Smash Apartheid-For Workers Revolution I" =~ ~ !:F Jj;, ..!!!L'" Ii ..Ill Iii ~ • I JUNE 20-The Cold-Blooded Slaughter ',>
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..:.. -~ ~ #. c.l ~ Of> "" -~ ~ ~4- WfJRNERS ,,IN'II,IR' 25¢ iJj ':~))c.523 25 June 1976 ;" No. 115 lit I •ill Smash Apartheid-For Workers Revolution I" =~ ~ !:f jj;, ..!!!l'" Ii ..ill iii ~ • I JUNE 20-The cold-blooded slaughter ',>-. of school children in Soweto has caused '%~ the smoldering discontent of South i Africa's urban black masses to flare into open rebellion. For a few days this week I the "African townships" on the Witwa tersrand, the mining and industrial I heartland surrounding Johannesburg, I saw thousands-strong crowds of work ers and youth hurl themselves against I the symbols of oppression with torches, I knives, stones and bare hands. This plebeian revolt illuminates the seething unrest of the subjugated non-white = population of the apartheid police state. Only hours after issuing orders to "maintain law and order at all costs," South African prime minister Balthazar " Vorster embarked for West Germany where he will confer with U.S. secretary I of state Henry Kissinger. Their hands stained with the blood of Indochinese, 4 black Americans. Angolans and South t'- Africans, these tWO statesmen of irr:peri - uPI d a\ist butchery and white supremacist South African students protesting minority rule were brutally attacked by police in Soweto iast week. ~ barbarism will no doubt find a great - deal in common. Both have an interest ........ starvation in Chile, has joined Reagan The police aimed their weapons and - in ballyhooing the sham "indepen in criticizing Kissinger's recent trip fired without warning. One teenage dence" of the Transkei, so-called "tribal through black Africa and has even student fell dead with a slug in his chest. homeland" for South Africa's Xhosa opposed majority rule in Rhodesia. But Another, a boy about seven years old, people, planned for October and also in the feeble protests of liberal politicians was hit and died on the way to the pressuring Rhodesia's tottering white and black leaders against the whitewash hospital. As the youths fled this savage regime to step aside in order to postpone ":Ii of the Pinochet and Vorster dictator onslaught, others were gunned down. A ::lI the day of reckoning with white suprem acy in South Africa itself. ships can do little to impede these third youth and an elderly bystander cynical Realpolitik maneuvers. The trail died of their wounds. ;;;0; While the official body count of slain "'" of blood left by the bourgeoisie from The police pumped a deadly fusilade ~ blacks in the Witwatersrand climbs over -~ 109 dead and I, 100 wounded (the actual Soweto to Santiago will be avenged only of over 300 rounds into the unarmed by the international working class, crowd. The killings were a deliberate act figures are far higher), Kissinger will ..~ have to strain even harder to overcome which alone can bring the dawn of of political terror. Although the govern the pariah image of the Pretoria regime. liberation from racial and class enslave ment quickly spun a tale of endangered ment, through proletarian revolution to police defending themselves with a As indicated by his junket to Santiago P!iO smash apartheid. last month, the top foreign policy carefully controlled show of force, a senior police official on the spot -'"' maker's expressions of concern for III Slaughter in Soweto answered a British reporter's query human rights are nothing but balm for ."., whether warning shots were even fired: bourgeois consciences, rhetorical per On J4ne 16, 10,000 black students ~ "No, we fired into the crowd. It's no ~ fume sprinkled over the moldering surged through the streets of Soweto. good firing over their heads" (Times corpses heaped up by American imperi The huge township reverberated that morning to the strains of"Nkosi Sikeleli [London], 17 June). alism's staunchest allies. ~ In the wake of its defeats in Indochina Afrika" ("God Bless Africa"), the black The Rebellion Spreads and Angola, the U.S. ruling class is "national anthem." Protestors carried AP - Student carries body of companion anxious to shore up its diplomatic and banners denouncing the compulsory use The plebeian masses crowded into the killed by police in Soweto last week. military alliances. Rehabilitating the of Afrikaans in their schools. "Afrika urban townships around Johannesburg .... South African and Chilean police states ans is a stench" read one placard, responded to the police atrocities with symbol of the prohibition of African in the eyes of world opinion and expressing the deep revulsion of the an elemental outburst of pent-up fury. home-brew liquor, was put to the torch. bolstering their economies is one step in African masses for the Dutch dialect Two vehicles from the paternalist Bantu In Alexandra, a grim ghetto sur ... Kissinger's maneuvering to re-establish spoken by arrogant descendants of the Administration Board were overturned, rounded by posh white suburbs, a clinic, = a secure global "balance of power" with slaveholding Boer settlers. and