We reported last on week on the world-wide protest movement against the attack on Stanleyville. This week we want to give extended coverage to the protest movement in Belgium, This movement can be said to be an extra= ordinarily heroic one: it is always much harder to struggle against one's own Government than against the actions of a foreign state. Also the press hysteria was that much greater in Belgium and the organised right took advantage of the general situation (an attack was made on the Algerian Embassy, for instance). Socialists in Belgium were more than hindered by the fact that it was Social Democrat members of the coalition Government who were the most prominent in the execution and explanation of the attack.
Of the deily papers only Le Drapeau Rouge (the C.P. paper) and La Wellonie (the paper of the Walloon Popular Movement) attempted to give a balanoed account of events, However, sections of the movement soon began to make their position clear. The J.G.S. (Young Socialists) were early in the field with a declaration on Novemebr 22nd which said: "..that only the Congolese people can work out the problems posed by the civil war in the country. Young Belgian soldiers can in no case join forces with the bloody dictator Tshombe," At Antwerp on November 25, a demonstration of protest was broken up by the police. On the same day workers at Cockerill-Ougree, Liege, (Belgium's biggest factory) belonging to the 2 to 10, and 7.30 to 4.00 shifts, stopped work. They held a meeting to discuss the Congo events and passed a resolution in which they (1) Opposed foreign intervention (and particularly Belgian) in the Congo; (2) Called for the immediate withdrawal of Belgian forces; (3) Denounced the Belgian’ Government's threat to expel Congo students from Belgium; (4) Expressed the fear that the intervention could lead to general war in Africas and '(5) Expressed solidarity with the Congo people in their struggle for indpendence.
At Gand a joint demonstration of Communist and Socialist students held out for an hour against attempts by the police to break it up. In Brussels, a united front for action was formed by all working class youth organisations: the Federation of Brussels Socialist Students, the federation of Brussels J.G.S., the Union of Communist Students of Belgium, the National Union of Communist Students (the pro-Peking and pro-Moscow wings), the Union of Young Communists of Belgium, the Belgium Young Communists (ditto » and the Union of Jewish Progressive Youth. These organisations issued a very forthright leaflet in French and Flemish all over Belium and called for a mass demonstration (which was banned by the Government). It is noteworthy that this was the first time the pro-Moscow and pro-Peking young movements,had worked together since the split. An interesting example of the sectariai Sf the pro-Moscow wing was that it paper avoided mentioning all the signatures of the leaflet ~ the pro-Peking paper listed them all.
Other protests came from: the Brussels Teachers' Union, the Liege Federations of Communist and Socialist students, and the C tt f Q Against Neo-colonialism and Fascism, other sections of the Cockerill Ougree, workers at the huge Charleroi plant - A.C.E.C.e, and many others.
In addition a special campaign is being waged in solidarity with the Congolese students who were expelled from the country. La Gauche has been very prominent in this and all the other actions; the November 28th issue carried the complete text of the General Union of Congolese Students, and denounced the Government's action in handing the leaders of the UGEC over to Tshombe's torturers, The same issue of the paper carried an article by Ernest Glinne, M.P., in which he exposed the way Spaak, the ‘socialist! Foreign Minister, had turned down a realistic scheme to save Belgian children held as hostages. Glinne charged that Spaak did this so as not to displease Tshombe,. 4 ibis