No 146 July/August 1995 30p Newspaper of the Silartacist League Racist state killing of Brian Douglas On 3 May two cops from Kennington ation after being trussed up and pinned unemployment is more than 35 per Public relations exercises in "com­ police station in London stopped Brian to the floor, with thirteen feet of adhe­ cent, with Pakistani and Bangladeshi munity policing" cannot hide the brutal Douglas for a minor driving offence. sive tape wrapped around her head. unemployment four times that of reality. Calls for community control of Five days later Douglas died in hospi­ The cops, who were only charged with whites. Racial tension had been height­ the police are reformist chimeras and tal, the result of being beaten about the manslaughter, not murder, claimed that ened over the Lumb Lane "red light" demands for "independent" enquiries head with the new "American-style" they were simply following government area. In a dangerous twist, Asian are only invitations to cover up. Fascist police batons. The two police officers "procedures". Last October, Joseph vigilantes, with the tacit co-operation and racist attacks must be met with the responsible have been given "compas­ Nnalue died when he fell from a fourth of the police, have engaged in a reac- independent mobilisation of the multi­ sionate leave" to recover from "person­ floor window of his home after immi­ • tionary moralistic campaign to drive racial working class and its allies al trauma". Douglas is dead, the first gration police burst in. The acquittal of out prostitutes, both black and white. among the oppressed black and ASian killing with the new batons-another Joy Gardner's killers is a green light to This can only exacerbate tensions. communities. Full citizenship rights for black victim of the racist "law and or­ the police and immigration officials to Prostitution should be decriminalised. all foreign-bom workers and their fami­ der" of capitalist Britain. Over two terrorise refugees and asylum seekers, Unemployment, poor housing, deprived lies! Down with the racist immigration thousand people took to the streets in and an attempt to terrify black and schools, racial attacks and police ha­ and nationality laws! two angry protest demonstrations after Asian communities. rassment is what capitalist Britain It is capitalism which breeds racism the killing. On 9 and 10 June the anger of Asian offers minority youth. The Criminal and incites its guardians in blue to' act A few weeks later cops charged with youth boiled over in the Manningham Justice Act, which passed through with impunity against the oppressed. the manslaughter of Joy Gardner were district of Bradford, sparked by a po­ parliament unopposed by Tony "law Joy Gardner and Brian Douglas will acquitted. Special deportation and lice attack on an Asian family. Youth and order" Blair's Labour Party, pro­ never see justice, but the masses of extradition squad police and immigra­ battled with riot cops and on the sec­ vides cops with increased powers to other potential victims of this rotten tion officers stormed into her home on ond night attacked white-owned prop­ attack trade unions, blacks, Asians, system will, when capitalism is over­ 28 July 1993. Gardner died ofasphyxi- erty. In this heavily Muslim area male minorities and youth. thrown and workers rule established. ~ <. : Imperialist rivalry and the Balkan slaughter Last month, American. warplanes flights and provide air cover for dle UN bombed Bosnian Serb forces, which re­ rapid-reaction force. TItis nwks a major sponded by taking British, French and step for post-reunification Genllany, wltich other UN "peacekeepers" hostage. Clinton has grown increasingly assertive since an­ then announced dlat US ground troops nexing East Gennany in 1989-90. Bonn would participate in "a reconfiguration and has already sent two warsltips to dle area, a strengdlening" of the UN forces. More and Gerntan officers are on board AWACS than 23,000 US military personnel were planes directing NATO air strikes, but dtis dispatched or readied for deployment to the move nlarks dle first combat ntission for Balkan region. On 3 June at a NATO Gerntan military forces since World War meeting in Paris, Pentagon chief Peny II. TIle decision is e.\.'peCted to be approved pledged US air support for a European by dle Bundestag (parliamcnt), and has "rapid reaction" force. Yet that same day, split dle opposition Social Democrats. following the downing of a US flier by Still, Gerntan war ntinistcr Volker Ruhc Serb anti-aircraft rockets, and facing an emphasised that Bundeswchr ground uproar by dle Republican-dominated Con­ troops will not be scnt to dle fonncr Yugo­ gress and a hostile public reaction, the slavia, whcre memories of dle Nazi inva­ American president backtracked, saying it sion are strong. was "extremely unlikely" US soldiers All of dlC partics involved in dle Balkan would be involved, and dlen only to evac­ blood-bath-the various Western imperial­ uate dle UN forces. ists, dlC