Dominican Republic 1965
Published: May 21, 1965;
Source: World Outlook, Vol.3, No.20 p.16-17;
Transcribed: by Amaury Rodriguez, 2016.
Transcriber’s note: This article appeared in World Outlook published by Pierre Frank, Joseph Hansen and Reba Hansen, sympathizers of the United Secretarial of the Fourth International.
Hamburg, Germany
The seventh youth conference of the German Metal Workers Union [IG Metall], which was held here May 6-7 and which was attended by 146 delegates representing 300,000 young members of the union, adopted the following motion denouncing U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic:
“The delegates of the seventh youth conference of IG Metall, German Federal Republic, believe that the citizens of South and Central America also have the right to struggle for a society and an economic order in accordance with their own desires. Conflicts of the various socio-political interest groups must not be quashed by the weapons of a foreign power. The delegates hold that the right of a people to self-determination is indivisible. What we ask for ourselves and for our own country must be granted to other countries, particularly those on the road to development striving to win freedom from the rule of their colonial masters.”
Georg Benz, Executive Committee member in charge of the youth department, declared:
“Some people say that small wars are permissible in the interests of a wider peace. The horror and suffering experienced by the unfortunate population, of women and children, submitted to such wars can be vividly seen in the terrible reality of Vietnam. The brutality and hardships inflicted by the war there drive people into despair and destroy their last hope in humanism . . ..Any local war can slip out of control of the mighty, and end in a world-wide conflagration and the annihilation of humanity.”
Benz maintained that the establishment of freedom and social justice in one’s own country is the best contribution a people can make to the cause of peace.