25¢ WfJRIlERI ".'(J'R'~X-523 No. 532 2 August 1991

30 Million Blacks Still Can't Vote, Endure Abject Poverty South Africa: ANe Pushes "Post-Apartheid" Swindle

Gamma Photos While Nelson Mandela and South African president De Klerk shake on "deal," blacks are still victims of apartheid terror. Government Unleashes Inkatha Killers

"The new South Africa .is on the up segregated living areas, and the Land looked to the imperialists to clean up regime of white supremacy remains and march," crowed President EW. De Klerk Act, guaranteeing white ownership of the South African racist regime, George the hopes of the impoverished black after the segregated parliament voted in 87 percent of the land, are now officially Bush issued an executive order lifting majority are being dashed. In the "new June to repeal the remaining key pillars abolished. Thereupon, the European U.S. sanctions on trade,' irrvestment and South Africa," thousands are slaugh­ of "grand apartheid." The Population Common Market voted to lift sanctions, banking. tered by government-instigated terror, Registration Act, which classified every­ and the 21-year ban on South African Now the formal statutes of apartheid millions are disenfranchised and con­ one born in South Africa into four racial participation in Olympic competition have been eliminated (the pass laws and demned to abject poverty. There can categories (white, African, "coloured," was removed. To the chagrin of those Separate Amenities Act were scrapped be no democracy for the toilers who Indian), the Group Areas Act.which set leftists and would-be radicals who earlier), but the cruel oppression of the continued on page 7 Gorbachev Puts Soviet Union .on the Auction Block They called it the "grand bargain." they're demanding that capitalist res­ It was cooked up by economic advisers toration be in place before Gorbachev of Gorbachev and Yeltsin along with sees any real money. They want proof, Harvard's Kennedy School. The seven Soviet Wo'rkers Must Defeat as the New York Times (18 July) put it, richest capitalist countries (the G-7) that "the Soviet Union really planned would give Moscow, say, $30 billion a to undo the Bolshevik Revolution." year. In return, the Soviet Union would Capitalist Counterrevolution! And even that is not enough. Japan, be transformed into a full-fledged mar­ Inc. will give no yen to Moscow until ket economy within five years. munist Party to drop all remaining lip fifths of one percent of the gross the Soviet Union gives up the strategi­ As an entry fee for Gorbachev to service to Marxism, Leninism and even national product of the industrialized cally vital Kuril Islands, which the Red make his pitch to the G-7 meeting the working class. capitalist countries. The proposed U.S. Army occupied at the end of World War in London in mid-July, the Supreme Harvard's Jeffrey Sachs, the man share, $3 billion, is one percent of the II. And if the Japanese zaibatsu want Soviet passed a law allowing for who designed the electrodes for the Pentagon budget. to get back the Kurils, the American privatization\ of 70 percent of the economic "shock treatment" in Poland, But the masters of the G-7 didn't buy rulers lust to take back Cuba, before USSR's industrial enterprises. And argues that the "grand bargain" is a the "grand bargain." Despite entreaties the revolution a playground for the now, on the eve of Bush's visit to Mos­ steal for Wall Street and Washington. from German chancellor Kohl for mafia and sugar plantation for United cow, Gorbachev is calling on the CQm- Thirty billion dollars is a mere two- massive aid to the Soviet Union now, continued on page 5 resentment and resistance to their presence. Blacks, surely among those who received the rawest From Death Row, of receptions (and the only people who did not come here willingly), can ill afford to continue this cycle, This Is Mumia Abu-Jamal for among all America's peoples, we have the least hope of fading into the fiction of a so-called "melting pot" (nor should we wish to!). Though Black faces sit in high places, they still possess no true power, only the curious "option" of ARage in the District continuing "business as usual." The politics of exclusion, of distinction, of high & Fires dance upon the upturned metallic corpses of People riot when other methods of redress are low, must give way to the commonality of human;for police cars cooking in twilight. foreclosed, and when despair reaches intolerable it is precisely "business as usual" that has brought us Sirens wail in electronic alarm, as strobe lights depths of the soul. Many of the peoples of the riot to this hour of alienation, of bubbling hatreds, of sweep in a maddening circular arc. areas of D.C. came to El Norte when government riotous anger, of social and psychic discontent. America's capital city experiences one of the first repressions at home left few options; leave or die­ It is past time for fundamental change. riots of the season, but this burst comes with a and so, they came, by the tens of thousands, drawn difference. Recent history, since the 1960s, reflects by promises of peace, of freedom, of a better life Blacks in riot, enraged at a system of total economic, north of home. political exclusion. The recent unrest in Washington, Many found crippling, poisonous toil in the fields D.C. was marked by brown faces, not Black ones, and of the nation's hotlands; grapes, oranges, and indeed, was directed at a political system headed and tomatoes picked in a daily grind of survival. Some faced by Blacks. fled to U.S. cities and, when they sought government Recent immigrants from Central America, flee­ help, were stunned to find Black faces in civil service, ing America's deadly policies of low intensity Blacks who, like their predecessors before them, warfare against workers, peasants in lands like El viewed the newcomers with suspicion, for "they were Salvador, found, upon arrival, not the promised foreigners," "they talked funny," or "they can't even land of milk and honey, but of menial jobs, ethnic speak English!" alienation, and hostility born of the eternal con­ America has historically been hard on its new­ flict between the newly-arrived and those who came comers, as evidenced by the Kensington Riots of before. May 1844 Philadelphia, where Protestants attacked The reported genesis of the riot, that a Black female (predominantly Irish) Catholics, destroying neighbor­ police officer ordered a Latino drinker to cease his hoods; and in 1902, when Irish, aided by a predomi­ open, public drinking, is, as always, insufficient. nantly Irish police force, attacked N.Y. Jews; also It may have been a spark, but even a spark when Wyoming whites in summer 1885 massacred needs kindling to catch, to expand, to explode into Chinese miners. LustigIWashington Post flame. To every people who arrive in America.is given D.C. cops block street, May 6.

Imperialist Rivalry Urgent Appeal for Jamal: and World War With the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the capitalist great powers $$$ Needed' Now turned Europe into a slaughterhouse. In response to the "patriotic" betrayal of the Mumia Abu-Jamal writes his eloquent preme Court rulings and the Senate's official "socialist" leaders (signaled by the defense of the oppressed from Pennsyl­ death penalty crime bill are pushing German Social Democrats' votefor war cred­ vania's Huntingdon state prison, where toward an escalation in state-sanctioned itson August 4), Lenin called for anew Com­ he sits on death row because of a vindic­ murder. Recent cases which have sue­ munistlnternational. Its watchword: turn the tive frame-up against this former Black ceeded in overturning death sentellces TROTSKY imperialist war into a civil war. The contin- LENIN Panther Party spokesman. This Philadel­ and. freeing innocent defendants have ued survivalofcapitalism, propped up by the phia MOVE supporter and courageous cost at least $1 million in legal fees and social-democratic andlater.Stalinist bureaucracies, led a generation later to the second journalist achieved prominence as the expenses. imperialist world war marke4 by the Nazi extermination of the Jews and American "voice of the voiceless." His columns Mumia Abu-Jamal will not be saved i-bombing ofHiroshima and Nagasaki. In the "postwar" era U.S. world domination has appear periodically in Workers Vanguard by courtroom battles alone. Like the meant more war and mass terror from Korea to Vietnam to Iraq. As Lenin wrote in 1915, and other newspapers. Scottsboro case in the '30s, it will take capitalism in the imperialist epoch is inseparable from wars over markets and spheres Now Jamal and attorneys are preparing mass protest and publicity to Win his ofcolonialist exploitation. an important legal challenge to expose freedom. 'At their national convention in the frame-up and prove his innocence. May, the Coalition of Black Trade Imperialism is the highest stage in the development of capitalism, reached only in Contributions for this legal action are Unionists voted to support Jamal, as have the twentieth century. Capitalism now finds that the old national states, without whose tax-deductible and can be sent'to the BiU a number of union locals across the formation it could not have overthrown feudalism, are too cramped for it. Capitalism of Rights Foundation, earmarked Mumia country. To support the growing 'cam­ has developed concentration to such a degree that entire branches of industry are Abu-Jamal Legal Defense, c/o Rabino­ paign to save Mumia Abu-Jamal, contact controlled by syndicates, trusts and associations of capitalist multi-millionaires and witz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky and the Partisan Defense Committee. Send almost the entire globe has been.divided up among the "lords of capital" either in the Lieberman, 740 Broadway, New York, your contribution for the campaign to the form of colonies, or by entangling-other countries in thousands of threads of financial New York 10003. PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, exploitation. Free trade and competition have been superseded by a striving towards Money is urgently needed! New Su- New York, New York 10013.• monopolies, the seizure of territory for the investment of capital and as sources of raw materials, and so on. From the liberator of nations, which it was in the struggle against feudalism, capitalism in its imperialist stage has turned into the greatest oppressor of nations. Formerly progressive, capitalism has become reactionary; it has developed the forces of production to such a degree that mankind is faced with the alternative of adopting socialism or of experiencing years and even decades of armed struggle Just Out! between the "Great" Powers for the artificial preservation of capitalism by means of colonies, monopolies, privileges and national oppression of every kind. • South Africa and - V.I. Lenin and G. Zinoviev, Socialism and War (July-August 1915) Permanent Revolution ,d' • Mercedes-Benz Sit-Down Strikers Raise Red Flag, CP Sells Them Out • South Africa: Razor's Edge !~!!!'!!!.'s!~!~!! ~. • Interracial Sex Ban Jolted In South Africa DIRECTOR OF PARTYPUBLICATIONS: Liz Gordon • Wall Street and the EDITOR: Jan Norden Apartheid State PRODUCTION MANAGER: Jorge Ramirez • CP Leader Joe Siovo: CIRCULATION MANAGER: Karen Valdez From "Uncle Joe" EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster, Frank Hunter, Jane Kerrigan, Len Meyers. James Robertson, Stalin to Gorby Reuben Samuels, Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer, Marjorie Stamberg • Smash Apartheldl For The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). Workers Revolutlonl Workers Vanguard (USPS098· 770) published biweekly, except 2nd issue August and with 3·week interval December, by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732·7862 (Editorial), $1 (48 pages) (212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO. New York, NY 10116. Domestic subscriptions: $7.00/24 issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard. Box 1377. GPO, New York, NY 10116. Order from: Opinions expressed in signed articles or leiters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. Spartacist Pub. Co, Box 1377 GPO No. 532 2 August 1991 New York, NY 10116

