The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.22           June 3, 1996 
 
 
`Drought Relief Now! No Farm Foreclosures!'
Socialist candidates hold national press conference
Harris, Garza call for U.S., French troops to get out of Africa  
WASHINGTON, D.C. - "Our campaign demands immediate government drought relief for working farmers, and a halt to farm foreclosures," said Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. president James Harris at the National Press Club here. "Some 15 percent of farmers in Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas - and their counterparts in northern Mexico - face losing their farms.

"This is not a natural disaster," he said. "It is a result of the policies of the wealthy owners of the banks and industry, and the parties that represent them in Washington. None of our opponents - William Clinton, Robert Dole, Ralph Nader, or Ross Perot - have taken one move to aid working farmers. In fact, just the opposite is the case."

Harris and SWP candidate for vice president Laura Garza were joined at the May 22 press conference by Verónica Poses, a leader of the Young Socialists who is touring with Garza, building the Young Socialists for Harris and Garza. The national news network C-SPAN and Agence France Presse covered the event. NOTIMEX, a Mexican wire service, did a follow up interview with Martín Koppel, a candidate for U.S. Congress in New York State and a leader of the party's national campaign committee.

Harris pointed to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman's statement on the farm crisis that "the market is sometimes very cruel." This is an example of "how the bipartisan majority in Congress seeks to unload the burden of the crisis of capitalism onto the backs of workers and farmers worldwide. The labor movement must champion the interests of working farmers, who are our allies. They are producers who are exploited by the banks and monopolies," Harris said.

The candidates also responded to the latest deployment of troops by the French government in the Central African Republic. French troops are patrolling the streets in the capital, Bangui, after a military uprising in the country. Paris has a decades-long history of brutal military operations to back pro-imperialist governments in West Africa.

Harris called on the labor movement in the United States and France to mount a campaign to demand both governments "immediately withdraw their troops and warships from Africa. We are opposed to any U.S. military intervention in Liberia," he added. "The acute social crisis and economic disaster affecting these countries is a result of imperialist exploitation and oppression, the crushing Third World debt, and the unequal terms of trade. Our campaign is based on international solidarity with those fighting for national sovereignty and independence, and with struggles against the grinding effects of the capitalist crisis."

Garza scored the continued U.S.-organized blockade of Iraq, saying the recent accord allowing the country to sell oil "is a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. The U.S. government and its imperialist allies are responsible for the death, malnutrition, and devastation brought upon hundreds of thousands of Iraqi youth and workers. All punitive measures against Iraq should be lifted now!"

Garza said working people and supporters of democratic rights won a real victory with a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down an amendment to the Colorado state constitution. The amendment prohibited anti-discrimination laws from applying to gays. "This ruling shows the resistance by broad layers of the population to rolling back democratic rights, and support for ending discrimination against gays," she said.

The vice presidential candidate condemned recent "anticrime," "antiterrorist," and "sexual predator" legislation signed by Clinton as "laws that are an attack on democratic rights which will be used disproportionately against working people. They aim to paint teenagers as a potentially criminal class, turn workers who have served time behind bars into a pariah layer, and make those who look Arab suspect in the eyes of the rest of the population."

Poses said she is "part of a generation that has known nothing but the depression conditions of the capitalist world disorder, and the social crises it brings upon tens of millions. We are getting a hearing among young people for the socialist campaign. We're building the protests to be held at the Republican party convention in August, the October 12 national demonstration in defense of immigrant rights, and the U.S.-Cuba Youth Exchange where a large delegation will travel to Cuba this summer to see the revolution with our own eyes and learn the truth about Cuba for ourselves."

Asked by a reporter if any socialist candidates will be elected to federal office this year, Harris said the campaign "is part of organizing a social force-workers, working farmers, and young people who want to fight the growing devastation of capitalism and the policies of the twin parties of the wealthy minority-to act in our own interests. We want to win, which means organizing battles to change our conditions. Election to office will be a byproduct of those struggles," he said.  
 
 
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