The Next Step: No. 4, 30 January 1987

ENGINEERS NEED TO UP THE ACTION NOW

TELECOM

STRIKERS MUST

HEEDWAPPING

WARNING

the nextstep Revolutionary Communist Party • 30 January 1987 • 30p Uniting the working class pages 6 and 7 Black youth brain-damaged page 4 Inside the City page 5 German elections: new opposition needed page 8 4

SEE PAGE 3

the next step Revolutionary Communist Party weekly • 30 January 1987 • No 4 Telecom he strike at British Telecom is a vital T contest between a determined management and a powerful group of workers. The winner will be the side which is best prepared to pursue its aims. BT managers have made their position clear.

They will not make concessions, they will stick out for victory, and they will brand any phone engineer who tries to hit their system as a criminal. The union leaders have failed to match management's single-minded will National Communications Union chief John Golding spent the first day of the official strike trying to persuade employers to do a fudged deal. He saved his spite for strikers, echoing management's condemnations of those accused of sabotage.

industrial hat-peaced action is no way to beat bosses whom himself has described as "pig- Golding headed". The strikers need to up the action now by state ast Saturday night leading Labour Party left wingers turned up at the Wapping anniversary rally, to call on sacked workers and their print supporters to elect a Labour government.

While they were speaking, riot police were beating seven bells out of demonstrators.

trampling them under horses' hooves and spraying them with dye to make arrests easier. On Monday the leader of the Labour Party appeared on television to condemn the Wapping violence as 'hideous'. He wasn't speaking about the genuine violence of the but about that of imaginary police, "provecateurs' on the picket line. The fact that the left's candidate for Downing Street supports uniformed police thugs against workers fighting for their jobs sums up the prospects for ordinary people under any future Labour government.

Events at Wapping, the showtrials of black youth from Broadwater Farm and the banning of a TV documentary about a spyin-the-sky provide fresh evidence of the Tories' determination to reorganise British society along military lines. From the picket line to black inner-city estates to the skies, they are willing to use paramilitary police and draconian laws to silence any opposition.

Margaret Thatcher's public support for Manchester police chief James Anderton, who claims that God told him gays belong in a cesspit, shows the bigotry and malice that lie at the heart of modern Toryism.

Meanwhile, the Labour leaders react to each new example of state repression or censorship with spineless servility.

They have demonstrated that any opponent of the system would feel the hand of the police state just as hard if they were in office.

Alongside his pro-police line on Wapping.

and his visit to inspect the British troops occupying Ireland, Neil Kinnock has come out in favour of the Tory han on the spy satellite documentary made by New Statesman journalist Duncan Campbell. His only complaint is that the government did not do the job properly. under Labour such bans would be slapped on faster and harder - and presumably the Special Branch would not have waited for Campbell to come home before kicking in his front door. A few weeks ago, the New Statesman was being criticised as too moderate for dumping Publisher Revolutionary Communist Party, BM RCP. London WCIN 3XX * copyright Printer MPS Ltd. 159 Acre Lane. London SW2 Annual suhscription rates • Britain and Ireland 19 • Europe £24 • Middle East and North Africa £26 • America Asia and Southern Africa S27 • Australasia C32• libraries, institutions t30 All cheques payable to Junius Publications Itd.

Circulation 01-729 377L. Newsdesk 01-729 3771. ICIN 3XX ISSN 0144 350 X 30 January 1987 Registered as a newspaper at the Post Offi 2 • the next step • 30 January 1987 organising to shut down the phone system.

That would soon make the employers change of unel tune. A coordinated campaign disruption could involve a range of tactics from jamming switchboards to occupying the exchanges. Instead of organising such action, union officials boast that their members are not militants and emphasise the 'responsible character of their picket lines. This may be good for the NCU leaders' media image. But it is of little use to strikers up against militant managers who are out to break them. Now is the time for the strikers to raise the stakes. So far management has enjoyed the initiative in the dispute and the engineers respond. But have been forced a disruption campaign argued for and run by the rank and file could quickly swing things around. BT would find it is hard to act tough when their industry has been closed down around them. Kinnock's police Kinnock's non-nuclear defence policy and coming out in support of nuclear missiles.

Yet Kinnock now agrees with Thatcher that the harmless magazine is the latest enemy within'. No matter how fast you move to the right, you can be sure that the Labour leader will get there before you.

Neil Kinnock's recent attempts to outdo as a patriotic statesman and the Tories supporter of law and order have made little impact on the opinion polls. Few voters are Winston Churchill impressed DY and his quibbling with Impersonation Thatcher over the finer points of police repression. But Kinnock's right-wing antics have not shaken the left's commitment to campaign for his election.

The left's promise of support for Labour come what may is little more than a suicide note for those worried about war and civil liberties. If we accept that the contest in British politics is just between Thatcher and Kinnock, we are allowing two supporters of the state's security forces, two enemies of striking workers, to compete for control over the machinery of repression. There will be nobody left to take a stand against the violence and victimisation that the authorities What chance is there for the working class if we passively offer our support to a party whose leader uses the worst example of police terror against trade unionists since the miners' strike as an opportunity to tell the nation of his heartfelt support for the boys in blue? What hope is there for the people of the third world if the British left lines up behind a man who believes in Britain's right to use everything from spy satellites to nuclear-powered submarines to protect its holdings around the world?

The Revolutionary Communist Party is not prepared to leave Kinnock to speak for the labour movement. We believe that the working class must have its own voice on the vital issues being debated in the run-up to the election. That's why we are general campaigning for The Red Front - a platform for working class unity (see pages 6 and 7). It is a focus for pulling together all those who are not ready to submit to repression, censorship and militarism, matter which party leader is pulling the power revers orrespondence to The Editor, the next step. BCM JPL.TD. Lende today George Roucou is a shop 1 steward in the building workers union, Ucatt, at Manchester council.

He lives with his common law wife Kim and their children. If the home office has its way, he will soon be unemployed and homeless, somewhere in the Seychelles. The with various authorities have come un excuses for deporting Roucou, from the fact that they lost his passport to the breakdown of his first marriage. But the real reason he has been victimised is that he is black in Thatcher's Britain. Workers Against Racism supporters have joined the George Roucou defence campaign to stop him being bundled on to a plane back to the Seychelles. The campaign has won support from many labour movement It's big initiative is a work-time march in Manchester next Friday. Organising a weekday demonstration has meant persuading people to stop work in support of black people's right to be in Britain.

Roucou supporters have gone out to workplaces and union meetings to argue for workers' solidarity with the victims of British state racism. The activists arguing for George Roucou have confronted racist sentiments head-on and forced trade unionists to take sides.

Either people accepted the victimisation of black people as part of the British way of life, or they stood up for Roucou. The experience of having this debate out has confounded those who insist that the working class is The George Roucou inherently racist. defence campaign has proved that, if we don't dodge win an the issues. important minority of trade unionists to the cause of active anti-racism.

Roucou's supporters quickly discovered that there were no short-cuts to winning the ast week the Tories threatened legal action against the civil servants' union CPSA over dole office strikes against in Leeds and "ethnic monitoring Birmingham. The union officials turned tail and ran. The episode underlines the need to organise opposition to the race checks at rank and file level. The department of employment served a writ on the CPSA on the grounds that their action was not part of a trade dispute. CPSA officials took legal advice, and decided to comply with Tory orders by withdrawing official support. The strikers found this out from the local media. Their officials didn't even bother telling them they were being left in the lurch. scheme We've sabotaged the anyway claimed one Handsworth striker. 'But that's because we knew we could strike with union backing. Now the

O TICHIS

weak-kneed response has left us high and dry. It makes you wonder what we pay them for.

The officials climbdown follows their refusal to campaign for proper action Since last against monitoring. October they've known about the government's latest plans to use dole office workers

ALL OUT ON 6 FEBRUARY

Defend George Roucou Next Friday's Manchester march to defend black trade unionist George Roucou against deportation is an important test of anti-racism in the labour movement argument in a workplace meeting. Even if they hadn't raised the central issue of black people's rights, the racists surely would have. 'We don't want blacks coming over here and breeding like rats' was the most virulent racist response they got. They responded by refusing to concede an inch insisting that even if the authorities had branded Roucou an illegal", they would still support him. After serious and sometimes heated discussion, some workers recognised the need to make a commitment to anti-racism As one Ucatt member put it: "The man is under attack because he's black. We can't let this happen." The majority of Ucatt members in the depots are unlikely to come out on t February. But the significant minority that do, and the Nalgo town hall members and other trade unionists who join them, will be living proof of the potential for mobilising workers against state racism. Stopping work for Roucou will be a new departure for the anti-racist struggle in Britain. If you're a trade unionist anywhere in the North-west, you should be there to show solidarity with a black worker under attack.

Charles Longford

MANCHESTER

* DIRECT WORK'S

Defend George Roucou! No more deportations! Demonstrate: 6 February Assemble 12 noon at All Saints, under Mancunian Way, Manchester. March through the city centre to the town hall, Albert Square Union abandons strike against race checks to collect information on black claimants and pave the way for further attacks on their right to benefit. But the officials waited until two days before the scheme was due to start before sending down a leaflet opposing it.

In the areas the Tories were targeting Leeds, Birmingham, and Nottingham union officials gave members the impression that the only drawback to ethnic monitoring is the extra work involved. They avoided arguments about the racist role of the Tories' schemes, and left union members in the dark about how to oppose them. It was no surprise when this dishonest attitude failed to win active opposition to the race checks from many workers.

thing: The Tories are right arguments about ethnic monitoring cannot be treated as an ordinary trade dispute over working conditions. The checks are part of a racist surveillance operation, and must be opposed as such. If CPSA members vote to set up an independent political fund in this week's ballot.

building rank and file opposition to the Tories' racist manocuvre should be the first campaign it is used for. Mari Leneghan

PULL THE PLUG ON BT!

