Sunny South Africa's latest piece of repressive legislation, mpathy for South African freedom fighters or a distaste Press and legal institutions but Afrikaaner judges, may well spread its tentacles into Zambia.
A new Bureau of State Security (BOSS) has been established to combine all existing South African intelligence and political security services. All its activities will be hidden behind the total blackout of the Official Secrets Act.
The BOSS range of activity has not and will not be revealed, even to the Parliament which established it, and it will be a jailable offence for anyone in South Africa to mention its work or to reveal so much as the name of any person in connection with his relationship to the bureau ensuring that its scope, its agents and its victims are nameless. incommunicado by the Bureau simply vanishes into thin air, This effectively CISE CS that since the penalty for mentioning the arrest in word or print can be seven years jail.
POWER
And if a BOSS victim is brought before a court, the Bureau has power under the Official Secrets Act to keep out of court any evidence including the defence of the accused himself, if it considers the evidence interests of the state".
The wide application of that term by South African officials was demonstrated recently when a Government Minister declared his opinion that Press reports of the death by suffocation of three African prisoners jammed into an airless police van were "not in the interests of the republic."
For any South African opponent of the repressive apartheid government the outlook is now grim indeed. Even visitors will have to watch their words, never knowing whether even amongst Transvaal "certain organisations, court if BOSS so wills.
anyone held have government before the Amendment became law.
will soon come into force. "prejudicial to the even its sympathisers.
"terrorist" activities. CIA model, whose agents are well-known to stretch far beyond the borders of America, Zambia can probably expect to be infiltrated by BOSS agents, both black and white in the course BOSS has been allocated over K4,000,000 funds, which lines up with President Kaunda's recent warning that South Zambia's response has been to start drafting stiff new legislation to deal with spies, which will come before the - former security branch head, General J. H. van den Bergh -to show his hand. The 6ft Sin bespectacled general is The two have been closely connected since they were interned together during the last war for pro-Nazi activities, Van den Bergh is on record as saying he believes that and other intellectuals are under Communist of court for K3.000. Since he is now in a position to act on his beliefs it looks as though the last protest groups in South Africa are about to be silenced on pain of their members disappearing behind the wall of silence, without even the right to produce a defence in The clause in the Official Secrets Act Amendment which can keep evidence out of court has roused the Cape, Johannesburg and Pretoria bar councils to issue condemnatory permission. statements. Ăfrikaaner judges of the Transvaal Supreme Court demanded discussions between the judiciary and But Minister of Justice Sampie Froneman has said he believes the legislation is already signed by the President and The South African Government has evidently founc Act. "Terrorism Act" insufficient to kill the painfu BRUTAL Under this brutal act any person of any nationality who does anything while inside or outside the Republic or in any help. way assists anyone else to do anything which is intended to disturb present South African rule is guilty of participating in He can be detained without any court being able to 24-year-old Philip Golding. who has been in a Pretoria prisor for the past month without recourse to a lawyer, unable to prove what he has or has not done.
After a diplomatic tussle he received a short visit from a British consul, which has helped him not at all.
He can expect the same treatment as Caroline de Crespigny and Alan Brooks, young Britons who have suffered South African interrogation methods in the past.
attentions of police master-interrogator Major Swanepoel whose technique - with whites - is to have them grilled continuously throughout day and nights without sleep until they go to pieces Some non-white "clients" of Major Swanepoel have die or suffered permanent injury like Suliman Salojee who jumped to death from an upper window during interrogation.
Or like James Lankoe who was found hanged in his ce with electric burn marks on his body Physical injuries to Swanepoel's prisoner Gabrial Mbindi an old man, resulted in a court case where the state settled ou VICTIM Zambian schoolteacher Desmond Francis is anothe recent victim of Swanepoel interrogation methods. Mr Franci managed to get his plight publicised when he appeared 1 court, but under the new laws political prisoners cannot loo which has caused an outcry not only in the English-language journalists face seven years jail if they publish without BOS procedure, evidence can be withheld from the judges, an Not many Zambians seek the tourist delights of sunn South Africa. But British citizens living here sometimes do id they should remember this. If they have ever expre the ruling government it may have been noted, and such mora support for "terrorists" could put them foul of the Terroris Or if on holiday there one happened to realise that a acquaintance had been suddenly arrested, and one warned h family about his sudden new relationship' with BOSS on could get seven years' in jail, with British officials powerless t Britain's Guardian newspaper declared angrily recentl that South Africa's Nazi-like treatment of Philip Golding w so outrageous that Foreign Minister Michael Stewart ought t have summoned the South African Ambassador in Londo before him for a hard talk.
