800,000 strike in Sri Lanka
Some 800,000 workers on tea, coconut, and rubber plantations went on strike April 24 demanding a 10.5 percent pay increase. Sri Lanka is the world's largest exporter of tea. Government officials said the strike was costing the tea industry $10 million a week. Tea and rubber crops account for almost 25 percent of the country's total exports.

"The strike is a tremendous success," said P. Anthonymuttu, a spokesman for the Ceylon Workers Congress, the organization leading the strike action. One tea trade official complained the strike was "digging the grave for the entire country."

National strike called in S. Africa
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) called for a one-day national strike on April 30 to strengthen its demands for changes in the Bill of Rights of the country's new constitution, scheduled to be adopted May 8. COSATU is demanding the elimination of a clause that ensures the right of employers to lock out workers during a strike.

Some companies have urged a one-day lockout to retaliate against the strike action, while employers organizations claimed the strike would damage industry and investor confidence. The African National Congress stated April 23 that it "supported the right to strike in support of general demands and specifically to press for the removal of the lock-out clause."

Chechen leader killed by rocket
Chechen rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev, who declared Chechnya's independence from Russia in 1991, was killed April 21 by a Russian rocket attack. "The tragic death of the first president of Chechnya has not broken the Chechen people, who are prepared to continue the struggle," said Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who reportedly has assumed Dudayev's role as the central figure in their fight for independence. Russian president Boris Yeltsin sent 30,000 troops in 1994 to crush the rebellion, which has left more than 35,000 people dead.

Yeltsin claims he wants to end the war, and has said he will lose his bid for reelection in June if the fighting continues. Nearly every day he has declared that the air war in Chechnya is over, yet daily bombing and shelling by Russian forces continues. "Boris Yeltsin says he is finally ready for peace," said Chechen military commander Aslan Maskhadov. "Then why is the war worse than it has ever been before?"

NATO extends pullout deadline
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said at a news conference April 25 that U.S. military commanders wanted NATO troops to stay in Bosnia past the pullout deadline of December 20, the anniversary of the arrival of the first imperialist soldiers there. Defense department officials said several thousand U.S. troops would remain in Yugoslavia well into January. U.S. president William Clinton has claimed that Washington's 20,000 GIs would be withdrawn by December.

NATO commanders announced April 23 that there would be no reduction in the 60,000-strong NATO force in Bosnia until at least September, when elections are to be held there. Previously troops were supposed to begin withdrawing in June.

Czech group protests farm prices
Members of the Czech-Moravian Union dumped three tons of onions in front of the agriculture ministry in Prague April 25 protesting competition of lower-priced onions from European Union (EU) nations. Josef Krizek, a Czech legislator and leader of the organization, said farmers in the country will throw away 22,000 tons of onions in 1996 because excess produce from the EU subsidized farms are dumped on the market. Czech Republic officials complained that governments in the EU trade bloc also protect their domestic industries from Central European imports.

Paraguay general pushed back
Some 5,000 people protested in Asunción April 23, after Paraguayan president Juan Carlos Wasmosy said he would appoint Gen. Lino Oviedo as the country's new defense minister. "Wasmosy, Oviedo: send them both to the garbage heap," the demonstrators shouted. The outrage forced Wasmosy to declare April 25 that he would not make the appointment.

Wasmosy, who had dismissed Oviedo as army commander April 22, embraced him only hours after the general threatened to bomb Congress and the presidential residence. Before returning to civilian rule in 1989, Paraguay was ruled for 34 years under the military dictatorship of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner.

Peasants revolt in Brazil
Brazilian state cops killed at least 22 people in a remote village in the state of Para, April 19, after opening fire on hundreds of peasants who were demanding land. According to the coroner's report, at least nine were beaten before being executed at close range. Some 2,000 peasants in southern Para began a march to Maraba on April 17 before the attack.

The Movement of the Landless Rural Workers had initiated a series of protests on April 10 focusing on the extremely unequal distribution of land in Brazil. The poorest 40 percent of Brazilians own a mere one percent of the land, while one-fifth hold 88 percent.

Cops attack protests in the Dominican Republic
Cops attacked university students in Santo Domingo April 21 after a rally that was held to commemorate a popular uprising on April 24, 1965 that sought to restore the government of Juan Bosch. Bosch was overthrown by a military coup in 1963. The uprising, known as "The April Revolution," led to a military invasion of the Dominican Republic by Washington on April 28, 1965.

Meanwhile, residents of Los Mameyes on the east side of Santo Domingo, protested against the deterioration of housing and public services. The demonstrations came 22 days before the country's presidential elections. The cops threw tear gas against the protesters and set up a sentry to guard warehouses of the Esso Standard Oil distributors nearby. Col. Jorge Gil claimed that the measure will prevent acts of vandalism against the fuel warehouses.

More attacks on Black rights
The U.S. Supreme Court refused April 22 to halt the enactment of a 1995 ruling by federal district judge Neal Biggers that ordered Black and white institutions in Mississippi to establish one standard for students seeking admissions to public universities in the state. The three almost all-Black universities, which admit nearly 60 percent of the Black students in the state, required lower test scores for enrollment. This measure was a way to compensate for the limited educational facilities in the high schools where most of the Black students come from.

Black plaintiffs argue that the decision could cut enrollment in half at Mississippi's historically Black state universities, effectively locking many Blacks out of higher education. "This case is about closing the door for the mass of Blacks at the bottom," said Elias Blake Jr., former president of Clark Atlanta University and an adviser to the plaintiffs.

- MAURICE WILLIAMS  
 
 
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