Striking British Telecom engineers need to hit management hard and fast if they're to win the battle over wages and working conditions

WE DON'T WANT ANOTHER WAPPING

he quickest way to win a strike is to 7 shut down the employers' industry flow of profits. and stop their Britain's striking telephone engineers are in a position to do just that, and to turn back management's attempt to impose tough new working conditions alongside a five per cent wage rise. British Telecom managers have been coming across very cocky on the television.

I ney nave boasted tat tem new technology.

backed by the scabbing antics managerial staff and others, can keep the system running despite the national strike.

The electronic System X, TXE4 and System Y. exchanges are designed to run for years without a total breakdown, thanks to their duplicate sets of equipment.

If we're to wipe the smug grin mangement's face Telecom workers cannot afford to wait patiently on picket lines outside the exchanges and hope that something breaks down behind BT's locked doors.

If strikers wait for the phone network to "die a natural death', the initiative in the dispute will remain in management's hands.

But if they get organised to shut the system down now, the engineers can unnerve BT.

Telecom engineers know better than anybody how to pull the plugs on the phone network. They know how the system works from the exchanges through the thousands of miles of vulnerable cables. By putting their knowledge and ingenuity to work, engineers could cause maximum disruption with minimum effort and make a quick elecom engineers who started their this week should nanona stake study the harsh experience of the print workers at Wapping. They spent the anniversary of their dispute last Saturday booing their union leaders and being attacked by riot police. After suffering and struggling outside Fortress Wapping for 12 months, the embittered print workers are still sacked, and still standing outside.

Telecom workers can avoid a similar fate by learning some quick lessons.

The Wapping dispute and the Telecom strike were both provoked by employers trying to tighten. the screw workforces. Rupert Murdoch moved his operations to his scab-run new-tech plant at Wapping and sacked 5500 workers. BT has tried to make engineers agree to work however, wherever and whenever management dictates, and suspended or locked out those who took protest action.

Both of employers adopted

SCIS

hardnosed style and raised the stakes. Meanwhile, the union leaders they face have sought to soft-soap management back into negotiations and to keep the lid on their members militancy. The dire consequences of this mismatch between ruthless employers and equivocal union officials are clear at Wapping. The dangers are already becoming apparent in the Telecom strike.

PREACHING PASSIVITY

Print union leaders have not tried to mobilise their members for challenge to Murdoch. Instead, they have sent the sacked workers to march up and down outside the Wapping plant three times while the unions plead week Murdoch to come back to the negotiating table. As a result Murdoch's managers have sitting snugly inside their fortress.

DeCi banking £2m profit a week and throwing out the occasional insulting 'offer in an effort to buy off the print workers. The strikers have been left to stew at the gates. Their officials' victory a real possibility.

If it is to be effective, the campaign of disruption must be organised and argued for and file by rank widespread support for such action is vital.

The strikers must be prepared to cope with the backlash it would prompt from management and the right-wing media. Unless have out the organised disruption, publicity handful of extremists sabotaging the strike of will tend to strengthen the moderate mood among other engineers. The strikers need to organised now to campaign for a coordinated effort at bringing BT down off its high horse.

We have already seen the sewer press running scare stories about how the striking engineers are endangering the lives of the off old, the weak and the sick.

coming from the supporters of a government that is prepared to let pensioners freeze to death. Any casualties caused by the strike should be blamed on the employers who provoked the dispute. should what decide emergency cover, — and not management - keep control of it, and close down telephone services. The fate of the strike could well be decided in its early decision goes in the workers' favour, by pulling the plugs on BT provocateurs and fast.

- POLICE

on their

THE ACT

refusal to organise effective picketing has exposed them to the sort of police rampage we saw last Saturday. Their numbers have dwindled to a core of 2000 bitter activists an all-out who have been let down at every turn by their leaders' lack of guts.

The engineers' National Communications Union, led by former Labour executive with member John Golding, has shown equally little enthusiasm for effective action. While management went for the kill, Golding tried to placate his members with token overtime bans and staggered 24-hour strikes. He has only been dragged into a national strike by the employers' provocation and the engineers' determination. Even now, he has no plans

TELECOM STRIKE

ENGINEERS NEED EFFECTIVE ACTION

Winning engineers. arguments for about la get themselves This is rich Telecom engineers constitutes make sure that they all other stages. Let's make sure the arrogant the management

POLICE

POLICE

WAPPING ONE YEAR ON LAST WEEK: DON'T WAIT FOR THE RIOT POLICE, START UPPING the BT network. on management to snow some sense' and 'get round the table.

Wapping see lines outside ENGINEERS CAN GIVE BT 'ADVANCE NOTICE OF THEIR WILL TO WIN BY CLOSING DOWN au 33r13d for making the strike bite by disrupting Before the strike had even officially started, Golding condemned any of his members who might commit the 'crime" of interfering with The NCU leadership says that its sole aim is to negotiate a deal with BT, and has called Are we to re-run, engineers whiling away hours on ineffective picket exchanges which are stil working, while Golding and Co chase management around trying to do a deal? The fate of the Wapping strikers is a brutal reminder of where such a passive response to management aggression leads trade unionists.

Unless the strike is hitting BT hard, any deal Golding might negotiate would be on the employers' terms — like the shabby sell-outs which print union leaders have three times tried to foist on to Wapping strikers. It would be unlikely to protect his members' conditions for long. The sort of 'common sense' NCU leaders display in talks with BT has not stopped the loss of 21000 jobs since 1981.

Golding ends every statement on the strike by swearing that he wants to make BT efficient and profitable. That can only mean accepting a tougher regime for the workforce.

DON'T HOLD BACK

Telecom engineers have started with some of the determination of Wapping militants.

Just as the print workers threw out every dirty deal offered by their officials, so the phone workers have voted down BT's terms by majorities which Golding admits shocked the NCU chiefs. Now they need to learn what Wapping strikers have discovered over the year: trade union leaders who prefer common sense chats with management to discussing strike strategies with members cannot be trusted to deliver the goods Telecom engineers can't afford to spend demoralising weeks on picket lines being taunted by scabs and management and possibly brutalised by police. They need to up the action now. To do that, they need to get organised to control their own strike through rank and file bodies. They need to coordinate a campaign of disruption (see above). And they need to reach out for solidarity from other workers in the communications system. Clerical workers have already been locked out for refusing to cross picket lines. The scene is set for widening the battle against BT management.

Wapping shows that the working class cannot afford to waste a week, never mind a year, waiting for something to turn up.

the next step • 30 January 1987 • 3

WHAT HAPPENED TO

TREVOR MONERVILLE?

revor Monerville islying partially paralysed in a hospital bed. At the end of five days in the custody of the police prison neded brain surgery. This was how John Monerville found his 19-year old son in Brixton prison: *I was profoundly shocked upon seeing my son after five days, and seeing the injuries had sustained during that time.

On ne touching his head, which was extremely sore and covered with bruises, making him cinge back in pain, l also noticed a severely blackened. pufted-up and perforated left eye. His right eye was fixed in an abnormal position and could not focus on me whilst I was talking to him. "The inside of his mouth was perforated and covered in blood and his jaw was swinging to the right. His left shoulder and the back of his head were heavily bruised His chest was heavily bruised also, and his ribs, especially on the left hand side of his body, showed signs of severe bruising. The bruising, also extended to his thighs and buttocks. His legs from his knees to his feet were covered in congealed blood and scabs.

His feet, above and below, were covered in round bruising marks. *He told me he had severe pains all over his body, acute headache and abdominal pains. His hair was covered in dry vomit and his condition was extremely distressing for him and me. Trevor coldn't speak except to ask, "Why did they arrest me, the bastards?'

Until he found his son half-dead in Brixton prison on 5 January John Monerville hadn't seen him since New Year's Eve, when Trevor went out with his aunts. He left them at 1.30am. From here we have to piece together what happened to Trevor from some dubious police statements, the custody record from Stoke Newington police station, police surgeons' scrawled reports and evidence from hospital neurosurgeons.

Why did the police arrest Trevor?

Chief superintendent Peck claims that Trevor was found asleep in a car at 10.40pm on 1 January by a member of the public who called the police. They arrested Trevor for suspected crımına damage and took hım to Stoke Newington police station. Police claim they only found out who he was on Saturday 3 January, after fingerprint tests.

On 3 January Trevor went to Highbury magistrates court to be remanded in custody at Brixton prison. The police story of Trevor's arrest and detention doesn't explain how what started of alleged ds acase involving a car, ended up as a case of brain damage. When Trevor and how was paralysed? According to the custody report police removed Trevor's clothing hours after his arrest. Since Stoke Newington police are not noted for their modesty, they could not have failed to see that he had a serious head injury, black eyes, swollen legs, bruises and cuts all over his body - if he already had them. Within 12 hours of his arrest Trevor went to hospital and saw three doctors. They found nothing wrong. By Friday 2 January, Trevor was still well enough for the custody report to record that it took six police officers to "forcibly" fingerprint him.

available evidence points to Trevor being maimed after he entered Stoke Newington police station. The police have failed to provide any credible explanation of Trevor's injuries. In a note to hospital doctors dated Sunday 4 January, police say that on 3 January Trevor was taken to King's College hospital with 4 • the next step • 30 January 1987 head injury since January l'. So the police were implying that they knew Trevor had his awful head injury when they arrested him.

