The Next Step: No. 5, 5 February 1988

VICTORY TO THE PALESTINIANS!

BRITISH INJUSTICE

FOR THE FULL STORY, TURN TO PAGES 8 AND 9

COVER-UP

EUGENE TOMAN

SEAMUS GREW

ins the next step - 5 Revolutionary Communist Party Weekly

THE ARMAGH SIX:

SHOOT-TO-KILL

In 1982 they were shot dead in cold blood by a Royal Ulster Constabulary assassination squad. In 1984 judges acquitted the police killers and praised them for their marksmanship. Last Monday Tory attorney general Patrick Mayhew announced that, although he knew there had been a cover-up, there would be no more prosecutions.

SEAN BURNS

RODDY CARROLL

The British security forces can kill any Verdict: Irish person with impunity.

Case No.1 GERVAIS McKERR

MICHAEL TIGHE

Support our fighting fund - EL pay for your tns 5 February 1988 facts and threw out their appeal.

PATRICK HILL

HUGH CALLAGHAN

PRINCESS

ANNE JOINS

ANTI-GAY

WITCH-

HUNT -

page 2

THE BIRMINGHAM

SIX: COURTROOM

FRAME-UP

In 1974 they were accused of the Birmingham pub bombings and police beat them into inventing 'confessions. In 1975 these made-up statements and false forensic 'evidence' were used to sentence them to life imprisonment. Last Thursday Lord Justice Lane ignored all the

JOHNNY WALKER

RICHARD MeILKENNY Verdict: The British courts consider that being Trish is crime enough to condemn anybody to rot in jail.

SEE

PAGE 6

REAGAN

GUNS FOR

NICARAGUA

- page 4 40p Case No.2

GERRY HUNTER

BILLY POWER

THE AIDS

CONFERENCE

rincess Anne shocked the Aids establishment of health ministers from countries in London that Aids was a classic 'own goal" by humanity. She claimed that the real tragedy is the innocent victims such as the recipients of blood contaminated and babies of infected mothers.

Royal's remarks cess outraged representatives of Aids organisations such as the Terrence Higgins Trust. The distinction she drew between those who acquired HIV infection through transfusions ne w deserve public sympathy, and the large majority of sufferers who became DeClee Caroles activity or drug abuse, who were implicitly condemned as victims, is indeed offensive. But by grossly exaggerating the risk of a

FORD STRIKE

CALLED

OFF, BUT...

n Sunday night union officials strike by roro manual workers.

and signed a three-year deal which will their members Hake sweat. I'm choked. We were livid when found out they'd we further negotiations. They told us it was just a public relations exercise.

Rut when they were stil in there al 2.30pm, we knew it was more than that. I went home to wait for news of a sell-out. Gerry is one of 30 shop stewards from the Ford plant at Dagenham, East London, who lobbied Sunday's pay-talks between management and manual union leaders. Outside Ford Bayswater headquarters stewards called on their national officials to stick to 10 percent and strings, and back-up no bringing out 32 500 demands by hourly-paid workers at 22 plants from midnight on Sunday. union leaders overturned ballot majority of nearly 90 per cent for strike action, and accepted a three-year deal for seven percent in the first year, followed by pay rises of 2.5per percent above inflation for each of the following two.

2 • 5 February 1988 EDWINA CURRIE THANKS HRH FOR GIVING THE ROYAL ASSENT TO TORY BIGOTRY

POINTS THE FINGER

heterosexual epidemic in Britain and evading the anti-homosexual thrust of the Aids panic, British Aids campaigners have opened the way for sort The expounded by the princess.

