greater the room for manoeuvre of the bourgeoisie. Defeated in the elections and unable to launch the offensive they had planned against the workers, the ruling class will seize every opportunity to undermine the position of the peasants and workers. Already they are blaming their defeat on the fact that they did not attack the workers parties strongly enough, that they were too timid. And they do not mean just verbally.
Wounded In Amarante, a town in the North of Portugal, members of the Centre Democrats (CDS) shot and wounded a comrade of the Internationalist Communist League (LCI), and were allowed to escape by the police. This is an example of what it means to be 'too timid'! And it is an example that these reactionaries will be seeking to repeat in the coming weeks Against these attacks, and others like them, the workers must organise in their own defence. While the back-pedalling of the réformists gives the reactionaries time to prepare new forms of attack and new alliances, the workers are being deserted by their leaders in the interests of sectarian manoeuvres around the forthcoming presidential elections.
President So far two candidates have presented themselves - an admiral (the present prime minister) and a general (head of the Army). Both these military gentlemen are being courted by various political parties.
At the moment Admiral Pinheiro de Azevedo looks like getting the support of the Socialist Party, while General Ramalho Eanes will undoubtedly have the support of the Whipping is still a common punishment in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) - for Africans only. This is just the crowning point of a dung-hill of racist laws now exposed* by which 277,000 whites maintain their ascendancy over 6 million Africans.
White supremacy didn't start in Zimbabwe in 1965 with lan Smith's Unilateral Declaration of Independence. conquered and ran the country from the turn of the century. Smith simply rendered it more 'profound' by bringing in a system of virtual apartheid.
LAND: On the crucial question of land, for instance, on which the majority of Africans depend for their subsistence, the Land Apportionment Act of 1969 designated 45 million acres as European and 45 million acres as African - in a land in which Africans outnumber Europeans by over zuto l. Ine best tarming lands are exclusively white. African areas are rurter away from rauways and One of the 'protected villages' set up by the Smith regime in an attempt to starve the guerilla fighters of support. Just who these villages protect can be seen from the positioning of the security keep - in the middle of the huts existing main roads, 82 per cent being more than 50 miles away from urban centres.
spent on the education of each African on his "European' counterpart. In 1975, approximately R(hodesian) $30 million -was spent on educating the children of six million Africans while R$25.74 mil lion was spent on the children of 307 thousand whites, Asians and coloureds 4D SUI EMPLOYMENT: *It is believed that there are now at least a million Africans unemployed. Despite the fact that the actual numbers employed in the towns have risen considerably over the last decade, the proportion of Africans in employment Has tanen trom 17 to 14 per cent...... On average, whites in employment carned almost eleven times as much as the average industrial black worker in Knodesia In 1912 (P25).
EDUCATION: At present the amount child is less than one-twelfth of that spent Act' (emphasis added). life imprisonment!
Just in case any African was tempted to use 'normal' means to change this studuon such as going on sunke section 31 of the Law and Order Maintenance acemakestra crimma ontence punishable by up to five years imprison ment for anyone to incite strike action in 'essential services' - with the burden of proof being on the accused. And *essential services" include not only a long list of specific areas but also 'any outer service acciarca byame rresaeni by notice in the Gazette to be an essential service for the purpose of this But that is not all. In section 48 of the same Act, an act of terrorism is defined as an act which is likelv to 'en danger, interrupt or interfere with the carrying on of any essential service.... Thus African workers who strike in "essential services" could face death or Price £1.
The only way the white ascendancy can be maintained is through naked repression. The most elementary rights - i assembly, uree speecn. ree trade unions - do not exist. But all these mcasures Have proved inerrective - even the diktat of September 1973 making it a capital offence to fail to report the presence of guerillas.
In order to try to prevent the African tribes from assisting the guerillas, the authorities began removing tribes people from their villages in early 1973 and resettling them in "protected villages. In Vietnam the Americans called them "strategic hamlets, and just who the villages protect can be seen from the pic ture on this page. The evacuated areas are "no-go" areas in which you are liable to be shot on sight without warning. NOTORIOUS *By the end of 1973, 8,000 had been moved from the "no-go" areas, and of thes 6,000 had by December 1973 passed through a notorious transit camp established at Gutsa, 150km north of Salisbury. Conditions in the camp were such that disease was rife and at one time four or five children were dying every day from cholera and measles. There were only three water taps, and only two African orderlies for medical attention. Each family was allocated one hut irrespective of the size of the family and the age of the children' (p71).
The imperialist powers are now scramb ling to save what they can in southern Africa, Vorster has opened up a policy of 'detente' towards the neo-colonial black regimes in Africa, the better to mask his own domestic savagery. Kissinger repeatedly states that the US will support all moves to remove the Smith regime by any means - except force.
British socialists must stand four square behind the armed struggle of the guerilla fighters and help hasten both the downfall of the Smith regime and the spread of armed struggle to the bastion of white racism - South *Racial Discrimination and Repression in sournern noaesia, a legal study by the International Commission of Jurists.
Red Weekly 13 May 1976