2 WORKERS VANGUARD This is sick, and it's part of a whole repressive climate. Anti-abortion bigotry kills women. Health fascists are trying Florida Sex Vigilantes to\ take away cigarettes and other smokes, booze and recreational chemi­ Ifsome enchanted evening you should add insult to injury, Adler is trying to have reportedly expressed interest. The cals. The Supreme Court just outlawed meet a stranger under the Florida palms, peddle his home video to the "Oprah man has now been kicked out of his evening entertainment such as nude keep your eyes peeled for peeping Toms Winfrey Show," the "CBS Morning condo by the manager, who sounds ·like dancing at the Kitty Kat lounge, and with camcorders. One summer night Show," and "Current Affair," all of whom he was practically charging admission. Moral Majorityites have been busy recently, a couple got together in Tampa, cleaning up the/local Seven-Elevens so went to his place and made love in the it's hard to even get a Penthouse any­ privacy of the home, orso they thought. more. The forces of law and order have Next thingthey knew, they were forced been even going after cable channels to spend 'a night in jail, after being offering spicy viewing. From the 1986 arrested by the Hillsborough County Bowers v. Hardwick Supreme Court sheriff's office for allegedly performing decision upholding reactionary state "a lewd and lascivious act in the pres­ "sodomy" laws to this Florida "lewd and ence of a child under 12" (New York lascivious" regulation, this country's Times, 20 July). They were later released patchwork of sex laws is cruel and on $15,000 bail. absurd-abolish them all! Cold War era It all began, according to the Times, At least the couple has the dubious movie promo for honor of having a country and western when a snooping kid finked to his par­ George Orwell's tune written in their honor by Tom ents that he could see the couple in the 1984. Who's guy's hot tub. Then somebody called the looking through Downs, a friend of the woman. Under sheriff's office. Then another neighbor your window? the title "Sex Behind the Miniblinds,' went out with a videotape to catch the the song says it all: "One minute you're makin' magic, couple in the act, after he said he heard then you're makin' license plates, neighbors talking about it. "I shot right because priorities are twisted, through the blinds," said Lee Adler. To here in these United States.". Jersey Teamster Heavies Scab Victory to White Rose Teamster Strike! JULY 24-Chants of "Fight, fight, o s:a fight!" and "Shut the country down!" n, echoed on Wall Street today, as 400 ~ striking members of New York Team­ sters Local 138 gathered outside Bankers Trust. Since February 1, when the White Rose grocery drivers and warehousemen Striking voted by 407 to 2 to strike, the local has warehousemen been solid. Two thousand members and and drivers supporters marched and rallied outside of Teamsters the White Rose warehouse in Farming­ Local 138 rally dale, Long Island in April. They are on Wall Street: caught in defending their union against junk bond vise between dealer and takeover artist Arthur Gold­ gangster-ridden berg, who acquired White Rose's parent bureaucracy and company, DiGiorgio Corporation. government-linked Goldberg, labeled "a small-time green­ "reformers." mailer" by Forbes magazine, is demand- . ing scores of givebacks. A striker at the Wall Street rally told Workers Vanguard that besides striking against cuts in days off, medical benefits and pensions, they Goldberg also owns Federated, another ILA longshoremen and machinists from ers of "reform" candidate Ron Carey, are determined to fight Goldberg's full­ grocery warehouse near the Port Eliza­ nearby Newark airport, to join them in a head of the giant UPS Teamsters local in scale assault on seniority rights. And the beth, New Jersey docks which is supply­ massive demonstration of union power at New York. In two articles in Convoy­ local is taking an all-too-rare principled ing groceries to White Rose's 2,000 the Federated warehouse: set up picket Dispatch, the TDU barely mentions Local stand against Goldberg's "insulting" customers in New York City. And the lines that scabs won't dare cross! 97 and never condemns the scabbing. No demand to "fire a worker who honors a drivers and warehousemen at Federated, But at the Wall Street rally only surprise, since the paper is filled with sister union's sanctioned picket line!" who are crossing Local 138's picket lines one speaker, Teamster Local 843 presi­ praise for the feds' takeover of the union But after almost six months their strike every day, are members of Teamsters dent Gene Giacumbo from the Newark and running the recent convention! The against the White Rose Foods grocery Local 641 and Local 97, both part of Anheuser-Busch brewery, even mentioned TDU crows that the Teamster tops "had wholesaler is in trouble, misled into Jersey's Joint Council 63. The gangster the IBT bureaucrats' scabbing! Instead to dance to the tune of the rank and file." "corporate campaign"-style boycotts and sellouts in the Jersey council especially Local 138 tops are directing strikers into Bullshit! The tune was called by the feds, appeals to consumers, bowing before have it in for Local 138, which is seen leafletting the 2,000 individual grocery who approved the literature, the candi­ judges' injunctions against pickets, and as an "upstart" local after it elected stores, pleading with customers to shop dates, the procedures, the voting and knifed in the back by Teamster union. members of a slate from the' Team­ elsewhere and begging the likes of even sat on the dais to instruct Teamster bureaucrats who are sending other Team­ sters for a Democratic Union (TDU) Bankers Trust to pressure the company. chiefs what to say (see WV No. 530, ster members across Local J38' spicket "opposition." This is playing by the bosses' rules, July 5, "Feds Hands Off Teamsters!"). lines. A black Teamster veteran of 26 This scabbing must be stopped! Local a loser's game. Those who bring the capitalist state years bitterly told WV that the last big 138 should appeal to Teamster locals At the rally, workers roared approval into the labor movement are the enemies strike in 1974 "was different than this. across the New York area -from Metro­ at speeches calling for a "one-day strike" of class struggle. How can these "reform­ We set up a picket line-nothing went in, North track workers to UPS workers to or a "national general strike." But wheth­ ers" rip up a judge's anti-labor injunction nothing went out." Newark brewery workers-as well as er coming from the mouths of Workers or bring thousands of workers out to World Party supporters in United Labor sweep away the scabs if they're tied hand Action, or "progressive" local Teamster and foot to the Labor Department and officials (like Dan Kane ofLocal Ill), the bosses' courts? They can't and they Spartacist ~ Forum this is all hot air aimed at roping the won't. The White Rose strike is in dan­ workers into begging the Democratic ger because it is caught in a vise between Party to "outlaw" scabbing. These fakers a gangster-ridden union bureaucracy and East Germany: From Political Revolution would have you believe you can get class government-linked "reformers": both are struggle from Congress-they sure as pro-capitalist. to Capitalist Counterrevolution hell don't want to anger their Democratic Teamster strike militants must fight to Party friends by building solid picket build mass picket lines that shut down Speaker from Spartakist Workers Party of Germany lines that stop scabs. Only a couple of Goldberg's Federated operation, stop the months ago.. the Democrats in Congress scab trucks and win the strike! Above all, Saturday, August 10, 7:30 p.m. First Unitarian Church forced rail workers back to work under a class-struggle leadership is needed that 1187 Franklin (at Geary) their anti-labor laws. will sweep clean the Teamsters of the SAN FRANCISCO For more information: (415) 839-0851, (415) 777·9367 It is no accident that all this hot air is thugs and feds who are throttling the coming from the TDU and other support- union.• 2 AUGUST 1991 3 Trotskyists Speak at Moscow Workers Conference

On July 20, a conference of Moscow (J) of the meeting, groups like the OFT have E'" workers was held in the Soviet capital. f= a history of covering for Great Russian

Greetings by the International Communist League Comrades, we bring you greetings on 1932 on the eve of Hitler's coming to and swam against the stream, in their itary defense of the Soviet Union behalf of the International Communist power. unconditional opposition to capitalist against imperialist attack and internal League (Fourth Internationalist)! We Today, the neo-fascists are on the reunification of Germany. We are proud counterrevolution! stand before you today as international- rise and feel free to attack foreign-born to say that it was our comrades of the Today the imperialists and the native .ists, as communists! [Applause] workers with impunity. Spartakist Workers Party who initiated restorationists strive to dismember the .Comrades, I am a longtime union Our comrades of the German and the call for the tremendous. workers USSR by splitting, paralyzing the Sovi­ member. I have worked many years in Polish sections of the International united-front demonstration in defense et proletariat with nationalism. This is U.S. factories' and I know from first "Communist League ask us to pass along of the. Berlin' Treptow Park monument their greatest weapon. But the proletar­ hand that what the comrade earlier said to you their warning: now is the time to to the Soviet soldiers who, fell in the iat has its own weapon-international­ about America and imperialism is true! fight in the Soviet Union. Because it is battle to smash fascism. This 'monument ism. We need to forge a party that The imperialists want to destroy and much harder, it is much worse to have was defaced by neo-fascists. This was mobilizes against all forms of discrimi­ dismember the Soviet Union. They nation, nationalism and anti-Semitism! want to do what Hitler tried and failed Comrades here today have posed the to do. [Applause] question of the need for a party. In­ Now is our chance, we must address deed, we need the kind of party that in time the greatest danger that the Lenin built. [Applause] A party that Soviet Union has ever faced. Today the will be a genuine tribune of the people imperialists gloat, especiallythe Ameri­ to fight all forms of discrimination. can imperialists after their massacre of Look to the women workers and the the Iraqis and Kurds. The imperialists youth! think that it is their time. They under­ Comrades, the Soviet proletariat has estimate the strength of the working suffered more than any other in this people of the Soviet Union-once century. But, comrades, you are not again! [Applause] alone. It is a lie that the workers in the It is our honor to address representa­ West will not fight. Now, once again, tives of the Moscow proletariat whose all eyes are turned to the East-waiting history includes the 1905 Revolution, . to see if the Soviet proletariat will the October Revolution, and the heroic defend the gains of the October Revolu­ defense of this city against German tion! The gains of 1917 do not belong imperialism in World War