The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.20           May 19, 1997 
 
 
May Day Actions Held All Over World  

BY MARTÍN KOPPEL
May Day this year was the occasion for working people around the world to organize protests against the ruinous effects of the international crisis of the capitalist economy. Workers facing different conditions - in imperialist countries, semicolonial nations, and workers states -often found themselves raising similar demands for economic relief from this crisis and for democratic rights, under attack by capitalist and pro-capitalist regimes everywhere.

In Mexico, two different May Day actions took place. As in the last two years, officials of the pro-government Mexican Workers Confederation (CTM), which for decades has dominated the labor movement there, chose not to sponsor a demonstration, fearing the simmering social discontent and working-class anger might escape their control. Instead, CTM leaders held a staid, indoor ceremony together with President Ernesto Zedillo.

In contrast, tens of thousands of workers marched to Mexico City's downtown Zócalo square demanding wage increases, condemning Zedillo's austerity policies, calling for an end to government repression against peasants in the southern Chiapas state, and protesting U.S. president William Clinton's upcoming visit. As unionists marched past the heavily guarded U.S. embassy, some demonstrators painted slogans opposing Washington's embargo against revolutionary Cuba. The marches were sponsored by independent trade union organizations.

In the labor demonstrations held in Bolivia, one of the themes, as in Cuba, was the 30th anniversary of the death of revolutionary leader Ernesto Che Guevara, who was killed while leading a guerrilla front in that country.

Brazilian workers held rallies in all 27 states of that nation, demanding jobs and a genuine land reform. Three thousand unionists marched in Santiago, Chile, highlighting their opposition to the mass layoffs caused by the closure of the state-owned Lota coal mine.

Demonstrators in Santiago, as well as in Panama City and other Latin American capitals, also condemned the April 22 U.S.-backed massacre of rebels by the Peruvian regime of Alberto Fujimori.

Similar demonstrations took place in Tegucigalpa, Honduras; San Salvador, El Salvador; and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; with one of the biggest -several tens of thousands - in Caracas, Venezuela.

In both Germany and France, workers turned out to protest unemployment, government austerity policies, and attacks on the rights of immigrants. One hundred thousand workers demonstrated across Germany. In France, for the first time in many years, the May Day demonstrations were jointly sponsored by different national trade union federations.

In Hungary, marching unionists protested the projected expansion of the NATO imperialist military alliance into the Hungarian workers state. Workers also protested the flouting of Hungary's labor laws in factories run or partly managed by foreign capitalist corporations.

More than 1.5 million workers and others marched in cities around Russia, protesting deteriorating job and living conditions and the economic policies of President Boris Yeltsin. In the Donbass coal basin of Ukraine, miners demanded early elections and closer ties with Russia.

Palestinian workers on the West Bank demonstrated against the new Zionist settlement established at Jabal Abu Ghneim, in East Jerusalem.

In Japan, two million workers took part in about 1,000 rallies around the country. The demonstration in Tokyo focused on demands for the withdrawal of U.S. military bases from Japanese territory.

Riot police in South Korea, backed by helicopters, fired tear gas against thousands of workers and students demanding the resignation of President Kim Young Sam. The demonstrators defended themselves with sticks and rocks.  
 
 
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