By Eva Cheng
"It is a serious possibility that the [Suharto] regime will hand down a death sentence for Dita, Budiman, Wilson and the other PRD [Peoples Democratic Party] comrades who have been arrested. At this conference we voted to fight this every step of the way. We voted to stand beside our comrades in Indonesia, to do what we can to save their lives and strengthen the democracy movement in Indonesia."
So declared Zanny Begg, DSP youth organiser in Brisbane, as she closed the 17th national conference of the Democratic Socialist Party on January 8 in Sydney to the applause of over 200 delegates and participants.
After a series of discussions over the six-day conference of the political situation in Indonesia and the state and tasks of the revolutionary forces — an assessment presented by DSP National Executive member Max Lane — delegates unanimously supported a resolution firmly setting the defence of the democracy movement in Indonesia as one of the DSP's three top priorities in the period ahead.
After massacring dozens of pro-democracy activists in July, the Suharto government arrested many more; some key leaders face a death sentence. Delegates voted at the conference's opening to make Dita Sari and Budiman Sujatmiko — both are PRD leaders, in jail since the July crackdown — honorary members of the conference presiding committee.
"The Election of the Howard Government and the Perspectives of the DSP", the resolution which sets out the party's assessment of the strategic perspectives and tasks of the coming period and which was adopted unanimously by delegates, notes: "Our party has a special responsibility to assist in every way we can the development of the worker-student movement for democracy in Indonesia and its class-conscious vanguard. The Australian ruling class, through the Howard government and the Labor government before it, has forged a strong alliance with the Suharto regime and its military apparatus.
"Victories won by the movement for democracy in Indonesia not only help alter the relationship of class forces in Indonesia to the workers' advantage, they also help to weaken Australian capital. Every advance made by the workers in Indonesia in their struggle for democracy directly helps to strengthen the working-class movement in Australia."
The conference also appreciated the presence of two other PRD leaders, Nico Warouw and Robby Hartono, who reported on the latest developments of the democracy struggle in Indonesia.
Building fight back
"Struggle, Solidarity, Socialism — building the fight back in 1997" was the central theme of the six-day conference, which is the highest decision-making body of the DSP. Normally held once in two years, it is an occasion when elected delegates from all 12 branches around the country can collectively assess the political situation internationally as well as in Australia. It is preceded by extended oral and written discussions, in order to thrash out and democratically decide on the party's perspectives and tasks until the next conference.
Reports to the conference from the outgoing National Executive — were structured around an assessment of the global situation, the party's international work, the Australian political situation, building the DSP, student work and building Resistance, the DSP's trade union work and perspectives, propaganda work and educational tasks, and the party's finance campaigns.
In the international work report, DSP national secretary John Percy reported on plans for closer collaboration with the PRD in Indonesia and the Manila-Rizal section of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and a proposal for an Asia-Pacific anti-imperialist conference at Easter 1998.
In the student work report, Sean Healy noted the significant gains in 1996 of Resistance, the socialist youth group, in building the fight back against the cuts to education as well as in establishing stronger bases on campuses around the country. There was also success in consolidating a significant layer of radicalising high school students through the anti-nuclear and free education campaigns of the last two years.
The trade union report, by Dick Nichols, registered the increased activity of DSP members in unions and on the job, especially in the public sector, in pushing for a fight back against the Howard government's attack on workers.
In view of the urgency of resistance to the government's vicious attacks on workers and students, the conference decided on these two areas, together with solidarity work for Indonesia, as the DSP's top three priorities in 1997.
Reihana Mohideen reported on the DSP's education and propaganda tasks, including continuing commitment in support of the production and distribution of Green Left Weekly and, in particular, the drive to increase the paper's subscriber base by 500 in the first 10 weeks of 1997. She also reported plans to publish a greater range of socialist pamphlets.
In her report on the DSP's finances, Margaret Allan pledged the party's support for the Green Left Weekly fighting fund, which has a target of $140,000 in 1997. In a highly encouraging start of the campaign, participants at a special rally during the conference pledged a total of $73,000 to the fighting fund.
Of the conference participants, 15% were attending for the first time. The delegates' average age was 30. Forty-six per cent of delegates were women, and the percentage was the same in the new National Committee elected by the conference.
International guests
A number of other overseas collaborators also sent representatives to reported to the conference on their struggles. Franco Turigliatto of the Party of Communist Refoundation reported on the perspectives of the Italian left; Sonny Melencio of the socialist workers' centre BMP spoke on the Philippines revolution; a leading member of the Spanish United Left gave a feature talk on the New World Disorder; Malik Miah and Barry Sheppard of the US socialist group Solidarity spoke, respectively, on class, race and affirmative action in the US, and US politics after the re-election of Clinton; and Sally Mitchell of the NewLabour Party and the Alliance described the post-election political situation in New Zealand.
Stephen Marks, returning GLW correspondent who was based in Managua for the last four years, spoke on issues facing the Latin American left.
Greetings were also received from the Party of Democratic Socialism and the Union for Socialist Politics of Germany, the Communist Party of Vietnam, the Nava Sama Samaja Party of Sri Lanka, the Revolutionary Communist League of France, the South African Communist Party in KwaZulu-Natal province, the National Liberation Army of Colombia, the Communist Party of Uruguay, the National Liberation Movement — Tupamaros of Uruguay, the Communist Party of Argentina, the Cecil Ross Society of Canada, Force of the Revolution of the Dominican Republic, the socialist group Sprout of Hong Kong, the Socialist Workers Party of Denmark, the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Portugal, and the Socialist Workers Party of the Netherlands, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist).