Socialist Action No. 137, 18 April 1986
The scan: 137-apr-18-1986-SA-UK.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
HANDS OFF LIBYA
U.S. BASES OUT OF BRITAIN
THE DIRECT British government complicity in the United States armed attack on Libya is the logical outcome of the role of the Thatcher government as the poodle of the US. Not one single European government other than Britain has supported this attack. Indeed not even a single government in NATO, outside Canada and Britain, has dared to support the United States in its aggression.
The first polls after the attack show massive opposition to Reagan's outrage in Britain. The overwhelming majority of the countries of the world
SOCiAlist
ACTION
BUILDING AN ALLIANCE FOR SOCIALISM
will utterly condemn
States for this terrorism.
But the Thatcher government not
only supported the US but directly
allowed this country to be used as the
launching pad for the attack.
Thatcher government is directly com-
plicit both in the United States aggres-
sion, and in the murderous killing of
civilians in Tripoli which has been
shown on every television screen.
This attack shows the complete
hypocrisy of the United States and
British Casse
TOTEST The United States govern-
ment has spent the last months at-
tempung do force
military aid to the Nicaraguan contras
through the us Congress.
the United
the dictator
thousands of Nicaraguan citizens The
the world, from
of the United States.
The •fighting ter- Libya because of
$100 million of
Israeli state and These
Nicaraguan forces, the remnants of
Somoza's National Guard, and hired mercenaries, have gressive about it. massacred, raped, and killed literally
The United States has also financed the Duarte regime of El Salvador whose death squads killed 20,000 people in one year. Every dictatorship in
Chile to South tional policy.
Africa, knows it can rely upon the aid ine British
United States did not attack 'terrorism' but because Libya refuses to support US Argentina policies in the Middle East and other (Falklands) parts of the world. Libya opposes the
has supported Nicaragua. The United States attacks
All out against the war
National Demonstration outside US Embassy Assemble 12 Noon Grosvenor Square Saturday 19 April
Called by CND
For details of local actions outside US Bases call CND on 250 4010 Libya not for what is reactionary about the regime but for what is pro-
This United States aggression which continues the forty years of continuous open international aggression it has shown since World War II, must lead to a rethinking, by the labour movement of its entire interna-
The relation between gover cal and the United States is a relation of aggres sion against the peoples of the world.
In 1982 it was a British war against
over the Malvinas aided by the United States. In 1986 it is United States attacks on Libya aided by Britain. In between times, and all the time, it is
No. 137 18 April 1986 30p support for the contras in Nicaragua.
This entire 'partnership' has to be ended. It has now been shown not just in socialist propoganda but in actions that the US bases in Britain have nothing to do with 'defence' whatever They are to make Britain the United She or un Ananted provide a base States' unsinkable aircraft ‚for Thatcher's own military operations. The Labour movement has to fight to stop the aggression against Libya. It has to get the United States forces out of Britain.
The open exposure of US aggression and British complicity must be condemned in itself. It must open up a new chapter in international policy for the labour movement.
Page 2 scan of this page
ACTION
All out on May Day
Палін
+45H
Building solidarity
with the printworkers
AS THE News International strike enters its twelfth week it is clear that only with the active support of other trade unionists brought to heel. Behind Murdoch stands the rest of the Fleet St barons and the Tory government. Behind the printworkers should stand the whole of organised labour movement.
It is this situation that printworkers •their allies have to change if the dispute is to be won. With the full backing of the labour movement, printers will gain the confidence to extend their action and reverse the series of setbacks that are being inflicted upon them in the newspaper industry.
Central building such solidarity Is understanding the lessons of the miners strike especially Ine alances
vhich were built across the broad labout The mobilisation from the Yorkshire NUM on the 6 April demonstration, by far the largest contingent outside OT The print unions, shows what can be achieved.
Already some York217; Air Mail 624 ease send me as special offer.... •I enclose cheque/PO payable to Socialist Action for £ .. Send to: Socialist Action Subs, PO Box 50, London N1 2XP. ... Registered as a newspaper with the Post Office.
Published by Cardinal Enterprises, PO Box 50, London N1. Printed by Laneriage bia. Uh, London Da
=
will Rupert Murdoch be
the
shire pits have levies 1n
support of the strikers.
The example of the NUM
should be taken up
other
particularly the TGWU
and NUR, BUS-
directly involved in the
dispute.
By Pete Evans
At the moment TGWU
members employed by
TNT are delivering the
papers from Wapping.
And if Murdoch is suc-
cessful in transterring to
road deliverv. there could
leaders these
unions must be forced to
take more effective action
than they have done so far.
Actively building the mass
pickets would be a start.
Similarly the Labour
Party must be mobilised in
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SOCiA iSt
SOGAT
support of the printworkers. as lt was during the miners strike. Labour Party members should demand that the party leadership follows the example of the Campaign Group of MPs, who have thrown their weight behind this struggle. Local Labour Parties should be organising meetings in support of the printworkers, and using the local elections as an opportunity to pickets and the boycott
As in the miners strike, SUDDULL committees have been set up in many areas
coordinate activity. These are generally broad based committees involvdifferent activists from many
unions and political views. play an important role in bullding sondarily reaching out to the wider labour movement and in volving both the Labour Party and the key unions locally. But they must have an orientation towards the official structures if they are going to mobilise the level of support necessary to change the present balance of forces in the strike.
coordinating body of support groups, unfortunately witn a different orientation, the Union of Printworkers Groups has been set up. At its second meeting at the beginning of April. at-
70 tenced OVCE delegates, dom the official structures move away
was adopted.
The very size of the meeting, involving mainly London-based groups but some from as far away as Leicester, shows the potential for building support. Sadly this opportunity was wasted.
The first two hours was spent discussing whether or not Fleet St should be brought out on strike, a
3.000 SACKED
NEWS
ERNATIONAL
"SPUTE
NEW NUJ
further half whether the support groups should set up rank and file printworkers group' - and onv a tew ninutes on what suppor groups are and should b doing. Appeals from some
bresent for alternative approach were age odorcu
John Brown, an NGA FOC at the Sun, said 'We want you at Wapping, but support us rather than try
lead us, Wate Bert mere for he Lame th Large SOGAT, support sup that you have to ex- pointed
amine what you not what you would like to do' and said that the only rank and file groups which supporters should relate to are the union chapels, not self-proclaimed alternative leaderships.
Such an approach was successfully adopter by the majority miners support groups who operated alongside the of
structures of the NUM. Only in this wa will it be possible to buil broad support across the labour movement. Linking up with so-called rank anc File groups, and putting
available resources into attacking the leadership of the strike as the UPSG did in its leaflet distributed on the picket solidarity march, weaken the ability of support groups to win active support the strike, estrange them from those printers who want serious support should send delegates e committees the next meeting of the UPSG Camden Town Hall, and April in
force it to reverse its orientation lest it turns the supProm being one of the solu- committees away tions to the strike, into one of the problems.
We can win!
ship.
straight in.
By George Hall, FOC SOGAT clerical Sun and News of the World (personal capacity)
Nor is it the police activities at Wapping, now being used more clearly than ever for strike breaking purposes. There is no pretence in this dispute
No, what is at stake in this dispute is an attempe at de-unionisation aim of Murdoch from the day he planned the ambush on the print unions.
That is why the governnent are lining up firml! ehind the Murdoch plan why there is the high fences with spikes pointing out, the razor wire, the surveillance cameras, and why they are all reinforced by the state That is why there are police in droves defending the Wapping plant, escorting the lorries in and out of the comple why there are roads cut off from the public under 19th century law, and why residents need passes to get into their own homes.
If Murdoch succeeds the Tory government would have gained its big. gest prize, the breaking of the mighty print unions. Make no mistake, this is the issue.
The print leadership must grasp the nettle. No amount of cosy job and conditions selling exer cises will stand the test of time if Murdoch gets his way. The rest will follow like a pack of cards.
SOGAT • NGA • AUEW • NUJ • SERTUC
PRINTWORKERS
MARCH FOR JOBS
GLASGOW / NEWCASTLE TO WAPPING JOIN US ON
SATURDAY 3™ MAY
IN LONDON AT 7-30 ON THE EMBANKMENT FOR A MARCH TO WAPPING & A MASSIVE NATIONAL RALLY OPPOSITE 'FORTRESS WAPPING AT 9. 00. pm.
THE MAGNIFICENT resistance of the sacked News International workers is beginning to tell at Murdoch's Wapping fortress. After the gimmicky offer of the old Gray's Inn Road plant to the sacked workers failed to dent their resolve, Murdoch has now suggested across-the-board redundancy pay and compensation as a way to resolve the lock out. Quite correctly, responded by insisting that the key to any solution is the re-recognition of the print unions and full reinstatement.
By Brian Grogan Moreover, the pressure in Wapping is now building up to the extent where some of the scab journalists working there are themselves considering calls for action. The Sunday Times and News of the World NUJ chapels are calling on its officers to organise a ballot for strike action if no significant concessions have been made to the unions by 30 April. Such proposals would increase only if the NUJ reverses its measures against those journalists in the tortress ignoring their union instructions to join other workers on the picket line.
Meanwhile, SOGAT, are presently being ballotted at various distribution centres around the country to take boycott action of the News International titles.
Labour movement
tributing to this sort of changing mood amongst print workers themselves.
May Day can massively re-enforce the confidence of the workers to take action. And what better way to celebrate international labour day than closing down Wapping!
THIS is a battle we can't afford to lose. The stakes are far too high to leave this to the national leader-
The crux of this matter is not just that 5,500 workers have been sacked for taking industrial ac tion in defence of their livelihoods. Nor is it the se questration of the union funds — where for the first time we have seen the Tory laws in their full glory.
No two weeks to purge the contempt, the boot went
is a national dispute. Take the fight to the rest of Fleet Street.
Despite Express debacle use this as the catalyst to trigger us into action When was the last time workers accepted inferior SECTIS Fleet Street? The writing is and conditions in
on the wall. We must stop the retreat and fight back, or see our industry deunionised. One thing is for certain, with the righ policies we can win this one and turn back the tide.
The morale of the strikers 1S high. After eleven weeks the confidence is growing. Mur doch, after weeks of refusing to make any kind of of-
however, union officials have executive's positions and take disciplinary
members of the largest print union,
support has been vital to con-
aDOU MOVCHICHL aCLVILICS aLOuL Ter. is torced into publicity style proposal to up his fading credibility.
Build the campaign now. The support groups crucial •LU the 'boycott' the teeth it needs, to picket the local newsagents depots.
Mass picketing can onsolidarity of the succeed with zIne labour movement. Come down to Wapping Stop Murdoch once and the momentum will grow A 24 hour strike of the national print trade essential to show we mean business. Put the pressure the leadership, tell them what is at stake.
On the EETPU, that is Hammond, we must call for the TÚC to take the proper course. No more shilly shallying. Throw them out before they grow strength amd simply walk r movement do the the labour movement the middle.
Let's build the support groups, the confidence of the strikers and take the struggle out to the movement. And let's win: Jobs not compensation!
SOUTHEAST REGION TUC IN COOPERATION
* WITH THE JOINT MAY DAY COMMITTEE *
Announce a major march and
* DEMONAPPANON *
AT WAPPING
MAY DAY
Thursday May Ist 1986
Assemble Tower Hill from 8-pm
Page 3 scan of this page
All out against the war
2 Socialist Action 18 April 1900
ACTiON
Labour after Fulham THE FULHAM by-election showed three things: that there is an desire to get rid of the Thatcher ment at the next election, that Neil Kinnock
is leading Labour to one of the greatest disasters in its history, and that socialists still remain very much a minority within the working class. basis of the policy of the labour movement.
