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No. 69, May, 1985

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No. 69, May, 1985 No 69 May 1985 20p/1 Op to N U M strike veterans Monthly paper of the Spartacist league South Africa: Class struggle is the key , lalrt ei • The oppressed masses and black could be used as the pretext to labour movement of South Africa unleash the bloody holocaust. A are today locked in explosive con­ senior cop declared, 'If there are ilict with apartheid capitalism any further attacks on whites ... and its brutally racist state. The there will be a serious risk of sackin~ of more than 17,000 black white vigilante action .... We are gold miners bg the Anglo-American only a step away from it' curporation of supposed 'liberal' (Newsweek, 29 April). mining tycoon Harry Oppenheimer It is urgently necessary to shows yet again the true face of bring the power of the black pro­ Botha's 'enlightened' apartheid letariat into struggle for its own regime. And the murders in police class rule. The increasing organ­ custody of 29-year-old black trade isation and consciousness of this union leader Andries Raditsela and working class is the Achilles heel student leader Sipho Mutsi add two of apartheid capitalism. With a more martyrs to the cause of South revolutionary proletarian leader­ Africa's workers and oppressed. ship the black union movement Black unions have called a two­ could give direction and purpose hour strike on 14 May in protest to the rebellion of the youth in at these latest police murders. the townships, all of whom are In the seething black townships. wage earners or families of work­ from the Cape to the Rand, police ers. The determined Afrikaner rUl­ repression, raids, arrests of mili­ ers can isolate and napalm black tants continue unabated. Now in townships, but they cannot replace the 'coloured' (mixed race) areas or obliterate the black working of the Cape, previously relativ~ly class, which produces the wealth quiescent, further rebellion has of South Africa. erupted. In the townships of Mich­ __ +p.te.r{lll::t:l9naL soli<:l~ri.~~ is__ ausdal and Outshoorn, police have crucial to aid th8 embattled black attacked crowds of militant youth, labour movement of South Africa. firing tear gas and rubber bullets. The blatant use of police-state Last month's miners strike, terror has led to a new growth of like the Transvaal general strike militant anti-apartheid protest in November, ciemonstrates that internationally, notably in the South Africa's migratory system of United States. But to effectively indentured servitude no longer fight apartheid, militants must cows black labour. When 14,400 reject the impotent and counter­ miners struck against the blatant productive stategy of demanding victimisation of 92 shaft stewards the capitalist bosses 'disinvest' at the Vaal Reefs mine in the west­ their South Africa holdings. This ern Transvaal, management declared call for British and American im­ the strike illegal and sacked the perialists to launch an inter­ lot, Soon after, at the nearby national strike of capital must be Hartebeesfontein mine owned by rejected in favour of a strategy Anglo-Vaal (an Anglo-American sub­ South African mineworkers. March 1983 - their power is key to smashing apartheid of working-class action against sidiary), 3000 more striking miners butchers. apartheid. British miners, who re- got the boot. These courageous ceived inspiring solidarity from miners knew that under Pretoria's slave-labour In South Africa today, funerals and re­ the South African National Union of Mineworkers laws they faced mass sackings and deportation liEoUS services are the only public meetings during their strike, have particular reason to to the desperately impoverished bantust~?S and blacks are permitted to organise and attend. fight for such solidarity. We print on page 11 neighbouring black states like Mozambique. And as they bury their dead, with tens of a telegram sent by several British NUM members Strikers barricaded themselves into their hos­ thousands singing religious hymns and liber­ from a Workers Hammer May Day rally to the tels and wer~_brutally attacked by police who ation anthems, bloody police repression is embattled South African miners union, a used tear gas and rubber bullets to flush them daily producing new martyr~. The New York modest pointer to the sort of class solidarity out, killing at least two miners. Times (28 April) reported repeated chants of needed. The labour movement internationally Meanwhile in the black townships collab­ 'this is a bad place' punctuated by cries of must black all military hardware to the apart­ orators with the apartheid regime are being 'Bazooka!' from militant youth yearning to heid regime, and fight for solidarity strikes doused with petrol and burned or hacked to replace stones