Stepped-up campaign sister trade-unionists working and at the East London [South Africa] factory [of Daimler-Benz] in order enable us to react immediately to the will anti ialis against apartheid AS THE STRUGGLE against apartheid and racist repression in South Africa intensifies, solidarity activity in different countries around the world is being stepped up.
Sections of the Fourth International in all the major developed countries are currently preparing their activity for the autumn. GERRY FOLEY
The Militant, the newspaper that reflects the views the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), a group in solidarity Fourth International, published a special issue antiapartheid struggle at the end of August. It reported: "Actions across country demand: Free South Africa.' "
The most important action was the August 12 demonstration of thousands of people in Washington, DC, to protest the imposition of the State of Emergency. The organizations represented by banners including "churches, religious-oriented groups, Central American solidarity organizations, and several trade unions ... the American Federation of Government Employees, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, United Food and Commercial Workers, Service Employees International Union, International Association of Machinists and International Union of Electronic Workers.
The California National Organization for Women (NOW) conference held August 16-18 approved a resolution condemning apartheid and calling for support for the protest actions planned against it.
The youth group affiliated with the SWP, the Young Socialist Alliance, decided on August 16 to give top planned for October 11. the YSA National Committee voted to give full support to the tours of Black people of South Africa.
In its August issue, Socialist Action, a Fourth Internationalist paper published in San Francisco, pointed to the importance of the example of the mass struggle in South Africa for the US labor movement:
"The revolutionary proletarian methods of the struggle mounted by the South African masses differ profoundly from the 'unfair lists' published by US unions. Such boycotts and strikes - carried out to firings and jailings." 2. To inform ourselves thoroughly about the oppression of Blacks but also about Daimler-Benz's activities in South Africa." 3. To call on workers representatives in the Supervision Council [Aufsichtsrat, a comanagement body] to demand an investment boycott." 4. To better inform the workforce through an assembly of the shop stewards, an exhibition in the participation of the union ranks - local union offices, and perhaps
La South Africa week in the plant. 5. To organize "regular trips by "making every effort toward organizing workers from Mannheim to South large protest actions this fall." Africa and to invite colleagues from
The paper of the German section East London to Mannheim." Rep-
Fourth International, resentatives of the East London Tun, published a special on plant are to be invited to an assembly Africa in its August 15 issue. As an in the Mannheim plant. example of the sort of solidarity Klassenstrijd, the paper of the needed, it pointed to a resolution Dutch section of the Fourth Interstewards and Factory national, called for a boycott of at the Daimler- South Africa on the front page of Benz auto factory in Mannheim. its August 21 issue and in the editcalled for the orial, which said: "We cannot predict how the "Making contacts directly and bitter and bloody confrontation quickly with South African brother between the apartheid regime and
Free Nelson Mandela!
Nowadays repression in South Africa is becoming less and less selective and opposition to apartheid are constantly threatened with death and kidnappings. But the regime still considers that its primary target has to be those currents who are tied in one way or another to the
ANC. This explains why the UDF, which is partially under the influence of the AN along with that of the churches, is facing the most violent attacks today. The Reverend Allan Boesak, president of the World Alliance
Reformed Churches and a founding member of the UDF, was arrested on
August 27 when he was supposed to lead the demonstration for the freeing of Nelson Mandela the following day. Father Boesak was detained under the internal security laws, which allow the authorities to hold suspects indefinitely without preferring any charges.
But other organisations have also been hit by the repression. This was the case for example in the Chemical Workers Industrial Union where Andries
Raditsela died in May this year following brutal treatment by local police during detention. No one is safe at the moment. ANC members and sympathisers are most often held under the pretext of the anti-communism laws
For proven membership of this organisation places concerned under threat of immediate death. A significant number have already
But recently commando squads, similar to those used by repressive regimes in Latin and often composed of Blacks, have grown up, using such methods as kidnappings and assassinations. This avoids any formal need to arrest people and keep them in detention. With this system also, it will now be possible to hit out at all those who threaten the regime including moderate members of the UDF, trade unionists and members of the Black consciousness movement, whom it would be difficult to accuse of membership of the ANC.
The campaign for the release of Nelson Mandela obviously goes beyond the simple issue of democratic rights. For some, the issue of his release is a good propaganda exercise for the need to establish talks between the government and the Black movement. For the ANC it is good propaganda for their organisation. Abroad it is often used in a sectarian way, especially by the communist parties, in order to limit solidarity to the ANC alone.
Whatever the case, however, the liberation of this long-time leader of the
ANC would be seen, not as simply a result of international pressure from social democracy and certain liberal sections of society but as a victory for the mass movement.
FREE NELSON MANDELA!
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