There is no doubt that the Fulham result was extremely_serious for the Tories. claims of Tebbit and others, and talk in the press of a 'normal mid-term swing, by 10 per cent compared to the general election.
There is nothing in the political situation which points to a substantial revival of Tory support before the election. Doubtless there will be some regaining of ground by the Conservatives compared to Fulham but at the next election the
would make 197479 look small in comparison.
Consider the situation if a majority govern. ment under Kinnock were formed. Labour today las no economic policies capable of eliminating
even significantly The next Labour gov more than three million unemployed which is not merely despicable in itself but which would be a catastrophe in terms of mass support.
ons against South Africa. He would allow
ases to remain, creating the conditions for ne US aggressin as against Libya.
Such a government would lead to an electoral disaster for Labour and prepare the way for a new right wing Tory government.
But the reality is that Kinnock is not even likely to have the opportunity to pursue this with a majority government. still not a good enough result to secure a Labour majority.
Even in the crudest terms, the 11 per cent increase in the Labour vote at Fulham is not quite enough to secure an overall Labour majority But it is also clear that the Fulham pattern would not be repeated in a general election.
Firstly the resources put into Fulham could never be repeated in a general election. were around 2000 helpers for the Labour Party in Fulham on election day.
Secondly ritory for the Alliance in terms of the social make up of the constituency. the vote still advanced marginally compared to the election. Given a much more favourable constituency at the West Derbyshire and Ryedale -vote is going to advance further.
If Neil Kinnock does not win an overall majority at the election then everyone knows once more that the pressure will be on for coalition -
coalition that would not simply disaster for Labour but would also be followed by the return of a right wing Tory government.
The left must identify powerful sentiment which is building up, and will
be greatly encouraged by Fulham, which wants to see the return of a Labour governmet at the next election and believes that is possible. That is the goal of all of us. But there must be no illusions as to what a Labour government on pre sent policies would mean.
the
overwhelming
the
All three have to form the
Despite the
Tory support tell the debacle of
will preside over — a policy Because Fulham was There
Fulham was extremely bad ter-
The SDP percentage of
coming by-elections in the Alliance
itself be a
strongly with the
RESPONSE IN the
tion Labour movement to
US aggression against Libya has been strong and rapid. By 7pm on Tuesday, the day after the US attack,
Campaign Against
War had been established, CND had called national demonstration against the war at the Us embassy for Saturday, and
demonstrations had been held in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham.
On Tuesday in the
House of Commons a
meeting of organisations to oppose the US
attack on Libya met to
establish the Campaign
Against the War. We
reproduce its state-
WE, WHOSE organisa-
tions are listed below,
have come together
urgently to a meeting in
the House of Com-
We utterly con-
demn the American at-
tack on Libya and the
use of British bases
authorised by the Prime
Minister. We call for an
The speed of the reac-
justified and understandable. The United States has been openly exposed for what it
the most aggressive reone lie worl her has been exposed a:
States most faithful collaborator prepared to make Britain a base for even the most blatall deal.
The speed of the reacion is aided by me raci that the United States and Britain stand isolated and exposed internationally
Campaign Against the War
immediate ban on all
further military action,
the cancellation of per-
mission for the use of
our bases and the im-
mediate reference
this crisis to the United
Nations ecs Celi
We also urge
those who share these
views to organise rallies
and demonstrations
throughout the country
and to support the vigils
and demonstrations in
London on Saturday.
Called by Lord Fenner
Brockway
Organised by the World
Disarmament Campaign
Organisations represented:
tions. Only Canada, Israel,
South Africa have dared speak out openly in de ele 01 the United States actions.
The United States claim on 'terrorism' wearing thin - in fact it is a total fraud. The United
already discussed military action against Libya with Egypt in July
long belore le West Berlin bombing which the United blate. claimed as the pretext for its raid.
The United States also SLOBUTLY terrorism throughout the
in fact it is the
• Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament
• The Campaign Group
of Labour MPs
• Čampaign Against the
Arms Trade of • European Nuclear
Disarmament • Labour Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament
• Liverely.
• The Bertrana Russell
Peace Council
• Th Green Party
• National Peace Counc
• Peace Pledge Union
• Quakers' Peace Service
• Unlea Nations
Association
• Women's International
League TOI
• World Disarmament
Campaign
largest terrorist organisation on the planet. In addiTIGR the contras Nicaragua the US supports
such as Africa which regularly carry out terrorist military attacks across their borders (including, HI -cidentally, bombing the ANC headquarters in Lon. don). The United States sens been condemic! by the International Court of Justice at the Hague for mining the gulf of Corinto off Nicaragua's coast. The United States is supporting the UNITA terrorist organisation fighting the government of Angola.
Forty years of US
terror
THE US GOVERNMENT, with troops on the si of no less than 69 countries, operates the world largest terror network. Since 1945 it has maintain its sovereign right to intervene militarily in world country in the Western world where its terests are threatened.
The principles involved spelt out their clearest form in 1965 when the House of Representatives voted, by 312 to 52 that "The US or any other American country (sic) has the right of unilateral intervention in order to keep communism outside the Western Hemisphere. Praticen us interests ant practice has meant threatened the government sends in the marines or finances a coup.
Some of the most famous events in a calen dar of atrocity and violadon l sovereign Hallula rights are: 1953: Iran. Radical prime
Mossadegr is overthrown with US spon sorship and the brutal dictatorshop of the Shah is in-
1954: Indochina. Eisen-
first states the US interest after Tne French are defeated by the communist Minh the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Indochina and the
are sonal to aste us
essential to the both for strategic and
political reasons' US
News and World Report clarifies these interests thus: 'One of the world's richest areas is open to the
winner in Indochina
rubber, • rice, key strategic raw materials are
what the war is really about.'
1954: Guatemala. Liberal president Arbenz is remov-
ed by a US invasion. The
leading figures promoting
the invasion are John Foster Dulles, assistant
secretary of state and his
brother Allen Dulles, head
of the CIA.
Marines
Nuelal. sent in to back up the
government against
popular uprising in line
with the 'Eisenhower doc
trine', approved by Con-
gress in that year, which
asserts that sorce any
justified against
country controlled by in-
ternational communism'.
1961: President
Kennedy sanctions abor-
tice invasion of Cuba , at
of Pigs by right-
LIC DAY
Wis expens and backed
weapons backed
by US-supplied boats and
planes.
But the response of th Labour movement must b clear and precise. specific action must be condemned — and in far
terms than Neil Kinnock has used. But a general conclusion mus be drawn. The policy of the British governmen must be clearly condemned clear and une quivocal for withdrawal of all base must be raiseu
We urge all our readers to support the Campaign Against the War and to support the demonstratio called by CND Saturday. 1962: : Peru. Peruvian al my , led by US-trained col onel, overthrows govern met.
1964: Brazil. Presiden Goulart accused smuggling communism inlo brazi and overturned it
right-wing coup after which Brazil becomes the
centre • of Latin auctica
1965: Vietnam. President Johnson Vietnam patrol boats at
Seventh Flee Tacked int and 'in self-defence" in itiates large-scale bombin of civilian targets in North
Harold Wilson, Labour Prime Minister. supports him. Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon says 'we - have totally flouted the rule of law
we have flouted the United Nations Charter. The USA is drawn into full scale war in Vietnam the first war it lost.
1973: Chile. The democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende is overthrown and the murderous dictatorship of General Pinochet imposed.
1974: The USA has nov secured pro-US i dietator: American countries - the most major very actalors removal it now claims as
'wave of
democracy' By •now
70,000 Latin American of
ficers have attended US training schools, notably an illegal centre at Ford
Gulick in the Canal Zone
which specialises in counterinsurgency.
1983: Grenada. After
nearly a decade of semi-
patalysi. following
defeat in Vietnam, the
USA overruns Grenada ' and imposes a government
which already, according
the Counci
Hemispheric Affairs 'Has
LSe worst human rights
record in the Caribbean'.
Today: The USA has now
installed world-wide
policy of aid to counter-
revolutionary forces.
backs the Nicaraguan
Contras. Savimbi's South
African-backed UNITA
rebels in Angola, and even
the barbarous
government of Cambodia
Page 4 scan of this page
News
Rea
REAGAN'S military prepared l of misinfo sory study claim of 's fraud.
First indications of the build-up came on 9 April. when Reagan threatened new military action against Libya
. DICOS
ference. This was allegedly for Libyan terrorism'.
No specific act was cited and, as usual in the
propaganda • azalusi Libya, none of the alleged considerable evidence' was supplied. Instead, Reagan launched into racist tirade against Qaddafi as the 'mad dog of the Middle East.
US officials have also revealed that Washington shas relected at least seven attempts by Libya discuss a peaceful resolutien of the conflict with the US.
The threats followed the 27. March announcement that the largest naval
assembled the
mediterranean since WorId War 11 was pulling back from waters near Libya. The fleet launched the first attacks on Libya 24 and 25 March that people.
To prepare the ground for the
Why
Libya is
Reagan's
target
LIBYA is North African nation of 3.6 million people. The overwhelming majority are Arabic-speaking. Islam is the religon of 97 per cent of the polulation.
Libyans have been suffering under and resisting imperialist domination for most of the 20th century.
invaded 1911,
1932. was
thiance
Libya,
allied with World War II), placed the
In Libya was. granted independence under King Idris,
British troops con-
Libya, Washington
base the United
near city of Tripoli.
Libya under imperialist
change
things vir-
tually the oil
h poi li
strike Libya was
the Reagan adand the again evidence • Qaddafi
in which two died, and the
order further
Li-
on tidya Inproposals to the
joint of Libya.
Jafeh 'the 31 In
Cairo daily Al the Egyptian nas relecled
revealed that
Washington and the monarchy and its friends monopolised the country's growing wealth. About 10 per cent of the population received more
the national income.
In 1969, while King Idris was traveling abroad
some $60 million in spending money, a military Revolutionary Command Council led by Muammar el-Qaddafi took power. abolished the monarch and took measures to improve living conditions and break the control of the imperialist powers.
The British troops were forced leave, and
shut down the Wheelus base.
In 1971 the government also nationalised the holdings of four major oil
Some cest od less took
per cent ownership of the rest.
The uses to which oil wealth was put were radically different
Security Robert MacFarlane. This was
John vile
ficials. The Reagan administration ac-
New York Times, 'Americam
American
had not final ap-
to
Washington Post. report, the estimated
sions, men,
accorWashington
Qaddafi has and
The Post at the re.
had informa-
Ine inva-
January. under the old regime. While substantial inequality still exists. the masses
have made big gains.
$500 monthly minimum wage was. established many categories of workers. By law, universal primary education was instituted, and education at all levels was made feee of charge.
was medical care and housing. According to the 1986 World Almanac, literacy rate has risen to 40 per cell.
One effect of the regime's measures was wipe the old aristocracy that supported the monarchy. The main beneficiaries the workers, peasants, and sec tions of the middle classes
"Qaddati clearly has considerable support from ine younger and poorer elements of Libya's
benefited most from revolution, conceded the
ternational
capitalist
about always liberation
southern
these world
ed by
wal
of lives,
open
and sabotage
terrorism Journal.
Africa.
that
there.
scoalalc
of the ole ATaT
Lebanon. regime 1980, the
And
country
voice
its alleged support for 'in-
terrorism.'
Washington
media have
they popular like
Central
that
constitutes
accusations,
the of im-
The
mercernary
Nicaragua,
al
Villually in
violence
revealed Histance.
the
He opposed
with
and STates CHe
peo-
the Iraa
Iran in
after
the $100 the Libyan
for the
dafi.