with guns in their running with ~heir class brothers in South Africa. death, and repeated confrontations with battle with the police. Above all, a proletarian-revolutionary heavily armed South African police are met strategy is needed in South Africa itself. with new Sharpeville massacres. Sixteen South Africa heading for civil war Militants supporting organisations like the leaders of the largest anti-apartheid forma­ UDF and African National Congress have her­ tion, the United Democratic Front (UDF) have South Africa is heading for civil war. But oically laid down their lives for the cause. been indicted for treason, and the last two should it slide simply into a black-v-white But their struggle is thwarted by a class­ leaders at liberty have now been seized. The race-national military conflict, the poorly collaborationist strategy which looks to a UDF 16 will stand trial for their lives for armed blacks in the cordoned-off townships supposed 'liberal' wing of the South African the 'crime' of leading peaceful protests for will be massacred without any chance that capitalist class -- a win~ exemplified by the basic human di~nity and rights like being able their sacrifice will bring down the white­ Progressive Federal Party of none other than to live with your family. Drop the charges supremacist reGime. Incidents such as the the Oppenheimers, the very people responsible against the UDF l6! Free all anti-apartheid severe burning two weeks ago of a white youth for the mass sackings and butchery of black fighters! who stopped in a black township to buy spirits continued on page 11 Reagan at Bitburg Lessons of history V-E Day British labour and in Germany the Russian Revolution ... p4 ... pI Hail Lankan women worker~ struggle! , Lanka Spartacist A snecial meeting of the women garment ......r.'T Soviet Union, uses workers of Magnum Garments Limited was r--~ racism to divide g f ! organised- in February to see our comrades of _f - white workers the Spartacist League/Lanka hand over to their t;i against black work­ union, the All Ceylon Commercial & Industrial ers in the (nited Workers Union, funds collected in Australia in States. JR and the support of their strike last year. The text of capitalists are a speech given to the meeting by a represen­ trying the same tati ve of the international Spartac2st tend­ trick here, I ask ency is reprinted below. you not to be It is a very great honour for me to speak fooled. to you today. I would like to explain why this The great Russ­ is so, and why the international Spartacist ian revolutlonary tendency thinks your struggles are very leader, Leon important. Trotsky once sald I'm sorry that we could not bring to you that when they are this money we have collected when you were ." aroused there will still on strike, when you most needed it. I'm \ be no better sure, however, you will find a good use for fighters ~or commu­ it. I have been told that the Magnum manage-, - nism than the women About 1 00 mainly women workers at Magnum Garments in Sri Lanka met to accept ment is refusing to pay you bonuses. Perhaps strike support funds collected by the Spartacist League of Australia and New Zealand. of Asia. I hear this money can be used to help in these new people say that fights. The Apparel Garment workers are on say that because a str'ike is not led by our women in Sri Lanka are not interest~~ strike, perhaps it could be used to support Darty we will ignore it. Today our American, in politics, that they are backward. Yes it is their struggle. German and French comrades have been working true that women have special problems and bur­ The money was collected by our Australian very harti to support the British miners dens. But I cannot accept these excuses. I comrades. According to the standards of living strike. know that women workers can and must be in the in Australia this 13,000 rupees is not a large The miners have been on strike for ten vanguard of the struggle. amount, but it is a gesture of how important months. Now it is one of the coldest winters British imperialism made super profits from they think your struggles are. The capitalists for thirty years. President JR's friend Mrs the tea plantations. Now the Sri Lankan capi­ in Australia try to encourage white racist Thatcher is using police violence, scabs, the talists share these profits. But still the attitudes. But Australia is part of Asia. Our law courts and starvation to try and beat the plantation workers live and work in terrible comrades in Australia know that they must miners. The trade union bureaucrats and the conditions. Now the capitalists also want to build links with the workers of Asia if they top leaders of the Labour Party have tried to make fat profits from the workers of the Free wish to get rid of Australian imperialism.
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