AROUND THE WORLD
AROUND
THE
WORLD
SOUTH AFRICA Free Mandela! IN deciding to free eight black South African leaders held in prison since the 1960s, South Africa's President de Klerk has made a further move in his search for a negotiated way out from the crisis of
Eight political prisoners were freed, including, most significantly, Walter Sisulu. This old leader of the African National Congress (ANC), who was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 1964, is considered the most popular black political prisoner apart from Nelson Mandela. By releasing Sisulu the South African government is giving a signal that the next step will be the release of Mandela, if the regime feels that negotiations with the ANC are now possible.
De Klerk's long meeting with religious leader Desmond Tutu on October 11 is also significant. Furthermore, the big unitary anti-apartheid conference previously planned for October 7, has been postponed until December in the hope that Mandela will be able to take part. An important change in the South African political scene is in the offing. Mass mobilizations will take place in a different situation, and this will require not only tactical changes but a wide-ranging strateSRI LANKA Trade union leaders seized FOUR members of the Sri Lankan Janaraja Healthworkers' Union in Colombo, all members of a Trotskyist group, the Nava Samasamaja Party (NSSP), were abducted from their union offices on September 15, 1989. They are still being held. The NSSP is convinced that this abduction is the work of sections of the state security forces, passing themselves off as anti-government terrorists.
According to a statement from the Committee for Workers' Unity, "This unexpected assault on the Trade Union and its leaders is a clear sign of a profound crisis within the armed forces and 16 • of a hardened attitude towards any anti-government activity. State terrorism is doubly applied to the retaliatory terrorism of the rural youth.
"Sri Lankan rural peasant economy was destroyed Finance Capital under British colonialism which in tum hampered a proper organic capitalist development.
Up to this day, no ruling regime has had any policy to solve the questions of landlessness, rural indebtedness and they have shown their inability to utilize the rural resources. So the majority of the rural population are today unemployed, under-nourished have literally become the scum of the carth.
"The rural youth have voiced their utter desperation of the rural people. They have led a rebellion against all established authority and all the accepted standards of the general ethos of traditional Sri Lankan society.
For the last forty years when their basic needs have not been solved, in utter frustration, the younger generation have been pushed into a blind alley and their means of retaliation have become extremely
EYESIGHT OK ?HEARING? OTHER SENSES? GOOD. TOO BAD. GENERAL HEALTH? ABILITY TO RESUME WORK? PROSPECTS
FOR A LONG LFE 7
GOOD, CONSIDERING.
HOW UNFORTUNATE...
"This general situation has had an impact even on the trade union movement and has been able to swing a certain tiny layer of young workers to terrorism.
"This rural rebellion became enmeshed with communalism when their Tamil counterparts started their struggle for land and self-determination.
"The rural problem in both the north and south of Sri Lanka is of a nation struggling to possess its own land. This aspect of the rural rebellion can even attract the sympa thy of the workers although they abhor communalism and terrorism as means of
"Therefore the ruling class in Sri Lanka senses the possible emergence of a combination of forces, the alliance of workers and the rural youth. So they have started an assault on the youth which will eventually grip the whole working population and the radical left movement.
"We ask you therefore to campaign:
1. To immediately release all the Trade union leaders — Brothers W.A.D. Wimalaratne, W. A. Gunadasa of the Janaraja Healthworkers' Union and Brothers Mahind Silva and Dumminda Dharmasena of the Local Government Clerical Services
2. To stop all military interventions in the work places and the Trade Union offic-
Send messages and telegrams to
1. His Excellency the President R. Premadasa
Janadhipathy Mandiraya, Colombo, 1, Sri Lanka.
2. General Cecil Vaidyaratne,
Combined Services, Havelock Town (opposite Pediris Udyanaya), Colombo 05, Sri Lanka."*
MEMORY? ALERTNESS? ENERGY LEVEL? Gooo. PITY.
...IM AFRAID, MR. MANDELA,
YOU'RE IN NO CONDITION TO
BE RELEASED PROM PRISON.