�r Sedl�cek) and plans to carry an eye-witness account of the Czechoslovak workers� February 1948 victory written by the late John Platts Mills, QC (also translated by Vladim�r, at the suggestion of London reader Ivor Kenna).
DOWN OUR WAY
This beautiful view of the 13th century castle and mansion at Fr�dlant in N.Bohemia was sent to us by Libu�e, one of our Czech readers. On the other
side of the postcard she expressed the hope that PP and its Editor had not suffered as a result of the floods. The small flat in Prague�s 8th borough
where PP is produced is part of a 30-year-old estate perched on a hill overlooking the city, well out of reach of the flood waters.
Libu�e was not the only reader to express her concern for PP. We had e-mails from readers as far afield as Brazil and Venezuela. Jer�nimo Carrera, a veteran leader of the CP Venezuela, was so moved by the news of the catastrophe he got from PP that he put pen to paper in the local weekly, La Raz�n.
Olda, a neighbour of mine and a former Rud� Pr�vo journalist, kindly translated his article into Czech. When PP�s news release reached him, Jer�nimo had just returned from a holiday �on the banks of the mighty Orinoco river�.
He writes movingly of his first encounter with Prague�s River Vltava. He swam in it during the summer of 1947, when he was working in Prague as a member of the preparatory committee of the first ever World Festival of Youth and Students.
Two years later he rowed on it �with his unforgettable Magda�, often in the company of Venezuelan and Ecuadoran friends, and in the 1960s with his sons Alvar and Hern�n. �And whenever my ears and my soul are filled by a melodic memory of My Country, Bedrich Smetana�s unique symphonic poem, it is accompanied by a vision of the Vltava just as peaceloving and gentle as the Czech people themselves.�
Apart from the damage caused by the recent floods, he deplores the damage done to the Czech lands �by the policy of privatisation, ruining them and transforming
them again into a German colony�However, I am sure this new occupation under the patronage of German big business will not last too long, as the recent Czech elections indicated� And so, from the banks of the distant Orinoco and in the name of the Venezuelan people, I send fraternal greetings of solidarity to all of the Czech people who are going through
such hard times.�
His article was published in Hal� Noviny on Sept.23. Please accept this, Jer�nimo, as a belated 80th birthday present. We wish you many more years
of activity in the cause of Venezuela�s liberation from the shackles of US imperialism.*
KB
======================================================
Postmark Prague aims to provide information on political developments in the Czech and Slovak Republics and promote solidarity with Left, working
class and other social movements in these countries.
It is a not-for-profit, fully self-financing publication. Views expressed by contributors are
their own.
PP is published 11 times a year by OREGO. News releases are also issued as the situation requires
and allows. Editorial work on this issue finished
on Sept.25.
Editorial address: PP, PO Box 42, 182 21 Prague 8, Czech Republic.
Tel:(+420) 286 584 107.
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Editorial Board: K.Biggs (founder and editor), G.Bottoms (Britain), P.Duffy
(France), Zd.Horen�, DP, Vl.Sedl�cek and R.Silber.
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