CIA TOr what
assassinate Reagan and
Reagan
ter-
and
was ever presented
The campaign aims to
sultans) subhuman
the by the US
and the
May Mansur of
bombing,
and attempts
bombed.
While the Libyan government refuses to take
trom imperialsil, dependence perialism as a market for
single export makes Libya more vulnerable to imperialist ented throughr essure ex-
Line sharo decline in oil prices and
culualtues Aside from oil which generates 99 per cent of government revenues there is little industry.
Although the Qaddafi regime supports liberation struggles, Oad dati has made deals at the expense of people fighting
When he signed a 1984 treaty pur-
establish political unification of the Libyan republic and the Moroccan monarchy for Crampic broke with the people of the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, who are fight-
their liatlulla. rights.
Socialist Action 18 April 1986 3
evidence, newspapers like issues to those of US imthe New York Post carried perialism. Qaddafi must racist, sexist headlines portraying her as terror gal' to Secretary of State and 'woman of murder.' George Shultz, because he
On 5 April she held a "Is doing things that news conference in Beirut. against our interests. Insisting that she woulc never strike at innocent The US rulers are bitwomen and children, terly opposed the the TWA bombing had democratic rights of nadone, she said she would tions to govern themselves sue the US goverment for and determine their own laying false charges against policies. They are her. escalating wars against
The real reasor for Libya, Nicaragua, Angola Washington's continued and other: countries that assault onLibya is not "ter- dare exercise these rorism, ' but the fact that rights. That is the reason Libya follows policies that TOT the US attack
many Libya.
Tony Benn
calls for ending
of all US bases
NUKES
THE USE of US forces annual conference and
open the way for a comfrom British bases to attack Libya • must foreign policy pletely non-aligned devoted to necessarily raise urgent-
disarmament and developly the question of how ment, and free from the long more we can ac- dictates of a Us presiden cept the prescence on who we did not elect, do our territory of the arm- not control, and cannot
remove. ed forces of another
AS for terrorism the country engaged in US government is the big policies that have gest terrorist in the worl nothing whatever to do with its support for the with our national in- contras in Nicaragua and
the systematic policy of terests. destabilising, undermin-
The case for the ing, and in some cases atclosure of all American tacking progressive bases, and the withdrawal migmes whhreaten belies
all American might threaten must go on the agenda for economic interests.
Statement by
Labour CND
Tuesday 15 April
1986.
LABOUR CND con- need is dems the attack on more urgent than ever for Libya by the govern- Labour to campaign on its ment of the United unilateral nuclear disarma States, the biggest ter- well • POLICIeS WICI in
clude the removal of rorists in the world. nuclear bases. It furthe
We further condemn calls into question the the role of the British wisdom of Britain's con government which knew in tinued membership of the
NATO alliance advance of and sanctioned the use of US bases Labour CND fully supsituated this the demonstration from which this air-raid Groven tre guare Lo was launched, which killed Grosvenor Square, majority comes these don, called by the Cam. majority civilians. paign for Nuclear Disar. bases from which North mament to begin 12 American planes flew in this Saturday, 19
10U1 the early hours of Tursday April morning, under the cover We call on all Labou
Parties and contain and provide organisations, and on the support systells supcruise missiles and other port that demonstration
weapons sited in and resolution this country. reaffirming Labour's
This attack by the nuclear disarmament pled. United States government ges and condemning the
logic of the current arms of Ronald Reagan and build-up which began Margaret Thatcher, , which 1979 with the decision to take the world one step site cruise and Pershing closer nuclear missiles across Europe. It holocaust.
Page 5 scan of this page
4 Socialist Action 18 April 1986
Get the troops out
of Ireland, says
student
conference
IN PROBABLY the most significant policy change on any issue in over a decade, the National Union of Students conference has voted to support a motion calling for unconditional British withdrawal from Ireland. By Connor Foley, Ireland student officer
Previous policy had explicitly supported the British presence and branded all those resisting it as criminals. The last time Ireland was debated was in 1981. Prison conditions in the H-blocks and Armagh were described as the best in the UK and NUS was committed to supporting Thatcher's intransigent refusal to concede the five demands of the hunger strikers: that is, it said political dissident prisoners in a colonial regime should be treated no different from rapists.
The motion passed this time recognised the "inadequacy of previous policy' in failing to address the root cause of the conflict, partition and the British occupation. It declared that Britain had no progressive role to play in Ireland and supported the right of the Irish people, as a whole, to determine their own future. The Hillsborough Accord was rejected as yet another British-imposed solution and NUS was given a mandate to campaign against all repressive measures used to uphold partition including plastic bullets and strip-searching.
It's time to go!
This comes on top of a number of successtul political initiatives by student bodies in Britain against British involvement in Ireland. NOLS has produced posters and leaflets against repression, two national tours have been organised by the LCI and NOLS for Sinn Fein activists around colleges and an activist from freland from the campaigi against strip searches attended the conference itself.
This decision, it is hoped, will promote greater campaigning action by students against the British occupation of Ireland. Amir Khan
appeals expulsion
EIGHTY PEOPLE turned out for a picket of the regional appeal Sparkbrook Labour Kevin Scally and council for Amir Khan. There large members of the Sparkbrook constituency. The appeal will now be discussed at Labour's National Executive, most probably at its May meeting.
The successful picket was called at short notice, and the defence campaign is now planningt a public meeting on 21 May. Ken Livingstone has already agreed to speak and speakers have been invited rom me olack secuon nauonal leadersmy and from the Campaign Group of MPs.
Labour Committee on
ty,
against Birmingham
Party's expulsion of
turnout from Asian
'WE ARE women, we are strong.' This is the inspiring message that came out of the second national Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC) conference on 5-6 April. As WAPC chairperson Ann Lilburn emphasised when opening the conference, WAPC is still a force to be reckoned with.
The conference took place in Sheffield and was WAPC's first full delegate conference. The area delegations were based on one delegate per pit. Every
area was represented and 250 women attended. The Concrete solidation of WAPC, and represented real condeveloped solid perspecves lor is luture progress.
Although number of constitutional issues came un for discussion, the debates came to grips with some of the ma jor issues confronting the working class today. ranged from the internal organisation of the movement, to the defence of the NUM, the relationship of WAPC to the Labour Par-
right through to solidarity with women and other workers nationally
Wales witch hunt
gathers force
A MAJOR witch hunt is gathering force in the Labour Party in South Wales. It Orchestrated by TGWU boss George Wright.
Moves are being made against supporters of the Militant newspaper in a series of constituency Labour Parties.
In Swansea Labour Solidarity has swept to power association AGM, and are
benevea to nave woll every seat on the executive with a slate of candidates pledged
Switch hunt of COUNSA the party.
Even Kinnock's supporters have been removed from office because the
believed they were too soft on Militant.
In Pontypridd a letter has been sent from the largest ward, Rhydyfelin, demanding action against
pressed that although this
voice in the
about it in the right way. I was felt that WAPC must beable to work side by side with the NUM, and still retain the right to use its own Hullalive
WAPC to the Labour Par-
WAPC's affiliation to the
he question of the UDM
Juring the discussior nine ward members - - all members of the LPYS.
TGWU branch all meetings Transport House, the
have
Anita Gale until the produce
for
that Wright Labour and
scale hunt socialists the party in Wales.
put
"We are women,
on affiliation brought greetings from the National Labour Women's Committee, and personal greetings from Richardson, front bench spokesperson on women's rights. Gill said that the
Party than its membership, that
in the party are a Wolle radical force and that WAPC saffiliation would strengthen tion. Conference howeves narrow cereace a vole to affiliate.
The Labour Party also came up in relation to the UDM. A Notts resolution demanded that the party maintain position on Ene UDM not recognise UDM members individual rights to Labour Party membersillp
In the debate Betty Heathfield warned the conference the deep dangers posed by the setting up of scab breakaway organisations. Insiduously, she said, they promote the idea of an alternative trade union movement. The message of the print workers • struggle clearly shows this, she argued.
Help
She concluded by saying whenever a trade union is in struggle let us go out and help - that's helping us as well.
The conference over whelmingly passed the resolution on non-recognition of individual
members In the Labour Party.
Discussions were taken the issues of pit
misuses coal imports,
Da vane the proliferation nuclear power, and their effects on mines and the mining communities. The need for full publication of the facts on these issues, and the need
campaign with the NUM on them, was recognised and supported.
Links
It was put to the conference that after the strong links made with the Greenham Common Women during the strike a logical step to take now to affiliate to CND. The mo-
we are strong!"
tion was narrowly turned down not So much because opposed the sentiments but because there was still uncertainty on the matter of affiliation generally.
The main perspective for the future will be an ac. tive campaign in support of all victimised members
WAPC nationally, and some areas, is already affiliated
Justice for Mineworkers' Campaign. There was complete endorsement of this perspec. tive.
During this discusion Liz French, whose husband Terry French is still in prison appealed for letters to be sent to the men in jail. In the early days of his
Terry for example received hundreds of letters which were
boosters Now, however, the numbers have dwindled to about two letters per week.
Nicki Boyle from South Yorkshire explained that her husband was one of four brothers who were sacked - the whole family was victimised. With four children to care for they
having a hard time. were
There were no sacked miners in any area whor were not suffering. NUM's funds are still in the receivers hands, so the only financial help has to come from the Solidarity Fund, which now dwindling fast.
Money
Several practical pro posals were put forward but the main task was seen to be the raising of money for the Solidarity Fund, so that it can continue to distribute financial help fairly to sacked miners throughout the country.
Remembering the international support received during the strike a decision was taken to affiliate
the Anti-Apartheid Movement. Before the conference ended a report was given by two women who had visited Chile on behalf of WAPC at the invitation Chilean women.
Women had an opportunity to "let their hair
News
at the social on Saturday night. Flaming Nerve entertained tireless. ly ahho talenter
from many coa their poetry the or spok their poetry. whol evening cumulate. repeated and enthusiastic Tendent t 'We women , we are strong' led by Mal Finch
The conference was closed on Sunday afternoon by chairperson Ella Egan. She said would return coalfields remembering women fighting the world including Winnie Mandela and the Chilean women continue the battle for the mining industry, to rebuild and maintain the unity o the NUM, and to fight to establish a new society.
Correction:
Valerie Vaz is not a member of the Labour Party black and Asian advisory ine paper: she see committee
paper. ing/Southall CUP. observer sent
Black Section
Newsletter
Black
Sections
Spring 1986 issue out now, price 50p plus 13₽
p&p. Order your copy
from: Black Section
Newsletter, c/o 122a
Ferndale Road, Brixton, London SW4 7SA.
Page 6 scan of this page
Justice for Mineworkers campaign plans next steps
News
campaign. since the. highly-successful Heroes concert at the Albert Hall on 2 March.
the Durham support
"These are being organised in Scotland, Nottingham and Yorkshire. A concert 1061 organised Blackpool on the eve of the Party Con ference in October. Two videos have been produced for the campaign, one a осинс ole sacked miners, and the other a :90-minute recording of the Albert Hall concert.
Reports also taken executive members and a number of NUM areas.
one wake.
piton, vice-president and George
solton, the Scottish area, reported on plans for a lobby of the Scottish TUC. Maurice Wood of the Yorkshire area executive, Bill Smith of the Northumberland area executive, and Frank
Duffy of the Durham area executive, said that their NUM areas had undertakch to contuc regula meetings of their sacked 1111CS. Terry the South Wales executive and Jim Coughlan, secretary of the Midlands area, both welcomed the
campaign and pledged continued support
miners in their area.
AlIC Suddick, delegate from national Women Against Pit
reported on the national conference, and the resoluțions passed supporting the Justice campaign and prioritising campaigning victimised miners.
