AROUND THE WORLD
AROUND
THE
WORLD
SOUTH AFRICA Semi-liberty for Mandela NELSON MANDELA, who is now 70 and quite ill, has just been moved permanently to a clinic in the Cape. According to the South African government, there is no question of sending him back to prison after his convalescence. Mandela has served 24 years of a life sentence for "high treason". He symbolizes the implacable opposition to the apartheid regime by the Black national movement.
The semi-liberation is therefore an event of first importance. After having refused over the years any possibility of a pardon. the Pretoria regime finally Mandela's release on condition that he
ANC's position "violence". Today, the South African government has taken a rather spectacular initiative in a period when the mass move-
This must be seen in a context where premier P.W. Botha has succeeded in retaking the political initiative since 1987. After several years of extremely large-scale confrontations, the regime was able to weaken the popular movement using both repression and a series of manoeuvres with the strategy of the main component of the movement, the
Botha has blown hot and cold
So, for the last year Botha has systematically blown hot and cold. On the one hand a new, particularly anti-union and repressive, labour law was introduced, along with bans and constraints on a number of movements, notably COSATU and the United Democratic Front. On the other hand was a proposal to privatize part of the public sector, an acceptance to desegregate certain commercial zones, negotiations for the independence of Namibia and, just a short time ago, the lifting of the death penalty for the Sharpeville Six after a strong campaign of international solidarity.
Using this tactic the South African government has successfully managed to win back the confidence of the liberal bourgeois sectors. It has thus been able to destabilize part of the strategy of the ANC, 22 who were hoping to profit from the deep divisions in the ruling class to give itself a space for semi-legal activities. It is particularly significant that a section of the Afrikaner electorate has moved to the right to the profit of the Conservative Party, while a section of the traditional supporters of the liberal PFP has transferred allegiances to Botha's National Party.
Mandela's semi-liberation therefore has contradictory meanings. But that takes nothing from the fact that if there had not been a campaign of international solidarity to demand his liberation, he would no doubt still be in prison. The South African government thinks that it can take this significant initiative precisely because Mandela represents a symbol. Like all his generation of militants from the ANC, the Pan-African Congress or other movements who have been through Robben Island prison, Mandela represented a perfect example of courage and energy for the new generations who have taken up the struggle these past years. * CANADA Demo against trial NEARLY fifty people picketed and rallied in front of the Israeli Consulate in Toronto on October 19 to demand that false charges of aiding a terrorist organization laid against Michel Warschawsky, director of the Alternative Information Centre, be dropped. (See article page 7.)
Participants carried signs that called for freedom of expression in Israel and an end to political trials targeting examples of Jewish/Palestinian cooperation, like the
As petition signatures were collected from passersby, chants rang out: "Drop the charges against Michel Warschawsky" "Defend supporters of Palestinian rights" and "Stop Zionist repression".
The rally, covered by a CTV news camera crew, was addressed by Elias Hazineh, president of the Canadian Arab Federation; Yossi Schwartz of Jews for a Just Peace; Varda Burstyn, member of the Israeli-based Peace Now movement; and Professor James Graaf of the University of Toronto Middle East Group. They rally was chaired by Barry Weisleder of Socialist Challenge, sympathizing organization of the Fourth International in the Canadian state. Over $70 was collected to aid Warschawsky's legal defense.
Thirty counter-demonstrators from the Jewish Students' Federation waved Israeli flags and tried to drown out speakers by repeatedly singing the Israeli national anthem.
An attempt by a Zionist student physically to disrupt the peaceful picket was stopped by the organizers. Police then stepped in to cordon-off the Zionists whose respect for freedom of speech seemed comparable to the practice of the government with which they identify. * NETHERLANDS "A sea of people" "THE BIGGEST demonstration since the war," that was the way leaders of the Dutch trade-union movement described the October 8 labor demonstration in Amsterdam, which brought out 150,000 people. Aldus Paulus Plas, chair of the Federation of Dutch Unions (FNV), commented: "Demonstrations are a great boost for self-
Food workers' union chair, Geert Wijnhoven, said: "People say that demonstrations don't have any purpose anymore. And then we get the biggest trade-union demonstration since the war. Then you see that people at the bottom of society, where poverty exists, are ready to do something." It was the Food Workers who took the initiative for the demonstration and fought a hard fight in the FNV to get approval for
Klassenstrijd, the paper of the Dutch section of the Fourth International, began its article on the demonstration by noting that it was the first united demonstration by the FNV in five years and that expectations were not very high. But at the stations, it became clear that it was going to be a massive rally." The crowd included many women and youth, as well as an estimated 20,000 foreign workers
"Museumplein was transformed into a sea of people - older people, youth, women and foreign workers were everywhere. Away from the loudspeakers, there was group of women. They came from Vlaarindgen to protest against the cutbacks. But they were also in Amsterdam to demonstrate for a 'better environment,' one of them said."
Klassenstrijd's reporter talked to groups of people eager to bring down the rightist government of Ruud Lubbers.... "They all have to go. That's what we're here for," a member of the public workers' union said.
The demonstration became a focus for many opposition groups in society, including radical youth, students, women and gay activists. "A new phenomenon for the Netherlands was the call of many groups to demonstrate in their own 'contingent." Thus, there was a peace bloc organized by the Broad Initiative for Continuing Actions for Nuclear Disarmament. The Women's Union of the FNV decided at the last minute to organize a women's contingent. And the Youth Movement linked to the FNV joined a youth contingent." *