Yet it does not appear in their custody record, and the doctors don't seem to have spotted it. chief super- A cople ot days later, intendent Peck changed the story. Peck told Hackney MP Brian Sedgemore that the first he knew of any 'alleged severe blow' to the head was when he read aletter from the MP on 8 January. Until then, Peck claimed, police believed Trevor had a "brain tumour', diagnosed on Trevor's second visit to King's College hospital on 6 January. Peck said police were 'desperately sorry" for Trevor, doctors but It's the who made the big mistake? There was no mistake. Trevor has not got and has never had a brain tumour. Nor did he have an acident. Irevor s injuries point to a beating.

Medical evidence from neurosurgeons at Maudsley hospital seems to confirm this.

According to Dr Strong Trevor's head injuries are consistent with a blow to the head with an instrument, rather than an acidental fall - 'The picture is of a fight and assault.' It is impossible to make sense of the police statements but it is clear trom the custody record and doctors' reports, that Trevor became seriously ill after he was forcibly fingerprinted by six police officers at 8.06pm on 2 January. An hour later he saw the doctor, whose notes reveal the first signs of abuse — 'R. pupil appears dilated, discoloured L. eyelid". Trevor was rushed to-hospital.

Back in the station he saw the doctor again.

By the next morning Trevor could not walk.

The magistrate at Highbury court had to go to Trevor's cell to remand him. That evening Trevor was rushed to hospital and back to prison. By Sunday Trevor was incontinent.

On Monday he had three 'epileptic fits'. By Tuesday he was "totally inert'. On Thursday he had brain surgery. What happened in the fingerprint room? Why did the police mislead Mr Monerville? At 3pm on 1 January John Monerville reported his son missing at Stoke Newington police station. He went back the next afternoon and showed police a photograph.

They still said Trevor wasn't there - but by then he had been inside for at least 17 hours.

Why were Trevor's clothes destroyed? When Trevor was dumped at Brixton prison he was wearing only his shorts and jumperand these were destroyed. Stoke Newington police at first confiscated the rest. What have they got to hide? Why have the police dropped the charges? On 8 January the police dropped all charges against Trevor without an explanation. Why - unless their story is made up?

Trevor Monerville Ha v HCVCl

TCCOVCE

from his ordeal. mentally or physically Doctors say it will take five years to assess his injuries. His father told me that he would not talk about his son's past 'because l've got to accept Trevor as he is now, I cannot get the old Trevor back, so I will not discuss the old Trevor." The family and friends of Trevor Monerville have to accept 'Trevor as he is now', but they won't accept a police cover-up. They want their questions answered.

A ts INVESTIGATION

BLACK YOUTH PARALYSED

Trevor Monerville looks like he's been in a car crash. He hasn't. He's been in Stoke Newington police station. Joan Phillips ploughs through police documents to find out what happened

TREVOR MONERVILLE SUFFERED BRAIN DAMAGE AFTER FIVE DAYS

IN POLICE AND PRISON CUSTODY

become a symbol of violence for black people in East London.

1971: ASETA SIMMS, a middle-aged black woman, died after receiving multiple injuries to the head in Stoke Newington police station. Police blamed her death on drink but police doctors said the swellings and bruising over her head looked like the result of a beating. The coroner returned a verdict of "death by misadventure" 1976: Just after midnight 17 police offficers burst into the home of Jamaican couple.

DAVID and LUCILLE WHITE, 'looking for stolen goods". The Whites offered no resistance, but were kicked and beaten with truncheons. Police dragged the Whites to Stoke Newington station and charged them with assault. Six years later a judge awarded €51 392 damages against the police for inflicting a catalogue of violence and inhuman treatment". 1978: Racists stabbed 19-year old MICHAEL FERREIRA in Stoke Newington High Street. His friends helped him into the police station. But the police were more interested in interrogating friends than in saving Michael's life. He died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.

1981: NELLIE KNIGHT and her daughter JENNIFER called the police over a dispute with their neighbours. They were arrested.

Pandora Andersor Inside Stoke Newington police station 'Never run in the dark in Stoke Newington', warns Hugh Boatswain in his poem 'Cut up Dub'. Stoke Newington police station has racially abused and beaten Stoke DV Newington police. The Knights were charged with doing police grievous bodily harm.

1983: 21-year old COLIN ROACH found dead, shot through the head, in the entrance to Stoke Newington police station Police reponded to protests which followed The wiw brutal lorce ane mass atrests.

annual police report claimed that 'Deceased walked into police station in possession of a sawn-oft shotgun which he later used to commit suicide in an interview room."

NEWNGTON POLICE STATIOA

The crisis in the City of London exposes the bankruptcy of British capitalism The Tories have tried to pass off the latest spate of City scandals as the antics of a handful of cads. But the shady deals, speculation and corruption exposed by the Guinness row reflect more than a bit of over-enthusiastic thieving by a few City whizz-kids. The scandals are just a symptom of the deep malaise afflicting the whole economic system. Today capitalism only survives through fancy footwork in the financial markets. The current round of crooked dealing results from the merger and takeover boom which has swept Britain and America. The £2.5 billion buy-out which gave Guinness control over Distillers was one of a spate of takeovers which totalled a record £15 billion last year. The vast sums of money moving around the markets provide plenty of scope The situation is made for for sticky fingers. insider dealers like Boesky, Collier and other sharks who manipulate slush funds worth hundreds of millions and operate in the shadowy world of secret nominee Swiss bank accounts. The merger boom has taken off because capitalists have few other profitable things to do with their money. The decay of their system has forced down profitability of industry, the machinery plant and in unattractive prospect. This is particularly true in Britain, the oldest and most decrepit of big capitalist powers. financiers have got into takeover bids for existing firms, which can often produce a quick profit for little effort. This boom has been fuelled by easy credit. The role of credit in the economy today is at the events within the City's Square Mile.

OUT OF CONTROL

Capitalists use credit to keep their system running when real levels of profitability say it is time to pack up. Credit has become more and more important during the post-war years. Since the capitalist crisis began to bite in 1973, it has been largely responsible for wheels of world making sure that the industry turn at all. At home, companies have borrowed heavily to ride out the storm credit consumer Bras demand. Abroad, Western money-men have lent vast sums to third world countries trying But despite its short-term to industria ise benefits, the credit explosion only stored up problems for the future. Credit cannot solve the problem of low profitability.

clapped-out concerns going and stretching the system, it only serves to reproduce the problem on a bigger scale. The third world debt crisis which rocked the West in the early dangers. eighties shows authorities have to extend credit further to lubricate their rusting economic machinery.

Instead of retreating from the looming financial crisis, the bosses have had to invent new ways of generating artificial funds and to abolish old regulations which restricted their international dealings.

The takeover boom, deregulation and the City's Big Bang are all features of a financial scramble in which mounds of paper money are getting further out of control.

MONEY MAGIC

One example of the phoney character of capitalist enterprise today is the growth in capital. Governments companies issue bonds to borrow money from the public. These creditors' notes are then used like cash, as the basis for further lending. The borrower has the money raised.

the eventual holders of the bonds use them as collateral, and the same "magically' reproduced several times over.

of cards is a stable structure A house compared to the financial markets today.

In their thirst for credit, financiers on both

BEHIND THE CITY SCANDALS

A discredited system

TO MAKE SOME

sides the Atlantic governments to deregulate their affairs, and making allow them more freedom to wheel and deal an around the world. There has also been a boom in new and more complex financial institutions and arrangements, blurring the Instead, distinction industrial firms lending to others and big stores operating credit cards.

FIT FOR BURNING

centre of The central role of credit economies has created openings for the sort of speculation that has recently hit the headlines. Companies have to speculate to survive. The crisis of capitalism has reduced the business world to a gamblers' den. Only and fast-moving line a thin successful speculation from law-breaking and the cry of scandal'. Guinness and its merchant banker, Morgan. Grenfell, were stimulated underlying By keeping Yet the W hile the Aids scare fills the gutter press, the authorities are stepping up their assault on homosexuals.

Last week Margaret dropped the neutral tone of her government's Aids leaflets. She came out in support of Anderton's full-blooded anti- James homosexual bigotry. On Saturday police wearing surgical gloves raided a gay pub, the Vauxhall Tavern in South London.

arrested 11 people — for drunkenness.

Two activists from the Lesbian and Gay Youth Movement spoke to ins before a public meeting organised by Birmingham RCP last week. They were among the nine and gay men and three lesbians arrested and held in jail for a week over Christmas.

protesting outside the home of a Tory councillor who had called for gays to be gassed as a solution to Aids.

*Many people on the left have expressed money shock at the way we were treated. But we accept such harassment and victimisation as routine. The Tories and inedia have created conditions where lesbians and gays come in

THE STOCK EXCHANGE

EASY

MONEY?'

THE CRISIS HAS REDUCED THE BUSINESS WORLD TO A GAMBLER'S DEN

pushed have and been financial sharks. between banks, stockbrokers, you're a crook. today's Survive. economy sepalaies Victims of the Aids

DEFEND LESBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS

scare genocide Thatcher and imprisoned. rights is long overdue. optional extra alongside and complete for about public both recently applauded as fine examples of British enterprise for pushing the rules to the limit. Now they have overstepped the mark scapegoated by their fellow The methods remain the same; one day you're a success, the next The important lesson from the recent crop of City scandals is not that some capitalists are crooked. We should take it as read that they will all play as dirty as is necessary to The scandals give us a glimpse of what a sordid mess the employers' way of running the world has become. They show that the financial sector on which the British now relies exists on a badly organised series of swindles and sleights of hand. The 'free enterprise' system now rests on a pile of paper that passes from backhand to back-hand. It is fit for the bonfire.

Phil Murphy

GCHQ.

judges. for "queer-bashing" because of the Aids hysteria. In Britain today. if you challenge the most evil homophobia — on the scale of - you risk being criminalised *A political response that can defend our It's not just an any safe sex dispute. campaign. It's a matter of survival for us.