Roger Windsor, of the NUM national office, stressed the importance of
Southern Region
conference
CONTINUING OUR round up of this year's Labour
Southern Region Conference. THE exhilaration of Margate prom during the gale that greeted delegates easily beat the inspiration received in hall. The platform, decorated with flashing light bulbs, looked like the set for a cheap quiz show. Unfortunately there were
Stop the Purge: Badges 30p
+ 17p p&p; bulk orders 20p
each for more than 10, plus
3lp p&p from Ray Sirotkin,
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MORE THAN 150 people attended the 13 April meeting of the national Justice for Mineworkers
This vss the can demonstration ting
demonstration
Mike Elliott, socialist comedian, reported from groups and Consett Music, who are responsible for the Heroes organisation. It was decided to continue the Heroes campaign with a
the regular raising activities of campaign. was. launch Ildlottery with the
He also proposed that campaign publish
was agreed to and publicise
Case around the coun Lasliv. he urged the
with the against the Tory This prowas well-received, given the adMike BritSOGAT NEC and two sacked to the
The 13 April meeting turning in the campaign's
Labour Party conThe Albert
important develop In support of the
To step up its work and to organise at each national UTION Concence this summer, it was agreed
general meeting within four weeks. The AGM will elect the national council of the campaign and its officers will be submitted for reelection. council THIe will be composed of twelve Party regional conferences LES HARTOP, delegate for Gillingham CLP (personal capacity), reports on
only small prizes tor the left.
Most motions were absorbed by the delegates in doze, and then a cozy unanimously agreed.
The most significant development in left-right alignments was made by the NUPE and GMBATU delegations who denounced a resolution for con. tinued resistance to the Tory local government controls. Less than half the constituency votes stood in favour of the resolution. should not prevail. Bloomy doom and because where the class divide is drawn absolutely clearly South Africa Wapping the left and carried the day. The ANC and full sanctions received unanimous support e The emergency resolution supporting printworkers despite being opposed ov the executive because of its clear condemnation of
JUSTICE
delegates elected by the NUM areas, twelve from WAPC, twelve regional Justice campaigns and twelve others
luding representatives
NUM and WAPC
Dick Withecombe, of the North West
JUSTICE Callball. and one of the organisers of the Albert Hall concert was elected as an officer of the campaign with responsibility for organising the AGM and establishing Justice campaigns in each Labour Party region.
Regional campaigns currently exist in the South
West west Yorkshire Notts, and
South Wales. Part of the constitution campaign is guidance that such regional campaigns should
formed in conjunction with the appropriate NUM area.
During this week a new national leaflet for the
including standing order form TOT the victimised miners will be prinlea
During the next month this wil distributed throughout the labour movement. to win new atfiliates to the campaign. the role of the EETPU leadership — was however carried with only the EETPU delegation itself voting against.
The debate on the north of Ireland showed hopeful signs. ICoOluLIOl calling for dialogue with Sinn Fein received
ilal votes as the local govern-
the/ overcut molou whelming bulk _oI CLP votes. Noticably Militant cast their votes in the right direction — breaking with tradition.
The hallmark of the colicie was that one union block vote supported the left when pushed to a card vote (except on Wapping). The NUM
simply had not prepared for the con Ic ence tull delegation. Clearly the op SUTLURILY to make the NUM a focal point of support in the tuture political will exists in Kent NUM but the organisation for this year's conference did not.
JUSTICE FOR
Contact the National Justice for Mineworkers Campaign c/o Durham Mecanics Offices, The Avenue, Durham DHI 4ED (phone: 0385 61375/6).
Chesterfield forum
on East- West
relations
ON FRIDAY 18 April there will be a public forum on East-West relations at which two senior diplomats, from the American Embassy and one from the Soviet Embassy will be speaking.
This forum has been arranged by the international committee of the Chesterfield Constituency Labour Party which was established last year.
The Soviet representative is Guennadi Shabannikov, first bassy, and the American Alexander Vershbow, deputy counsellor at the
Dear Comrade Editor,
correspondent Cath Potter rightly
successful fringe meeting
paign group and the CLPD.
cessful fringe meeting came about.
myself spoke.
hut at least it was a start. he tollowing vear. the
council.
Yours fraternally,
Michael Hindley MEP
Member of the Campaign group and CLPD
MINEWORKERS
Nations Campaign
Amony Beba, MP for
Benn.
Chesterfield, will take the Chair.
The mayor of Chesterfield, councillor Tom Whyatt, arranged civic reception for the distinguished guests meet local citizens before the forum which will begin at the College of Technology at 7.30pm
After the welcome and an introduction by the Chairman each the guests will make their statements and there will then be an opportunity for local people to put questions and make thei
the principal guests will have the opportunitv for a response before the forum adjourns.
In her report on the North West conference your
points to the organised by the CamHowever in saying that 'in previous years supporters of the Militant newspaper have been the only coherent alternative' she is doing a disservice to the CLPD and to the Campaign group. I am sure this is unintentional and based on an ignorance of how this year's suc-
At the 1984 North West conference the CLPD put on a fringe meeting at which John Tocher and
There was only a small attendance,
CLPD organised a joint meeting with the Campaign group, with Allen Roberts MP in the chair and Eric Heffer and myself as speakers. There was a good attendance and the Campaign group and the CLPD decided to repeat the fringe meeting this year, this time with Les Huckfield MEP in the chair. We were delighted to extend the platform, at a very late stage, to comrades from Liverpool city
IRELAND
UNFREEI
anniversary
week's Ireland Unfree' over to it.
the Irish Volunteers together.
controlling body of the
pathetic to the class struggle
Committee or to affiliate
were already planning a rising.
him of their detailed plans for a rising
where they fought throughout Easter Week.
also executed.
Socialist Action 18 April 1986
5
In its special issue commemorating the 70th
of the 1916 Easter Rising An
Phoblacht/Republican News, the paper sup-
ported in Ireland by Sinn Fein, printed an ac-
count of the details of the political prepara-
tion of the rising — and in particular the role
in it of Marxist socialist James Connolly of
the Irish Citizens' Army and Sean Mac Diar-
mada of the revolutionary nationalist Irish
Republican Brotherhood. We are turning this
JAMES Connolly and Sean Mac Diarmada, men
of keen intellect and tremendous energy, were ac-
tively involved in the preparations for a revolution
in Ireland for several years prior to 1916. Their dif-
ferent paths to the revolution finally converged in
1914 when the two men were instrumental in bring.
ing the forces of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA) and
Mac Diarmada, who had a long history of in-
volvement in the Irish Republican Brotherhood
which he joined in Belfast in 1906, was present at
the inagural meeting of the Irish Volunteers in the
Rotunda in Dublin on 25 November 1913. There
he was elected to the Provisional Committee, the
Volunteers. Two days
previously, Captain Jack White and James Larkir
had founded the Irish Citizen Army as a defence
From the very outset there was friction bet-
ween the Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers
and this was only resolved in early 1916 due mainly
to the efforts of Connolly and Mac Diarmada.
The Citizen Army's antipathy to the very idea
of a volunteer force had been voiced at the in.
augural meeting of the Volunteers in the Rotunda.
The opposition was founded on the belief of its
motivation behind the Volunteers was unsym-
The adoption of John Redmond's nominees onto the Provisional Committee of the Volunteers in June 1914 widened the gulf between it and the
A brief alliance between both organisations
was achieved in September following the split with Redmond and with the arrival in Dublin of Con-
The took direct control over the citizen Army following Larkin's departure for America. However, the alliance was short lived, frustrated by the refusal of the Volunteers to co-opt two members of the Citizen Army to the Provisional This was a set-back to the drive by Mac Diarmada. Connolly and Clarke to present a united revolutionary front and caused friction for many months but there was a reconciliation between the ICA and
(Irish Republican Brotherhood) in Oc-
Already personally committed to organising an World War would provide the opportunity. In this he was supported by Mac Diarmada and Clarke, both senior IRB men, who, unlike the Volunteers,
Following abortive talks between the Citizen Army and Volunteers, Mac Diarmada and Clarke organised meetings between the ICA and IRB but
manoeuvres by the Citizen Army, it became clea that Connolly was contemplating a solo venture and the Military Council felt it was time to inform
At a three-day meeting between Connolly and the Military Council (19-21 January) - during which time it was generally and incorrectly believed that he had been kidnapped - Connolly was told of the planned rising for Easter Sunday, 23 April, sworn into the IRB and co-opted onto the
Both Connolly and Mac Diarmada became
Government and signatories of the 1916 Pro-
On Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, Mac Diarmada and Connolly saw the pactical conclusion to their years of tireless organising when they marchwith the Irish Volunteers and Citizen Army to take their place with the headquarters staff in the GPO,
Following the general surrender on 29 April, the wounded Connolly was taken on a stretcher to the military hospital at Dublin Castle. Mac Diarmada, along with the remainder of the GPO garrison, was taken to the grounds of the Rotunda
At 3.45 on the morning of 12 May 1916, Sean Mac Diarmada was executed in Kilmainham Jail. Several hours later, the badly-wounded James Connolly was taken by ambulance from Dublin Castle to Kilmainham Jail, strapped to a chair and
Page 7 scan of this page
6 Socialist Action 18 April 1986 LAST WEDNESDAY, 9 April Socialist Action held a meeting to commemorate the Easter Rising in
Dublin, 1916. Speakers included
KEN LIVINGSTONE, DIANE the USA. Here we print Martin contributions by Sean McKnight, the Republicans and claim to be impartial
JAMES CONNOLLY was a man much maligned. He was, they say, a socialist who went wrong. didn't really mean to go to the GPO: he meant to go somewhere else. This is rubbish. Connolly knew what he was about just as we, in Ireland today, know what we're about.
We're not willing to accept any London-Dublin accord, or measures that will make my children, or the children of my friends and comrades go to jail again, or die again, or be slaughtered in the streets by the RUC or
force that takes over from the RUC.
We have been told that if we accept the London-Dublin accord we can fly the tricolour and I'll be allowed to speak Irish, and put Gaelic nameplates up on the streets, and the RUC will be with the UDR and they won't harass me.
But you see, I already speak Irish.
And if any of you have been to Belfast, there were tricolours flying long before the accord. There's Gaelic street names up in Belfast. And the RUC do harass you. And the UDR do harass you. So nothing has changed for who walk the streets of Belfast unless. of course, you're an ROC man.
I don't need Margaret Thatcher or Garret Fitzgerald to tell me that I can speak Irish. I don't need them to tell me that I can fly a flag. And that's why we don't accept the Anglo-Irish accord.
The Anglo-Irish accord is wider than Ireland or Britain. It's aimed at the NATO bloc of countries. more intelligent than anything Paisley could have thought up. But Britain can't allow things to go on as they are. They let the loyalists govern the six counties for sixty years and they've made a mess or it
The accord is there, let no-one make any mistake about, to put down the rise of Sinn Fein within the six and the 26 counties of Ireland, and that is the stated policy of the Free State government. They could not afford to let a
group like Sinn Fein make any ground
within the 26 counties, which they are
doing.
All you're seeing today is in that
context. In six months' time there will
be anolner • wave of repression against the republicans. And when the RUC
Venue Saturday 26 April
Venue Sunday 27 April
SEAN McKNIGHT from Sinn Fein, ABBOTT and MARTIN COLLINS, who is editor of Labour in Ireland
and has just returned from a tour of
Collins' speech and extracts from the Diane Abbott and Ken Livingstone.
Sean McKnight: 'In six months time
the army and the RUC will come for
He any half
James Connolly and the British republicans they'll say: happened in March. ple! We beat up five or six hundred loyalists. That must something.'
