The purpose of this communique is to attempt to save the life of A Brazilian militant in jail at this moment. His name is Cesar Queiros Benjamin.
Comrade Cesar was arrested on 30 August, 1971, in the state of Bahia. The dictatorship had already planned his murder at that time, follow-. ing its policy of systematic extermination of revolutionary leaders. At the same time as army intelligence officers were submitting him to the most refined and hideous tortures, they were also denying to his family any knowledge of his arrest. It was admitted by the army only after a month, under the pressure of undeniable evidence presented by his family.
In the nine months since his arrest, comrade Cesar has been treated as a "special case". Although very young (17 years old) he had assumed important tasks in our organisation in the liberation struggle of our people, to the extent that he was considered highly dangerous" by the enemy. His attitude in the face of torture was extremely courageous; no information whatsoever has been 'obtained' from him. For all these reasons he is considered to be a "dangerous element who would sustain the morale of other prisoners" and he has therefore been kept in solitary confinement since August 1971. But the whole case has another particular aspect: he was arrested at the age of 17. Therefore, he was a minor at the time when all the acts of which he is accused were committed. So even under the very laws of the dictatorship he cannot be tried.
All possible devices have been used to keep Cesar in jail, such as a "psychological test" in order to prove that his mental age is really 35 and so "he was responsible for his acts". They have also charged him on no fewer than 32 counts in order to keep him in prison indefiniteBut the law is clear in this case: "*the kid" cannot be tried. The military dictatorship is astonished to discover that it had not prepared to face minors in struggle against its oppression. The fascists discover that even with their own repressive legislation they cannot condemn comrade Cesar.
The other alternative is plain murder. We have evidence of plans worked out by high ranking officers to stimulate an escape attempt that would justify this crime. This method is freqvently used by the military dictatorship. It was used to cover up' the murder under torture of the former Labour Party deputy, Rubens Paiva, the hideous assassination of the revolutionary leader Eduardo Leite and others.
In order to counter this threat we publish this communique, understanding that the massive exposure of these facts may help to save comrade Cesar's life. Against his firm determination, before and after his imprisonment, the dictatorship is impotent; unable to subdue him, the military fascists now want to murder him. International sympathy is very important; on it depends in part his life, Extensive condemnation of these muderous intentions will make their execution more difficult.
This solidarity will be at the same time an act in the defence of elementary human rights and another act in the arraignment of the military dictatorship that oppresses the masses of the Brazilian people. 8 October Revolutionary Movement, Brazil DHOFAR:
Britain's Colonial War in the Gulf - a 72 page selection of reports and documents Price 20p + 5p postage from 3 Shavers Place, London, SW1. On Monday June 12th the trials started in Ceylon of the first of the 16,000 prisoners detained before and after the uprising of April 1971. 5,000 of those interned are to be tried in batches of about 30. The first batch(of 41) includes Rohana Wijeweera, Mahindapala Wijisekerz, S.D. Bandaranayaka, a former M.P. and others of the alleged leaders of the insurrection. The charges are of conspiring to wage war against the Queen, and conspiring to terrorise the Government by the use of force. They will be tried under two new laws which were hurried through Parliament in the spring of this year bringing further repressive measures into being. Under the Criminal Justice Commissions Act special courts have been set up to deal with such offences which have the power to hold trials in secret and to accept evidence from hearsay, and confessions however obtained. The second Act, the Interpretation (Amendments) Ordinance, does away with Habeas Corpus applications or other writs (see The Red Mole, 42). Thus it will be possible to condemn to life imprisonment those whom the government consider guilty even if they are never brought to trial. Many of the offences for which these special courts have been set up carry the death penalty and in cases where the Attomey General feels the judges have been too lenient he is empowered to over-rule their decision. The fact that the Government has had to detain these prisoners for over a year, and to make changes in the legislation for a framework in which to hold the trials makes it quite clear that they are still feeling the threat of the growing discontent among the mass of the Ceylonese people. Furthermore, imprisonment has made many more people politically conscious. Under regulation 7 of the Emergency Regulations anyone could be arrested without a warrant, for committing any offence or if the person making the arrest (either a policeman or any member of the armed forces) had "reasonable grounds for suspecting" that an offence had been committed. It is therefore obvious that many of those arrested were not necessarily dedicated revolutionaries. Their experience in prison however, together with activities such as the educational programme organised by the JVP, will quite obviously be having a politicising effect.
