EVERY night in Tehran, starting at midnight, militias from Is neighbourhood committees carry out their regular patrol. Their job is to search DUE SAVAK agents prominent figures in the old tezime and to maintain order - in a word, to defend the revolution.
The regime has decided to keep the revolution within the marToW contines of the Islamic Republic and the reconstruction of the hourgeois state. Will the neighbourhood committees and militias be the last outposts of TE TRIES process of normalisation?
It s a bit more complicated than that, since it was from these same committees that counter-demonstrations. against the women's marches wete drawn. And it was from among the Tehran militia Fighters that volunteers were recruited to fight against the Turkoman peasants who had the Khomeini militias are beginning to look more like reactionary Whites than Red Guards whose aim is deepen revolution. The Khomeini or "Imam" committees are central to the attempt to reconstruct and keep the structures sell-organisation These committees, exercise basic political major towns. provinces, districts of Tehran, were not elected. They were appointed, co-opted centrally from TehKhomeini's entourage, Revolution, to fill the power vacuum left by the tall of the old regime and take charge of all the existing structures.
Their nucleus is often the religious authorities or representatives of the and merchants, chosen for their unconditional support But their membership caused a crisis within their ranks. One such example was Revolution decided ex-SAVAK agents at the same time as the militias were continuing to hant down and arrest members of the polstical police. the incidents Sanandaj barracks it was the pretensions of the Khomeini committee which provoked the Kurds' anger In Turkestan it was the Khomeini committees were at the rODE 2000100S members opened fire on a mecting of Turkoman autonomists or when they defended the Persian landlords who were being driven from their estates by the peasants.
workers and the Arab minority. it was the Khomeini committee which tried of formation of independent trade con- unions and to dissolve the oil workers" strike committee. which Right from the start these and committees have direcled part the of their activity at the working and class. In Tabriz the Khomeini commitler, which is implanted in the tractor factory and in a machine-tool factory. tried to ban the distribution of For good measure it decide to close down the university which had become the politica forum for the whole town.
In Tehran, in the General Motors and bazaar factories, the Khomeini com mittees or their representatives for have busted the committees, heterogeneous workers had demanded to elect somctimes their employers.
As SAVAK agents the Integrated into the Khomein to USC committees in certain factories to block the setting up of trade unions. The Ayatollah's sup porters have tried to use the structures of the old vertical yellow unions which were set up at by the old regime under the direct control of the political police. neighbourhood mittees were only set up at the end of December, often at the which initiative of the local mosques of the to distribute oil and fuel during the general strike. often discussion forums than decision making hardly ever voted on anything. Above all the leadership of these committees passeu the hands of against the oil hierarchy and the local leaders Who were soon to form the Khomeini committees. block the It is clear that in certain areas, Kurdistan and Turkestan for cxample, committees have become the TALLITE instruments counter-revolution. where they continue to be the terrain for political battle, of well- struggles for influence between the various different class interests Iran National old strike Previously the have comThey were bodies, and into the religious the Khomeini Uaf the But elseand LACEDES and so convincingly reported by the world press and by authoritative individuals that it is dil ficult to imagine that they could all be labrications of the opposition "The Habeas Foundation Fo the Rights of Man in Latin America, of which t president, consequently proposes that you agree to our sending neutral observers 10 Colombia.
March The government claims that Gonzalez is suspecied of belonging to a Trotsk sist terrorist organisation. the Workers Self-defence Organi sation. koown by is initials MAO!
An immediate internationa campaigo is needed to fre Libardo Gonzalez, just as past campaigns have defended the Latin American Trotskyists such is Hugo Blanco Send telegrams to Presiden Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala, Palacio de San Carlos. Bogota, Colombia, copies to Combute Socialista, Apartado acrco 13750, Bogota, Colom