For the past year there has been a situation of dual power in Amman, the capital of Jordan. On one side are the forces of the Hashemite monarch, Husayn; his grandfather came from the souther deserts of Arabia in 1920 to rule this area, and he himself has remained a faithful imperialist ally: "the least unreasonable Arab"
British helmets are everywhere; but so too are the troops of the Palestinian commandoes They carry their Klashnikov rifles in the street, fire them into the air at night, and make their own checks on the traffic. Husayn collects his taxes, but so do the guerrillas. There are two kinds of hospitals, two kinds of schools. In a prominent place on the side of a hill Husayn is erecting a vast ultra-modern detention centre and jail. Within one hundred yards is a Fath building with armed sentries, and just nearby the cemetery of Palestinian guerrillas killed in training or in action.
Jordan was long a safe imperialist preserve. Britain ruled directly till 1946; then, when Israel declared her independence in 1948 King Abdullah of Jordan reached an agreement with the Israelis under which he seized for Jordan the areas of Palestine which the UN had given to the Palestine Arabs. In 1951 he was assassinated in the al-Aqsa mosque, recently damaged by fire. In 1956 Husayn changed masters: he dismissed Glubb his British adviser and since then has relied on the US for over half his revenue. Jordanian TV is run, on contract, by CIA subsidiary RTV-International which churns out yankee material; the authorities were intending to stop broadcasts of "Bonanza" because it's made by Zionist interests, but it had to be kept as it is the King's favourite programme ... Husyan has always limed to suppress the Palestiniar question by making all Palestinians Jordaniar itizens and suppressing independent politica ctivity. In Jordan up to 1967 Palestinians wer especially urged to move to the impovirished East Bank - original pre-1948 Jordan - - or out of the country altogether in order to disrupt the economy of the West Bank; but this had the opposite effect: many Palestinians prospered in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf and it was among them that the first political and economic basis for the resistance grew up in the 1950s. When the Fath began military activities in 1965 Husayn tried to suppress it: the first Fath man killed was killed by a Jordanian soldier; many. guerrillas sympathisers were killed or imprisoned; and when the Israelis took over the West Bank in 1967 they were able to arrest and kill hundreds of guerrillas by using the security files which the Jordanians had left behind.
But the 1967 war changed the terms of the Objectively, it placed within Israeli territory over a million Palestinians to add to the 300,000 already living under Zionist rule. These formed a potential mass base for political and military resistance to Zionism. Subjectively, the defeat of the Arab armies convinced the Palestinians and many non-Palestinian Arabs that conventional war and conventional armies could never defeat Israel. Most Palestinians think that the Syrians and Tardaniane novar fanaht at all in 1067 hat There are now three quarters of a million Palestinians living in the East Bank, what is left of Jordan. Most of them live in refugee camps and all have been mobilised by the guerrilla struggles. The guerrillas get money from all Palestinians who pay around 5% of their income into a common fund, most of which goes to Fath. The total collected in this way is supposed to equal around £2million over the past year.