The discussion at the meeting centred on The the government's safe sex campaign.

speaker from the LGYM branded it a distraction' which would be counter-productive because it ignored th issue of homosexual oppression. "Every gay has to take personal decisions about their lifestyle and how it affects their health. But to focus a public campaign against Aids around personal decisions that are common sense is ludicrous. For the RCP.

Milligan emphasised our responsibility to cut through the campaign's phoney concern and to focus energies on defending lesbians and gays from the growing attacks on their rights.

THE

PROPAGANDA

WAR

HUMAN RIGHTS

'One of our first priorities on the return of a Labour government will be to restore trade union rights at GCHQ declared Labour's shadow employment secretary John Prescott, at a rally on the third anniversary of the government's ban on union membership at its Cheltenham spy centre. Prescott condemned as 'shameful' last week's dismissal by the European Commission of Human Rights of the civil service unions' appeal against the ban. The Strasbourg court upheld the government's case that it was no violation of human rights to ban unions in occupations vital to 'national security. The proposal to replace union rights won and sustained by collective organisation and action with a framework of 'positive rights' guaranteed by the courts is the centrepiece of Labour policy on union laws. Events at GCHQ show the dangers of trade unionists putting their faith in the judiciary.

The Strasbourg decision confirms the hollowness of the concept of 'human rights.

As is generally the case in human societies divided into classes, there are two conflicting sets of rights at issue at GCHQ.

There are the rights of the capitalist state to command total loyalty from those engaged in military, policing and intelligence activities on its behalf. And there are the rights of workers to organise collectively to defend their wages and working conditions. •Between equal rights,' wrote Marx.

force decides.' In January 1984 the Tory government, without any consultation, announced a ban on union membership at GCHO. It offered £1000 to every worker and threatened disciplinary action, including the sack, against anybody who refused to comply. The immediate response was a spontaneous walkout by civil servants throughout the country. This collective action could rapidly have forced the government to restore union righis at However, the union leaders feared the consequences of major disruption. They restricted industrial action to token protests and urged the GCHQ workers to seek redress through the courts. Instead of fighting back against a ruthless government, they settled for pleading for mercy from the The unions' strategy reached the end of the road long before their case was finally thrown out last week. Within weeks of the government's original announcement, union membership at GCHQ was smashed. There are now 45 beleaguered union members in a workforce of 7000. The judges have upheld the rights of their colleagues in government to destroy trade union rights. The legal process has undermined the potential that existed to resolve the issue through industrial action at the beginning of the Will a future Labour government honour its promise to the GCHQ workers? After Neil Kinnock's declarations last week of his willingness to take repressive measures in the interests of national security, we cannot hold out much hope. The clause on which the European Commission dismissed the GCHQ appeal allows the restriction of union rights in the armed forces, police and in the administration of state. This clause was specially included in the human rights convention in 1950 on the request of Clement Attlee, prime minister in the postwar Labour government. In 1948 Attlee had launched a purge of left wingers in the civil service — on the grounds that they were a threat to 'national security.

the next step • 30 January 1987 • 5

RED UNITIN

FRONU WORKI

Last week we published an open letter from the the British left, appealing for support for a slate o platform in the general election. Mike Freeman ou The Red Front and takes up some arguments aga here are two reasons why we have decided to take the initiative in launching First, the of Geciine aceletanng British capitalism means that drastic measures will be required to preserve it, whichever party Rallying a core of wins the gerar ciechon. working class militants who are ready to defend living standards and liberties against further Tory attacks or an inevitable Labour betayal has become an urgent task. The aim of The Red Front is to forge a current in the labour movement which is prepared to fight back against both the employers and the next government, whether it is led by Margaret Thatcher or Neil Kinnock.

Second, we have decided to launch The Red Front because the RCP lacks the resources and influence to mount an effective nationwide challenge to the exisung eddersmp or une labour movement. The object of The Red Front is to pull together left-wing organisations and individuals around a platform of basic working class demands in a way that the RCP could not hope to achieve alone.

LEFT UNDER

LABOUR'S UMBRELLA

The Red Front aims to promote working class unity around policies which express our urgent needs at a time of mounting crisis and repression. In more favourable circumstances we would go all out to win unity around the full programme of the Revolutionary Communist Party. However, because Marxism has been an alien ideology in the British labour movement for so long, many people are susceptible to anti- These prejudices are communist orejudices. often expressed in the most virulent and sectarian form by Labour Party supporters, in attempt to shrug off left-wing criticims of Labourism. By putting the platform of The Red Front to the fore, we are emphasising the anti-capitalist and anti-Labour elements of the RCP programme. The capitalist media and the apologists for the labour burcaucracy on the left will try to marginalise our campaign by stirring up bigotry against the RCP. But the issue is not whether or not people support the RCP. It is whether or not they support the four demands of The Red Front (see box). Above all The Red Front is a challenge to the 6 • the next step • 30 January 1987 left. It is a challenge to choose bet ween promoting the unity of the working class and uniting with the Labour Party around a divisive, pro-capitalist, anti-working class manifesto.

The Red Front is not another attempt to regroup or realign the left. Left-wing organisations in Britain have a long history of trying to overcome their isolation and weakness by linking up with one another and with other movements - students, women's groups, antiracist campaigns,

CND,

anti-apartheid, the greens, the lesbian and gay movement, etc. The organisation towards which all such initiatives lead, especially at a time when there is little scope for pressure groups to work independently, is the Labour Party. Labour is the umbrella organisation of the British left.

The drift of the left into the Labour Party swamp reveals that it has given up any attempt to guve a lead to the labour movement through its own activities. The inevitable result is that the left sucumbs the more powerful to influences of middle class campaigners and labour bureaucrats. The pathetic spectacle of Militant leaders proclaiming their undying commitment to the unity of the Labour Party as they are expelled from it is the most extreme illustration of the left's subservient mentality.

The quest for unity on any terms inevitably leads to the further fragmentation of the working class movement.

WHERE DOES THE

LEFT STAND?

Nor is The Red Front an attempt by the RCP to impose take-overs or megers on other leftwing organısations, in the tamılar manner of City conglomerates. The Red Front is simply an electoral bloc, a slate of candidates standing on an agreed basic platform for the purposes of the forthcoming general election only. If Labour was challenged only by the RCP, many Labour supporters would try to dismiss us as an extremist sect. (Ironically this is an argument used most aggressively by left-wing entrists who are temselves being witch-hunted under the Kinnock regime.) The adantage of The Red Front is that, by involving other organisations and individuals, it can limit the scope of such scurrilous polemics. Our aim is to focus on the policies of The Red Front - and to counterpose them to the policies of the Labour Party. The Labour Party aims to replace collective struggle by trade unionists with individual reliance on the courts. Kinnock praises the traditional family values which keep at home and at work. By

WOLICH

dowil upholding immigration controls Labour puts white Britons before black people and immigrants. While Labour divides the working class on these key issues, The Red Front unites. Where does the left stand? *

UNITE AGAINST

THE SYSTEM

Is The Red Front reformist? It is ironic that this accusation is being levelled by those who will be calling for a vote for Labour in the election. The platform of The Red Front is not a revolutionary programme but a series of policies which can help to pull the working class together to face up to the capitalist offensive.

Nor is our platform reformist: it does not appeal the capitalist state to implement socialism. Anybody can draw up a list of proposals which are more revolutionary than those on offer from other. parties. However, the platform of The Red Front is not distinguished by the extremism of its demands. Its distinctive feature is the role it can play in uniting the working class in the struggle against the capitalist system.

The Red Front is a modest step towards bulding a working class movement that can overthrow capitalism. Without it the working class will be forced to retreat even further and will become even more disorganised and defensive.

Is The Red Pront too simplistic? Some say that everybody is for jobs, decent living standards.

civil liberties and peace. While this may be true in the abstract it is beside the point. Very few are prepared to take a stand in defence of these basic demands. Indeed many, including most left wingers, are prepared to give their support in the election to a party that will not stand up for the basic needs of the working class.

In recent weeks Kinnock has made it clear that a future Labour government would make little impression on the number of unemployed, and that it would restrain wages and public spending. In response to both the Australian MIS trial and last week's New Statesman story about Britain's spy satellite, Kinnock has boasted that he would take a tougher line than the Tories in suppressing civil liberties in the cause of national security. The enthusiasm for frigates, fighter-bombers and tanks displayed by Labour's latest policy statement on defence is a horrifying warning of the danger of a future Kinnock government to the lives and liberties of the peoples of the third world.

The object of The Red Front is not to issue revolutionary demands, but to forward put policies which emphasise the necessity of taking a stand on the side of the working class, and of fighting back against any attempt to impose asterity or intensify oppression.

Does The Red Front strengthen illusions in the electoral and parliamentary process? Again.

this is an accusation that lacks punch when it comes from those whose alternative is to wholly support Labour, a party waich is committed to electoralism and parlamentarianism. Putting forward The Red Front as an electoral bloc is simply an acknowledgement that most people in Britain regard the general Cecuon ds tanc cal dna or poHues. EE IS impossible to be a serious contender for the of the allegiance working class without challenging its existing loyalties in the electoral sphere. We recognise that the widespread preoccupation with elections and parlamentary debates restricts the scope of the class struggle.

Hence our intervention in the election seks to show that what we really need is direct action in the here and now, not a vote every tive years and a choice among a collection of broadly similar mainstream parties. But it is impossible to redirect workers" energies from the ballot box to the wider class struggle without entering the electoral fray. Without The Red Front the left will be reduced either to trailing along as usual with Labour, or to cursing it impotently from the sidelines.