II. to the Soviet working people alone. But the greatest battle lies before us. They are the common legacy of the We agree with those comrades who say international workers movement! The now is the time to create genuine work­ imperialists are waiting to see if the ers soviets in Moscow, today! We say, Soviet working people will passively Spartacist swallow counterrevolution. "Drive the speculators, parasites, ex­ Banner of Trotskyism is raised in Leningrad on Revolution Day, 7 November ploiters and their ideologues out of the 1990. Signs call for defense of the gains of the Bolshevik Revolution against We say no! It is time to take back soviets!" so that they become genuine capitalist restoration. For power to soviets of the working peoplel what is ours! Form factory committees workers soviets! [Applause] to stop privatizations! Form soviets­ Comrades, let us tell you about the to fight the capitalists after they have a demonstration together with the SED genuine soviets based on factory elec­ realities of what capitalist restoration gained state power-it is necessary to [East German CP] of 250,000 workers, tions! [Applause] has meant. In the former DDR [East organize defense against their attacks! communists, a genuine workers united All power to the workers soviets! Germany] by many accounts suicide [Applause] front that mobilized in the defense Stop capitalist counterrevolution! rates have doubled. Many of the child­ We are proud to say that it was our of the Soviet soldiers who smashed Long live the international socialist care centers are closed. Abortion is to German comrades of the Spartakist fascism. [Applause] revolution! [Applause] be a crime. Unemployment is now close ~ Workers Party who were the one party To be a Trotskyist means above Long live the Soviet Union! to 50 percent, the level it reached in which at the time mobilized, warned all to stand for unconditional mil- [Applause]

4 WORKERS VANGUARD the capitalist West. They want to sjeal the way I just came off work! For dec­ our raw materials at bargain prices. ades We.built, serviced the buildings of When they are through gouging us, this very region of Moscow. During the workers will have no power. war, we spilled the blood of our families The question today is a question of to defend these buildings that they now power. The Supreme Soviet is 5 percent Communist tell us that we must "buy"! "BUY" these workers. We need a restoration of real Party members apartments! What prices are we to pay to soviet power based on factory elections. demonstrate in buy these apartments? Do the workers need a new party? Of Leningrad. Signs I remember World War II, how we course, the capitalists are all forming read: "No to the moved all of industry, how we changed their own parties. They know perfectly Dictatorship of the face of Europe, how we rebuilt this well they can't get political power with­ Shopkeepers" country. And now when I hear about the out a party. and "Private closing of the childcare center from the Do we need a new party? Many people Owners: Get Out earlier speaker, I think back on now we of the Party." say this.And many people say that this related to each other during the war, how party is no longer communist. Indeed if this scene of speculators driving out we are speaking of the leadership, then children would have been impossible. We we must say that it is not only non­ Speaker: People denounce the planned store [charging speculators prices]. And must act so that this case is not lost. For communist, but anti-communist. We have economy, but this isn't a real planned we have to look at these people's our children, it makes me so angry. a party, but we need to purge it. economy. First they sabotaged it and then faces every day while we tum away They say that all that we did in the Speaker: Unity is our strength. We they held it up as a terrible example. children of workers who cannot pay the history of the Soviet economy was for must take a position on privatization, Under market relations production is new fees! naught. But when we were attacked by against the price rises, addressing un­ being geared to those who have money We have been robbed ofour children's the mightiest armies of the world, we employment. I want to speak partic­ to buy, not for what is needed. center. I dread September when the chil­ were able to organize the transfer of ularly to the problem of women. The Woman childcare worker: The day­ dren come to school only to find the industry out of this very area of Moscow women work twice as hard; they have the care center that was previously free is doors closed. I appeal to you workers not and over to Siberia-was that not an hardest jobs and then they have to wait now being told to pay exorbitant rent. On to let this happen, not just in words, but economic achievement? When we had to, in long lines, to serve us, to feed us, to the second floor of our building there is in deeds. we changed the face of Europe. Now we stay sweet and kind, to put us to bed like now a fancy cooperative restaurant, and Older man: I am a janitor, and if you are supposed to be powerless in the face children. on the first floor there is a commission don't believe me, you onlyhave to smell of children put on the street.•,

privatization law, Fyodor Burlatsky, worker at a tractor (formerly tank) fac­ such as those organized in the United Gorbachev... "free market" ideologue, noted: "Simple tory in Leningrad exclaimed to a British Front of Toilers, are under the sway of (continued from page 1) people, workers, worry very much that journalist: "We lived better before pere­ old-line Russian-nationalist Stalinists the property that formerly belonged to stroika, now all the working people are who now call themselves "patriots." Fruit. Bush told Yeltsin during his recent everyone will be purchased by a small poor" (Independent [London], 16 July). While claiming to stand above all for visit to Washington that "it wouldn't hurt group of rich people." That's exactly . Last spring Komsomolskaya Pravda, the the unity and preservation of the multi­ my feelings a bit if they cut off all for­ what privatization will mean. First up official organ of the Communist Party national USSR, such "patriotic" organi­ eign aid to Cuba." zations as the United Front of Toilers, Gorbachev's ultimate plea for extract­ the Russian Communist Party and Soyuz ing money from the capitalist powers is embrace Great Russian chauvinists, tsar­ to threaten that he will be overthrown, ists and vile anti-Semites whose program plunging the Soviet Union into anarchy, can only fuel nationalist and communal­ civil war and bloody national strife. His ist bloodletting. Both the pro-Western personal aide Yevgeni Primakov told "democrats" and the Stalinist "patriots" reporters in London that if the G-7 didn't are enemies and oppressors of the Soviet come through with "grants, debt relief, working people. Soyuz leader Colonel investment," there would be "a risk of Viktor Alknis declares, "My model is social uprising, of civil war." One White the market first and democracy later." House official derided the latest Gorba­ This is generally known as the "Chilean chev line as "telling us we have to help model." Significantly, Yeltsin, Gorba­ save the system they've got or they're chev and the hardline Stalinist Soyuz going to lose control of their nukes." group all stand for banning workers The U.S. rulers' answer is to tell Sovi­ strikes. et leaders to scrap their nuclear arsenal, It is only through strikes, the fight for so that in the future the Pentagon war workers control in the factories and machine could do to the Soviet Union political mobilization against Pamyat what it just did to Iraq! Writing in the and other fascist groups that the drive Wall Street Journal (9 July), Martin ,toward capitalist restoration can be Feldstein, a former chief economic defeated. Strike committees and factory adviser under Reagan, maintained: "Al­ committees can become the basis for though the vision of a capitalist Soviet To s,1I genuine soviets (councils), drawing into Union is certainly appealing, the West's perestrQlka their ranks collective farmers, oppressed real interest lies in reducing the Soviet to workers, minorities, working women, Red Army Union's offensive military capacity Gorbachev soldiers and officers, old-age pensioners, rather than in strengthening the Soviet talked of "self­ those at all levels of society who would economy." management," be communists. But the key is a revolu­ Soviet press tionary leadership, otherwise such com­ U.S. Demands hailed VAZ auto mittees can easily be sucked in behind Counterrevolution Now, workers (above) as model. Now one or another counterrevolutionary fac­ Money Later... Maybe VAZ, which tion, as happened in Poland in 1981 and with Soviet miners this spring. The Another Harvard guru, Marshall Gold­ produces Lada Soviet working class must reforge a man, argues that the prospect of a "grand cars, is to be Bolshevik party on the internationalist bargain" is illusory: "But even if we sold off to Flat. program of Lenin and Trotsky, to oust could come up with our part of the deal, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and the other traitors, there's no guarantee the Soviets can do for sale is the giant VAZ auto factory­ youth and now a mouthpiece for aspiring and establish a government based on theirs. I'm not sure anyone is in control the buyer won't be the workers but an Soviet yuppies, wrote: soviet democracy such as was estab­ in the Soviet Union" (New York Times, international corporation. "Market reforms begin to be threatened lished by the October Revolution of 21 May). Goldman is right on this score. For now, multinationals do not want not so much by the machinations of the nomenklatura [old bureaucratic elite] as 1917. The Soviet Union is in a state of to invest in the USSR until they're sure by the workers' movement, which is There can be no socialism in one coun­ political and economic chaos beset by the workers can be kept in their place, gaining momentum spontaneously, and conflicting laws and policies issued by namely, down. The international vice by the radicalization of the population's try. The regeneration of the Soviet econ­ the central government, various national president of Tambrands, which runs a sentiments due to the price hikes." omy under workers democracy must be republics, autonomous regions and local­ tampon factory in the Ukraine, stated, linked to the perspective of socialist rev­ ities. The nationalist regimes in the "we can't risk shareholders' money For a Government of olutions worldwide. As we wrote a few -republics are refusing to pay taxes to the expanding into chaos." A Polaroid exec­ Workers Soviets months ago in "Where Is the Soviet central government, which is flooding utive in charge of Soviet operations However, the workers movement re­ Union Going?" (WVNo. 522,15 March): the country with worthless rubles to meet warned: "Don't put in a hundred million mains trapped within the political frame­ "Capitalist development itself has its expenses. The economy is in a free dollars ifyou're not willing to walk away work set by the contending factions of brought into being an international divi­ sion of labor.Thus the struggle to secure fall with total output plummeting 15 per­ ,from it some day." But capitalists, don't the disintegrating Stalinist bureaucracy for the Soviet masses the good things of cent in the past year and a half. Eco­ put in $100 million if there's a good and the intelligentsia. Last winter and life-both 'material and cultural-pre­ nomic chaos and misery have fueled the chance they'll have to walk away from early spring striking coal miners lined supposesparticipationin the worldecon­ rise of bloody nationalist strife from the it. Thus