Fath is by far the largest of the guerrilla organisations, and its strength is mangnified in Arab eyes because it is the only group given attention in official media, and the only group to possess its own radio station; the other groups have to hand out leaflets in the streets of Amman to report their actions. Fath's reputation is also greatest because it was the first group to fight the Zionists, and it did so before the defeat of 1967 showed to everyone the bankruptcy of conventional war. Fath originated in the 1950s among Palestinian students in Cairo; Yasser Arafat (Abu Ammar) was the Palestinian student leader there from 1953 to 1956 and Salah Khalaf (Abu Ayad) was head from 1956-57. A sporadic resistance as Time calls him. His troops and police in had begun in the Gaza strip when the Israelis occupied in 1956 and in 1958 a political organisation, the Movement for the Liberation of Palestine Fath was founded. Its main base at first was in the Gulf because there the police were less vigilant than in Egypt and Jordan, and it was also there that a new Palestinian intelligentsia of owing ep. The majority of teachers and economists was growing up. the Palestinian refugees in the camps were relatively depoliticise by the abject misery of their condition and it required some release from this passive milieu for a political vanguard TO CIRSe This group began military activities in January 1965 and at first suffered the repression of both Jordanians and Israelis. After the June War they began military activities in Israeli-occupied towns on the West Bank in the period September-November 1967 but they suffered heavy losses. They then took the decision to fight a war using Jordan as a base, and since then have built up a military and political organisation in Jordan. The King tried in November 1968 to provoke a clash with the guerrillas by manipulating a puppet Palestinian group, the Heralds of Victory, into leading a full-scale battle with the Jordanian forces. But the guerrillas, taken by surprise, were able to fight off Husayn's forces in the suburbs of Amman. Since then, Husayn's army has become politically unreliable: many of his men are Palestinians whose political loyalty is unsure, and the mass of the Jordanian population are so pro-guerrilla that he would provoke a popular rising. In July he changed the cabinet and made his strongman uncle. Sharif Nasir, head of the army and the CIA agent and security chief, Mahmoud Rassoul, Minister of the Interior; but even they, known for their hostility to the guerrillas, were unable to launch an attack.
Nevertheless, the possibility of a clash remains, and the outcome is by no means clear; the king can probably still rely on his heavily armed Bedouin forces. The one Bedouin soldier I met swore he - and his tribe - would never attack the guerrillas, but this may not have been definitive.
Fath's ideology is a curious hybrid. They claim they are not a party, only a movement; that there are no classes in the Palestinian people, since they are all defined by their suffering under Zionism; that there is only one aim, the liberation of Palestine, and so Fath does not need an ideology; and that they are not concerned with the social revolution in the Arab world as a whole so long as this is not directly related to their national aim. There are Marxists or left elements in Fath who disagree with this policy but this ideology is coherently and consistently propagated in Fath schools and media. On the other hand, although the official aim of Fath is for a binational Palestine most of the leaders and ordinary Palestinians I spoke to wanted an Arab Palestine, in which Jews could live with full rights. Tied to this is the mystical belief that most Israelis being from Arab countries are Arabs anyway, and that the European Jews will just go back to Europe On the other hand, the two more left-wing groups, the Popular Front headed by George Habbash and the Democratic Front, headed by Nayyef Hawatmah, have less popular following and are smaller organisations, yet their ideology TED ESCELS an advance on the first-level nationalist consciousness of Fath. Both Habbash and Hawatmah are former members of the Arab Nationalist Movement, party founded by Palestinian exiles in 1951 with the slogan "Unity, Freedom, Vengeance". This group had a semi-fascist ideology, but Marxist elements grew within it, until the Movement -which had ten branches in several countries -broke up at a conference in 1964. Its Jordanian branch was not among the most progressive, but after the June defeat many left elements from the ANM came to Jordan and worked within the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the ANM locals had formed with two other small parties In 1968, however, a further split occurred At a conference in August 1968 the Marxist left voted in a Marxist-Leninist programme and called for an organisational restructuring of the Front. But the right elements were able to keep control of the military sections of the Front and to secure the release from a Syrian gaol of Habbash, who had been imprisoned by the Syrians. Habbash proceeded to concentrate power in the hands of himself and his group, so in February 1969 the left elements left the Front to found the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. This had the major political elements of the old united Front, but it lost both the military sections and the money to Habbash. The DF further allege that some of their men were tortured and killed by the Popular Front.
The Popular Front still bears the marks of its original semi-fascist terrorist ANM origins; but it has carried out a number of spectacular coups, including the hijacking of the TWA Boeing. They have refused to join the United Military Command on the grounds that it is stil dominated by the legacy of Shukheiryite bureaucracy and that it has refused to take a position on the Arab states as a whole The Democratic has been concentrating on political work since the February split. They are aiming to overcome the deformations of petit-bourgeois nationalism by building a proletarian cadre of workers and peasants in their training camps who will go to form a military cadre and a revolutionary party They criticise Fath for its reactionary ideological position both with regard to the class nature of the Palestinian people and with regard to the other Arab states; the DF argue that the Palestinian people have to fight on tw fronts, against Zionism, and against the petit-bourgeois and reactionary Arab regimes and that this can only be done by building a revolutionary party. They recognise that Fath i dominant at the moment, but they believe that when the Arab regimes move against the Palestinian people the compromising nature of the petit-bourgeois Fath leadership will become clear to the Palestinian people. Under these conditions, and with the concrete availability of a "Palestinian left", the masses will turn to them.