UNITED FRONT

REVISITED?

Is The Red Front a return to the United Front tactic pursued by the international communist movement under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky in the carly twenties? No. The Red Front has come into existence in quite different

NG CLASS

Revolutionary Communist Party to inst it circumstances with much more limited objectives.

In the early twenties the international communist movement was made up of parties formed in most European countries in the upsurge of the class struggle that followed the end of the First World War and the success of the Russian Revolution. rallied in 1921 and the old

OCCE

democratic parties of the labour movement began to revive, the communist parties had a solid base of support among the most militant and anti-capitalist sections of the working class.

The existence of a vanguard in the international working class organised in the communist movement provided the basis for the United Front tactic. *

FORGING A

VANGUARD

Through United Front work the communist parties aimed to draw the social democratic organisations into joint activity to defend the more working Class againsta capitalist establishment.

show in struggle that the communists could provide a consistent lead to the working class, while the social compromise with the established order. The communists, who had already vanguard of the working class, used the United Front to reach out and win over the mass of workers from the influence of reformism.

In general the United Front failed to achieve its objectives. Instead of winning the masses from reformism, the communist parties themselves increasingly under CanC influence. This process was accelerated by the emergence of the Stalinist leadership in the Soviet Union in the mid-twenties.

sequences the defeats international working class in the twenties and thirties and the virtual extinction of Marxism as a force in society after the Second World War still dominate the outlook labour movement. Today there is no immediate prospect of Marxists winning mass influence in the British labour movement. The central task is not to win the masses. but to create a vanguard in the working class that can provide the basis for rallying mass support at a later stage. Thus there is no basis for the tactics of the United Front, which presume Ene

G THE

f candidates on a common tlines the case for Red Front, labour movement. When the capitalist social The Red of coexistence confident The object was to are telling alternative in the future.

democrats would always won the The consuffered by the central focus of general election. of the sections of the own in the election debate.

existence of an organised proletarian vanguard. But there is considerable scope for an initiative such as The which aims to accelerate the emergence of an anti-capitalist current in the By challenging Labour at the polls The Red Front can play a key role in forging a vanguard in the working class. For years left wingers have criticised the leaders of the Labour Party and denounced their betrayals. But when it comes to a general election the left invariably closes ranks around the leadership. Left wingers bite their lips, swallow their pride, choke back their vote Labour. and troop Recognising that the carping criticisms of the left are more fraternal advice than an attempt to put forward a real alternative, the leadership the cosy Front cuts through the with the labour bureaucracy. It is impossible to rally working class resistance against the system, today or in the future, without putting forward a clear alternative to Labour now. Those who call for unity against the Tories or a vote for Labour are not offering any alternative in the present. They people to put their trust in the traditions of the past and wait for some

GIVE THE WORKING

CLASS A VOICE

The Red Front serves notice that the struggle to build a new working class movement cannot be relegated to the sphere of academic critiques of Labour's programme or put off to the future.

It needs to be built today in the context of the British politics the At present the labour movement is being drawn together under the grey banner of Kinnock's Labour Party. The survival of the working class through the next few years depends on exposing this specious unity and forging a new unity of the most highly political labour movement, a unity around une pressing acmands or the working class, under the red banner of The Red Front. If you agree, fill in the box on page 11 and join the battle to give the working class a voice of its

WORK OR FULL PAY

To survive in capitalist society everybody needs either a job at a living wage, or the same level of income in the form of benefits.

afford to go poor just because employers cannot make enough profit out of our labour, or because the state cannot afford to maintain our living standards. What constitutes a living wage? This can only be decided by wage-earners and those who rely on benefits. We reject all state attempts to regulate wages by means of incomes policy.

DEFEND

UNION RIGHTS

We stand for the repeal of all laws that restrict the rights of workers to take action in defence of working class interests. We reject all restrictions on striking. picketing and solidarity action. We reject all state intervention in strike ballots.

union elections or any other labour move- MC aCLIVILY.

EQUAL RIGHTS

FOR ALL

We are in favour of the widest extension of civil liberties and for equal rights for all. We reject all measures which strengthen the power of the capitalist state and extend the interference of its repressive forces in society.

attempts to criminalise sections of society as a

A PLATFORM FOR-

WORKING CLASS UNITY

of Way

MOIC ICDICSSIUEL

We cannot demand on demand. divide the working approval to racism. in society.

STOP THE

WAR DRIVE

We oppose Argentina especially We repudiate public approval for winning We oppose discrimination against women at work and call for the establishment of free nurseries, available all day for children of all We ages, to free women to go out to work free abortion and contraception We oppose discrimination against black people in all spheres of society. We call for the repeal of all restrictions on immigration which class and give official We reject the Aids panic as a propaganda campaign designed to take advantage of a fatal anscase to broschoe nomosexual acavity and bolster conventional morality. We defend the rights of lesbians and gay men to full equality all forms of militarism. both conventional and nuclear, and all alliances among imperialist powers, particularly Nato.

We condemn Western military interference in the third world and support countries such as or Libva against imperialist aggression. We support anti-imperialist struggles.

Palestinians in the Middle East. black people in South Africa and liberation struggles in Central America. We place a particular priority on supporting the fight for freedom in Ireland.

the next step • 30 January 1987 • 7

THE REAL CONTEST

The confused results of the West German election

APARTHEID'S STOOGES STRIKE AGAIN

he election was a victory tor the moderate centre in West German politics. Chancellor Helmut Kohl had his wings clipped, as the electorate cut the Christian Democrat vote by five per cent. The liberal Free Democrats, the traditional pig in the middle' of West German politics, emerged strengthened and can now exert more influence in the new right-wing coalition. On the left, the SPD avoided a crushing defeat. But it was further weakened by the success of the Green Party which, with eight per cent of the poll, has consolidated its role as the fourth party in the West German assembly.

The big battle in the German campaign seemed to be over which candidate could swill the most beer and scoff the most during the US-style electoral jamboree. There was no real political contest between left and right. The Social Democrat candidate Johannes Rau conceded defeat months before polling day, while the Greens ran a deliberately apolitical campaign under the weird slogan "winter wonder".

The right-wing parties dominated the political debate throughout the campaign.

But the result indicates that moderate voters were not keen on giving Kohl's Christian Democrat alliance a commanding majority.

SPD IN LIMBO

The fudged outcome of the contest will not please the West German establishment. So far Kohl has been lucky. His government presided over an economic upturn which took off at about the time when the right ousted the Social Democrats from office in 1982. Last year, for the first time in almost a decade, West Germans experienced a rise in real wages. At two million, unemployment is high, but it's not rising. The relative stability of the German economy has allowed Kohl to avoid making big cuts or staging dramatic confrontations. But this year the economy is set to go into reverse and more drastic measures will be needed to boost profits.

Yet the delicate balance of power in the new parliament limits Kohl's freedom of action.

As we go to press it is not possible to fathom the full implications of the elections.

But it is certain that they settled nothing.

The real struggle over the future direction of West German politics lies ahead.

This makes the disarray of the SPD particularly important. Since its defeat four years ago the SPD has been in political limbo. It has been unable to decide whether to move right, Kinnock-style, to adapt to the shift in German politics, or left, to rebuild its support among the radical and discontented people who have drifted towards the Green Party. Faced with this dilemma, the SPD was in a mess before the election campaign began. Rau, a right winger, was chosen to lead the party's campaign on the strength of his performance in regional elections in his home state of North-Rhine Westfalia in 1984. But his selection was opposed by a significant section of the party hierarchy, including SPD chairman Willy Brandt, who favour a shift to the left to cut the ground from under the Greens. Rau was running for office with at best half-hearted support from his party. The SPD has been unable to emulate the British Labour Party's attempt to regain lost ground by shifting sharply to the right.

Kinnock establishment could adapt safe in the knowledge Mal, pressure. 8 • the next step • 30 January 1987

WEST GERMAN ELECTIONS

IS TO COME

will make life difficult for chancellor Kohl.

Sabena Norton reports SPD LOSER JOHANNES RAU (RIGHT) HANDS IT TO CHRISTIAN DEMOCRAT

VICTOR HELMUT KOHL

whatever Labour does, it remains the only established alternative for working class voters. But the SPD does not command the sort of loyalty from the left which has so far insulated the Labour Party from political pressure. The growth of the Green Party on its left flank limits the SPD's room for maneouvre. It has opened divisions in the SPD which are unlikely to be resolved unless the Greens are destroyed or neutralised.

the trend The elections indicate that towards the dissolution of the traditional winter political dieter hick me be ar Western Europe in ast Wednesday night a dozen armed men leapt from a white mini-bus in the Natal township of KwaMakhuta and stormed the home of local United Democratic Front supporter, Victor Ntuli.

They banged off a barrage of automatic gunfire that left 12 people dead, among them seven children asleep in a back room The apartheid propaganda machine and KwaZulu homeland leader Gatsha Buthelezi blamed the KwaMakhuta Massacre on African National Congress guerrillas. After all, they pointed out, the gunmen used AK-47 rifles. Few local Russian-made people were taken in. They know that using Russian weapons is just another trick in the dirty war being fought by the 'Amabutho".

gangs of armed thugs from the Zulu movement, Inkatha. Under chief Buthelezi, Inkatha is running a vicious campaign of murder and intimidation against anti-apartheid activists like Ntuli. They have been aided and abetted by the state forces who are happy to stand aside while Buthelezi has their opponents shot, beaten and burnt. Buthelezi fears that the wave of black South Africa will resistance sweeping undermine his monopoly of power over six eighties, takes a different form in West Germany. This is because the West German left was never very powerful in the first place. Ever since the Federal Republic was founded after the war, West German politics has been All dominated by a deep conservatism. parties, including the SPD, endorsed the notion that the new Germany was a neutral society, where class antagonism had given way to a benevolent 'social partnership' between employers and workers.