Wall Street and Washington are up with Yeltsin's anti-Communist cam­ omy. And this means the replacement of demanding capitalist counterrevolution the imperialist-dominated world market Balficsto the Caucasus to Soviet Central paign against Gorbachev. Many miners by an internationally planned socialist Asia; now. then felt betrayed when in April Yeltsin economy. A planned economy, imple­ Butthemost fundamental obstacle to But capitalist counterrevolution must and Gorbachev agreed to an "anti-crisis" mented on the scale of the world pro- a "gfifudbargain"between Gorbachev break the resistance of Soviet workers program which demanded an. end to . ductive forces and under the control of democratic workers soviets, would have and woddimperialism is the deep hostil­ ,.who have already experienced the miser­ political strikes as a condition for hoped­ spared mankind jne wars, 'Holocaust, ity amtorture and murder (UDF) and wife of Walter Sisulu, Nelson of thousands of its own members. It has Mandela's most senior prison colleague now been revealed that in this affair they on Robben Island. While Mrs. Mandela were caught up in a major disinformation would parade in fatigues with the young campaign orchestrated by the South "comrades," Mrs. Sisulu had a base African security forces. among church people and homeowners With South Africa in flux, people are in the Orlando district. But Winnie visualizing what the outcome will be. Mandela is no less interested in ingrati­ Much of the furor over the "Winnie trial" ating herself with Western imperialist reflects fears, especially among whites, leaders than "moderates" like Mrs. that a black-nationalist victory would Sisulu. Just a year ago the Mandelas usher in a brutal regime, as well as illu­ were hobnobbing with George and Bar­ sions that De. Klerk will junk apartheid. bara Bush in the White House. But what's now being "negotiated" is a In 1988 the rivalry between Winnie "reformed" capitalist regime in which Mandela and Mrs. Sisulu led to a entrenched white domination (com­ gangland-style settling of accounts. One manding enormous military and eco­ of the most repulsive aspects of this nomic resources) is masked'bythe pres­ whole sordid business was the claim by ence of ANC leaders in cabinet seats. Winnie Mandela and her housekeeper But whatever the direction it goes, so that they were "rescuing" children from long as the working class does not take a Methodist home because the white ul power, the result will be the continued pastor, associated with Mrs. Sisulu, was Black demonstrators flee police "hippos" (armored cars) In Sebokeng, during exploitation of the black African, Indian supposedly engaging in "homosexual 1984 township rebellipn. and coloured masses. abuse" of teenagers. In addition to the As Trotskyists, we fight for a commu­ murder of Stompie Seipei, one of the residence. Here they were brutalized by milieu in London, who have responded nist leadership to unchain black labor members of the Mandela "football club" the heavies who constituted Mrs. Man­ to the daily barrage of "ANC atrocities" from its petty-bourgeois (would-be bour­ was killed by the son of an associate of dela's bodyguard, known as the "Man­ in the rabidly anti-Communist. yuppie geois) nationalist leaders and to mobilize Mrs. Sisulu. Later a doctor associated dela Football Club." Stompie was later Independent to distance themselves from its tremendous power in struggle for with AZAPO (Azanian People's Organi­ found with his throat slit in a nearby one-time allies. a black-centered workers revolution, sation, an ANC rival) was found dead field. This torture and murder were a On the "left," the exile grouping which could enroll those from all racial in his office. heinous crime. around the London-based journal Search­ and ethnic groups in this divided land This affair reminds us of a case in Beyond the question of Winnie Man­ light South Africa launched a virulently who want to work for a society of genu­ the Black Panther Party in the U.S., the dela's responsibility in this murky and Stalinophobic campaign linking the trial ine equality. And corresponding to that 1969 torture-murder of Alex Rackley in grisly affair, the murder and trial crystal­ to heavy-handed repression by the ANC program is the fight for a revolutionary New Haven, Connecticut. The Panthers lized discontent of upwardly mobile security apparatus in its guerrilla camps proletarian morality against a climate of continued on page 9 middle-class forces in the ANC who are upset about the "young comrades" in Soweto and elsewhere. When they talk - 23 September 1989 Wren/NY Times about "Winnie's boys," they are refer­ ring to the plebeian youth who fought 25 November 1989 the army and police during the 1984-86 Cliff Slaughter's township revolt, who crudely enforced Workers Press the many boycotts and were the shock retailed Pretoria troops of the ANC's campaign to "make disinformation the townships ungovernable." Most during 1989 Namibia never went to school (a product of the elections (far left), years-long anti-apartheid school boy­ recently exposed by cott) and have never had a job. In the army intelligence . "new South Africa" of the "reformed" major Nlco Basson apartheid regime, this combative but (left), then claimed lumpenized layer is an embarrassment to have been "duped" for the newly respectable ANC. in another apartheid scam (right). From Johannesburg to London, the furor over the "Winnie trial" coincides 6 WORKERS VANGUARD corned back into the "community" of South Afri'ca... capitalist nations under the aegis of the "New World Order." For De Klerk, De (continued from page 1) Beers and Anglo American, the key to produce fabulous riches from the mines, achieving this is to have the anti­ fields and factories until they wrest apartheid activists lined up through the power from their oppressors. Talk of a ANC. That is the importance of the ANC "post-apartheid" capitalist South Africa congress which took place July 2-8 in _is simply a cover for the continued ex­ Durban. traction of superprofits from black labor This was the first congress held inside held in check by a massive police force South Africa in 30_years, since the ANC and military armed to the teeth. To smash was banned and its members driven white-supremacy it is necessary to fight underground and into exile. The con­ for a black-centered workers govern­ gress opened amid complaints from the ment, in which those who labor shal1 rank and file that the government 'was rule and those who have expropriated running circles around the ANC in the the fruits of that labor will themselves 17 months of "negotiations." So at the be expropriated. congress, Mandela referred to negotia­ So now apartheid is supposed to be tions as a "terrain of struggle." The history. In a finishing touch, even ANC's direction was codified in the elec­ the ruling apartheid National Party de­ tion of a layer of "militant pragmatists" clared itself "non-racial" and has co­ to top leadership. "The five most senior opted a near-majority of the "Labour officials," noted theLondon Financial Party," giving the Nats control of the Times (8 July) approvingly, "are all mod­ "coloured" house of parliament as well. erates in ANC terms." The election of In the complicated minuet of disman­ Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC secretary gen­ tling apartheid's legal armature, Nelson AP eral is significant. Ramaphosa, 38, is an Mandela was released from jail in Feb­ "lnkathagate":Racist government armed and financed Buthelezi's thugs. Police ambitious lawyer who flirted briefly with ruary 1990, the African National Con­ oversee Inkatha killers at April "peace rally," at which six people were killed. the black consciousness movement, gress was "legalized," and last August came to prominence as head of the the ANC signed an agreement to "sus­ of their citizenship and consigned them Natal to counter the big ANC rallies National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) pend" "armed actions." In return, the to impoverished tribal homelands that greeting Nelson Mandela upon his re­ and was a leader of the moderate Mass only Pretoria considers independent." ' thousands of anti-apartheid political lease after 27 years in jail, and financed Democratic Movement (MDM). prisoners were supposed to be freed, and Of the estimated 39 miIlion people in Buthelezi's outfit for years beforehand. In the late :70s, Ramaphosa served on 30,000 exiles permitted to return home. South Africa, 30 million are black, and The Natal rallies were followed by a rash the board of directors of the Urban Foun­ In fact, barely 1,000 ANC supporters not one black person has the right to of violence in Natal and the Transvaal. dation, a fund launched by Oppenheimer have been allowed back. Many of those vote. "It's the economics of this coun­ A former sergeant in the South African (head of the Anglo American mining returnees have been subjected to ha­ try that's going to rip the guts out of army's Five Reconnaissance Regiment empire) to promote a black middle class. rassment, witchhunts and.. increasingly, any constitutional accommodation," said told the New Nation that the commando This investment in Ramaphosa did not assassination at the hands of thinly David Welsh, professor at University of unit was behind many of the attacks and go unrewarded. His cooperation in the veiled government death squads. In the Cape Town, quoted by Wren. Now blacks carried out the hideous massacre aboard mass layoffs of 50,000 miners last year past 17 months more than 4,000 people supposedly are free to buy houses with the Johannesburg-to-Soweto commuter earned him kudos from the capitalists. have died in the Transvaal in the -blood­ swimming pools in the white suburbs, if train on 13 September 1990, in which The Financial Times (6 July) noted his bath unleashed by the government. they can afford them. But new laws such 27 passengers were hacked to death and reputation as a "flexible bargaining As for political prisoners, the govern­ as the "preservation of norms and stand­ 137 others injured. The revelations partner," commenting: "Praise for Mr ment claims over 1,000 have been re­ ards" acts are cropping up to keep white sparked a wave of anger, throwing the Ramaphosa comes not only from his leased, but Justice Minister H.J. Coetsee neighborhoods white. And seven million whole timetable for "negotiations" up in obvious constituency-the miners ... but says that 90 percent of the 15,434 prison­ black people have no housing at all, sur­ the air. from whites in business and government. ers who applied do not meet the "guide- viving in squatter shanties which line the The "militant" nationalist rivals of the Corporate executives who show 'nothing major cities. ANC, the Azanian People's Organisation but disdain for most ANC leaders admit and the Pan-Africanist Congress, were the highest respect for Mr Ramaphosa, The "Hidden Hand" Revealed .buckling under in their half-hearted even though he is a socialist." The euphoria sparked by Nelson opposition to "negotiations" with the After the ANC congress, the bourgeois Mandela's release from jail and the legal­ government. Church and business groups press unleashed a red scare, screaming ization of the ANC and South African were to host an "All-Party Congress" in that more than half of those elected Communist Party has turned to bitter dis­ the late summer/early fall. "So far Azapo to the 90-member National Executive il1usionment and dismay. The ANC/ and the entire ANC 'family' of organisa­ Committee are alleged to be members of SACP "alliance" has long banked on tions ... have announced their atten­ the SACP. Ramaphosa issued the requi­ becoming or joining the government of dance," reported the Johannesburg Star site denial, reminiscent of the days of a "post-apartheid" state-which means (15 June), and "the PAC... has also indi­ McCarthyism: "Categorically I am not becoming the policemen for. the cated it would attend any summit con­ at present, nor have I been in the past," Randlords. But the "new South Africa" vened by a neutral body." As laid out by' a member of the Communist Party. And may look suspiciously like the old South Mandela, this body would endorse an more perceptive journalists noted that Africa before 1948 when the Afrikaner "interim government. ..broadly accept­ CP influence is not in contradiction Nationalists took over: a country dedi­ able to the various political formations to the moderate direction. As David cated to making a lot of money for a few in our country," supposedly marking the Ottaway wrote in the Washington Post whites, and where the Boers were on the end of white minority rule, and sanction (9 July), 'The communists, who make outs. While the De Klerk regime will a new constitution endorsing some kind up about half of the new National not, because it cannot, bend an inch to of electoral system giving preferences or Executive Committee's 56 elected mem­ grant "one person, one vote," the ANC guarantees to whites. bers, proved strong proponents of nego­ has even backed off virtually all the tiations, contrary to what analysts stated demands outlined in its liberal ANC-Tool of Neo-Apartheid expected." 