~ Australasian '- Number 112 August/September 1985 30 cents Black Masses Defiant, Class Battle in Mines • o rica , • AUGUST 3 - On 20 July, apartheid were killed when police opened fire fuhrer president P W Botha declared a on a crowd of 400 demonstrators in "state of emergency" in 36 black the black township of Tumahole townships and cities in South Africa. outside Parys, 75 miles south of The sweeping order includes the Johannesburg, and officially at least heavily indusUial Transvaal around 16 others have been killed. Johannesburg, and the Eastern Cape Priests,lawyers, teachers and politi­ region around the auto centre of Port cal activists were said to be among Elizabeth. Henceforth, any member of those detained as the police moved in the state security, police or military to seize people identified from lists. l1iS"ViffiiiilJy -tihltfulteo - POW-erg to According to . civil rights monitoring' arrest anyone without cause and hold groups, police took hostages - one a them incommunicado without trial for four-year-old boy - to exchange for an indefinite time. Security forces can activists they could not immediately search and seize property without find. The purpose ofthe crackdown, as warrants, seal off any of the areas, the 23 July New York Times reported, impose curfews and censor all news "seems to be to arrest everyone from the specified locations. Violators deemed capable of organising or can be punished by imprisonment for channeling dissatisfaction with apart­ ten years. heid into protests that may involve This was the first emergency decree attacks on reputed collaborators, by the South African regime since as well as labour strikes and boycotts March 1960 - a similar order in the of white-owned shops" . aftermath.of the Sharpeville massacre Police breaking into homes, death Repression sharpens (top); black miners union meeting (above). of 69 unarmed black demonstrators led squad executions of black school to the arrest of 11,503 people, and the teachers, dumping bodies in the sand engagement". In Washington, the while shedding the occasional croco­ voice of anti-apartheid protest was dunes along the Indian Ocean, hippo State Department rushed to endorse dile tear, supports his South African silenced for a decade. Since the order armoured troop carriers rolling Botha's emergency decree: "The junior partner's move to crush the was imposed, security forces have through the black townships spreading situation has deteriorated to the point black revolt, scarcely containing his arrested 1400 of the most visible terror - this is the ' 'free world that the South African Government felt appetite to do it at horne, eg the Philly opponents of the regime, now being regime" Ronald Reagan says will be compelled to institute new measures" inferno. In Australia the apartheid-like held without charge, four black people "reformed" through his "constructive (New York Times, 21 July). Reagan conditions of Aboriginals, sanctioned by the Labor government's arrogant opposition to land rights at the behest of the racist mining ~agnates, is the brutal reality behind Hawke and layden's empty moralising about Nicaragua Defies Reagan Continued on page six Below we publish a report of a seen throughout the country: "Nic­ lation culminating in the US trade INTERVIEW WITH Spartacist supporter's recent trip aragua victoriosa, ni se vende, boycott, the determination to fight DR BERTRAM WAINER to Nicaragua. ni se rinde" (Victorious Nicaragua to defend their revolution was as won't sell out and won't give up). clear as ever. But there is a sense of MANAGUA, July 20 - More than When the threat of a US invasion loss of direction in the country. If a 500,000 people streamed into the was mentioned, hundreds of thou­ US invasion comes, they know what Carlos Fonseca Plaza yesterday to sands of voices roared back, "No to do. In poor barrios you can see Fighter for celebrate the sixth anniversary of pasaran" (They shall not pass) and hand-scrawled signs like, "Yankee the revolution which toppled a "A qui, alia, el yanqui morira" son of a bitch, we're waiting for bloody dictatorship that had ruled (Here, there, the Yankees ""ill die). you" and "The gringos and the Women's Right Nicaragua as its private fiefdom for The crowd was one of the largest reactionaries will die. Nicaragua almost half a century after being in the Nicaraguan capital since the will be Reagan's grave". But installed by the United States. overthrow of the Somoza dynasty by what is to be done now, they ask, Responding to the speech by Daniel a popular insurrection led by the except wait? to Abortion Ortega, president of Nicaragua and FSLN. If the joy of victory was worn In recent weeks, Reagan has been leader of the Sandinista National down after four years of a terrorist escalating his attacks on the Sandin­ Liberation Front (FSLN), the crowd war by the CIA's "contra" mercen­ ista regime, accusing Nicaragua of chanted the slogan which can be aries and brutal economic strangu- Continuedonpag~two SEE PAGE 4 Registered by Australia Post - Publication no NBF0710 The Nicaraguan people also have Nicaragua ••• guns. Tiny Nicaragua can never match the firepower of the Yankee colossus Continued from page one with its aircraft carriers and battle­ Donate Dollars! CruSh the Contras! ships. But to take and hold a country being part of a band of "outlaw will require armed men, and in We print below an abridged ver­ calating campaign of US-sponsored terrorist states". On the eve of the preparing their contingency plans, the sion of an appeal issued in June by terror ever since the 1979 revolution July 19 celebrations, Washington Pentagon will have to take into account our comrades of the Spartacus which overthrew the murderous delivered a secret diplomatic note to the fact that more than 2oo,OOO guns Youth League, youth section of the tyrant Somoza. They vow to fight Managua threatening reprisals against have been distributed to the popu­ Spartacist League/US. The SYL's to the last man, woman and child Nicaragua if more US soldiers are lation so far in 1985. At a ceremony fund drive to defend Nicaragua has against a Yankee invasion. We here killed anywhere in Central America. July 13 in front of hundreds of soldiers struck a sympathetic chord across "in the belly of the beast" must do After reading this insolent note to the where the promotions of more than America. We encourage readers of our part. At this critical juncture it crowd gathered in Carlos Fonseca Australasian Spartacist is imperative to take a stand in 2,000 officers of the Sandinista to contrib­ defence of the Nicaraguan Plaza, Ortega declared: "Nicaragua People's Army (EPS) were announced, ute to this campaign at the has neither practiced terrorism, nor Revolution. A contribution to the Defence Minister Humberto Ortega address below. supports terrorism, nor has it been Student Committee to Defend declared that: involved in any terrorist activity. Who From "Fort Honduras" to the US Nicaragua is part of the blew up the fuel tanks in Corinto?" he "Because of its confidence in the Army's Southcom HQ in Panama, necessary class battle against asked rhetorically. The Nicaraguans? people and in order to be better American military forces are poised Reagan reaction at home, against prepared against eventual direct inter­ "Who mined the Nicaraguan ports? for an invasion of Nicaragua. The the criminals who salute Hitler's vention, the Revolution has turned Who bombedSandino Airport? Who over, in an organized way, 170,000 US trade embargo is an act of war, SS at Bitburg and firebomb black published the CIA murder manual? AKA, G-3 and other automatic and the next step, now openly babies in Philadelphia. .. So who are the terrorists? ' , rifles; 25,000 mechanical rifle!> discussed by the Reagan adminis­ The SYL is assuming all adminis­ popularly known as 'macho-killers' tration, is to send in the troops. The trative costs for the campaign. Defend Nicaragua! [M-44s], about 5,000 of them prepared Spartacus Youth League has under­ Every dollar you give will go to for snipers; 40,000 BZ, PPK, M-23 taken a fund drive to raise urgently Nicaragua. Make your "anti­ Last month the press was full of and M-25 and other semi-automatic needed dollars for Nicaragua's contra"bution now! Make cheques articles about US preparations for rifles and sub-machine guns; and defence ... , payable to the Student Committee direct military intervention in Central 20,000 hunting weapon!> of all kind!>. This is no charity drive. The to Defend Nicaragua. Mail to: America. According to the New York The Revolution has handed over more Nicaraguan masses have been SYL, Box Church St Station, than 200,000 rifles in an organized 3118, Times (4 June), a leading Pentagon courageously fighting the es- New York, NY 10008, USA. expert "asserted that the Nicaraguan fashion to its people in order to defend the people's interest!> .... " people would rise up in support of an American invasion .... " They may be In addition to mass mobilization into "Tachito" Somoza fled Nicaragua. For but we have created 870 new sorely surprised. Speaking to some the army and militia, special mobile one day, a puppet "caretaker" gov­ landowners." of the hundreds of thousands who units, anti-tank and anti-helicopter ernment desperately tried to organize The petty-bourgeois Sandinistas gathered in the plaza to celebrate the units and elite special forces units an "orderly transfer of power". But a have tried to maintain their fiction of victory over Somoza, the FSLN have been created in recent months, mass insurrection surging out of the a "mixed economy", COSEP to the capital's impoverished eastern barrios contrary, as long as their hold on frustrated this attempt to realize the power is not directly threatened.