The DF maintain that since the June defeat there has been a "crisis of petit-bourgeois nationalism", ie. of Nasserism and the Ba'th; this crisis has come about because the Aral masses in general and the Palestinian masses ir particular have seen that the conventiona nationalist armies are incapable of fighting Israel, and that the social base of these regimes is a privileged class, relying on demagogy and police terror to stay in power. This provides the context for the intervention of a revolutionary leadership in Arab politics. But this is an over-schematic view: first, Nasser is by no means discredited and it is his name that the Jerusalem demonstrators are crying out each day; his speech on July 23rd claiming that "the liberation of Sinai has already begun" was greeted with tremendous enthusiasm throughout the Arab world; moreover, while Nasser and the Ba'th might be discredited, Palestinian petit-bourgeois nationalism of the Fath kind is almost universal among the Palestinian masses. The class rule of demagogic nationalism is weakening in Egypt, Syria and Iraq after a decade of rule, but the Palestinian people are traversing a much earlier stage in their struggle for national liberation than these other countries; it is essential for the Palestinian people to be led by a revolutionary party with a clear class ideology but although there has beer a considerable radicalisation among sections of the intellectuals this has not yet found its base in the popular masses.
The struggle against Israel has now entered a crucial phase. On the Jordanian side, the Palestinians in camps and working in the towns are united in the anti-Zionist struggle and thousands of young men have joined the guerrilla struggle. Palestinians from all over the world have sent money and one camp I visited was entirely filled by students who had left their universities to join the guerrilla. Each group has its own officers in the refugee camps and train a popular militia of men and women within the camps themselves. In the mountains the political and military camps of the guerrillas have mushroomed in recent months; Israeli air power is unchallenged in Jordan's skies so camps are kept under a hundred men anc dispersed. There is an overpowering sense of expectancy and militancy as a people, fo twenty years forgotten and despairing, has taken its own decision to fight the Zionist state But it is not clear if this degree of militancy can be translated into effective action against the Zionist state. Both sides lie about the number of actions and casualties, and it is clea that there is a constant and relentless series of resistance incidents within Israel. On the othe hand, some sections of the Palestinian people within the occupied areas are collaborating with the Israelis: the old Jordanian administration still works, West Bank farmers still export their produce to the East Bank and the policy of blowing up houses is a powerful weapon against a people whose greatest fear is displacement and losing their land. There also seemed little awareness to me of the changing moods within Israel itself, and most people I talked to assumed that sooner or later the Israelis would realise their mistake and give up the idea of a Zionist state. However, there is a mood of uneasiness among young Israelis which takes two contrasted forms - intense patriotism, and a scepticism about the anti-Arab assumptions of the old Zionist guard. This could form the basis for a weakening of Zionist morale.
There does not yet exist any substantial political alliance between Israeli and Palestinian revolutionaries, but after only two years of full-scale combat the guerrilla movement is stil in an early stage. Its achievements considerable: not only has it aroused and mobilised the refugee Palestinians behind it, but it has also established a political and military network among the Arabs who have lived ir Israel since 1948. The movement itself will sooner or later have to contend with the Arab governments, and will also have to undergo a process of internal radicalisation; and it will at the same time be able to ally itself with revolutionary forces emerging in other parts of the Middle East. It is as yet too early to see
DWARF On February 24th 1969 a black militant named Tony Soares was sentenced to two years imprisonment for allegedly distributing leaflets inciting unknown persons to riot, etc. etc. The leaflets were supposed to have been distributed before the October 27th demo last year. Soares was arrested some days after the demonstration and a month after his alleged 'offence'. His house was searched without a search-warrant.