1955 Freedom Charter, including nation­ Five years ago South Africa was ex­ On the other hand, there was a good alization of the mines and' a constituent ploding in black rebellion. The town­ deal of support for reputed militants. Dhladhla/AFP assembly. ships were "ungovernable," strikes of Chris Hani, a CP leader and the chief of Now revealed: the grisly slaughter In a carefully orchestrated plan, mod­ black unionists were threatening capital­ staff of ANC's military wing Umkhonto aboard Johannesburg-Soweto com­ eled on the operation successfully car­ ist rule and, faced with the "instability" we Sizwe, and SACP general secretary muter train, 13 September 1990, was ried out in Namibia in late 1989, the of profit-making, the multinationals had Joe Slovo scored first and third in the carried out by army unit. apartheid masters are seeking to preserve fled to safer shores. Now South Africa balloting, and hardline Stalinist Harry lines" for release. Those who were white-supremacist rule behind a "demo­ is no longer a pariah state, and is wel- continued on page 8 fighting against apartheid-from bomb­ cratic" facade. Yet ANC subservience ing army barracks to participating in may not prevent the De Klerk regime's demonstrations where police "hippos" scheme from blowing up in its face. (armored cars) were sabotaged or tear Spectacular revelations confirm the gas canisters hurled back-are not clas­ Pretoria government's "hidden hand" in sified as "political prisoners" but as the massive bloodbath unleashed in the Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League "common criminals." Hundreds are con­ Transvaal against the ANC. This only demned to death by hanging for coura­ proves what every leftist and anti­ apartheid fighter, has known for years, 0$7/24 issues of Workers Vanguard o $3/3 issues of geous acts or simply (al1egedly) being (includes English-language Spartacist) Women and Revolution that the Inkatha forces of KwaZulu present when some of the blood­ o New 0 Renewal o $2/10 introductory issues drenched oppressors or their flunkeys bantustan chief Buthelezi are apartheid's International rates: dogs of war. As De Klerk basks in $25/24 issues-Airmail $7124 issues-8eamail of Workers Vanguard were kiIled. In June scores of anti­ (includes English-language apartheid prisoners went on extended newfound international respectability, 0$2/4 issues of Spartacist (edici6n en espanol) Spartacist) the scandal proves that the man Nelson hunger strikes to bring worldwide at­ Name _ tention to their plight. Mandela called a "man of integrity" In a New York Times (23 June) article, was a "man of duplicity" who "negoti­ Address '-- ,...... -,__ ated" with the leaders of the ANC "Even in 'New South Africa,' Apart­ ______Apt. # Phone (_) _ heid's Legacy Lives On," Christopher while orchestrating a bloodbath of its members. City State Zip ----== Wren wrote truthful1y: 532 "The Government made blacks sojourn­ In leaks to the liberal Weekly Mail, it Make checks payable/mall to: Spartaclst Publishing ce., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 1Q116 ers in the land of their birth, stripped is- now confirmed that the government more than seven million South Africans funded Inkatha's March 1990 rallies in 2 AUGUST 1991 7 ANC. leaders Thabo Mbeki (below left) and Secretary General Cyril Ramaphosa at July South Africa..,. congress in Durban. Black miners (right) want (continued from page 7) socialist fight against apartheid, leaders bind Gwala came in eighth. And Winnie Man­ them to Anglo American bosses. dela, despite her recent trial and convic­ tion for kidnapping in the murky busi­ ness of the murder of "Stornpie" Seipei, held captive in her home in Soweto, and despite being rebuffed by the Women's Committee of the ANC, still won well over half the votes and a seat on the exec. Meanwhile, Nelson Mandela hastened to announce the ANC was distancing itself from the Communist Party. At the congress he had declared the CP "a firm and dependable ally in the common struggle to rid our country of the system of white minority rule." But in an inter­ view afterward, he said, "TheSACP has declared that its co-operation with us is only up to the point of the overthrow of the apartheid state." Mandela added, "We won't follow socialism. We have got our own programme," and "We per­ haps placed too much emphasis on... The South African state initially CP Sells Them Out," WV No. 515, communist vanguard party of the work­ nationalisation." The ANC president sought to control it through the 1978 30 November 1990). ing class. made more specific his earlier remarks Wiehann Commission, which "recog­ This role is now being played out, The treacherous SACP, meanwhile, is that the organization would no longer nized" black unions in the hopes of con­ adjusting workers' expectations and far from monolithic. Together with the stand on its historic call for "one person, taining them. "Progressive" capitalists demands in line with the "new reality" collapse of the Stalinist regimes in East one vote." Instead, Mandela said, "We led by Anglo American and the "multi­ of the nascent "post-apartheid state," In Europe has come a cutoff in Soviet aid are not in favour of black majority rule. nationals" sought to arrange private April, the,NUM's seventh national con­ to the ANC and SACP. And along with We are in favour of majority rule" deals with "their" unions. But they ference was called around the theme of handing over East Germany to an ex­ (Independent [London], 19 July). What wanted control from within. The black "restructuring the mining industry." This panded imperialist Fourth Reich in the this amounts to was spelled out earlier labor movement was forged largely in meant accepting tens of thousands of heart of Europe, Gorbachev's Kremlin by an ANC youth leader, Mrs. Lyndall an end run around the ANC, whose lead­ layoffs, ripping the guts out of the has been pushing for a negotiated "politi­ Shope-Mafole: ers were in exile. Belatedly, the ANC miners' organized power to increase the cal solution" in South Africa. This line "Wemustmakesurethat the constitution moved to bring it under control, through Randlords' profits. Now Ramaphosa has is welcomed by some right-wing CPers, which comesout of negotiations defends the agency of the South African Com­ negotiated a profit-linked pay deal at such as Jeremy Cronin, who specializes the rights of [fascist terrorist leader] Eugene Terreblanche as well as my munist Party. The "workerist" tendencies East Rand Goldfields, and the NUM has in denouncing Trotskyism, i.e., revolu­ rights." which had sprung up in FOSATU and launched an initiative for a "tri-partite tionary Marxism, as an "infantile disor­ -Financial Times, 2·July "socialists" such as Metalworkers leader conference" between the miners unions, der" in The African Communist and Work Moses Mayekiso were co-opted into the the Chamber of Mines and the state to in Progress. Others appear more con­ Black Labor: Gravedigger party, and debate in the unions over a discuss "how a post-apartheid economy flicted. Thus while Moses Mayekiso of Apartheid Capitalism "workers charter" was deflected into de­ can be reorganised" along the lines helped spike the Mercedes-Benz strike, The enormous power of the black mands for protection under a recast of "joint economic management" with he balked at going along with the new workers who create the wealth of South "post-apartheid" capitalist state. "worker participation" (Weekly Mail, Witwatersrand Metropolitan Chamber Africa is the key to real emancipation. The role of the SACP in disciplining April 26). So despite all the talk about (in which Ramaphosa is a leader of the Ever since the Durban strikes of 1973, black labor was seen in the squashing "socialism" at NUM conferences, the Soweto delegation) which includes the the black union movement quickly be­ of the Mercedes-Benz Port Elizabeth workers are to "participate" in their own same local councillors of the Pretoria came the backbone of anti-apartheid strike last September. With a situation exploitation! regime that he and his Alexandra com­ struggle. South African capitalism is close to dual power in the auto plants, Meanwhile, voices are being raised in rades rose up against in the township rooted in the superexploitation of black where defiant workers controlled the the black unions questioning the alliance revolt, for which they were sent to jail. labor, keeping profits up by keeping the assembly lines wearing mock AK-47s with the SACPand ANC. Labor "theore­ "Joint government" with their jailers wages below even the minimal level nec­ strapped to their backs, CP chief Slovo tician" Karl von Holdt writes in the may be hard to stomach. essary for reproduction of the labor and Metalworkers leader Mayekiso were South Africa Labour Bulletin (June The Wall Street Journal (6 Mayjre­ force. That is why black workers are brought in by the company to get the 1991) that "over the past twelve months ported that, contrary to expectations,the forced to live in hovels, the labor supply workers back to work. While the CP there has been increasing concern within Communist Party in Soweto has grown is constantly replenished by mass migra­ talked of "factory tribalism" in denounc­ COSATU over whether the working more not less popular in the 17 months tion from the rural areas, and the vast ing the demands for wages higher than class has real influence within the ANC," since the ANC waslegalized. non-white majority is denied the most the industry average, the Mercedes-Benz A COSATU leader is quoted as saying, "When Pretoria last February 'ended its basic democratic rights. The structure of strikers commented bitterly about the "The ANC has paralysed COSATU and 40"year ban on the South African Com­ white-supremacy, established under colo­ "Wabenzi,"· the "tribe" of well-to-do other MDM organisations politically," munist Party, known as the SACp, it reckoned that the crumbling of cOI~nlU. nialism, permeates the society, long pre­ blacks who want to make it into the boss However, the "alrernativet'mooted about nismelsewhere wouldSoon discreditthe dating the apartheid laws, and is class. Here the SACP showed how it was by von Holdt is that the unions must party here. Instead, Communists have .necessary to capitalist rule in South ready and able to break strikes in.polic­ break from "the politics of