The SPD occupies the same formal place in West German politics as Labour does in

INKATHA'S MURDER CAMPAIGN

million Zulus, and disrupt his relationship with the apartheid authorities. Inkatha is a corrupt patronage machine. In return for acting as the apartheid state's stooge, it has been granted influence and control over government jobs in KwaZulu. But Buthelezi's.

rural power-base has been challenged by increased militancy among urban blacks. He has responded by sending vigilantes to hunt down and hack'up political activists.

Last year Inkatha formed a scab union, heavies Uwusa. guise, murdered 11 Hlobane coalminers in an attempt to break a strike led by the National Elsewhere shop Union of Mineworkers. stewards and militants have been murdered The state has backed Gren

OUL.

Buthelezi's thugs, arresting black militants to make way for the scab union.

Militants who have seen enough damage done to their comrades and organisations are demanding action to beat off Inkatha.

Where Inkatha attacks have been resisted their "Amabutho" have been routed. At the National Education Crisis Committee conference in Lamontville, Inkatha was repulsed seriously embarrassed. This and example for joint defence work between unionists and youth groups trade Britain. But the SPD has little in common Labour's image as a working class with party, built through the British party's close links with the unions. The SPD was rebuilt after the war when the organised working class had been destroyed by fascism. It never acquired a distinctive left-wing programme.

but developed into an establishment party.

expressed the outlook of new ine professionals and administrators who were created during the boom in the fifties and sixties. Although the 'Sozis' were the target of vicious red-baiting by the right, the SPD never considered itself as anything other more enlightened and efficient than a defender of West German capitalism.

There has been no real left-right antagonism in West German politics. Opposition to the existing order has always been consigned to the political fringe. Given the conservative and unresponsive character of the SPD, opponents of the system have always had to organise outside the official political arena.

They have taken to the streets, or thrown organised the local action bombs, were at the centre of committees which radical political activity during the seventies.

The Green Party grew out of the diverse strands of West German radicalism because there was no 'official" left-wing alternative.

NEW OPPOSITION NEEDED

The elections showed that the moderate political consensus which has held West Germany together is starting to fray at the edges. The SPD has lost control on the left, and Kohl's alliance is divided between moderates and hardliners There is trouble beneath the bonnet of the Mercedes republic. The campaign embittered the old feud between CDU moderates around Kohl and Strauss' hardline Bavarian CSU. Strauss has often accused Kohl of being soft on their liberal coalition partner, the diminutive Free Kohl rewarded FDP Democratic Party. leaders with cabinet posts, leaving Strauss to stew in Munich. In the run-up to the poll Strauss attacked the coalition for giving way to the FDP on everything from Star Wars to law and order. So far Strauss has been regarded as a bit senile. But things begin to look different when economic growth is projected downwards, and industry is clamouring for harsher measures to tackle West Germany's Strauss' broaddeclining competitiveness.

against the 'wet" right may have overshot its target. But there is little doubt that, after the elections a turn to more hardline economic and social policies is on the cards. The outcome of the elections underlines the weakness of the left. The Greens reflect the diverse strands of radicalism in the Federal Republic. But they cannot direct these forces against the system.

anti-capitalist left is needed to take on the right and end the fudge in West German politics.

BACKING BOTHA: CHIEF BUTHELEZI

the townships. Inkatha's violent response to the resistance movement shows that its reactionary influ ence is weakening. When workers and youth organise to take it be beaten. Russell Osborne

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Cheques payable to Junius Publications Ltd. Five or more Items post free. Salvador, Oliver Stone (Director) has delivered more than $2 billion to president Duarte's So odo kills ince iner Archersnoo homero ane Tour American nuns. National Liberation and the of last year, as the civil war Richard Boyle was a and he has co-written this more our hero becomes Susan Strange, Casino Capitalism, Blackwell, £7.95 £ 12.95 Lasy year ended with Sid anu buy of international finance

• INDEPENDENTS IN POP MUSIC

Little acorns explosion. specialist tastes

HALF MAN, HALF MORRISSEY

• FILM ON CENTRAL AMERICA

Since 1980 the United States government cavador. nue same period right-wing death 000 civilians. including powerful film. We are told the situation is much improved now.

Official figures admit a current Civia nuue ate or be year, or six per day. Ine MEN- FDR (Farabundo Marti Front for hevo tonary Democrale crone is battered but unbeaten, killing or wounding 1100 government vooes in une urs nine monus photojournalist there in 1980-1 Oliver Stone. Not for the first time do we tollow a westermer abroad and watch his eyes opened by barbarities perpetrated in une cause or anu-communism.

AS I Missing. ine rear or Living Dangerously and Under Fire the embroiled the more angry he

• THE FINANCIAL WORLD

Funny money Frank Welsh, Uneasy City, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, and 1987 began with an appeal to jump aboard brush airways shares we are al subposed To have an interest in the business more than a dim understanding one seeracle scandals. let alone the more esoteric world explosion results uneasy cry. subuted An

REVIEWS

C-86, Various artists, Rough Trade/NME Records and Tapes There are some good black dance records in the charts, jazz is moving to centre stage African and Latin music still enlivens the fringe. But mostlv it is norine with hands ike a-ha joining Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet there's a feeling in the decade since the punk The white pop/rock mainstream is all vapid air.

brushed production-line pop (the above plus Red Box, Kim Wilde, performers (Phil collins, Eric Clapton, and vile heavy metal cockrock has mutated again) the low budgets of the independent record labels

TALENT SCOUTS

The indie scene has been important since 1976. The punk do-it-yourself ethic led to a spate or small record labels. some launched bands to greater things, others catered for such ds reggae or dub. Rough Trade is the most prominent these days.

charting with bands like the smins (wno nave now moved to EMI). Manchester's maverick Fear and loathing in El Salvador becomes. There is something absurd about an American journalist lecturing the local CIA Ten or now He loves AmeriCd more than they do (I'm left-wing but no communist), and accusing them of betraying America's values (freedom and democracy'). As a liberal cri de coeur however Salvador is a his is otones aebut as director, but he wrote Midnight Express, Scarface and Year of THE MANIC RICHARD BOYLE (JAMES WOODS) AFTER A STORY IN SALVADOR insider's view of the City Of London. is by a banker. It is an eleganuy when guide to tr structures and scandals of the City. in the context of the

USA.

demands for statutory regulation.

wise sate without it? Casino Capitalism is by an international relations journalist, and seriously examines the development of the global financial system internationa create ivoives literally trillions of dollars, and so has wire sterest pen all of system Strange details the growth of global crean since the early seventies. She argues that this Trom the deregulation or nancia markers Factory Records does well too, especially with New Order between corrupt multinationals like CBS and EM! and worthy indies which many of the latter wale nave us berleve. vire was an indie once and Island too. Many of the small companies a so ink wo wine majors to solve their big problem getting their more successful makes sense for avant-garde outfits like EG (Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Eno) and some bizaire rest benartment Psychic TV) to have arrangements with the likes o and Phonogram. Polydor, CBS ne ne whose abum rected cut a swathe through pap pop last year, but they remain with some bizarre. mnese ceas confirm the indies' role as talent scouts for the big companies.

NOSTALGIA

The parlous state of the music rearviv nas diven me inalec their chance. Helped by the and John Peels championine of new vanes. more mole sanes surfaced and flourished in 1986 than at any time demise of punk. From Scotland: Jesus and Mary chain, shoe Assistants, Soup Dragons, Close Lobsters: Yorkshire: housena uns wedene resent Age of Chance: the Midlands: Fuzzbox (moving from Vindaloo to Warner Bros), Pop Will Eat Ise; ine soutn-east: Flatmates Talulah Gosh: Merseyside: the the Dragon. These last two were notable for their pace and their . qualities which Stone brings to salvador in large measure. It is not a subtle film Real vultures nestle in the branches above journalists snapping away on mounds of dead bodies. . But this is one of the film's strengths. • Nothing is lett to the imagination, he rubs our noses in me norror ine journalists voyeurism, our voyeurism. He falters only and new trading technology, and now underlies the problems of the world economy. she believes inal me us povemment car save the world by restraining domestic credit and regulating the international economy. The Soldie as Sue accepted currency of international commerce. This credentias ceoene on the slowit but surely declining power of the The real driving force behind the boom in international credit is declining profitability. As profit rates in the west have taller governments have deregulated markets to allow vast flows of capital to find more lucrative ugets. oometimes cabldinas ended up in new points of production in the third world, but more commonly it finds its way lu quick speculative dedis -Inis has been happening in Britain for years. As Frank Welsh points out with horror, 10 per 1985 applied to join one firm of late Half Man Half Biscuit C-86 is a collection of noises male anous rest hopefuls, distributed by the NME and Rough Trade. Energy and enthusiasm abound but the imitations or the ingle por scene are also apparent. . Most of the music looks backwards - (Buzzcocks clones are too numerous to mention), or to the Doors, beerneart, byras, even psychedelia). Few have even noticed exciting present-day sounus JunK. no-oo. Amcal music, etc) in the way that, for example, Cabaret Voltaire or 23 Skidoo did a few years ago

NEW ROMANTICS

Despite their zest and zaniness the C-86 gang are eula -ova tatona sis amos to a person. Allied to this, and a certain student/greatcoat, fanzine mentalitv. is a kind of Luddism. Synthesisers are horrible and unnatural (in fact we were pioneered ov huma pase on an nge ase thinking big is bound to corrupt and looking to sources outside downright untinkable. A contage industry ethic seems to have stunted much of this scene's potential. Stump, the Bodines youth want to be Simon Le Bon or Samantha Fox. But too many romantic, self-absorbed cocoon.