The evidence produced included some ball bearings they found during their search and five copies of the offending leaflet. The latter was not true. It is obvious that Soares was victimised because of his position as a militant in une UCA (Universal Coloured People's Assoc.) A sentence of two years is absolutely monstrous but it is something that black people have come to accept as inevitable in racist Britain. The refusal of NCCL and other liberal groups to act in this case is also not surprising -just disgusting and typical.
When the last Dwarf was published our Circulation dept. sent copies to various branches of the Irish Civil Rights Solidarity Campaign. We received an amazing response from Mary Collins of the Acton branch: "I will not sell the copies you have sent me because I disagree with the contents of the Black Dwarf. I think that there are many injustices in the world but these should be righted through non-violent means only. I joined ICRSC so that I could work, using and advocating non-violent means only. am leaving the campaign because its most viciferous and influential members advocate the use of violence Suggestion for you Mary: If you want a real non-violent organisation apply for membership to the Communist Party, 16 King Street, W.C. j On Monday August 18th 1969 two of Fleet Street's most respected rags carried supplements in their respective newspapers. The Times carried a special report on Thailand. The Financial Times on Mozambique. While the former's leading "specialist' on S.E. Asia Richard Harris, wrote about 'increased independence and democracy' in Thailand the latter's staff devoted their space to printing revolting articles showing how much progress had been made under Portuguese rule. The Times report carried advertisements from Thai Oil Refinery Co. Ltd., Bangkok Bank Ltd. Bangkok Investment Trust Ltd., The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation etc. The Financial Times contended themselves with money from Portugese industry. This is how Fleet Street journalists prostitute themselves.
For three full days, as he never ceased telling us, some smooth tit of a compere bored the pants off the Isle of Wight with his pathetically small vocabulary of hippy jargon. The crunch came when the crowd were really swinging after Richie Havens had finished. All they wanted then was Dylan and this tit got off his ass to say People now shall we cool it and we'll have 3/4 hour of records and then another 1/4 hour while we tune up Bob's harmonica (maybe it was the piano) 'cause we want to get this just perfect for you etc.
The crowd was pretty pissed off by this Meanwhile the loud-speakers kept on booming out little messages about a missing dog called Junky and the funniest about a woman who'd lost her husband Stanley and could people shout at him because he was a bit hard of hearing bless him. So while the tit called on us People", the crowd was calling for Stan and all in a near hysterical voice to "Cool it Junky and most everyone else.
Meanwhile the tit was getting very heated over some fans who had climbed onto the fence and had a pretty good view but who hadn't been squeezed for their £2-10. The electricity cables for the stage - all heavily insulated - ran along the fence and at first he tried to shoo them off by saying they were in danger of cutting off the electricity "and you wouldn't like to be responsible to the crowd for that". It didn't work so he turned the crowd's wrath from himself to the fence-perchers with things like "People, YOU tell them to get off" and "If the people had coconuts I'm sure they'd throw them at you.
The records were all designed to defuse the crowd and they hadn't succeeded. Then came the master stroke. They played Hare Krishna and they played it twice. The Hindu ethic peace and mysticism, cool it cool it cool it. The political nature of it all was laid bare. They would have put it on again but the crowd shouted for Honky-Tonk Woman and tit-face sure was jittery before that beat number was played.
His final remark caused hoots of laughter. You know the sort of thing, switch the voice to mush, tears in the eyes: "People, I've been out here on the stage for three days (again) and I'd like to say, I mean this, I want to tell vou how much I love all you people and it's been so groovy having you here" etc.
Stuff that! Everyone of that 100,000 crowd tad played bloody f2-10 to get in and thei hat git tells them how much he LOVES then At a Wilkins (Tiptree) fruit factory in Wivenhoe, where few people (usually students) are employed for a month during the blackcurrent season, to freeze the fruit, the wages are as follows:
Male over 18 - 7/- per hou Female over 18 - - per hou Male under 18 - 5/- per hou Female under 18 - 2/6 per hou All four groups do the same kind of work, which includes a considerable amount of lifting and pulling about heavy fruit-laden trolleys.
