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Dear Comrades, Socialist Challenge will commence regular publication from 9th June. This letter is to ask your support for the new sixteen-page paper.
Our aim is ambitious. We want it to become a paper which can serve as the voice of tens of thousands of non-aligned militants in the trade unions, in the women's movement and in the universities, polytechnics and schools. It is a conscious attempt to halt the fragmentation and disunity which characterises the socialist left at the present moment. The reasons for this are obvious: the right wing is on the offensive, fascists are increasing their strength, Labour's policies are demoralising its own supporters and we, the left, unable to respond in a unified fashion because of splits and sectarianism.
Socialist Challenge will naturally reflect in its editorial and its news, coverage the views of the IMG, but we are proposing a number of important inovations: (1) We are going to invite non-aligned militants and women's groups, gay groups, shop-stewards committees, tenants or squatters organisations and others with no regular means of communication to utilise our new 'Open Forum' space in the paper every week. This will be in addition to a regular letters column. (2) We are giving over a page in every issue to guest columnists holding a wide range of views to comment on differing themes: the monarchy, the army, the church, the police, soccer violence, punk rock, Marxism and art, etc. This column will be a regular feature under the rubric 'Surplus Value and will in general relate to issues usually ignored by the organised left. (3) We will be devoting increasing attention to cultural events and again will attept to vary the coverage from week to week.
(4)
We will make efforts to ensure that our news-reports provide information which is of interest to a far wider public than the membership of left groups. In other words we will attempt to publish material deliberately blacked out by the capitalist press. That is why we are appealing to sympathetic journalists, media workers, cartoonists, and others, to bring us the material they want to publish but cannot do so in their own publications.
(5) In order to facilitate the above tasks we will be holding open editorial board meetings every Friday lunch time. That is they will be open to all those sympathetic to our project who are anxious to be involved in changing the face of the newspaper. We will also have regional meetings of correspondents which-you can be informed about. We hope that you will help us achieve these tasks and agree to sponsor the paper by sending it a message of support today and we urge you to match your support by a financial commitment to get the paper off on a firm footing.
Yours sincerely, Tariq Ali, Editor, Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper Street, London N1.
Dear Comrades, Most of your readers will be aware of the terrible repression unleashed by the Chilean Military Junta since their right-wing military coup that toppled the government of Salvador Allende Gossens on Sept. 11th, 1973. Thousands were shot torture routine at the hands of the different branches of military intelligence. Also many met their deaths in concentration camps.
1976 saw a shift in the Junta's tactics of reptession thanks to international solidarity actions which exposed the regime's barbarism, and some of the Junta's friends became increasingly embarrassed, notably the President of the United States. Thus in January 1976 the Junta passed a decree, "protecting human rights"; they received its reward in May of that year when US treasury secretary Simon granted it 90 million dollars economic aid, further indirect aid was received through US financial institutions making a grand total of 1.8 billion dollars. From then on, the Junta developed a tendency towards a two-pronged method of repression: first. secret prisoners, and second prisoners on trumped up charges of being common criminals, thus reducing the official statistics for political prisoners.
Readers who would like more detailed information about this should obtain the recent pamphlet, "Chilo's Secret Prisoners" from the Chile Committee for Human Rights: 1 Cambridge Terrace, London NWI.
I would like to pay particular attention to an example of the second category of prisoner, so that your readers can judge how much credence to put on the Juntas Human Rights stance. In March this year eight young Chilian workers arrested in Santiago. Their names are, Fernando Espinosa E, Ulises Galardo A, Eliseo Atally C, Eugenio Bizama C, Luis Quilodran M, Roberto Vazquez D, Raul Jimenex R and Mario Victor Leivo Castro. They were handed over to the DINA and savagely tortured.
As your paper has had a much more consistant position on defending Human Rights than many papers with many times your resources we hope that you will once again give practical assistance in publishing the names of these eight young men. Hackney Branch of the National Union of Public Employees has acted swiftly in attempting to gain further information as to their treatment. We hope all your readers in the Labour Movement will, through their Trade Unions, Political Parties, Student Union or Solidarity Committees where they exist, will publish these names so that the Junta will know that the outside world is aware of their barberism, and that one day they must account account for their erimes in full.
Yours NICK BEETON
Dear Comrades, Could you please print an appeal for any information on the origins and present practices of the Orange Lodges in Scotland in the next issue of Scottish Socialist.
Fraternally, Dave F. Responses to this letter should be addressed to the Scottish Socialist Offices, 64 Queen
St. Glasgow.