1963. In fact, Labour's "ban' is more like a sieve No less than eight separate instances of military cooperation with the South African racists have come to light in the past two months:
* On 29 March, Labour MP Frank Allaun protested in Parliament that British Marconi had supplied an £8 million military communications system to South Africa.
* On 13 April, Allaun made a new revelation: Aviation Jersey Ltd had supplied South Africa with Centurion tanks, spares and equipment worth £1.2 million.
* Again, on 16 April, Allaun charged that Marconi had signed a second contract in 1975 for £7 million - to refurbish and update the South African air-defence system.
* The Observer revealed on 4 April that rocket motors for MartinBaker ejector seats are being exported to South Africa.
* The 25 April issue of the Observer reported that Hasler (Great Britain) of Croyd n is at present manufacturing a sophisticated message-switching unit for export to South Africa. Ostensibly to be shipped to Hasler (South Africa), the equipment is actually destined for the Rhodesian army.
* The Anti-Apartheid MoveThe British Labour Government claims to uphold the arms embargo imposed against South Africa by the United Nations in wide holes that literally millions of pounds of military hardware have been exported from Britain to South Africa in recent years.
ment's secretary, Abdul Minty, has accused the Government of allowing aircraft (manufactured in South Africa under Italian licence) to be equipped with Rolls-Royce-designed engines (Guardian, 28 April). * On 29 April, Roy Mason, the defence secretary, admitted in Parliament war copies or tre bruisn Defence Equipment Catalogue, which lists British arms available for foreign buyers, were passed on to the South African Government in January. * The Times revealed on 30 April that seven parcels containing codification documents for NATO equipment had been sent from the Ministry of Defence to Pretoria via the South African Embassy in London.
COLLUSION This record of repeated military collusion with the apartheid regime in Pretoria is made possible by the extensive system of 'loopholes' in the Labour Government's arms 'embargo'.
The most important of these is provided by Paragraph 4, section (ii), of the 1970 Customs and Excise Ex- with such AFRICA port of Goods (Control) Order.
restrictions on Schedule l' exports.
tanging from aircraft to nuclear equipment. Some of the more obviously "military' items in the list are marked with an "A' and may not be exported anywhere except by special licence. But according to section (ii):
in this schedule but not herein indicated by the letter A are prohibited of Ireland, the Republic of South 'non-A' items on Schedule 1 can be exported to South Africa - and they comprise dozens of categories of military equipment, including surveillance and communications equipment as well as materials for in protest at his company's sales to South Africa, pointed out the meaning of this in an interview published in the Observer on 18 actually arm South Africa, but is free to provide most of the necessities for the South Africans to arm themselves without any, obligation to inform the Government.
SECRECY A three-part series by TONY HODGES PART 3 This deals with exemptions from Scedule 1 lists several hundred items 'Goods of a description included to be exported to any port or destination other than a port or destination in the Commonwealth, the Republic Africa or the United States of America!
In plain English, this means that quarters in Brussels. nuclear reactors and aircraft engines.
Jock Hall, an electronics engineer who recently resigned from Marconi Thus British industry cannot Bon man testo. equipment not specifically convered Finally, but shrouded in secrecy, is the role of British companies in supplying South Africa with military equipment bearing NATO code numbers. 'Although the firms cannot be identified from the NATO firms, because reference to them is shielded by code numbers, the Anti-Apartheid Movement said on 17 April, 'it is clear that Western firms are involved. Most striking of all is that the NATO system of codifying equipment and spares has been made available to South Africa.' Military communications equipment is believed to have been exported from Britain using NATO codes for installation in the giant South African military surveillance system, Project Advokaat, located at Silvermine near the Simonstown naval base. The system, which can monitor any plane or ship in a 5,000 mile radius (covering the whole of Africa. the entire South Atlantic, and much of the Indian Ocean), is tied in with the surveillance systems of the Royal Navy, the US Navy, and NATO headFLAGRANT The military collaboration of the Wilson and Callaghan Governments with South Africa has been carried out in flagrant violation of repeated Labour Party conference decisions. As Allaun stated on 16 April: "There is unanimous opposition in the Labour Party and its executive to all supplies of arms to South Africa. Indeed, this was pledged in our elecDespite hypocritical criticisms of some of the more abhorrent as pects of the apartheid system, and despite the much-touted arms ban", the record shows that the Labour Government has cynically used a battery of loopholes to ensure that British companies can continue to export military equipment to the South African racists.
The right-wing Labour leaders, in line with their total commitment to British involvement in NATO, have put the strategic interests of the imperialists in southern Africa, the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic before the interests of the workers and peasants of southern sistence wages.
Every effort must be made to build a mass movement with suffic ient power to force the Labour Government to honour the party's conference decisions and cut off all links with South Africa - whether military, economic or political. Furthermore, NATO's role in arming the South African regime - revealing once again the real nature of that imperialist alliance - underscores the need for Labour to sever immediately Britain's ties with NATO STOP THE ARMS TRAFFIC TO SOUTH AFRICA!
Three pamphlets available from Red Books, 97 Caledonian Rd., London N.1 ANCOLA in the whirlwind of permanent revoltion 30p plus 10p p&p 30p plus 10p p&p
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