two white officials killed. A banner schools and white-owned shops were !!II the Soviet Union. As the crowd converged on Phefeni reading "Beware Afrikaans, the most gutted by flames. In Kathie-Hong, a ~ 'The Kissinger / Vorster talks are also Junior Secondary School, ten police dangerous drug for our culture" was post office was stormed. And in every ~ 3i geared toward protecting Gerald Forti's cars blocked their path. Thirty police, draped over one of the bodies. The township, scatter-shot police attacks iIJ'B' vulnerable right flank from Ronald blacks armed with batons and whites Board's headquarters were burned to raised the death count higher, surpass 1111 ~ Reagan, who recently indicated that, as armed with revolvers and submachine the ground. Vicious police dogs were ing even the 84 killed by police during -=;;-..4 president, he might send U. S. troops to guns, emerged from the vehicles. Angry hacked up and set on fire. and immediately after the orgy of blood =~ ~ bailout the Rhodesian government. students taunted these hated lackeys of As township aft~r township ignited, letting at Sharpeville township in 1960. Such a notable right-wing Republican the Herrenvolk oppressors. A white government buildings and other institu Black college students also erupted. -- ..;.,( as Milton Friedman, former Nixon policeman hurled a teargas shell. The tions of white supremacy were attacked. Administrative headquarters and a economic adviser and architect of mass youths responded with stones and jeers. In Kagiso, a government beer hall, continued on page 8 --- , ., Munoz Delegation Barred From Argentine Mission to UN . , --.ii::.& ....~ Videla's Ambassador Can't Hide Junta Terror . w • • 7 j -"'" " Stop the Scabbing-Spread the Strike! SL Answers Palestinian Nationalist Victory to Mass. Not Jew Against State Workers Arab, But Class Strike! Against Class! BOSTON, June 22-"Illegal" picket physically repel scabs, cop reinforce In the most recent issue of the New lutionary proletarian perspective lines went up at dawn yesterday, ments were immediately rushed to the Left/ academic journal Socialist Revo searches in vain for some equitable commencing the first statewide public scene. lution (April-June 1976) the Spartacist resolution of this "conflict of claims to workers strike in Massachusetts history. The strike takes place in the context League/ Spartacus Youth League comes the same territory" within the frame Massachusetts state employees are of a massive two-year austerity binge under attack for its position on the work of capitalism and imperialist picketing a variety of state agencies, imposed by the liberal Democratic Arab-Israeli conflict. Palestinian na domination. Reluctantly he opts for a offices and institutions, including wel governor. Since 1974 massive cuts have tionalist Fuad Faris, responding to a "two-state solution"-yet another parti fare offices, unemployment offices, taken place in all social programs; previous article in Socialist Revolution tion of Palestine and massive popula prisons, the State House in Boston, welfare grants have been slashed across by "libertarian socialist" Noam Chom tion transfers to establish separate hospitals, mental health care centers, the board by 20 percent; 18,000 alleged sky, singles out the SL/ SYL position as Palestinian Arab and Hebrew states public beaches and the Registry of ly "employable" unemployed have been the most "extreme attitude" within the recognizing that "both states, one must Motor Vehicles. Traffic was initially kicked off the welfare rolls in the midst American left placing "Arab and Israeli expect, will be based on the principle of jammed by raised bridges, which were of double-digit unemployment; tuition at national rights in Palestine on an equal denial of rights to citizens of the wrong later lowered by striking bridgetenders state colleges and universities has been footing." category." Chomsky pessimistically under court orders. However, the almost doubled; medical services have In his article entitled "To the Ameri concludes, "A solution imposed by sewage plant at Deer Island was shut been eliminated for 100,000 working can Left: A Few Remarks on the imperial force is hardly to be welcomed, down today, which will have a major people, and wages for all state workers Palestine Problem and the Middle East" but it is not easy to conjure up a impact in increasing the scope of the have been frozen. Since 1969, the year of Faris prefaces his polemic against preferable and feasible alternative." At strike. the last general wage increase granted Chomsky with a denunciation of the best, according to Chomsky, such a Governor Michael Dukakis asserted state workers, the average wage of SL/SYL position on the Near East. Cyprus "solution" may develop "to that he would not bargain with the Massachusetts public employees has Demagogically insinuating "Eurocen wards a binational arrangement of the unions until the illegal strike is terminat dropped to 38th in the country, accord trism" and Yankee arrogance, Faris sort that was advocated by much of the ed (under a 1973 law state employees ing to union sources.