"THE RAINY CITY RAP-IN" A weekend discussion, revolution, rock and film Stockport Secondary Schools Union. Starts Friday September 12 through Sunday night. Speakers on communications. Reform, Direct Action International tema Social stes. WorkShops SO C13!
for poets, artists. him makers, Street Theatre Sculptors. Unity Union. Funer details from Grass Eyes s Photographer Manchester Corporation Street, Manchester 4.
FRELIM 25 Seemed it the finer Celebrate the beginning Road, WCi. 7.30pm. day at the Pindar of Wakefield, Gray's winca struggie in Mozambique Revolutionary poetry, drama, discussion. Admission 2/6.
SEPTEMBER 25 - 28: BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY SOC SOC will be showing films on Columbia, Cuba Black Panthers and LSE with discussion on the student movement. There will also be discussions on the situation in Birmingham, with speakers from th Indian Workers" Association, Black People's Alliance etc. Comrades interested should get in touch with Soc Soc, Students Union, Birmingham University, Birmingham 15.
OCTOBER 10 13: COMMUNIST SCHOOL OF ART AND DESIGN: ART/DESIGN/REVOLUTION SOCIETY. At Marx Memorial Library, Clerkenwell Green, London EC1. Details from Nick Wright, 16 King Street, WC2 OCTOBER 19 or 26 (date to be confirmed): To commemorate the October 5th march of last year, the Irish Civil Rights Solidarity Campaign are planning a major national demo on VSC lines; March from Charing Cross Embankment to the Ulster Office Berkeley Street, London WI and on to Hyde Park Contact Pat Denny, 01-GUL 0476 NEW PRODUCTION AT UNITY: The Diamond 7.45pm. Tickets 5/ Goldington Street, NW1. Tel: 01-EÚS 8647 in the Leeds-Bradford area, o-ordinate w existing groups there. Leeds comrades please contact him.
Anyone interested ir starting a BLACK DWARF The Dwarf always needs help from illustrator let us know.
SPECIAL ISSUE OF INTERCONTINENTAL PRESS DOCUMENTS THE WORLD CONGRESS OF THE 4TH INTERNATIONAL. Includes Resolutions and Reports on New Rise of World Revolution, Latin "Cultural Revolution" in China, World-Wid cluding postage from The Black Dwar post free from 'he Blac colours, black and red)
DIRECTORY OF ORGANISATIONS, 300 groups fo eft activists, 1/6 post paid From: 18a Nev Square, London NW3 OLD DUPLICATOR WANTED FOR REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION. Free cheap. Contact Box BD105.
Poems published. SAE Ken Geering. D/Breakthru, Lindfield, Sussex.
Che Guevara's Bolivian Diaries. 5s post free from The Black Dwarf, 7 Carlisle St., London WIA 4PZ. INTERCONTINENTAL PRESS - a revolutionary weekly journal that specialises in news from Africa Europe, the Americas and Asia. Sample copy 2/4d post paid from Pioneer Book Service, 8 Toynbee St.
Mozambique. 20 minute film shot in liberated areas for hire. 1/6 35mm. £2.10.0d. o.n.o. Pamphlet Mozambique, 1/4. 531 Caledonian Road, N7. Telephone Write to Committee for Freedom 01-607 2170 NLF Badges and Flags. Also others. SAE for detail: McGee Pendarves St., Beacon, Camborne, Cornwall.
HASLEMERE campaigning against exploitation of Third World, secretary from October. Some wages available. Write needs hard working BOX NO. BDI U3.
BADGES MADE TO YOUR SPECIFICATION Colours: Red, Black, White, Green Blue, 1% dample/ 1 Diameter 1/- each 10/- doz
----- pull-quotes -----
answerable to nobody but Premier John Vorster. which indicates a fairly unholy alliance.
Fred Halliday reports from the Middle East
Trotsky by Palme Dutt. Write Box JS69, Black Dwarf LEEDS SQUATTERS: Douglas Jordan, 28 Grantham load, Bradford 7 is willing to start a squatters gro
designers, and photographers, so if you have som good pictures, or want a commission (expenses only!)
Pioneer Book Services, 8 Toynbee Stret, Load no HOW CAN THE JEWS SURVIVE? A socialist answer THE LAST YEAR ON A I The evolutior 'hat's Black and White and Red All Over? Poster