It doesn't count for anything. It's just a balähcing act. break the spirit and the unionists. And when they've done that, they're going to come republicans. Which, as I said, is the reason for the accord people As long as you have that sight of loyalists attacking the RUC, you can do what you want with all the mad IRA men and all the mad Sinn Feiners that running about balanced. You can then say "The RUC is a total impartial force. It has no compunction about sticking a plastic bullet in the head of a republican.'
But that doesn't make it right, comIt's far rades. It makes it very wrong. people who say 'maybe we should give lan it a chance. Maybe it will be the first step along the road to a united Ireland' let me read this. This is the speech made to a secretly held British court martial of Padraig Pearce in Dublin 1916.
I assume that I am speaking to Englishmen who value freedom, and profess to be fighting for the freedom of Belgium. we too love freedom and desire it. To us it is more desirable than anything in the world. If you strike us down now we shall rise again and renew the fight.
You cannot conquer not extinguish the Irish freedom. If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom, then our children will win it by a better deed.
LABOUR COMMITTEE
ON IRELAND
ANNUAL CONFERENCE 26/27 APRIL 1986 London School of Economics Students Union Building, off Portugal St London WC2 (nearest tube Holborn). Disabled access.
Camden Town Hall Judd St, London WCI (nearest tube Kings Cross). disabled access.
army are harassing
'Look what We're good peo-
count for
They want to
will of the
for
Easter Rising. because it's you believe is right.
you have to go out and do it.
That is what to express their view. their oWnl
Believe that
backed Sinn Fein
Ireland. You can- however much
passion for as the
responded,
move to democracy, in this
and they divide Ireland terests there.
cupation of Ireland.
the law for political purposes.
Martin Collins: 'The Americans said
"get Dublin on your side"
is exactly what they did.
It is appropriate that we as British socialists should commemorate the
Sometimes as socialists you have to fight for what
You might suspect that you are in a minority, but if you believe something is right
the Easter Rising represented. They didn't know that they had the support of the majority of the Irish people. They only found that out some years later, when in 1919 there was
Martin Collins an election - the last chance the Irish people as a whole had the opportunity
We as socialists also have to understand that we live with the consequences represent? of British actions in Ireland. In that election 70 per cent of the Irish people Anglo-Irish
and voted for an Ireland free from Britain. The British,
they talked duuu Teddy Kennedy and democracy, weren't interested in it at all
Irish people USA. demonstrated their intentions through the ballot box. The British government
aways. whoever they thought could oppose this
Ulster loyalists. They armed, they built
encouraged the loyalists to to defend British inThey created the loyalist
We are living with that decision, as movement with all the consequences of our oc-
we are gollg lu live with the consequences of plastic bullets, with the use of strip-searching, with the use of the electoral law to make it illegal for people like Bobby Sands to stand for parliament, with the use of Basically
We will also have to live with the
Ireland unfree
will never be a
. And that consequences of the Anglo-Irish accord, and the Labour Party leadership's acceptance of that accord. What does it
As much as we talk about the
accords being for American consumption, apart from a very small coterie of politicians around
Tip O'Neill there are in fact very little illusions in it in the
The organisations of the Irish community, from the Ancient Order of Hibernians to the left, are unanimous in their opposition to the accords and all understand what they mean.
Of course, it is important that people in America do understand what the accords mean, because it isn't so much an Anglo-Irish accord as, in a very real sense, an Anglo-American accord. Sinn Fein did a very great service to the
publicising the ing: documents produced by the European Institute of Strategic Studies, a body which reflects the interests of the American government. It was very interesting to see the motivation from the USA that went into that document.
they saying to Margaret Thatcher: 'Grasp what is happening in Northern Ireland. Realise
there is no military solution. Re you cannot withstand another me ment like ine one ourit behind a hunger-striking men of H-block prisoners of Armagh. You have got do something else in this situatie And they said: 'Don't think you cann on the soft wing of the nationalist ef munity in the North, the SDLP, to s port you for as long as you want. will not be able to do that.'
The Americans were saying have got to get the Dublin governa on your side absolutely tooth and n And that is exactly what they set abs doing in the dialogue leading up to accord
Now, it didn't come as any sur to the Labour Committee on Ire that the British government was able
the Dublin government alon because they've always been able to d that. The surprise was how few conc sions, if any, they had to make in ordi to do it.
People have to be aware that there a new situation. For the first time th Dublin government has acceded to th principle of the division of Ireland an the right of Britain to be in the Nort completely against its own constit tion. For what?
What they propose for the runnin of the North is very interesting. Anyon who thinks that the loyalist uprising going to bring down the accord is co pletely wrong. The whole drift of we the loyalists are saying is 'You've got suspend the operation of the accord Are they saying: 'You've got to susper the fact that the Dublin governmet recognises the accord"? No, they're s
'You've got to suspend attemptin to run the North with the cooperatie of the Dublin government. We want yo to do it with us.'
If you read the accord - really rea it, and not just the glib explanations t
you will see that the mai Tory proposition is to run with a fore of devolved government that will incor porate a moderate wing of the unionis
Page 8 scan of this page
peace
In. moderate Willg ot the alists, and exclude the extremists ether. Sinn Fein were written out
he whole deliberations around the
Pm report, and were deliberately exed by name from the Anglo-Irish
But there's also a real sense in which
British are saying to the Irish and to
o ole arouna une world that if the
›derate wing of the unionists cannot
aborate with the SDLP to run Nor-
m Ireland, or if the SDLP cannot
aborate with the official unionists,
en there is a fall-back position.
This is where this intergovernmental
ference comes in. It's a fall back. It
t the main position. It says that if
ere is no agreement of the kind we
suld like, then the Dublin government
ill be involved through the conference. Sot that they're going to take a share in tesnic Noren nev u cer resoon sibility for it, but they will have no say n it. It's there im black and white in the ccord; We'll be very pleased to listen to he suggestions of the Dublin governnent, we would appreciate their point of view, but the last analysis severeignty rests with the 2W-SEECHL
So Margaret Thatcher is offering the Dublin government three options. First, we go on as now under direct rule. option two: you can have some kind of
olved government in the North with
moderate wings of the nationalist
S660 SU community, and
lerate wings are going to be defined
whether they agree with what Britain
ats or not. Then there is a third, fall
ok position: you can have an inter-
Vernmental conterence where we will
en to what the Dublin government
to say, but in the last analysis we're
to do. That is where the British government stands, and that is why the accords are not going to collapse, because they are set up not to collapse. They are Set up to preserve the existing situation and the partition of Ireland has acted in
Britain's interests.
Ila-
Now I want to deal with the argument, which always comes withdrawing the troops will lead to a bloodbath.
What Britain is afraid of is not that there will be a bloodbath at all. They're afraid of what an Irish government will do to avoid a bloodbath.
the British withdrew Ireland, and there was a united and independent Ireland for the first time in 800 years, you would have a government in Ireland which has an interest in integrating the people throughout that island. And since the British have been in Ireland they have had an interest in dividing the people. have a government of a united Ireland. it would have to think about how to integrate the whole population of Ireland into the running of that country.
The dilemma is very simple. the question of discrimination, as it exists today in the six government of a united Ireland seriousIy going to say to the Unionists: 'OK, you've had discrimination for the last so many hundred years and now we're going to take it away from you; so you British can just get out of that job and that house because we're giving them to a catholic.' Can you seriously imagine the government of a united Ireland saying that? Of course not.
But then the problem is: how do you make up for that discrimination? How do you end it? Do you simply take the the existing houses and the and share them round - in which case more protestants would be out of jobs and houses? No. That wouldn't be the situation at all. An Irish government, in order integrate Ine would have to create jobs, create housing, raise the aspiration of the loyalists behind that of their drum-beating on 12 July every year into what a new Ireland would be about.
In that situation, what is going to happen with the Irish economy? In the, North, money is being pumped in hand over fist by Britain. Where are the pro-
1916
1986
fits coming from in the North? You can't find them. up, that What kind of economy exists there? It
is more indebted than Argentina, Mexico, or any of those countries. It is the HOST indebted Europe. So what is going to be the attitude of a united Ireland? Will they
-from say• first thing is to pay
the banks in the USA, in Britain, and the imperialist countries"? Or are they going to say 'we'll have to do something about houses and jobs in the six counties and in the 26 counties?
actually going As soon as you Ireland,
sumelilllg about questions.
Take look at their foreign policy. Are they gọ-
Wing to back the foreign policy of Britain counties. and the United States, which has ac.
quiesced in their long? I tend to think not.
Cuba on Britain's doorstep is not about some sort of threat which is going to stop the Americans giving money to the IRA. It's about something very much more real, something very much more integral lo tne government of Ireland. I think that's what they're frightened of, and I think that's why we in Britain have every interest in building a movement to get the existing jobs troops out of Ireland. In that respect I
would recommend you to join the LCI, o read the magazine, and for every pe on here to consider coming to the l( conference. population,
after the accord, the clarification of
British unions, are some of the centra questions in British politics as a whole So we don't just say join us, come with us. It's a question of the education and building of a socialist movement in this counui y
perialism
so difficult. lectured about it. heard Enoch
union'
cause.
repression much public in Dublin British rule,
Look ane soule and last fifteen years.
Western
COULE
"To build our united Ireland the the hunger strikers,
back our debts to
I think the answer is that if they are
create united they are going to have to do LITOSC crotorl.
Equally, they are going to have to
oppression for so the 1945 government. Labour And so the whole scare about a the loyalist veto
dilemma of new the GLC
November hysteria.
Adams and Morrisson.
Now
The discussions that are going on
platforms.
Socialist Action
Diane Abbott: 'Ireland shows the
contempt in which the ruling class
holds the rule of law'
CERTAIN debates go to the heart of what is wrong with the British Labour Party, and Ireland is one of them. It lays bare something which the leadership finds deeply embarrassing: the classic relationship of the British labour movement to im-
and colonialism. That relationship is one of collusion. And that is why they find Ireland
Ireland also shows how lightly the British ruling class take the rule of law. Now I've been interested in this because in the Labour Party we are constantly
It's because of the rule of law that we are not supposed to be able to reinstate and reimburse the miners. It's because of the rule of law that we are not supporting Liverpool.
But in Northern Ireland, all of a sudden, this rule of law iș as nothing. I
Powell on the radio radio yesterday, humming and hawing about the attacks on police by unionists. He was asked over and over again to condemn the attacks. And he said "Oh no, I can't do that. I warned you what would at all.
Ken Livingstone: 'a built-in loyalist
lobby within every British trade
THERE IS a striking parallel between the Easter Rising and what we have seen in the last fifteen years. In the attermath of the rising, there was in no sense an immediate wave of support for that revolutionary
It was the wave of brutality and
and executions that did to bring Dack lo tne general the true nature of and I think we've seen many similarities with the apparatus of brutality operated by successive Labour
Conservative governments in the
It was the apparatus of torture and internment, which Thatcher built on in her determination to see the death of
which brought home to many Irish men and women the real nature of British rule
It also brought it home to many people in the Labour Party, who believed that we were in Ireland to stop warring communities tearing each other apart. It is much more difficult to support such nonsense when vou see the nature of the régime that Britain has been propping up in Northern Ireland for the best part of this century.