resistance" beenstreaming backfromexileana com­ Africa. And thus the organization of ing the labor movement for the ANC and and "militant abstentionism" to instead ing outof the closet internally to organ­ in the interest of capitalist stability (see ize Africa's largest industrialized work­ black labor can quickly threaten the "strive for greater productivity and less ing class.... state's existence. "Sit-Down Strikers Raise Red Flag, industrial action" and embrace "a social "On factory floors, in the mines and contract primarily between business and throughout the simmering, overcrowded labour, but also involving the state" blacktownships, workers talkof thetwo­ phase revolution: first, black liberation SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY (SALB, March 1991). In other words, a from white domination, and then the more direct subordination of labor to creation of a thoroughly socialist state. National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 • (212) 732-7860 capital without the medium of the SACP. The view from here is that it is apart­ heid-and its perceived cohort in racial Atlanta Detroit Norfolk oppression, capitalism-that has failed,' Box 4012 Box 441043 Box 1972, Main PO Revolutionary Perspective not communism." for South Africa Atlanta, GA 30302 Detroit, MI 48244 Norfolk, VA 23501 The bosses are clearly worried that a Boston Los Angeles Oakland The ANC/SACP/COSATU alliance is "post-apartheid state" could be derailed Box 390840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497 the contemporary South African version by workers and township youth fighting Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 of the popular front, a classic reformist for "a thoroughly socialist state." This (617) 492-3928 (~13) 380-8239 (415) 839-0851 device by which the working masses are makes all too clear that the key in South Chicago /' San Francisco tied to the supposedly "progressive" Africa, as elsewhere, is a revolutionary Box 6441, Main PO Madison Box 77494 wing of the exploiters. With Nelson leadership fighting not for the Stalinist Chicago, IL 60680 Box 1492 San Francisco, CA 94107 Mandela as the linchpin, combative shibboleth of a "two-stage revolution" (312) 663-0715 Madison, WI 53701 (415) 777-9367 unionists and socialist-minded militants (democracy now, socialism in the sweet are being coupled to~other"triple alli­ by-and-by), but for revolutionary Trot­ Washington, D.C. Cleveland New York ance" of the ANC with De Klerk and skyism. As we wrote: Box 91037 Box 444, Canal S1. Sta. Box 75073 , Andwhilcf~ngloAmer­ "South Africatoday expresses the quin­ Cleveland, OH 44101 New York, NY 10013 Washington, D.C. 20013 the Randlords. LOlldo~ tessence of Trotsky'sprogram of perma­ (216) 781-7500 (212) 267-1025 (202) 872-8240 ican publishes ads in the Guard­ SouthA~canQusi;. -nent revolution in which the most basic ian promising that democratic demands-'one person, one ness will "address" thed~pJ)'.f~ltal'ld vote,' land to the tiller,endingslave-like TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA justified grievan(:es,.~s~~ll,'~the~spi­ oppression in themining compounds and rations of thos~ whom'a~i~P9$he

Cape Town-based Workers Organisation ply picked up what used to be the ANC's than ripe-the problem is the crisis of section of a reforged Fourth International for a Socialist Africa (WOSA), led by main demand and are running with it revolutionary leadership, and ostensible that Trotsky would have recognized as Neville Alexander. While the ANC ac­ while Mandela and the SACP have socialist groups from the SACP through his own. This is the key task and the commodates De. Klerk, and the SACP dropped it in favor of the temptations of WOSA who oppose a proletarian strug­ only road to the emancipation of the accommodates ANC, WOSA's practice "participation" in a "reformed" apartheid gle for power are the biggest obstacle. South African masses from apartheid is to accommodate nearly every anti­ "interim government." Trotskyists sup­ Thus Workers' Voice (August 1990) slavery and, following their lead and apartheid group, while talking in the ab­ port the demand for a constituent assem­ writes: "In effect, therefore, the pro­ with their aid, liberation of the toilers of stract about a class line. Thus while run­ bly in the South African context where, socialism lobby will for the next few the entire continent. _ ning a long article about the need to from the days of colonialism on, the years function as a left-wing pressure smash the capitalist state not enter it, the black masses have been denied any sem­ group within the broad liberation move­ bulk of WOSA's work and propaganda blance of democracy. But we do so as ment, watching over the interests of the consists of a campaign for a Constituent part of a program for workers revolution, urban and rural poor and attempting to Spartacist League Assembly (the "CA") as "synonymous understanding that bourgeois democracy wrest the steering wheel of the move­ with the demand for unfettered democra­ under South African capitalism is impos­ ment from the grip of the middle-class, Public Offices cy" (Workers' Voice No.2, March 1991). sible. In his December 1917 "Theses pro-democracy leadership." This per­ - MARXIST LITERATURE ­ The same issue does a survey rating all on the Constituent Assembly," Lenin spective corresponds to that of the Men­ Ba, Area left groups on their stand on a constituent emphasized: sheviks in the 1905 Revolution, who saw Thurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. assembly, calls for a "united front" for "For the transition from the bourgeois to themselves "watching over" workers' 1634 Telegraph, 317d Floor (near 17th Street) the CA, and puts forward "a platform of the socialist system, for the dictatorship interests while a bourgeois-liberal gov­ Oakland, California Phone: (415)839-0851 8 points which we believe constitute of the proletariat, the Republic of Soviets ernment would take power. But in 1905 (of workers', soldiers' and peasants' Chicago a minimum basis for a democratic deputies) is not only a higher type of and 1917 it was not the liberals but tsarist Tues.:5:00-9:00 pm., Sat.: 11:00a.m.-2:00 p.m. process." and militarist reaction that was the real 161 W.•Harrison SI., 10th Floor democratic institution...but is the only Chicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715 WOSA tries to give their demand a form capable of securing the most pain­ alternative to the workers soviets. left twist, by saying that the CA "must less transition to socialism." Today there are various groups falsely New York Cit, involve the informed participation of the labeled Trotskyist, which however reject Tues.: 6:30-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. WOSA's response would be that it 41 Warren St. (one block below masses in general and the working class doesn't see the struggle for socialism on Trotsky's perspective. We of the Interna­ Chambers St. near Church SI) , in particular." But what's going on here the agenda. But the objective conditions tional Communist League are dedicated New York, NY Phone: (212)267-1025 is that these fake-Trotskyists have sim- for revolution in South Africa are more to the struggle to forge a South African 2 AUGUST 1991 9 by ANC security, imprisoned under the Mandela most harsh conditions, some tortured and several reportedly killed. Searchlight treats this as an atrocity comparable to Trial ... the Nazi death camps (referring to the (continued from page 9) ANC/SACP's "Buchenwald" at Quadro Mandela trial. Searchlight South Africa, prison). But what, in fact, was the mutiny ~ou~ - however, has grabbed the "Winnie trial" with both hands as its ticket into the In early 1984, the mutineers, saying "new South Africa." Thus in their recent they wished to "go home" to fight in issue, they write: "That the trial never­ their own country, refused direct orders theless proceeded to its conclusion was to fight with the MPLA and Cuban sol­ a small augury of hope. for the future." diers in Angola against' the South African In fact, their main worry is that, for polit­ invasion and the puppet Savimbi of ical reasons, the apartheid courts may UN/TA. This was at a crucial turning not actually put Mrs.' Mandela away. point in which the concerted South Afri­ They write that if "this woman can go can offensive in Angola almost won. free;" then "the future ofthe country looks Stopping it was vital. And here were sol­ even grimmer than we had thought" diers, anti-apartheid fighters, in Angola [emphasis in original]. where the war was going on, refusing to fight. The Searchlight article stated this Searchlight wants to use the "Winnie •• Mark Peters trial" to enlist in Bush's "New World explicitly: South African Invaders in Angola (above) in early 1984 were stopped by heroic Order." Thus, in February, in the heart "The combatants of MK had refused to Cuban troops. go into counter-insurgency operations of "Operation Desert Storm," they are against the forces of the Union for Total bloc in which the Namibian Slaughter­ seen in the funding of the Inkatha Zulu horrified because: Independence of Angola(UNITA) in the ites participated. So now Cliff Slaughter forces and the manipulation of the ANC "... Mrs. Mandela delivers a passionate civil war in Angolaand defied the secu­ implied justification of the occupation of rity personnel of ANC." & Co. have egg all over their face. factions. The political infighting behind the When he was an agent of South Afri­ Kuwait by the regime of Saddam Hus­ While we are quite prepared to believe sein of Iraq.... Not out of character, imprisonment of SWAPO militants by can military intelligence, Nico Basson that the internal regime in the ANC Saddam's secret police introduce the the Nujoma leadership during the pro­ co-edited the main book on the SWAPO camps was plenty brutal and arbitrary, necklace to the streets of Iraq a month longed guerrilla struggle is very murky. prisoners, Call Them Spies (1989). This lateras a meansof controlover the revolt revolutionaries can in no way solidarize They claimthat they were forced to sign book was cited repeatedly as a reliable of their own citizens." with mutineers who refused to fight the confessions (obtained under torture) that source by Searchlight South Africa. So While ostensibly taking a neutral posi­ South African army and called for an they were "spies," and that many were now Searchlight and the Slaughterites tion in the Persian Gulf War, Searchlight end to the war against the CIA-financed kept in hideous deep holes in the ground have been exposed as willing, even eager emphasized that "there could be no sup­ UNITA forces of Jonas Savimbi. At bot­ for years in SWAPO camps in Zambia conduits for lying disinformation by the port [to] the Iraqi dictatorship." So in tom, the mutineers' action reflected the and Angola. After protests were filed white-supremacist apartheid regime. the middle of the U.S. bombing blitz in nationalist politics' to which the ANC through the United Nations High Com­ January 1991, they came out denouncing recruited them. Instead, we solidarized mission on Refugees and the World For Workers Revolution those leftists who demanded "Hands off with the Cuban forces who at this same Council of Churches, SWAPO in early Iraq" and the "rationalisation" that the moment at the battle of Cuvelai inflicted There is nothing new in all this, nor U.S. was conducting an "imperialist on the South African army significant 1989 began to release these prisoners. In July 1989 the first of these detainees is it unique to southern Africa. Fromthe venture to keep control of oil." Now an casualties, forcing it to withdraw from returned to Namibia. They told their very beginning Western colonialism article by leading editor Baruch Hirson Angola. As