The Chichester-Clarks Genet on Black Power B la c k Creedence Clearwater Vietnam / Trinidad/Cuba D w arf Jack Straw/Mao Established 1817 Vol 14 No 33 10th May 1970 Price 2/- The Black Dwarf 10th May 1970 Page 2 No Foreign Troops Tinfoil Tiger, in Trinidad! we go to press the U. S. and unreported, strikes grew in fre­ The Apollo 13 space mission should a whole it is just one more Television Guadalcanal, with 15 helicopters and quency. Above all, illegal activity in­ be the last for a very long time. show. It may bedazzle them, they .000 marines on board, is steaming creasingly forced the unions to These particular extravaganzas of may get sucked into the orgy of towards Trinidad. Two British the capitalist spectacle have already national tub-thumping that surrounds rigates, the Sirus and the Jupiter, become political organisations so consumed enough of the world’s re­ it, they may “itentify” with the and five other U. S. warships have much so that they now constitute a sources and technology. They have glamourised stars at the centre of it taken positions off the coast. The real extra-parliamentary political already sickened people enough with all. But they are not involved in it, ayana and Jamaican armies are opposition. As discontent among the their flag-waving ballyhoo and their they have not helped to create it, and r eady for action. Venezuelan workers has increased, the militant shoddy chauvinism. they are certainly not the ones who warships and planes have been unions have gained in strength. The first landing on the moon was make a profit out of it. The idea that note d to the North East sector. And Now the workers have started to a great triumph for mankind, and the American people—still less hum­ overnight the US has sold the act, for they have been joined by socialists would be cold fish if they anity as a whole—make any real pro­ Trinidad Government 50 machine another force, the young didn’t share a sense of excitement gress as a result of the moonshots is unemployed. ins. 82, 500 rounds of machine gun over it. But for the Venezuelan pea­ a monumental trick. ammunition, 10 81m mortars with 200 sant whose children die of hunger When we understand the values in­ rounds of shells and 150 smoke shells. Unemployment in Trinidad is pro­ while Rockfeller makes millions out herent in these efforts, we begin to An independent, rev o lu tio n ary bably around 25%, and many of of his Venezuelan ranches, the achie­ understand why the American Trinidad threatens the whole of the these are young people who have vements of the U. S. on the moon Government is prepared to invest Caribbean. The US prides itself on benefitted from free secondary seem very uninspiring. Their appeal such vast sums of money in space having isolated and contained the education. It is these young people, must be even more limited for the investigation. The space programme Cuban revolution. Cuba lies off apparently led by the students, who Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian says some very important and very Florida in the North of the Carib- have constituted the core of the people who find that same American destructive things to the world: ean. In the South, Trinidad lies a black power movement which has technology employed in obliterating ordinary people are impotent and ew miles off Venezuela—well placed swept Trinidad in the last year. The their homelands. useless, they cannot do anything o run arms into the guerilla-torn pro­ original inspiration for the move­ This last moonshot, which nearly significant about their fate, progress vince of Oriente, and from there to ment came from Stokely killed three men and achieved absolu­ means leaving it to the experts, tech­ the whole South American continent. Carmichael, himself Trinidad born. tely nothing, cost £180 million. The nology is the answer to all our pro­ Trinidad’s oil would end the petrol But in Trinidad black power means, total U. S. space programme costs blem s, A m erica is biggest and best, rationing in Cuba; Cuba’s experience unequivocally, anti-imperialism; It is £8,000 million a year. That this kind it doesn’t matter anyway so long as would help make the revolution in aimed against the domination of of money should be poured into it’s a good show, meanwhile, just sit Trinidad. And between them lie the Trinidad’s economic life by foreign space while millions of human beings back in your armchairs and enjoy it West Indies: Jamaica, Haiti, Domini­ Big Business. here on earth suffer needlessly from on the telly, worship the superstars can Republic, Puerto Rico, Anguilla, poverty, drudgery and disease is, served up for you by the system, and Barbados... quite simply, lunacy. It cannot be wait for Uncle Sam to pull his next Trinidad is an island divided by justified, whether it happens in the trick out of the bag. imperialism. Racially 46% are United States or in the Soviet Union. Black, 36% Brown; Economically the But it is not merely the waste and To this false and anti-human ideo­ Blacks predominate in industry and misdirection of resources that calls logy, we must oppose our own revolu­ the oil fields while the Indians are these exploits into question. Equally tionary concept of progress. People ground down on the Sugar Planta­ important is the twisted concept of can and will control their destinies, tions; Politically the party system is human progress, the grotesque distor­ and not even the technology and divided on racial lines. tion of human potential, that the might of American Big Business will Eric Williams Progressive space race represents. Space travel stop them. It is the masses—the ordi­ National Movement has won every is an activity that the majority of the nary people of the world—who will election for the last twenty years on people are totally alienated from. collectively create the future. It will the basis of the Black vote. Williams, Blather about it being a collective be a future free of poverty, free of a progressive bourgeois, is impotent enterprise because it involved thou­ fear, free of the rotten values of before the power of imperialism. He sands of technicians obscures the capitalism. And they will build it has sat ineffectually on the fence fact that for the American people as here on earth, not up in the sky. while his ministers proceed with the profitable business of smuggling and land speculation. Just to make sure that it remains in power, the PNM EDITORIAL The Dwarf is moving into new offices. We urgently need a bribes the opposition, and has ship­ ped in voting machines from the large table, chairs, desks, filing cabinets and other office United States. The last link in the chain is the Indian sugar workers. Faced with equipment and materials. Please phone us at 370-4435 worsening employment prospects and we will collect and pay (knock-down prices only). The present crisis began after and working conditions they have independence with the reawakening been getting increasingly militant. Here is your chance to get rid of unwanted stuff that you of the labour movement, which has a On the other hand they are clearly have been trying to give away for ages. history of militant struggle going wary, in a country riddled with back to 1936. The Unions had been racism, of black power. The leaders Also— a reminder. As stated in our last issue, the Dwarf weak and inactive until, in 1961, the of the progressive struggle realised has increased its size to 16 pages in order to make room Oilfield Union was forced by grass­ this and in the last few months they roots pressure to call a strike over a have tried to tone down the black­ for more news and information and special features. This massive wage demand. The dock and ness of their rhetoric. They now has meant a rise in price to 2/-. We hope you think that transport workers unions blacked all speak of afro-indians. They recently oil shipments. The Oil Union had its held a march into the sugar belt to the new Dwarf is worth it, and that you will take out a sub­ own reserve, and effectively it ran recruit their brown comrades, and scription. You can still subscribe at the old price:- the country for the duration of the first reports make it clear that some strike, while British warships sat in brown workers have joined the £1 for 6 months— 13 issues. the bay and the US troops stayed on struggle. £2 for 1 year— 26 issues. the alert in their lend-lease base (since disbanded). Eventually the oil It will be hard to overcome the workers won a massive wage in­ racial divisions bequeathed by crease, and in the wake of the colonialism. It will be even harder to victory a new progressive leadership end the massive exploitation of the was elected in the Union and has led islands by Britain (Tate and Lyle he struggle ever since. The old own the sugar), and America EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE (Texaco own the oil). Black and Anthony Barnett, Vinay Chand, Clive Goodwin, Fred Halliday, President joined the CIA. The next John Hoyland, John McGrath, Adrian Mitchell, Mike Newton, crucial event was a strike of the Brown power on the island means Sheila Rowbotham. more than moving coloured men into sugar workers in 1965. The sugar Editorial: Patrick Burns, Ian Clegg, Jonathan Coe, Jo Dale, Judy workers, who suffered appalling the top jobs of these companies.