The trial of this first batch of detainees has now been adjourned in order for the prosecution to bring further evidence. After a whole year the Ceylonese government was not sufficiently confident to bring out the questions in public, even with the aid of the new laws and of the new Constitution, under which the judiciary has no powers to investigate actions by the executive (police and armed forces). They have good reason to keep quiet about this. The government's recent statement that censorship was being lifted (to show that it could present its case to the world) is shown to be pure propaganda for consumption outside Ceylon.
It is important to understand that the insurrection was not a carefully planned operation aimed at overthrowing the State, but rather a defensive act resulting from a campaign of arrests and intimidation, particularly of the JVP militants who were campaigning against the betrayals of the self-styled "socialist" coalition of the SLFP (Sri Lanka Freedom Party), the LSSP and the pro-Moscow CP. The JVP had been openly propagandising against the policies of the Government (cutbacks in social expenditure, austerity measures such as a wage freeze in a period of rising unemployment-the stranglehold of neo-colonialism preventing the growth of the economy, hence the dependence on loans from the IMF and the World Bank for social expenditure), and it had been winning support particularly among the rural and unemployed youth.
As a result the government began to clamp down, imposing first a partial and then a total State of Emergency, which in turn provoked the uprising. For the JVP it was a question of political survival as well as physical survival, realising that the State of Emergency would be maintained as long as the Government felt it necessary to prevent the coordination of political opposition.
The Ceylon Government was already heavily dependent on loans from the IMF and World Bank, and of course very strict requirements were required by its creditors as to the political stability of the regime. The result of the uprising was to further exacerbate the economic crisis, with the result that the Ceylon Government was forced to apply for external aid over and above that which the IMF and the World Bank was willing to grant. After a number of diplomatic missions, deals were concluded with the Soviet Union and the Chinese Government, whereby military and technical aid as well as financial aid was granted -in the form of an interest-free loan of 150 million rupees in the case of China. Mrs. Bandaranaike, during her recent visit to China in the last week of June, has concluded a further loan of one hundred million dollars. This money will go to subsidise the strengthening ing of the repressive apparatus of the bourgeois State, the police and army, who are daily murdering revolutionary militants. The betrayal of the bureaucracies now acquires a new enormity. The urgent need is to prepare the masses-politically and with arms-for the struggle against the repression and against the Ceylonese bourgeoisie itself. Since A pril last year there has apparently been relatively little open struggle by the working class movement, while the right to strike and all democratic freedoms won by decades of struggle, have been removed under the State of Emergency. This does not mean that the working class and its allies are totally defeated-the government's repressive measures. Recently, however, there has been serious dissension among the rank and file, and criticism of the leadership of the party remaining in the coalition. This has resulted in the CP's decision to vote against the Criminal Justice Commissions Act and the Interpretation (Amendments) Ordinance. In fact of the six M.P.s, two voted against the government, one voted for, two abstained and one was conveniently absent. An open split in the party has temporarily been avoided, but the left elements developing in the direction of revolutionary marxism are certain to contribute to the disintegration of Ceylonese Stalinism. The pro-Peking CCP, although they claim to be in favour of extra-parliamentary activity, and attack imperialism in general terms, have attacked the JVP leadership as being 'counterrevolutionary', using exactly the same terminology as the government-no doubt in response to Chou-en-lat's statement of support for Bandaranaike, It is noteworthy that thé general secretary of the CCP, Shan maguthasan, has recently been allowed by the government to leave Ceylon and to come to Britain. Here he addressed three meetings in London, during which he reiterated the positions of his party, and called on the audience to support the Ceylon Committee.* The LSSP(R), through the Ceylon Mercantile Union, in which it has a solid base, has by
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BRAZIL COMMUNIQUE
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RELEASE ALL -Then Adjourned