Promoting fears of the widespread dissemination of Aids in West by heterosexual contact the theme of last the was a key conference. Dr Jonathan Mann, director of the Aids programme at the World Health Organisation which spon- So ease

COCCICE.

that Aids had so far been largely confined to homosexuals intravenous drug users. However.

he insisted that it would gradually permeate population.' As we reported in tns two weeks ago, there is little evidence of HIV guilty infection permeating the heterosexual population in the USA or the their Union leaders Jimmy Airlie and Mick Murphy, and Ford industrial relations director John Ford described the deal as a achievement. For Ford workers, it is disastrous. Apart from tying down pay for three years, its measures include an increase in job flexibility, the introduction of team leaders and quality circles. •Japanese-style' high-pressure

PRINCESS ANNE

Britain. Dr Harold Jaffe of the Centers of Disease Control told an international conference on Aids last June that for most people, the risk of Aids is essentially zero. Is prejudice the disease going to sweep into the more heterosexual don't Atrical proportion of heterosexual cases week's of Aids in the between 1986 and 1987, from 6.8 percent to 4.3 percent. is even more rare than in the USA.

Up to the end of 1987 the total admitted number of cases of Aids acquired and by heterosexual contact in Britain nine. Was another heterosexual disease abroad, mainly in Africa The proportion of identified HIV positive individuals who appeared to have become infected through heterosexual contact remains less than five per cent. It's not over yet

ENGINEER'S OFFICIAL JIMMY AIRLIE TURNS HIS BACK

for work practices to be adjusted Hougham locally, negotiating body 'historic difficulty'. Union chiefs tried to pass this off as a concession. But it is a gift to management, which can now play off one plant against another.

the deal on Wednesday. As we go to It adds up to press une resulu heterosexual its sufferers. and drug can only prejudice. which have the backlash. The was ess fails to put the imperialism

ATOMISING

In Britain, population like it." The

SCC

USA

declined In Britain, heterosexual spread announced. though there were 35 who contracted the driven one when like that." since instructions to section's week management. The agreement allows with access to a national in the event of Ford workers were due to vote on approach is still to be Aids campaigners often believe that exaggerating the dangers of transmission ment's good way of putting more pressure on governments to allocate more resources for research into Aids and for the care and treatment of Princess Anne's values statement shows the dangers of this tactic. Aids is already widely regarded as a disease of gay men addicts. Raising the spectre of a major heterosexual epidemic is not only unjustified, it anti-gay en courage The fact that Aids organisations originate in the gav scene downplayed issue homosexual rights in response to the Aids panic, creates greater scope for • • London Aids conference concluded with the statement that •Aids is global problem that poses a serious threat to humanity." This princess's opening remarks, but it Aids into a proper perspective. In parts of the third world, especially Africa, Aids is undoubtedly a real threat to all life.

However, as a recent Unicef poster observes, 'more people have died from diarrhoeal dehydration in the last two days than have died from Aids in the previous two years, and asks, 'when is the world going to panic about it? The biggest contribution that people in the West could make to tackling the health problems caused by Aids and gastro-enteritis is to challenge domination of Western ove Cones Africa and elsewhere. Aids is a serious threat to gay men and intravenous drug abusers. We should demand that the government spends more on research and treatment for Aids some plant convenors and most stewards are opposing it, but national union officials have put their full weight behind acceptance.

Even if Ford workers vote to accept the deal, however, it won't be the end of the story. Workers at Dagenham have already endured a series of low punishing speed-ups, and some will retaliate against management's latest offensive.

which I put on the doors and tighten the screws on 32 Sierras an hour said assembly-line worker in the body plant. "The only break I get is somebody else refuses overtime. "Efficiency, efficiency" is all you hear from management.

First they tied us to a two-year deal, now it's three years. Soon they'll be coming with a contract for life, with a no-strike clause at the end of it.

I'm ready to fight against measures

DISRUPTION

A series of unofficial walkouts has already led to the loss of 30 000 cars October. On Monday the maintenance section defied union work-as-normal. Workers walked out when management told them to carrv out another This kind of work. disruption is likely to continue. But and management can handle it as long as the action remains sporadic. Last managers Dagenham's assembly and plant suspended 18 workers for going to a union meeting which overran breaktime by five minutes. When their fellow workers came out in support, management told them to stay out.

Hougham and his lieutenants knew they were in the driving seat.