we wrote then of the Soviet­ has portrayed the dark-skinned peoples story at a press conference in Windhoek has openly repudiated Lenin's position backed Cuban forces: that was organized by the "Parents' it conquered and subjugated as blood­ on imperialism, which he blames for "Every timethey give the whitesuprem­ Committee." Here, a former leader of thirsty savages. The Spaniards of the "the underlying supposition of most left­ acists a bloody nose in Angola, it em­ Inquisition conquered Mexico in the the SWAPO youth, Erica Beukes, whose ist and nationalist movements that the boldens thebrutallyoppressed non-white name of the Holy Church while denounc­ masses of South Africato fight to throw brother was murdered in the camps, [Gulf] war was the outcome of imperi­ ing the human sacrifices practiced by the off their shackles. The stingingdefeat of documented their tale. Beukes and the alist aggression." "This was not an 'im­ Aztecs. The British in India shouldered South Africa's 1976 invasion was fol­ small group around her had launched the perialist war'," he adds, "and Iraq was lowedby the Sowetorebellion and a ris­ the "white man's burden," condemning Workers Revolutionary Party and linked not a 'semi-colonial' state-whatever that in~ o~ bl.ack proletarian militancy and the hideous backwardness of India's pre­ umoruzation struggles." up with Cliff Slaughter's British WRP. meant. ... " capitalist social institutions. Using such - "Cuban Troops Defend Slaughter's Workers Press (which excuses the imperialists carried out the The War in Angola and Black Angola," WV No. 346, only a few months earlier was a big 20 January 1984 systematic slaughter, starvation and super­ the ANC Camps booster of SWAPO) erupted with a slew And the South African army's forced exploitation of whole populations. Searchlight connects the "Winnie trial" of articles headlining "LEADERS MUR­ withdrawal from Angola in 1984 ushered DER SWAPO FIGHTERS," and claim­ In the modern era, European imperi­ and her defense of "necklacing" with the in the two-year township revolt at home. alists and their social-democratic lack­ imprisonment of ANC guerrilla fighters ing that Nujoma & Co. had "murdered While we recognized that the Cuban up to 10,000 opponents" (Namibian eys have pointed to the crimes of Stalin­ who mutinied in the MK military camps forces were on the front line of the fight ism and nationalist movements to justify in Angola: WRPer Hewat Beukes claimed "up to against the Washington-Pretoria axis 20,000" were killed). They linked the the suppression of national liberation "There is a direct line of connection be­ struggles. French Socialists condemned tweenthe ANCreignof terrorinthe pris­ in southern Africa, the Stalinophobic SWAPO repression to the "Stalin murder ons...and the 'necklace killings' exer­ Searchlight railed against the "KGB in machine," saying it was "reminiscent of the terrorist tactics of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) while cised by ANC supporters within South Africa," and argued that the ANC prison the days of the Moscow trials." Suppos­ the French army tortured FLN militants Africa.... This is the significance of the camp at "Quadro became worse than any edly to document SWAPO.'atrocities, 'Winnie issue'." and killed a million Algerian Arabs prison than even the apartheid regime ... they published a photograph that was in -Searchlight South Africa, arid Berbers. The British Labour Party July 1990 had ever had." This position in fact fact of a mass grave of victims of the denounced the terrorism of the Mau Mau serves to prettify the De Klerk regime apartheid army. In the mid-1980s, militants in ANC's to support the "pacification" of Kenya and justify its continuing suppression of The Namibian WRP participated in . guerrilla wing Umkhonto w~ -Sizwe by the British colonial army. Now Cliff the "militant wing" of the ANC and the the November '89 elections in a political (MK) became' disillusioned and muti­ Slaughter and the editors of Searchlight , South African Communist Party. bloc called the United Democratic Front. nied. A number of them were arrested (who sometimes sound like "socialist" The UDF included several bantustan par­ Rudyard Kiplings) have in the same way Siaughterites Peddle ties and tribal "chiefs" who were collab­ become "left" apologists for imperialist Apartheid Regime orators of the Namibian puppet govern­ subjugation and mass murder. Disinformation ment of South Africa. Its purpose was The real crime of the ANC nationalists Both Searchlight and CliffSlaughter's to pull votes away from SWAPO in the and Stalinists in South Africa is that pseudo-Trotskyist Workers Revolution­ November 1989 elections. The Slaugh­ they aspire to govern the country as ary Party have devoted themselves to a terite WRP made only the barest refer­ junior partners of Wall Street, the City campaign on. behalf of dissident former ence to socialism or the pro-capitalist of London and the Anglo American members of the South West African Peo­ nature of SWAPO. Their entire platform Corporation. But unlike the neocolonial ple's Organization (SWAPO), which led was the "atrocities" of the SWAPO states of sub-Saharan Africa, there exists the guerrilla struggle against the South camps. in South Africa a powerful black­ African colonial occupation of Namibia. Now, retired South African army ma­ centered proletariat which can lay the Before World War I, this territory was jor Nico Basson has come forward with basis for a.decentand humane society. colonized under the name of South spectacular revelations about the plot The working class under the leadership West Africa by the Germans who wiped to discredit SWAPO and the ANC. He of a genuinely communist party 'can out the Herero tribe. As a result the says he posed as a "public relations man" smash the efforts to set upa new form of numerically dominant tribe was the for the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance white-supremacist rule, and prevent the Ovambo, which became the soci~1 base (DTA-the second largest party in Na­ descent of South Africa into nationalist of SWAPO. mibia). "To fuel fears of Swapo, he said, and tribalist bloodletting. _ In June, a retired South African army the plotters exploited reports that the major who worked for military intel­ organization had imprisoned dissident ligence revealed that he was assigned members in Angola," reported the New to orchestrate a disinformation cam­ York Times (I July). Basson maintained NOTICE paign in the media to discredit SWAPO this smear campaign was quite success­ over the issue of the detainees in order ful since SWAPO only received 58 per­ Workers Vanguard to deal the nationalist group a blow in cent of the vote, short of the two-thirds skips an issue the November 1989 Namibian elections. majority needed to amend the constitu­ in August. As we go to press, the Pretoria govern­ tion imposed by the South African colo­ Our next issue will be ubb/JB Pictures ment admitted that it had funded seven nial regime. Basson noted: "They used Young "comrades" in the townships, anti-SWAPO political parties in that Namibia as a dress rehearsal for what's dated August 30. 1986. election, including parties of an electoral happening in South Africa." This is 10 WORKERS VANGUARD The past few years have seen a series police officer stripped of his badge and of brutal police murders of blacks, His­ his uniform and fairly punished for my Cop Terror... panics and other minorities in northern (continued from page 12) son's death." But the killer cop is back New Jersey. On July 1, New Brunswick on the job, after a five-day suspension On the evening of July 16, Maximino cop Zane Grey gunned down black with pay for being "out of his area." was helping a friend work on his car unemployed truck driver Shaun Potts, a Two weeks earlier, six cops blew along with two other Hispanic men. Eye­ promising semi-pro football player for away Herbert Jones of Roxbury. And a witnesses told Workers Vanguard that the New Brunswick Panthers. Three month before that, they slew 25-year-old plainclothes cops Chris Henne and John weeks earlier, Newark and Hillside Nathaniel Lackland Logan. Over 250 Chiusolo, driving by with a prisoner, police pumped 43 shots into a stopped people turned out for a candlelight vigil pulled over for no apparent reason, van, killing 20-year-old Lamont Russell to protest what..a family friend de­ rushed up to Cintron and slapped him Jones and l6-year-old Tasha Mayse, who nounced as "cold-blooded murder." with a ticket for "unauthorized repairs." was five months pregnant, and seriously Sinister forces are trying to silence This was based on some racist, anti­ wounding four other unarmed black those who dare to speak out against the working-class-city ordinance that forbids teenagers. Their names now join the murderous cop terror campaign. alack people working on their cars, the only ever-growing roll call of victims of racist community activist Shakur Ali, who has placemost of them can, on the street. cop terror: Efrain Rodriguez in Perth called for the resignation of Mayor Ray When Maximino ripped up the ticket in Amboy, Santana Hannah in Plainfield, Flynn and Police CommissionerFrances disgust, Henne threw him against the l6-year-old Phillip Pannell in Teaneck, WVPholo Roache, has been the target of numerous wall. As Maria pleaded in horror that Arnaldo Ortega in Jersey City, Carmen Friends and relatives of Maxlmlno death threats. After four white men in a they stop beating her husband, the cops Coria in Perth Amboy, are only some of Clntr6n gather at memorial shrine passing car fired on him, his wife and a screamed "Bitch!" at her. "Show some those killed in the past three years. erected at the site of his murder. member of the Rogers family, Ali got an respect for my wife," Maximino de­ The evening after Maximino Cintron ominous phone call warning him to "stop test of more than 60 outraged neighbors was gunned down, friends and relatives talking about the Boston Police Depart­ manded. Henne responded by shoving a against the DEA killers and their May­ gathered at a shrine erected at the scene ment." But calls for reforming the police, flashlight against his throat. Maximino wood police accomplices. of the murder, where a Puerto Rican flag broke loose. Chiusolo pulled out a 9mm The murder of Miguel Mireles comes like appeals by black mayoral candidate was hanging with pictures of Maximino Graylan Ellis-Hagler for a civilian re­ pistol. With both arms at his side and his in a context of escalating terror against pinned to it. His cousin Migdalia Cintron back against the wall, .Cintron said: blacks, Hispanics and other minorities. view board, are a dead end. The cops are "What, are you going to shoot me now?" -spoke of the family's distress and won­ Two days after Mireles was gunned That's when the cop shot him. dered aloud how this hideous crime down, a mob of racists wielding baseball Three hours later, Maximino Cintron could be perpetrated over a $20 ticket. bats stormed the home of a Mexican was dead, executed by a bullet through His brother Max said simply: "I want migrant farm worker in the town of Har­ his stomach at ten feet. For nearly an justice for my brother." Locking Chiu­ vard, north of Chicago. hour after the shooting he lay bleeding solo away will certainly get one racist Miguel Mireles left his hometown of to death on the ground. An ambulance killer off the streets. But justice for Durango for "El Norte" in search of a arrived after a few minutes, but instead the family of Maximino Cintron and all better life. Instead of the "American of treating Cintron, medics were ordered the victims of cop terror will only Dream," he found Bush's "New World to deal with the cops, who claimed to come when the integrated working class