Myself, I'm waiting for Rough Taue to out out a new Easterhouse record. Mike Harris occasionalv into blain hea handedness, as when Major Max 'Major Bob D'Aubuisson, the psychopath Duarte beat in the 1904 elections sets up Romero's murder in the cathedral by asking who will rid him of this priest It was a neat twist to cast the Americans as a pair of degenerate slobs, losers fleeing a yuppy America where they just can't make it. descending on a country where the booze is dirt ched are une women won answer back. Boyle (James Woods) is a failed journalist and Dr Rock (Jim Belushi) a failed also-jockey. mei only endearing characteristic is the same manic energy which propelled Hunter nompson and his drug-crazed another mission of subversive journalism (the parallel is, like salvador is tougner thar Boyle remembered it. But even if he hadn't fallen in love with a oca art course this nal would have ended up on the right side. With Boyle's thick skin and loud mouth they soon end up al the nean or ine war too with a crazed photographer who dreams of matching Robert Capa's classic war photo (not knowing it was a fake). Little ironies like this, together with superbly neurotic performances ov woods ane belusal make thic a cut above most films of the type Pat Ford Che any busines lest anatout and an creasing crap one W in Maren 198b. weish singles out Guinness and Morgar Grenfell for criticism, but it 'marginal Cons tenne cavale just goes ahead and does it. so it wasn't an astounding prophecv. Welsh disapproves o1 al uns out oredictaby ne favours the City being left te police its own affairs reculation Welsh sees bigger and blacker stormclouds gathering over the City. particulariv throug international debt and energy crises. Yet immediate catastrophe is unlikely. Third word ceot Has naunted ourers since the early eighties. but there have been no spectacular defaults. largely because of fear ot the political consequences o putting too much pressure on third world countries. We should concentrate on generating some stormciouds or our own Daniel Nassim the next step • 30 January 1987 • 9

Against The Red Front I DO NOT disagree with any of the analysis of the Labour Party in the next step. However I think you are wrong to stand in elections.

The maioritv of workers have shifted rightwards, but mere is witnin tnal a small minority that want socialism.

But given the minuscule size of the revolutionary left they correctly see Labour as the only workers' party' that can actually oust Thatcher. We must argue with these people people who supported the miners' strike but now see Labour - not workers struggle - as the only road open for the left.

How do we reach them? By a battle of ideas at the elections. Ideas that will only reach a tew people given that workers aren't (generally) fighting back? Or ideas that lump Labour and Tory together, that don't distinguish between the class enemy (Thatcher) and the class traitor (Labour)?

The election is not just about who has good ideas. It Clotting debate on Ireland AS a Nalgo member, I was askeu to put forward d motion supporting the Irish Freedom Movement on the Bloody Sunday demonstration and calling for the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland. I seconded to my workplace, a home for mentally Multi-cultural cop-out JOHN BAHR'S query about the lent-wing teacher wao opposes multi-cultural education (23 January), shows how the left reproduces the prejudices of the British ruling class. Ask him whether he refuses to.

study or teach algebra. astronomy or medicine as modern sciences. thev are all Islamie in origin. Or does he use Roman to avoid barbaric Arabic numerals? When the introduction of cow-greased cartridges set off the Indian mutiny in 1857, because the Hindu troops retused to bite the ourel, me brush ha brutally crushed the Sepoys. They set examples by strapping soldiers to the mouths of cannon and blowing them apart. Would our left-wing teacher abstain on this one?

Nowadavs voung Asians are beaten to a pulp in British jails for refusing to eat pork pies. The argument that Muslim culture is that of an Asian ruling class misses the point.

the culture of a cass societies is the culture of the ruling class, and they do not hesitate to promote divisions among those they oppress.

But the lesson we should learn from this is the need to fight Britain's imperialist culture at home. Learning about other cultures will not eliminate racism in our suctely, but sun let-wing the next step • 30 January 1987 10 • is about the balance of class torces too. It is about relating your theory to the experience of the lett audience we're trying to win to revolution. Instead of abstractions we must get out the enemy and expose the traitor. The left who give either active or grudging support to the Labour Part will in reality learn that what we are saying is correct. The theory fuses with practice.

People will only break with reformism through arguments connecting with their own experience. It is far easier to stand on handicapped adolescents run by Coventry social services.

After Speaking to my colleagues, and receiving approached by the head of une nome, mr Goddare, a staunch Labour supporter, forever sporting anti-Thatcher slogans - his favorite being *The Conservative Party is like Devonshire cream thick and full of clots.' He suggested Mat i alan t laik about this issue, as 'l don't want this to affect the people in our care. This just goes to show opposition to the study of ome curtares car only be dn adaption to British chauvinism. The working class deserves the best education we can get: Koran, Omar Khayyam, Taj Mahal and all. Alan Harding Glasgow (cultural capital of Europe I THINK the Bradford debate about whether multi-cultural education is reactionary (letters, 23 January) misses the point. There may be problems with all cultures under capitalism, but some are a lot more reactionary than others. In Bradford today the reactionary culture we should worry about is the British imperialist tradition minorities and preaches and the media. We cannot right wingers who argue that Asian people and their cultures are 'alien to the British way of life'. But multidodges confronting British racism at its roots. The idea that all that is required to get rid of racist stereotypes is to introduce curry and Indian dancing to white school children is a cop-out.

NUT member Hackney

LETTERS

and denounce everyone else's political impurity. It class. In my experience suspicion of Jehovah's witnesses! a revolutionary party. Alan Bell Pontefract SWP

THEIR

•FIGHT

IS OUR

I FIGHT

Labours clottea atutude to self-determination organise to prevent the ouraing or sondanty in the wall of silence both Labour and the Tories have built around Ireland. lain Roberts Nalgo, Coventry Ireland AFTER reading Sean mcGourans leuer s January) I thought his naive 'surrender power over the Catholic areas of Northern Ireland in 1972. The nationalist community and its armed wing fought long, hard, bloody battles to kick "balls things up by being too obviously anti-Prod' in the Lenadoon area that year. What happened was that some Catholic families tried to move into empty houses vacated by Protestants. Loyalist paramilitary UDA organised to stop them. The British Army came out in force to support the Loyalist sectarians, using armoured cars to smash lorry loads of Catholic furniture into matchwood. When local nationalists retaliated, the truce between the IRA and the British government broke down. The two sides have been at war almost constantly since. McGouran insults the Irish treedom fighters who have taken on the Army over those years by glamorous. Floyd Peckham the podium, beat your breast may be good for the soul but it won't build a revolutionary party based in the working they've always had a healthy The Socialist Workers' Party is correct not to stand.

It is the right tactic for the period we are in. I won't be joining your campaign, but the SWP's campaign to build the Irish people's struggle for they workplace. I shall continue to wage the battle against the and dangerous views should leTL.can. be challenged. Heath did not the Army out. The IRA did not The accusing them of trying to be Wreck the checks OVER the last two weeks the department of emolovment has been making a count of all persons of ethnic origin signing as unemployed in Handsworth, Leeds and Nottingham. They have triec to introduce these race ChecKs verore our were stopped by the threat of strike action by the CPSA (civil service union). unrortunately mis ume our members voted against taking action. This is not because the staff are racists but due to a lack of information and guidance from the union. The only people who gave us encouragement and information were the members of Workers Against workers and claimants outside the unemployment benefit offices. If we are to stop these race checks being implemented across the county an tre moralon being placed on people's claim and on the computer, Workers' defence MARTIN JONES (letters, 23 dandy is wrong suggest that we should organise a squad that can move in to deal with racist attacks like those of the Croydon Road Gang in East London. Workers Against Racism has always been prepared to organise immediate defence of the victims of racist violence, but we are not a bunch of headbangers who like touring London as some sort of A-team. The most Condomania THE article on Aids (23 January suggested that although the morality campaign was making gains, te tones pnoney condon campaign would make little headway. I don't agree. If Norman Fowler cannot win the hearts of today's youth.

then the design-conscious Katherine Hamnett's T-shirts and boxer shorts collection with special pockets for your packet of publicity this week, as have her leather armbands with we must carry on the campaign. Anti-racist members of the CPSA should pressure the union to take effective action to oppose the race checks on a nationa nass CPSA member Nottingham important part of workers campaign to build an antiwhere attacks take place Rushing in. breaking alew arms and clearing off again would not begin to resolve that problem. It would not challenge the racist climate, and would simoly mean setting up the Asian WAR is here to stay. Newham WAR Johnny-slots in them. Marxism Today is giving away freebie condoms this month. The rubber companies have designed sheaths, especially aimed at the discreet woman who likes her handbag to look good. Even Cosmopolitan is in on the act, telling its January readers that 'All smart girls carry condoms.

The Face is carrying stylish Durex ads, as well-designed as the Fred Perry While the condom has been unpopular since the advent of the Pill the efforts to make it as cultish as 501s and the Zippo are certainly attractive. Effective packaging is well on the way to making the condom as babies. Fiona Ryan Camberwell If you would like to respond to any of these points, raise questions or comment what you have read in next ste you can write to the tns

, BCM

JPLTD, London WC1N 3XX. Or letters page phone the weekend on 01-729 3771. over the

Debating The Red Front THE OPEN LETTER to the left in last week's tns OmOEecoO discussion in supporter groups dcross ce cantry. It put forward our case for bringing left wingers together around The Red Front, a platform for working class unity, in the run-up to the general

CICCLIOIT

The letter announced that The Red Front was designed to 'maximise the prepared to fight for anticapitalist policies'. By building support for this initiative, we aim to line up all the groups and individuals who agree with the basic demands which the working class needs (see page 7), and who are prepared to fight for them in face of the Labour Party's pro-capitalist election comes we want to stand a broad slate of candidates on the platform.

