D.C. Socialist Workers 1998 Campaign Committee

1930 18th St., NW, #3, Washington, D.C. 20009
Phone: (202) 387-2185 • Fax: (202) 387-2178 • Email: 75407.3345@compuserve.com

Sam Manuel for Mayor Mary Martin for Delegate to the House
Olympia Newton for Council at-large Brian Williams for Council chairman

For immediate release For more information contact:

August 25, 1998 Stu Singer at 202-387-2185

Socialist Workers Party candidate for Mayor Sam Manuel turns in 3,710 signatures on petitions to qualify for election ballot in November

Condemns Washington's bombing attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan

Calls for independence for Puerto Rico and support to the Cuban revolution

Supports recent strikes and protest actions by workers at General Motors, Bell Atlantic, Conrail, and Northwest Airlines.

Calls for statehood for D.C. and for abolishing the financial control board

The following statement was released by Sam Manuel.

Today, I am turning in to the election board 3,710 signatures—well above the 3,000 required—on petitions to qualify for the ballot in the November 3 general election for mayor of Washington, D.C.

Also filed today are 3,626 signatures to place Mary Martin on the ballot as the Socialist Workers Party candidate for D.C. delegate to the House of Representatives.

Once the other parties choose their candidates in the September 15 primaries, I challenge all of my opponents to join me in debating out all the issues

The Socialist Workers campaign speaks out and pledges to join with others in protest actions against Washington's criminal bombings of Sudan and Afghanistan. While claiming to be waging a war against terrorism, it's the U.S. rulers who are the number one terrorists in the world. They direct their fire in particular at working class fighters leading movements of workers and farmers against capitalist exploitation and oppression. This includes maintaining an almost 40-year economic embargo against Cuba and the numerous failed schemes to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro. It was the CIA that ordered the 1961 assassination of anticolonial hero and first Congolese president Patrice Lumumba. It's Washington that supported the apartheid regime in South Africa for years. The U.S. rulers continue to threaten the Korean people with nuclear bombs.

The socialist campaign provides a working class political alternative to the wars and growing economic and social crisis confronting working people and working farmers. From the worldwide ramifications of recession in Japan to the renewed U.S. war moves in the Balkans and against Iraq, there is no stability within the framework of the capitalist system.

This election year marks the 100^th anniversary of Washington's invasion and occupation of Puerto Rico as a colony. My campaign joins with those calling for independence for Puerto Rico and freedom for the 15 Puerto Rican political prisoners being held in U.S. jails, some for as long as 18 years. I stand on the side of the telephone worker in Puerto Rico who waged a militant strike in opposition to privatization of the phone company.

My campaign will speak out in support of workers conducting strikes and other protest actions in defense of union rights and against the bosses drive to further cut back wages, health and pension benefits, and safety on the job. As a member of the United Transportation Union at Conrail, I stand in solidarity with a new rise of labor resistance -- from the auto workers who struck GM, to the maintenance workers who struck Conrail, to the fight by workers at Northwest Airlines for a decent contract, to the strike victory by unionists at Bell Atlantic.

Here in D.C., I call for the immediate repeal of the legislation that created the financial control board. Instead, the District of Columbia should be granted statehood. While the Wall Street banks and other wealthy holders of the city's bonds are hailing the city's budget surplus, the crisis facing working people in this city has continued to worsen. Just look at the state of health care in the District. Washington has the highest rate of death from disease in the country – AIDS, heart disease, and cancer. District men have an average life expectancy 10 years less than the national average and the lowest of any other U.S. city. The current death rate for infants in the District is twice the national average. Meanwhile, overall city appropriations for public health services decreased to $47 million in 1998 from $114 in 1992.

I pledge to join with all those fighting against the effects of the deepening capitalist economic crisis – from women defending the right to choose abortion, to immigrants fighting for equal rights, to those protesting police brutality, the death penalty, and attacks on affirmative action programs. The socialist campaign urges working people and our unions to break from the parties of the ruling rich – the Democrats and Republicans – and chart a course of independent political action and international solidarity. This course points to the need to form a workers and farmers government to replace the rule of the bankers and billionaires. Such a government will lead the fight to abolish capitalism in the United States and join in the worldwide struggle for socialism.