Order" of racist murder. have been injured. Only much later did sweeps away this whole racist system of a second ambulance arrive to remove the capitalist injustice. dying Cintron. The cops lied that Cintron threatened them with a pipe and that the shot was fired to ward off a "mob" Boston of 20 attackers. These lies were picked up and broadcast by the Jersey City Jour­ Chicago The black community of Boston has nal, angering the many witnesses to this been targeted by a wave of police terror cold-blooded killing. On July 12, 29-year-old Mexican this summer. On July 12, black high This is not cop Chiusolo's first racist immigrant Miguel Mireles was murdered school student Christopher Rogers was AP attack. At the July 25 protest, Filipino in cold blood on the streets of May­ shot dead by Boston cop James Hall. Rog­ Christopher Rogers, 16.;year-old Rodin Rodriguez told the crowd of 400, wood, a working-class suburb of Chi­ ers was a l6-year-old honors student in victim of Boston pollee murder. mostly Puerto Ricans from the commu­ cago. Drug Enforcement Administration math and science. His killer had a record nity, how the same cop who gunned agent George Ohlin pumped seven bullets of shooting unarmed victims, among the armed fist of the racist capitalist state. down Cintron beat him up three years through the windshield of the pickup them a Hispanic man three years ago. Last March a militant, integrated ago, leading to permanent nerve damage truck Mireles was driving as he and his Hall claimed that his service revolver crowd of 1,500 turned out to protest that cost him his job as an illustrator for brother Luis returned from cashing his went off as he looked for someone hiding Klansman David Duke in response to a DC Comics. The cops have gone on a $45 paycheck at a nearby store. Ohlin under a parked car. But the youth had call initiated by the Partisan Defense killing spree in recent years, as northern then shot at Luis Mireles, who was saved been shot in the chest. Neighbors recalled Committee. This showedthat it's possi­ New Jersey has become home to an only when neighbors poured out of their how Hall, who is black and lives in the ble to overcome the racial divisions of increasing number of Hispanics and homes and shouted at the cops. same area, had threatened Rogers •and this deeply polarized city, the home other minorities who work across the The cops claim that the pickup had other kids on many occasions. of the anti-busing backlash, and pointed river in New York City. A quarter of the been used for transporting drugs the day Rogers' funeral was attended by hun­ the way forward to stopping all the population of Jersey City and Newark before a.ndthat Mireles tried to run down dreds of angry mourners. Christopher's racist killers. Workers revolution will now is Hispanic, two-fifths of Elizabeth the narcs as they approached to make a mother, an AFSCME member at the avenge Christopher Rogers, Nathaniel and Paterson. The Filipino and Indian bust. But eyewitnesses contacted by WV Fernald school in Waltham, told the Bos­ Lackland Logan and all the victims of communities have also been expanding say the cops' story is nothing but a cover­ ton Herald (14 July): "I hope tosee this the killers-in-blue.• considerably and likewise face racist up. Among those eyewitnesses was Rosa police repression. Santamaria, who led a spontaneous pro-

Free Gary Tyler now! Abolish the death S.F. COp Candidate's Thugs Louisiana.... penalty! (continued from page 12) We print below a telegram sent by the Menace Socialists Partisan Defense Committee: placed it under federal court supervision. SAN FRANCISCO-"What happened of whom has ever even faced criminal Of 5,200 inmates, 85 percent are black, 27 July 1991 to Huerta could happen to you!" This charges. among them Gary Tyler and numerous To: Charles E. Roemer menacing reference to the near-fatal Now Jordan's running on ominous other victims of racist frame-up. Governor, State of Louisiana 1988 cop beating of United Farm promises to jail and terrorize the The executioners have now decided to P.O. Box 94004 Workers leader Dolores Huerta was homeless (including an ID system to have their killing table built by outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana directed at ~ young woman Spartacist "track" them) in order to wipe out contractors, but not before the electric The Partisan Defense Committee de­ League supporter selling Workers the "haven" that supposedly "soft" chair is used once more, to kill Robert mands an immediate end to the lockdown Vanguard at a supermarkethere.'And Mayor Agnos has offered them and to Sawyer on August22. Now the vindic­ of 400 prisoners and disciplinary action the threat came from a campaign generally unleash the cops from tive prison authorities intend to punish against hundreds 'more at the infamous worker for former police chiefFrank Agnos' "restraints." Some restraints! the strikers for their courageous stand. Angola State Penitentiary. These men Jordan, now running for SF mayor. Agnos blithely stood by while the Some will temporarily lose access to the were victimized for downing tools to The Jordan-for-mayor crew didn't cops bashed his old friend Huerta prison store and get job demotions, oth­ stop construction of a new execution want people reminded that their boss and now orders them to arrest any ers will be transferred to the notorious facility, the day after Andrew Lee Jones was top cop when Dolores Huerta homeless person who won't move into "Camp J," where "prison revolutionaries" was executed at the prison. had her spleen ruptured and several an unbearable, overcrowded shelter. are allowed only three hours of sunlight Ordering prisoners to build a "bed" to ribs broken as police savaged pro­ But that's not enough for Jordan, a week. be used for administering lethal injec­ testers against then-vice president who seeks to'tap the fear and eco­ Aping the Nazi death camp com­ tions recalls the unspeakable Nazi com­ Bush. Jordan was police chief when nomic insecurity of the layer that Dan mandants, this barbarous ruling class, mandants who forced Jewish prisoners to the cops stormed into the gay Castro White spoke to-white, racist, anti­ which oversees the highest incarceration dig their own mass graves. area, imposing virtual martial law, immigrant and anti-gay bigots who rate in the world, demands that its We and all opponents of the racist . clubbing and arresting ACT UP pro­ clamor for "law and order." victims prepare their own executions. death penalty applaud the Angola prison­ testers (and bystanders). He was No surprise that Jordan's flunkey But this the denizens of the Angola ers' strike for dignity and humanity police chief when Tony Grohse, a gloats over Huerta's beating, but it prison hell refused. Pilgrimage for Life, which stands in bold contrast to the wan­ retarded l3-year-old Samoan, was does tell you what his crowd consists a New Orleans death penalty abolition­ ton, racist brutality of the capitalist "jus­ blown. away by two COPll in broad of. We wonder how many of them are ist group, is calling for telegrams to tice" system. Abolish the racist death daylight. To name but a few of the cops or ex-cops. The working class Governor Roemer demanding that the penalty! reported incidents. And as police needs 'to sweep all this bourgeois prison protesters not be disciplined. - Richard Dundy chief, Jordan stood by his thugs, none garbage out of power. Hands off the anti-execution strikers! for the Partisan Defense Committee 2 AUGUST 1991 11 WfJR/(ERS ""'IIIRIJ Hispanics and Blacks Under the Gun ummer 0 error

Courtesy Cintron Family Maximino Cintr6n (above, with wife Maria and baby son) murdered by racist cops. Outraged Jersey City residents march on City Hall, July 25. WV Photo On the heels of his mass murder of The brutal beating of black motorist operating procedure for cops in the ghet­ coffin was carried by 16 pallbearers, 100,000 Iraqis, George Bush called for Rodney King by a score of California tos and barrios of America. many of them young men who, like oth­ the same "moral force and national will" Highway Patrol and Los Angeles cops ers in the community, could be found to' "free America's cities from crime." in March shocked the country when it out on the street working on their cars Now the Democrat-controlled Senate was captured on videotape and played on any late afternoon or evening. That's has overwhelmingly approved a draco­ over the airwaves. A mayoral commis­ Jersey City what Maximino was doing on the night nian new crime bill, as the Supreme sion appointed to investigate the LAPD he was gunned down by a Jersey City Court slashes away at what its capitalist has now "discovered" that racist and sex­ cop. That-and being Puerto Rican­ masters regard as "criminals' rights." For ist slurs are rampant among L.A. cops Under a sweltering siin;,23-year-old was enough to get the young unemployed this racist ruling class, a "criminal" is (including messages typed out on patrol Maximino Cintr6n Ortiz, was buried on meatpacker killed, to make his pregnant anybody-particularly blacks and His­ car computers), the police enforced a July 22. Nearly 500 predominantly His­ wife Maria a widow, to leave their one­ panics-who comes up against the busi­ "code of silence" to discourage any panic mourners wearing black armbands year-old son without a father. In a protest ness end of a police billyclub or hair­ queasy elements, and complaints of rac­ attended the funeral in Jersey City. Some march on city hall three days later, dem­ trigger pistol. Taking their cue; the cops ist treatment were at best ignored. But 200 people marched in procession down onstrators' signs asked bitterly "Why?" have been on a rampage of racist murder as succeeding weeks showed again, what Jersey Avenue to San Bonifacio's church and "Which One of Us Is Next?" across the country. happened to Rodney King is standard on First Street, a few blocks away. His continued on page 11 Louisiana Prisoners Refuse to Build Execution "Bed" On July 21, the Louisiana State Peni­ clad in riot gear were called in and, tentiary at Angola carried out the according to one prisoner, so were the state's 20th legal lynching since 1983, National Guard. as 35-year-old black inmate Andrew Strike at Angola Prison Angola prison is notorious for slave Lee Jones was strapped to the electric labor worse than any chain gang. Its chair and murdered. Sneering, "This camps were constructed on former plan­ man deserves what he is about to execution bloodbath. Two workers in executed at Angola, refused to work on tations, and inmates in the cane fields get," Governor Roemer even rejected a the metal fabrication shop who were the death device. As warden John Whit­ were regularly worked to death. Despite parole board recommendation to delay ordered to make a "hospital examina­ field threw the protesters into solitary a series of "reforms" after Angola's the execution two months until a sup­ tion" table refused, understanding that in the "dungeon," word rapidly spread horrors were exposed by a brave prison posedly "humane" lethal injection sys­ they would in fact be building the through the 20,OOO-acre prison and 400 nurse in the 1950s, conditions todav are tern was installed. "bed" to which future death row vic­ inmates working in the fields put down more desperate than they were 40 years One day later, an organized and inte­ tims would be strapped for injections. their hoes in solidarity. Baton Rouge' ago. So abhorrent and overcrov ded is grated protest by prisoners struck-a The next day, 40 more inmates, federal judge Frank Polozola authorized this state prison that a consent decree powerful symbolic blow against the including one whose brother had been an immediate lockdown. Tactical police continued on page 11

12 2 AUGUST 1991