The traditional Labour Party view is eroding. It's important, if you look at within the history of the British Labour Party and reland. to see how much over support there was for the unionists in
It was a British government that introduced
What has changed is that for the first time there have been developments of links between Sinn Fein and British socialists which would not have been possible ten or fifteen years ago. The very first move, when the majority of
Labour group invited Morrisson and Adams to come to the GLC in
1982 created wave of We actually had debates in the House of Commons where Don Concannon got up and called for Londoners to violently resist the arrival of
you go to national and regional Labour Party conferences and there are Sinn Fein speakers on those
Wing
I don't want to create the impression that we have won, that it's not going to be easy to actually break the remalning support there is in tne parti leadership to that commitment of remaining in Ireland. I've no doubt that we are a long way away from seeing the
18 April 1986 7 Diane Abbott happen.'
Now if, because of some action by the British government, black people were attacking police in their homes, on the British maindand, , and I went on the
and said can't condemn them", I would not be able to walk the streets! Somehow the rule of law, which is so inviolable on the English mainland, is not so inviolable in Ireland Ken Livingstone
leadership of the Labour Party accept the need to withdraw from Ireland.
Part of the problem is the predominance of unionist opinion within trade union thern Ireland that are affiliated to the TUC. When you sit down and look through the transcript of the more recent party conferences and read Alex Kitson's speeches, you see that there is a consistent altempl, ycal oy ycal, le hold back a growing tide of rejection of party policy by the rank and file of the constituencies, because they fear what a debate on a united Ireland would do
Lrauc unions that are organised in the North of Ireland
For one basic reason: unemployment is two and a half times greater for the catholic community than the protestant one. And if, in the catholic community there is a predominant tendency to be in a union based in the South, and in the protestant community a predominant tendency to be in trade unions that are part of the British Trades Union Congress, then you have a built-in lobby within virtually every British trade union for Britain to remain part of Ireland. And a lot of unions are determined that there should be no debate which they see as opening up the prospect of their union being torn apart on the issue of a united Ireland.
That is the major weakness which I believe we face in actually moving the labour movement into a position of be-
firmly committed to a united Ireland. It will tear into the centre of every trade union in Britain. It will force the sort of political debate which can schism a whole movement, which will be damaging and divisive - but it's inevitable, because at some point this has to happen.
Page 9 scan of this page
Non-racialism and the South African revolution
8 Discussion on the
black section • position on South Africa
THE 4 APRIL edition of Socialist Action carried the adopted by this year's AGM of the Labour Party Black Section on South Africa. Here we print a comment on the black section's position, by MIKE WONGSAM, Manchester delegate to the black section national committee.
THE struggle unfolding in Africa has presented movement, the organisations in the black nd the sociali
menes and most vital points of aebare
in years. It is certainly un why this be So.
Africa is like no other African country — indeed it is like no other country.
In order to arrive at a correct conclusion as to how to proceed in the situation, proached from ture. Firstly, absut. Secondly, one st to unders- what the struggle is about. and to achine ye masses to achieve leadershion These politicisation leadership. two departure analysed in their concrete
etail will throw light upon and revea
he tasks which face the revolution i Southern Africa.
In order to correctly assemble th
rgument, it first has to be sufficiently. high theoretical Firstly one has to thoroughly undersand the nature not only of apartheid
theid state in soute Arch sia-
ists in its state constructed and organised from top to bottom on institutional racism.
Therefore, the nation that the apartheid state is based upon is one in which black people are excluded from the most elementary civil and political rights. For black people to be able to Jave access to these most elementary rights requires the construction not merely of a new legal framework but the construction of a new nation state which guarantees to everybody rights now enjoyed exclusively by the white minority population. nothing short of the construction of a new nation.
This is different from the anti-colonial revolutions which took place in countries subjected to colonial domination imperial They took place in the aftermath of the development of revolutionary Pan-Africanism, in countries where there Was stunted development and hence a weak working class unable to take the leadership
Socialist Action 18 April 1986 position
South the solidarity
of the
Southern
be ap
the terms of
and momentous points of
advanced imperialist countries. these particular insotar directed against a foreign
aised to a
administrators and policemen. level.
Independent
the
ment Africanism. The masses level of political theo
some 30 years.
of Africa
despite their liberation from
tatorship in
Ihat 1s.
Africa remain dominated by imperialism.
masses worldwide.
The Licky. revolution,
throughout Africa perialist countries
This
consummated
in history.
Limits
economic
theory and
of the national liberation struggle than The masses were subject to the most
general experiences fected much more generalised than the ex periences of the working classes in the
experiences nevertheless were the as they WELC imperial power represented by a few colonia
working class trast to organisation was ruled out in the majority of these countries because of
stunted economic development,
was the achieverevolutionary achieved a and culture that was equal to the task of liberating almost a whole continent from colonial subjugation within the space of
The result is of course the picture
as it is seen today. The the legacy of the inability of the working classes to take the Jeadership of these colonial revolutions is precisely that
direct colonial rule, sometimes having major effects in the imperialist countries
with the Caetano dicPortugal, they remain under the yoke of neo-colonialism.
despite the political and cultural renewal inaugurated by the
the countries of economically
That is not to say that the African revolution hasn't had a tremendous effect upon the struggle of the black
Quite the conLIC African of revolutionary PanAfricanism has produced a great leap forward in black consciousness both
and in the imuse yes. Indeed, revolutionary Pan-Africanism Cransformation in the USA started by social the civil rights movement, and led to the greatest explosion of black culture
The course of the revolutions in Africa however were limited by their very success. Because they didn't need to produce a leadership with a class
culture more enduring
safest
the experience colonial revolution in Africa, they have not ef-
Many substantial political advance of black people in countries with powerful workers CHOVCNCULS The advances made by black people in
USA, for instance are primarily to the civil rights movement which had its own dynamic growing out of American conditions and the black experience there. This is in con-
the effects of the Russian revolution worldwide, or the Chinese revolution in Asia, or Cuban revolution in Central America
These previous African revolutions did not have to contend with a colonial settler nationality, which in Southern Africa numbers some five millions and consulutes a permanen feature of any South African nation state imaginable in the future as much as it does in the present. This settler nationality, now embattled, prepared to go to any lengths to protect its privileges even in the face of
now forseeable collapse of its ability to rule.
Youth
South Africa has the developed, and now one of the most powerful working classes in the entire world. It consists of one of the most revolutionary working populations to be found anywhere. Its youth constitute a whole politicised generation coming up out of the experience of Soweto.
This combines with one of the longest surviving national liberation movements with back as far as 1912. All these factors indicate that the South African toiling masses have to not only achieve class politicised in terms of its independent consciousicss: not only become political organisation, but also must elaborate a revolutionary theory and culture which must be radically different from that or une previous African revolutions. The experiences of the masses in South Africa is so much more generalised than that of the African masses of Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Angola, etc. Inal there is an historical break between the previous African revolutions and the African revolution.
This indicates why the development of the doctrine of non-racialism has taken place. Non-racialism is first of all not a liberal philosophy design-
Lion Matches.
The cheapest,
way tolight
TA ed primarily to appease whites in South Africa as to the compromising nature of the new nation emerge out of the fought out now. It is an eminently revolutionary strategy come about because of the conditions which face movement there. Class
To the policy supremacy practised not only by the bosses and their police, but also by the
racial trade dependent trade unions have advanc. ed the doctrine which says that all workers have equal right to representation by and in their own organisations. formed and powerful trade union confederation this as the basis of its own class theory, most advanced stage reached by the most revolutionary anywhere in the capitalist world.
All revolutions involve the sweeping away of the old vile and bankrupt most replacement by universal systell of and participation. process therefore involves the break up and collapse not only of the apparatus of rule of the old regime but also the hegemonic position of the old ruling class. Failure
The hegemony of the ruling class in Southern Africa is so precarious that it can be maintained Walle working guaranteeing white working class at the expense of a disenfranchised and exploited black working class. precarious in recent
of the union movement that the apartheid government has had tr establish its hegemony over the coloured and constitutional give these populations a semblance of political representation, again at the South expense of the majority population.
The failure of this strategy has not only served to emphasise the embattled position of the government, also testifies to the strength of the independent trade unions in proving
government. no longer fighting
restaurants tionary State
are the ANC
which will struggles being
which has
the national liberation
of white
of how to the in-
an
The newly fight for
COSATU has taken
and as such represents the
representation democratic, working class quate.
Unity
society and its and lICW
The revolutionary
involves the
• over the class only by the privileges of the
This has become so ine
years with the
independent trade
day.
Indian populations with reveals reforms designed to
but Ilassco
In Depth
that they are the supreme defenders of the rights of all workers in South Africa. Moreover, as institution after institution begins to see the ANC a the legitimate spokespeople of the struggle to create a new nation and the oniv force in society that aspires to guarantee the rights of all members of society, this further to reinforce the weakness of the Pretoria
The truth of the matter is that the hegemony of the Afrikaaner ruling class is crumbling, and the hegemony of the national liberation movement is being steadily and relentlessly built. The national liberation movement Is
for better oppositional force concludIs • T01 blacks, for more access to exclusive
and all-white public beaches, but poses itself as an alternative government with a nationa po This is different from a policy of . appeasement, which would have te convince whites that while the colour of the faces of the personnel in the government would change, nothing else of substance would change. Suc a policy of appeasement could no lead to a truly non-racial society. For a truly non-racial society to exist i South Africa there would have to be government elected by the majorit ie a black government. But also, ther would have to be a genuinely revolu
transformation South Africa itself. For instance, the cities would have to. be desegregated; the land would have to be owned by thom that work it, there would have to bet universal education system, etc.
The only forces existing in South Africa at the moment that have a policy even remotely approaching thri
and the independent non-racial trade unions. The independent non-racial trade unions have be the social basis on which the ANC comes to power, and therefore, wher the new nation state is constructed it will have to be a workers state.
From these considerations it can be seen that the singular judgement that black people are engaged in a struggle against racism and therefore must organise as black people, ie attain political race consciousness is only a superficial and narrow judgement
proceed in the concrete situation of Southern Africa. In the black sections movement in Britain, black self-organisation is an absolute. ly correct course of action since the struggle revolves vitally around the
the right to adequate democratic representation inside the Labour Party. If it wasn't on the basis of black self-organisation then black
wouldn't be , and without the struggle it also couldn't conceivably be ade
It is quite different from what is taking place in South Africa. There, the struggle assumes the form of the fight for the majority of the citizens to determine and form the government to an equal right to the ownership of land, and wealth, and for the right te a full and equal participation in all af fairs of the nation and the state. This
alasser assuming the responsibility of leading a whole nation which is wider than itself, and this reponsibility also offers it the op portunity to significantly advance the political consciousness of black peo ple and the toiling masses worldwide
unity of the black struggle worldwide is therefore more complex and far richer than the appearance of it as seen •over tne snort ume span taken from the 1950s to the present
When looked at historically, it itself as being composed of contradictory historical elements and mediated national circumstances
The South African revolution can inaugurate the next phase of development, and as such does much to reveal the essence of the black struggle as well as lighting a torch for the toiling
of the world in the march towards socialism.
Page 10 scan of this page
South Africa: SARMCOL striker interviewed
International
LOSES. MAYEKISO,
striking worker from
in South Africa, has been tour-
Britain. Black workers at Sarmcol, which is owned by British Tyre and Rubber, have been on strike for 48 weeks over starvation level wages and for trade union recognition of the MAWU (Metal and Allied Workers Union).
Moses Mayekiso Was interviewed for Socialist Action PAUL PERKINS and ATMA SINGH.
a in South Africa at t u describe the situ
moment? We heard that efore you arrived here? were detained just
lust before coming to Bri-
in 1 was detained
to gain solidarity from the battles 1n the
2. Workers
of the ship federation
should from the
ommittee
body cture. dustry.
→ The shot dead
the who Elijah the first retaliated president Con-
federation South stones. Unions five days The AVEN CI police (Cosati), 'The
under Force.
trol.' tell
There were for Cosatu? was The When we fighting
lice
he whole They
about the
50
and bosses.
me. tability democracy. organising. must
Cosate was launched in
own and leadership. MAWU and of Cosatu the same Africa.
of meetings
At our founding congress
we alve has no principles that were agreed decisions.
picscuit.
racialism.