Russians, dle local nationalists­ This kind of zigzag and double-talk is engagc in constant ntanoeuvres, back­ by no means unique to dle hapless and Darko Bandie stabbing and revefsals of policy. Therc inept Clinton gang. Far from it. Sound­ Swedish UN troops patrol Tuzla In central Bosnia. Balkan wars have exposed have been countless and contradictory UN ing macho, France's newly elected right­ and Intensified Imperialist rivalries. and NATO resolutions and "peace" plans, ist president, Jacques Chirac, declared continued on page J2 that French troops would no longer be keepers" being held hostage against fur­ "humiliated" by dle Serbs but would thcr NATO air strikcs, and dley are now now fight back. The new 12,500-strong talking of pulling out tlleir troops-the quick-reaction force has been set up for largest contingent of dle UNINATO just dlat purpose. The French aircraft forces in Bosnia-by tlle end ofdle year. carrier Foch was dispatched to the Adri­ TI1C latest development is dle decision atic to join the USS Theodore Roose­ on 26 Junc by dle Gerntan government to velt. At the same time, French officials . send amled forces to dle Balkans. Tonmdo were negotiating a private deal with figllter jets equipped widl sopltisticated Bosnian Serbs to release UN "peace- radar-jallU1ting equipment will join NATO COB headquarters in 1980. And around dte world, dte Bolivian army is reviled for Down witli~the Bolivian state of siege its mercenary role in the CIA assassi­ nation of Ernesto Che Guevara. The Partisan Defunce Committee has sent Tony Bcnn. But whilst speaking out USSR. Never mind dlat WP had sup­ Reprinted below is a statement distrib­ a message to the Bolivian embassy denounc­ uted by the Spartacist League/Britain at a against the anti-union attacks, various ported CIA-backed, reactionary Solid­ ing dte raids and arrests, dentanding the arnosc in Poland and stood in support of demonstration in London on 25 April, fake-left organisations like the Workers stage of siege be lifted and all victints of dte Yeltsin' s counterrevolutionary barricades protesting the brutal repression of trade Intcrnational League (WIL) and WP reactionary crackdown released. We call on unionists in Bolivia. Since then the COB postured as opponents of class collabora­ in Moscow, August 1991. working-class organisations and defenders of It was a Spartacist Lea~e speaker who union federation bowed to the state of tionism. Lcading WIL spokesman, Rich­ democratic liberties around dle world to join detailed our principled stance of defence siege and on I May callcd off its general ard Price said that the history of Bolivia in protesting dte Bolivian government's of the gains of October and opposition to strike. Soon after the teachers also re­ showed that it's fatal to rely on. petty dictatorial measures and assault on dte la­ treacherous popular front betrayal. As our turned to work after 50 days of hard strug­ bourgeois nationalists. However he didn't bour movement. TIle intentational working statement makes clear, class collabora­ gle. Several hundred unionists and leftists mention that his organisation called for a class holds dle government of President tionism has left a bitter legacy of defeat in are still being held under military law. vote to the ANC/COSATU/SACP, na­ Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada responsible for Bolivia. TIle proletariat of Bolivia desper­ On 18 May, a mccting org~ised by the tionalist popular front in the South Afri­ anything dtat 118ppens to dtose it has seized. ately needs its Bolshevik party. (Workers PowerlLcague for a Revolution­ can elections last year! Meanwhile a WP President Sanchez clearly intends to ary Conununist International-initiated) supporter cribbing from our statement, repeat his "exploit" of 1985-86, when after Bolivian Union Solidarity Conunittee described how Jeffrey Sachs had used defeating a march on La Paz by the nulitant drew over 100 people from the Icft and Bolivia as a guinea pig for capitalist re­ TIle state of siege decreed by dte Bolivian tin miners, tile govenunent in which sanchez labour movement including Labour MP, storationist policies in Poland and the government at midnight, April 19 is an was then dte economic czar simply closed assault on dle trade-union movement and a down dle state-Qwned mines. In March frontal attack on the rights of the working 1985, at dte height of a general strike, dte people and horribly impoverished masses of unions ltad effectively occupied the capital. Tory bastards brawl over Europe dlis Andean country. TIus act of force is But as in any real general strike, dle question aimed at smashing the general strike under was sltarply posed: which class SI1811 rule? way for dte last three weeks, which in turn TIle COB leaderslup under veteran caudillo Blah' stands ready to serve the City was called to back up dte 80,000 teachers, Juan Lechin did nodling, and eventually on strike for a mondt and a half against dte voted to disband dte occupation.