ON MONDAY 8 September Britain's renresentatives at the United Nations Security Council joined those of the United States in blocking a final appeal for clemency to the South African government in the cases of three ANC freedom fighters sentenced ra det th by the aphethnid state's racist courts. next Sibusisi Zondo, aged 21, Clarence Payi, aged 20 and Sipho Xulu, aged 26, walked to their executions singing freedom songs.
Margaret governrepresentatives at the UN claimed it would have been 'inappropriate to intervene in the case!
Few actions can have so starkly exposed Thatcher's hypocrisy when she claims to oppose apartheid. The truth is that her government and, British capitalism, are literally dripping with the blood of the thousands of freedom fighters who have been murdered in the past eighteen months for demanding the most elementary human rights.
The truth is that action by the USA and Britain could bring apartheid to its knees in weeks rather than years. But that action is not being taken because British and American multinationals the main beneficiaries of the apartheid system. Every extra drop of blood that has to be spilt until the inevitable downfall of apartheid will be as much responsibilly STASE American governments as the blood of those three martyrs executed on 9 September.
Yet in spite of the support they receive from the most powerful states on earth the apartheid rulers are failing to defeat the mass opposition they confront. arrests have not destroyed the new trade union federation COSATU. On the contrary it is winning more and more international recognition APARTHEID ICCCLILLY the British Trades Union Congress.
In the black townships the response to the murder of at least 24 people protesting agalst rent evic tgions in Soweto on Tuesday September was a mass funeral attend. ed by 10,000 people in defiance of a government ban on mass funerals and despite a massive police presence.
Neither has Botha's attempts to prevent me trum about nis government's methods of murder and torture reaching the world succeeded. On the contrary the demand for comprehensive sanctions against the apartheid state is growing stronger every day. Naturally people like Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury, will not be allies in that fight. After his visit to South Africa Runcie loudly denounced apartheid - and his first statement on his return was to oppose comprehensive sanctions.
What is necessary now is for the Labour Party Conference to be made the occasion for a call to the entire trade union and labour movement to take immediate action to isolate the apartneid regime. rul government sanctions, and trade union action backed up by the TUC Congress decisions. This is now the key way to isolate the apartheid regime.
Socialist Action 12 Sep 1986
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Sanctions NOW!