Ni caragua:
egan gets his war chest
ON 1S APRIL US President Reagan will again go to
Less asking for $100m aid for the Contras. As
pet ef bis supposed international crusade against
The will be funding an army that has carred put 1,268 attacks on civilian targets in the last five years.
Congress will probably Daniel Ortega flatly the aid, but hold up invasion
delivery for 90 days to hostile intention to Hon-
the Sandinistas NOTHI ace' to negotiate with were maintained with
de Contras. This is a shift Honduras during the in from last month when cursion.
It package was voted In fact, this was simply the latest of no less than Since then, Reagan has 942 border incidents claimed that a hot pursuit resulting from the Contra into :.onduras San- wal None of these
dinista troops that hit described invasions'
contra in their base camps even by Reagan. This time was an 'invasion'. though, he Hushed Nicaraguan President million emergency
the decision of all factories is final.
We also have shop stewards councils example the Johannesburg local has 20 factories that meet weekly. They make decisions and implement and the like on dismissals
• DIOUSCU May Day mobilisations
Although trade union is new, our members
quickly how to organise themselves.
What are some of the pro. blems Cosata faces when trying to unionie ers?
companies are against
recognition.
The and
But
workers we some and them to
about But Inese have come
strength. migrant system, DaoS laws.
us down. are cheap
to organise duras which the
for, and used US helicopters
have effec-
LULIC
rights com-
officer in Honduran
Reagan's hypocrisy scare on
context by,
it was challenge
Africa's
to
apartheid with Democratic areas.
UDFR The
Cosatu,
good move.
liberation
struggle that. together
society
We
fighting capitalist
the Gathsa
creating unions
violated
occasions has territorial times, Airborne
the region
US conditions America.
responses
only
scabbing
"sleeping in'
that: 'the
Cosatu
com-
progressive
fight (United in all
of
ANC, and
was
The
appreciate
all
that are
racist and
We division
He workers and
He is heart'
the pro
Workers
air separate US navy Nicaraguan waters 841
Corinto,
this month
are on
unit that
since 1981.
battlefield
Central
He will
going into movement cept this.
Freedom
all are pressure brought to companics millions,
ing
us. They
any
Africa.
future? money for
There
USA.
tion
groups
petitions,
Terrace,
He is Cune abou
and coming
and com
All be
Coll
the invest
BTR in
are not
our com-
Bolta have beer
Britain the
and got
produced
This will be
CLPs etc
organise
leaflets and
the
Compton
Socialist Action 18 April 1986
WORLD
South Africa
THE CONGRESS of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU) has called on its members to stay away from work on 1 May, reaffirming previous declarations of intent to hold large scale industrial actions on May day.
Jay Naidoo, secretary y of COSATU, issued the call on 14 April and said the union would ask its members to attend mass rallies to press industrial and political demands.
Philippines
CORY AQUINO'S government is running
into early problems. Deaths in clashes between the military and the New People's Army in the first month of her presidency, at 352, are almost as high as they were in the last month of Marcos' rule. All the indications are that the corrupt and repressive army apparatus, which remains intact, is bent on settling accounts with the guerillas militarily in the hope that Aquino's victory has isolated them politically.
vicanwnie, lew economic relors art emerging and the process of trying to chase out former Marcos cronies from positions in leading Philippines companies is turning into a straight grab for power and wealth by the business people who were dispossessed by Marcos and are now eager to retake their lost wealth. Aquino's Presidential Commission on 'Good Government', which is leading the purge, has been accused of a 'witch-hunt'
Former Marcos associates in parliament have launched a further challenge. They are planning to reconvene the parliament which Aquino has suspended (using the absolute presidential powers she inherited from Marcos) and install Arturo Tolentino, who was Marcos' running mate, as acting president.
Mr Tolentino is 75.
Haiti
GENERAL Henri Namphy, who replaced
Duvalier in Haiti, is having equally hard problems because of popular opposition to his attempts to keep as much of Duvalier's old cronies in their places as he can. Neighbourhood committees are forming and the slogan 'Chak 4 ans' — meaning elections each four years - is appearing everywhere Suspected former Tonton Macountes are being pursued everywhere for justice and Namphy has been the target of several demonstrations demanding punishment of former Duvalierites he is trying to shelter.
And in the USA on 29 march over 2,000 Haitians demonstrated to protest statements by Secretary of State George Schultz that US troops might intervene 'if the situation becomes chaotic'. US economy down
THE US production index declined sharply for the third month running despite forecasts that cheaper oil would lead to a new boom. Auto production is down to 136,699 compared with 183,266 last month, the most dramatic decline. But there were falls of up to 10 per cent in Electric power production, paper, and rail freight.
Puzzled US economists cannot account for it, though a straightforward Marxist analysis suggests that the next slump is due some time between the middle of this year and the middle of next. Postwar business cycles run at around seven years between slumps - and the last one was in 1981. Moreover the US rate of profit turned the corner and started declining at the end of last year - the clearest indicator of coming problems.
WERKLY INDEXES 160 BLADING - 180
- 178
156 • 176
Page 11 scan of this page
10
Black Shack Alley
Black Shack Alley tells the story of a boy growing up in Martinique, a Caribbean island ruled by France. His childhood mischief is played among the black shacks', built of planks workers brings him up in one of them, making great sacrifices to pay for him to go to school. Like in the schools of the British empire, geography, and national anthem not of his own people but of the 'mother country'.
He makes friends with a half-white boy, the son of the plantation owner and a black woman. The plantaBOOKS Other Books
recently been
available from Other
literature, including the
liberation:
Malcolm X: The Man and His Ideas
George Breitman, Pathfinder Press, 60p + 12p
p&p
Two Speeches by Malcolm X
Path finder Press, 60p + 12p p&p
Malcolm X Talks to Young People Pathfinder Press, 60p + 12p p&j
The Assassination of Malcolm X
Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism and Self
Determination
Pathfinder Press, £2.25 + 22p p&p
By Any Means Necessary: some last speeches by
Malcolm X
Pathfinder Press, £3.25 + 34p p&p
The Last Year of Malcolm X: the evolution of a
revolutionary
p&p
Malcolm X on Afro-American History
Pathfinder Press, £2.25 + 22p p&p
with payment should be
packing.
Birmingham's Other Bookshop, 137
the main shopping centre) phone 021-643 5904) a piece of the
OH NO!
IT'S PUKE TIME AGAIN!
Socialist Action 18 April 1986 and packing cases by on a sugar plantation. His grandmother
taught the history,
punishes his for playing WIEN IC black children', but won't get marriea because 'my surname has been carried of by tweive. generations Frenchmen, all white'.
He discovers a talent for writing when the school teacher accuses him of copying his essay from a
Reviewed by Chris Morris book because 'only a Frenchman could write like this'.
An old man tells him 'When I woke up after the drunken joy finding myself free, the hard realistarea me in ine
A NEW paperback, Malcolm X Speaks has
published for the first time in this country. Price £3.95 plus 22p p&p it is
Books. The Other Books mail order service offers a wide selection of socialist, anti-imperialist and radical
following by and about Malcolm X and the struggle for black George Breitman, Pathfinder Press, £2.25 + 28p George Breitman, Pathfinder Press, £3.95 + 34p
Make cheques or postal orders payable to IMRS. Orders
sent to: Other Books, PO Box 50, London N1 2XP. If the total value of books ordered is over f10, then simply add 15 per cent for postage and
These and other books, together with a wide selection of magazines, posters and postcards are also available from
Digbeth (just off
ACTION
AND NOW BEGINS THE CLOYING SENTIMENTALITY -AND NOW THE FACTORIES GO INTO AND CRIES "MARVELLOUS" AND "OVER THE MOON" •MOON"?!!?- AND NOW THE GARBAGE
HORRIFYING DESCENT INTO
face was that nothing had changed either for me or for my friends who'd been in chains with me...
Like all the other Negroes, I was still here in this accursed country; the békés (white settlers) still owned the land, the land in the place, and we went right on working for
So he begins to see that he can put his pen at the service of his people.
The original novel the film was na see on was written Joseph Zobel based oWIl periences as a child in the
published in 193US. Il Was Paris in 1950 by Présence Africaine. was the first ever book in French by a black novelist about the experiences of black
›eone a tre carocal
The white settlers burner every copy of Black Shack Alley they could lay their hands on.
Florence Alexis talked about the making of the
Fourth International Bookfair of Radical, Black, and Third World Books last year. The speech was reprinted in Race Today, Aug/Sept 1985. She said 'Euzhan Palcy, the director of the film, is a young woman of 30. She was born in Mar tinique. She says that when she was ten vears old she was writing poetry, short
and music where sulles. all the characters were white people.
'When she was 14, she discovered black literature and especially the novel of Joseph Zobel entitled: La
Rue Cases-Negres BLOCK Shack Alley). She was so amazea inal, unice ycals later, she started to write her first adaptation of the novel... for the first time, all the characters of the story were blacks of the
Caribbean, workers nobody had ever talked or written about before.
Palcy struggled for five years raise funds, to
make the film. Alexis says
the people in Martinique
followed daily the progress
of "their film" and at the
end, facing lack of money
helped Miss Palcy to finish
'In the final weeks the
Martiniquans were coming
ana small cac
ques, with costumes and
turniture with all kinds of
things to help achieve the
"first Martiniquan film"
• Black Shack Alley was
recently shown on Channel Four and is on show at
specialist cinemas around
the country.
G00
OVER-
"OVER THE
THAT CALLS ITSELF
Reviews
The thirty-thousand
This committed
theatre of his
WILl on the stage,
The intenfamous wan
The dos *became thell roles, between
allowed for
starred as MacHeath (Mack the Knife),
accent, rather wooden the character's violence and sexuality.
trom which he is about and surfriends who have recently betrayed thanked with an absence malice that bordered upon real gratitude. only elec-
relied more
songs,
became
and were delivered with fullthroated drama-school
part of East End
AND NOW MY TELEVISION PREPARES TO TURN ITSELF INTO AN EMETIC!!
Opera at the National Theatre gangland.
Only Sara Kestelman, as Polly's mother, and the
THEATRE
excellent music, gave a hint of what might have been. Her direct address to the aucience, and ner noalse well-timed delivery, made
sense of the play's vulgar
humour for a while.
Upstaging everyone was the set. A dizzying series of sumptuous and visually distracting props
were rolled on and rolled off, or flown in and flown out.
was fetishistic parade not dissimilar to the end of The Generation
Game, with its conveyor belt of consumer goods:
an apparently real vintage
vehicle (full-size), a huge
carousel-type horse,
four-poster bed one
particularly speclaculai
entrance even received
applause.
A combination of the undecide production opulent and
direction
restricted what remained
of the original meaning to
the words
Brecht's message about the
influence of a tull stomach
upon virtue ('It's food that
morals flow from...') and
the luxury of moral judge-
was mostly under-
mined. The song with
which the play ended,
remonstrating with the ausorry e tof manson earth, dience consider
was no more than another
big Ine necessar
concluding razzamatazz.
bormac
POOR CHAP!
A ROYAL ROMANCE ALWAY LEAVES HIM EMOTIONALLY DRAINED!!
Black NALGO
Conference
conference will
black
the fight for black self-organisation follows over four years of struggle
for a long time.
Moreover
ed on when discussing race.
In May
the branches.
Unfortunately differences among
organisation of black members.
gressive layers.
members as the
situation.