Over the last week we've the left-wing and antiimperialist bodies on our books, asking them to back The Red Front. We await their replies. In the meantime supporters groups and RCP branches have discussed The Red Front and its implications for their local work. The Red we have to experiment to find the best ways of implementing it.

PLATFORM

Anybody who is familiar with the British ett will know that calls for unity are common. Many left-wing groups have spent years discussing the need for the left to forget its differences and unite in one big party to make an impact. todav.

most of them are finally united in one big party Kinnock's Labour Party. The political differences they have had to forget are those which separate socialists trom the increasingly right-wing Labour leadership. The Red Front aims to break with unis udarton or proney Diary BIRMINGHAM: Friday 6 renruary cam ranseon leaves from Cambridge St for Tickets £2.50 Manchester interested in canvassing for the Revolutionary Communist election should contact Rob Knight on (01) 729 0414 LONenursdav aeand. 7.30pm. All-London supporters* Why we Troops out group: row. nolborE LIDI dy. Tuesday 3 February. 7.30pm.

New Living Marxism series starts. This week: Freedom and beraton in Marx Unversi or London Union. Malet St WC1 (Goodge St tube) unity and build something of use to the working class.

We are not proposing a joint party. The Red Front is a tactical response to the immediate problems which the left faces. It's a wav of maximising our forces arouna d given sel or objectives for a given length of time next election. We accept that there are different parties with different politics, but call on them all around this clearly defined platform. Most RCP supporters have been enthusiastic about the initiative and quick to understand its importance. As one London supporter explained: I was getting dead scared that they'd call an election and there'd only be a few people arguing for working class porties. l wouru be like the working class had been wiped off the slate no one would be talking about it. If we can get around the demands, it'll make a lot or amrerence to the number of people who'll alternative to backing the Labour Party.

STRUGGLE

Other supporters have been dubious and seen oroblems in ihe hea tront.

One explained that she has read and supported tns tor years because it is so different from the traditional politics of the rest of the left. She couldn't understand why we should now decide to 'grovel to else said they didn't understand how we could have an open letter in the centre of last week's paper appealing to the left to back a joint campaign, but spend a lot of space in the same paper attacking the TeTt tor Is altitude to issues like Aids. These views miss the point. We are not appealing to the left to help the RCP.

and we certainly won't be toning down or changing the content ot tns to make NEWHAM: Thursday 12 Februarv: 7.30pm. Public meeting: Racists on the attack stop them! St John's Church 21 Romtord Road. Insulute. satere NOTTINGHAM: Thursday 29 Jantuary wi cecee vve nenE and Irish Solidarity Group: No more Bloody miematrondr cornumy Contre MansHeid ho SHEFFIELD: Friday 30 January Bloody Theobalds 7.30pm. gebale, Hisu r ecaon Movemen warkers Power Sheffield republicans. Raynor Lounge. Sheffield University

THE

mobilise the biggest electoral bloc possible the rieht. The lett has a - Uni L1e convince people of the Fudging issues and woula de easier, Dul le oe ciea wnere we carl and where we will differ.

DEBATE

It's important to initiate as much discussion as To implement the tactic the positive responses which people encounter continue to discuss its of The Red Front. Be qualms, reservations or agreements. Someone and concentrate on box (opposite). discussion around the me eues oase ae or let us know. Anne Burton .30pm. Joint meeting Sunday public it easier for people to get involved in a joint initiative with us. All we want to do through The Red Front is to against the authorities. To achieve this, we'll have to conduct a political struggle with the left as well as with long tradition of infighting ane sertanas. we dre to overcome this, we need pointed political arguments that can clarify the needs of the working class and necessity to fight for them.

maintaining tactful silences wouldn't work. We have to stand together with the left, possible around the Red Front, both in the working class and around our party.

effectively, the party needs to know the problems and while fighting for the front.

Supporters groups should imolications tor them. and should delegate someone to write up what they think honest, raise any problems you have arguing for it. If you can't get to a supporter You should now be going all-out to win support for the The Red Front. Get it raised wherever you can, convincing people to back the platform and fill in the his tactic we need serious issues it raises. We hope to pursue this discussion on this page. We need to know whatvoutO •I want more information about the RCP • I want to become an RCP supporter • I want to sell tns • I want to make regular contributions to the RCP I want to help set up a new branch in ...

Nane Address Phone Send to BM RCP. London WC1N 3XX L-- Become an

RCP

supporter.

PARTY PAGE

1/we agree to support the demands of THE RED FRONT - a platform for working class unity.

NAME

ADDRESS

POSTCODE

ORGANISATION

TELEPHONE

Send to BM RCP, London WC1N 3XX Postcode. .-the next step • 30 January 1987 • 11

INFESTED WITH

BRITISH SOLDIERS

Fifteen years ago this week British troops murdered 14 Irish men on Bloody Sunday in Derry. Among them was John Wray's brother, shot in the back near the Rossville flats. Wray still lives in the flats — and the British gunmen are still there too n 30 January 1972 British paratroopers opened fire on unarmed anti-internment demonstrators, and murdered 14 people in cold blood.

On that day, the Rossville flats were a refuge from British bullets. Today the flats are still at the centre of Irish resistance. That's why they're being pulled down.

*There are rats running about in the road.

The lifts never work. If you have a pram, you have to carry it upstairs or walk half-way round the block to get in. You have to hang around for ages to get repairs done. When you're sitting in your flat you can hear other people's TVs, and more or less everything You've no they privacy ady. own bedroom.' John Wray and his wife Donna live in the Rossville flats. His account of paper-thin walls and an endless battle against damp and decay will be familiar to millions of people living on grim council estates in Britain. But Rossville the flats are different. don't Just have TeN CenTS -LO

WILD TOLS

They are also menaced by animals of a different breed, wearing British Army uniforms and carrying automatic weapons.

•Where else would you have the skirting board ripped out, and your windows rubbed out, your bath and your sink broken, and the British Army digging through your bathroom wall. your furniture WreCkIng emptying your tea bags out on the floor?

*Your repairs may be done on a asks Wray. Monday and they say "Right, we'll go and wreck his house. ' On Wednesday you'll be ringing up for more repairs. That's the difference — we live in a slum, with added harassment and repression."

Raids by the Army and Royal Constabulary are now part of life Rossville. But there was a time when the security forces could not get on to the estate.

In 1969, when Derry's nationalist ghetto was besieged by Loyalist mobs and police, youth used the roof of the Rossville flats as a vantage point for throwing petrol bombs at their attackers. When the Battle of the Bogside ended three days later, barricades were up and Free Derry' was declared a nogo area for the agents of the British Crown.

When the Army tried to Bogside's resistance on Bloody Sunday.

some of the paratroopers' victims died as they ran back to the flats for cover. Wray explained: "My brother was killed on one of the streets just facing the flats. He was shot in the back and paralysed, and the soldier câme up and shot him again, from about 18 inches. They got one feller trying to go up the stairs to the flats. They shot him, he fell down the stairs, and they shot him again.

•The flats were a safe place. Everyone was using them. They knew they'd be safe on our side of the barricades. Fifteen years later, the monument to the victims of Bloody Sunday stands in the shadow of the flats; and Rossville is still a republican stronghold. Although the Army carries out regular raids, Wray says that The soldiers and the police have never liked the flats. thev attacked in some way. The young fellers come in, use the stairways to make petrol bombs, and go past." in your Any Rossville resident, however young or old, is a target for the British bully boys. Last time the Army raided Wray's home They searched my babv son. old." The The raiders can come at any hour.

contend *They kick your door in at bam. If you're not at home your house will be wrecked. You're terrified to answer the door at night because you don't know who's standing there using the UVF as a cover name. The British authorities have bulldozed and redesigned the whole area around the flats to suit the security forces, replacing little streets with a wide dual carriageway and then that is hard to barricade and lets the paramilitary police and Army get into the Bogside fast. Now they have begun knocking down the flats — not to rescue the residents from the slum, but to give the gunmen easier access. John Hume, leader of the moderate Social Democratic and Labour Party, claims that the flats are being demolished as part of a slum clearance programme resulting from Ulster the Anglo-Irish agreement. Wray disagrees; *They're doing it to improve security. They can't afford to have soldiers standing at the door of every flat 24 hours a day. So people are being forced to move to other areas.

where there's no bus services and they're just stuck with no friends or family.

Fors years, the neighbours have lived under the threat of another Bloody Sunday. Some people think it's in the past and will never happen again.

But if it suited the Brits to frighten us with Bloody Sunday, it could happen crush the quite easily. If they think they could get thousands of people off the streets by killing a few, they'll do it again."

The decay and the dangers in the Rossville flats are a reminder of what British rule means for Irish nationalists. Last Sunday, Derry people marched to remember the dead of Bloody Sunday and to the nextstep

ROSSVILLE FLATS SINCE BLOODY SUNDAY

RATS-AND

can't go past without getting until the jeeps he's six months British Wrays and their call for their murderers to get out of Ireland.

This Saturday, the Irish Freedom Movement will be on the Bloody Sunday commeoration march in Sheffield with the same demand. Join us, and help to make sure that

MARCH

AGAINST BRITISH MURDER IN IRELAND

Bloody Sunday demo Saturday 31 January

SHEFFIELD

Transport details from (01) 729 0414

YOUNG NATIONALISTS WATCH YET ANOTHER BRITISH ARMY RAID

ON THE ROSS/ILLE FLATS

every outpost of the British Empire in brought down alongside Rossville flats. Joe Boatman