UNIONS
ON 31 MAY 1986 a national black NALGO
organised black members in Leeds. More than 200 delegates and observers are expected. The meeting has been prepared by a national steering group of
caucuses from branches throughout the UK, facilitated by an NEC decision earlier this year. This is a tremendous step forward in
and
Black NALGO members have been excluded from union structures, and their interests ignored,
In 1982 some black NAIGO members gathered to campaign for a conference motion reflecting their demands, and to tackle
The NEC prevented a vote on it. Instead, it set up a Race Equality Working Party (REWP). The REWP was almost all white and its members were
In February 1983 the REWP tried to organise a national conference, but was picketed heavily and
later black NALGO members held their own national meeting before the NALGO national conference, attended by over 100 delegates and branch observers. They decided to boycott the REWP and campaign against its report. They also backed the Mohammed Idrish
But the 1983 conference supported the REWP and voted down the black members' motion. The tense debate was the best attended of the conference. The NEC opposed the motion without NANO Broad Let especially from Scotland, large sections
nalgo
also opposed it. Black members discovered that
the "traditional' left in NALGO cannot be depend-
1984 a second meeting of black members set up a national committee for black
NALGO members, and elected a coordinator. This
meeting, however, revealed differences of strategy on accountability and how best to build groups in
The 1984 NALGO conference took the same
course as in 1983 but the black members' motion
was now backed by a majority of city branches
the black
members deepened, paralysing the national coor-
dination, so that the 1985 conference saw no real
development in coordination of black members
However, we saw more black delegates from areas
we were not aware of. The grass root development
of black caucuses in branches had expanded and
built the material basis for a further jump in the
The 1985 conference called on the NEC to. set
up an equal opportunities committee to implement
the policies agreed last year. It also saw a deepen.
ing alliance between black members and other pro-
The next few months saw a real development of
black groups and the NEC finally agreed to
facilitate the meeting of a national steering group.
This was a vital step forward. However, further
struggle is expected around the implementation of
the policies agreed at the 1984 conference and the
struggle for affirmative action is seen by black
only way out in the present
Page 12 scan of this page
News
UT
Blackpool, the
best described as a craft
the NUT bureaucracy,
Association, port of conference for the proposed unity,
мтеанстасу. this union has led the near DURING the last 10 regamn and now leads in that fight iving standards
and also the fight
fend education and working conditions. You can be sure thạt fellow trade unionists outside teaching refer to us in the same breath (although fo different miners, the printworkers and other unions standing up against the
Our esteem in the trade union movement is at an all time high.
During this period we
rave led numerous mar-
Me&, lobbies and rallies.
lut we have to face up to the fact that we didn't win.
course the /NAS/UWT leadership nave a lot to explain their membership for leading the sell-out of pay, but it would be foolish to see it that simply. The 30
cent vote against leadership clearly demonstrates that we have RAILWORKERS ARE being urged to attend a meeting on 23 April called by a new group established in the union — Rail Against Apartheid (RAA). The meeting speaker from the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) — will be the first attempt to bring together railworkers who are disgusted by apartheid rule in South Africa, and who want to do something about the role of the British government in promoting the Botha regime.
"The Workers Are Coming', the new vided about the founding of the half-million
Con Trade Unions earlier this South African
will also be shown.
The meeting 1S seen by Anion Wacko the Tride Union Action decided upon by the Anti Apartheid Movement, although it has had to be held a week later.
RAA was set up in early March. The inaugural
although small. brought together activists from a range of depots London. both on British Rail and the underground Geoff. never. an NUR NEC member, was elected chair. Its immediate aim is to build the strongest and largest railworkers possible on the 28 June national Freedom March called by the AAM
To this end, RAA see itself very much as resource group. It hopes to provide educational material, speakers, and any assistance requirea Di railworkers who wish to
against apar-
AT THE National Union of Teachers conference in
Socialist Teachers Alliance (STA) supported calls for unification with the NAS/UWT,
union, a question of strategic importance to all teachers. The fact that this move comes from the left of the union, rather than
is important because demonstrated the ability of the STA to relate to the objective needs of teachers as a whole and shows the STA's capacity to grow in the next period. We reprint below the speech of RAY SIROTKIN, who moved the resolution on behalf of the Lambeth Teachers
which gained the overwhelming supdespite pposition from some on the left and a part of the
good reason to be optimistic that a united union is possible.
pretended that we can win As a men we be Havely this dispute alone. We have gained the support parents, counciliors (some. ), MPs, trade unionists and the public in celerat.
Yet, within teaching, when conslaering where we have gained support from, is it difficult to give a clear answer? Has it been from the NAHT (headteachers unions-ed) who rubbed their Hallus with glee with the settlement which gave them the Dest part of £1200 after they had obstructed our action? Was it from the Professional Association if Ma of course notl Teachers, the teachers'
Up and down the country we were engaged locally in numerous joint activities with our ally, the NAS/UWT. myself spoke three joint meetings schools organised by the Lambeth
Rail against apartheid
campaigning
- to be addressed by a theid. speakers kit, for leaflets, posters and a banner are all underway. The campaign has borrowed the trade-mark of SACTU (hlack and white workers By Doreen Weppler
marching behind a ban-
ner he National Union of
Railwaymen already has policy against apartheid rule, including policy to ampaign for the early an unconditional release of Nelson Mandela and an end to the harassment of him and his family. In ad. dition, last year's AGM decided to back a previous NEC decision to affiliate the union nationally to the In tne face of a challenge to this decision.
However, the activities Wich kAA nodes to encourage and service are the irst systematic carpaign ng and educationa work
Railworkers already committed to the anti-apartheid struggle will be
NUT calls for
teachers' unity
Associations ot our two unions. How much
would we have been had this been the rule locally and nationally rather than the exception?
Why is the NAS/UWT so special? It is primarily their affiliation the
Teachers join us, th
NUT or NAS/UWT sorts of reasons. If they join the NAS/UWT they become trade unionists, albeit with different policies and structures from us. If they choose to
organisations, they choose not to be a trade unionist at all!
We are all aware of the NAS/UPlayed. by the
leadership during this present camDalell But: must not be sectarian to their membership with cries of look what vou've done' We cannot let all the good work we have done during the past year
through pointless rivalry.
that : OI policy, the NAS/UWT are
ist to the extent that as the NAS, they women into their union due to the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975. It is also generally argued that our policies are radically different from theirs.
about this. Haye none of you noticed the huge difference we have had debate on policy during this conference over the Dasi IC W days? Does
aul yule seriously suggest that this will prevent looking for ways to involve their workmates in the campaign,
union policy, including its recent action
willalawing all union investments from South
and ultimately to ensure the union will sancLon any acuons laken by railworkers who refuse to transport apartheid goods.
RELEASE I FREE
MANDELA NAMIBIA
• SOLIDARIT
ANC
leaving this hall at the end of conference united and determined detend education as one union?
On policies, references have been made to the changes that have been made in our union over the
por ample anger
example, changes relation to women and our policy on arrived at? By equal tunities some magical formulations of our executive? Not at all!
I hev were won bv the women of this union and it is insulting to them to suggest lnat having led the fight against sexism in our union, would be in capable of doing so in a larger The
being maintained as a separate union will mean that their ecutive will provide a barrier to our ideas reaching their membership.
There is another aspect worth considering. Be SuIC there Is education. that would frighten the Tories more than ourselves and the NAS/UWT in one TUC-affiliated union serving
Galle sccondary teachers.
But we cannot pretend that Fred Smithies, general secretary of NAS/UWT, is outside this hall fighting to get in! On the contrary, we need a national campaign
perhaps lasting years. It will not be achieved simply the two executives vich, negotiations between
course, will start
Remember, this de• Rail Against Apartheid meeting, Friends Meeting House, Euston Road. hours Wed. 23 April 1986 The Workers Are Coming', 16 min., colour. New video designed for trade union meetings. From IDAF, Essex Road London NI 8LR. 01-359 918/
SCAN
N•U•R
SAN TIONS
TEACHERS
mand comes as a plea from the membership. It will be achieved by the continued joint action on pay and other issues by primary
Assembly (PIA) management.
article,
starters were sacked.
Management hoped to weaken any support for the women after the successful defence of a male new starter. This story proves that the union night when they say that the company is trying to hide anti-union victimisation.
The 'A' shift in the PTA plant have already saved the job of a new starter who was being harassed by his foreman. Under the threat of in-
action, management gave in at the appeal
Their action has proved to all the new starters the value of the union. This is especially mportant since manage ment has tried to exclude union-minded from the new jobs. Their victory leaves this shift in a strong position to resist any other attacks management might be planning, such line speed-ups. 'B' shift can make the same gains by defending. the job of woman whose appeal will be heard on Thursday 7 April.
The shop stewards committee i Monday April decided to hold meeting and argue for industrial action in the sealer deck area if the appeal is Telected MiPs state. ment fully backing any acLI01 the shows how important these issues are. In the second circular members in the PTA, the union explained:
"The only protection a new worker indeed any of us - has against such outrageous management is if we stick together and 6 protect basic solidarity is what trade all about.'
Socialist Action and secondary teachers. It will be achieved be getting It will involve long, palent aiscussions explain
Fight Ford victimisations
EIGHT local MPs have put out a statement in support of TGWU branch 1/1107 which is resisting the victimisation of new workers in the Paint, Trim and
plant at Dagenham by Ford
Following a story planted in the scab-produced Sun by Ford management on Monday 7 April, support has come from other trade union branches. The
which is headlined 'Ford Fire Two Red Women', says that two women among the new
For fifteen years Fords resisted giving equal pay to its women machinists and refused to employ women on the production line.
When it took on new workers at the start of the year, Ford said it would emplov women a well as men. In fact it took on only li women out 01 350 new starters.
Black, including Asian, applicants also suffered clear discrimination.
The company claims that one in eight of the new starters are mom an elanic minority. The union comments that in that case: 'our eyes must be deceiving us Even if this figure is true, it bears no relation either to the present make-up of the workforce or the composition of the 7,000 who applied for the jobs. Many people have been saying it privately and we will say it in public. we believe the company's recruitment has been racist.
With these forms of discrimination management try to sow divisions among the workforce. By supporting those who are discriminated against, the union branch is defending sheren members, women and men, black and white. All those who were turned down for these jobs should consider taking their cases to the Equal Opportupitie Commission or the Rack Relations Board nt gate no reason for ment gave no reason the sacking of the first woman. At her final ap peal they said that they were sacking her because ot bad references. But ther refused to read out the references. She previously worked for British Telecom. The National Communications Union
18 April 1986 ing the importance now unity NAS/UW members. There will numerous problems - bi let's go forward! should demand to kno what British Telecom tol Ford management abor her union activity.
All trade unionis should be aware of the wa that Ford are trying to u new starters to weaken th union, because oth Manate marle their example The issu
these sack ass serious that labou movement bodies shoul give support to the union campaign. Our readers ar asked to raise it whereve they can.
WE the undersigne condemn the recen sackings in the Paint Trim and Assembl plant in Dagenham Ford management.
These dismissals designed weed union-minded from the recruits. We note that
originally that the first woman ed had bad references br now they are using
the ape to forms.
COLIN onl took on eleven wome thirty new starters in 1 among two hundred PTA plant, and also onl took on small numbers o black and Asian worker
titudes are come uncon a
titudes are combined
Under recent gove ment legislation a work the or she started shed can be dismissed fro job up to two years
recourse to an indust tribunal, so new entr can be protected only their union
We will give our support to the union the workforce in what action they see fit to tak JO RICHARDSON MP (Barking)
BRIAN SEDGEMORE MP (Hackney South: Shoreditch)
HARRY COHEN MP (Leyton)
TONY BANKS MP (Newham NW)
IAN MIKARDO MP
CHRIS SMITH M (Islington South)
ERIC DEAKINS MP (Walthamstow)
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