Management will keep the upper hand as long as workers put their trust in outdated union methods Murphy's bluff-and-talk tactics are based on the idea that workers can expect a living wage and decent on conditions when the company making a comfortable profit. This brought have concessions in the seventies when sufferers. At the same time we should recognise that the govern- 'education' campaigns around Aids are entirely ineffective in preventing its spread. They are however, useful in promoting the of conventional family ideology and in encouraging with national preoccupation condoms and other of aspects While sexual relationships. and repudiating this atomising demoralising propaganda, should redouble our efforts in the fight for equal rights for lesbians and gay men and thus help to remove the oppressive condition: which encourage the spread of Aids among the people who make up 90 percent of its victims.

READ THIS.

THE TRUTH

ABOUT THE

AIDS

PANIC

Dr Michael Fitzpatrick Don Milligan £1.95 plus 40p p&p Available from Junius Publications, BCM JPLtd, London WC1N 3XX. Make cheques payable to Junius Publications Ltd the car industry was coining it. But not today. In 1988 Ford has the biggest market snare in brush car Sales.

But management is determined to squeeze every last penny out of the workforce. This is to make up for the productivity of plants like Dagenham, which run on outdated technology. The handful of robots Ford is installing won't compensate for the fact that some machines have been in use since the built in the thirties. Wa. Nissan's hi-tech plant in the Northeast has intensified the competition.

Ford managers know they can stay in une running only by screwig profits out of the workforce.

BITTER

Ford workers are furious about the 'money-grabbing methods' The paltry €150 their employers. last got stil ranines She Peel year still rankles. They equally bitter about Sunday's sellout by union officials. Yet along with Hougham, Murphy and Airlie, many Ford workers share the idea that their wages and conditions are measured against company profits.

When Ford managers point out that continued profitability depends on their employees accepting low pay appalling Ford conditions, workers have no arguments to use in reply. There is a way for Ford workers to make their anger count. They must start by adopting the attitude that their needs are all-important and the company's profits count for nothing. Ford activists must take union officials who control from only want to keep their seats at the negotiating table, and organise their own campaign to fight for a living wage and decent conditions. Every plant in Britain should be involved in a coordinated plan of action, based the recognition that employers must be made to pay for what we need. regardless of how much it costs them. Andrew Calcutt the next step

Revolutionary Communist Party weekly THE Labour Party has become a sort of early warning system for the British establishment. Each time the Tories annonce a particularly unpopular mesure — like the poll tax or a block on increased funding for the

NHS -

Labour spokesmen step forward to tell the trade unionists and others on the receiving end not to take any militant action against the government. In the past, once working class protests were getting off une ground, une Labour leadership would often stage some token display of support designed to monopolise the movement and keep it safely under Labour's control. Now, however, Neil Kinnock's leadership clique is trying to anticipate possible outbreaks of future trouble, and seeking to kill off resistance to the Tories before it even starts.

The Labour leaders' attitude to the current a soute in the health service shows how far they have shifted over the past few years, under pressure from the Tories. Nurses have long been the group of workers for whom Labour shows most public sympathy. The party has always been much happier depicting nurses as harmless 'angels' who deserve sympathy, than standing alongside traditionally militant workers like the miners. Yet Kinnock has been even faster to tell nurses not to strike than he was to condemn striking miners four years ago. In 1984 Kinnock maintained an embarrassed silence for as long as possible, and walted until thousands of miners had clashed with riot police, before branding the strikers as thugs and telling them to give in.

This time, however, it only took a 24-hour stoppage by one snift or nurses at a single Manchester hospital before Labour spokesman Jack Straw was warning nurses against week's discussion of the health dispute by Labour's National Executive Committee, party leaders felt that their priority was to reassure the press that they were only supporting "protests' and not strikes by health workers. "Industrial action' was never a favourite expression in Labour's leadership circle. now become a dirty word which Snouid not pass the lips oi Labour politicians. The Labour leadership is playing a similar role in other social struggles today, cracking down before militants have even made a move. In local government, for example, English Labour councils which were once fond of making leftthe next step the next step No 5

DON'T LISTEN

TO LABOUR

wing gestures are now largely going along with government- Imposed spending cuts. Scottish councils are following suit and setting up the machiner needed to impose the Tory poll tax. But this has not stopped Kinnock launching the possibility that there might be trouble ahead. Thus he used the weekends loca government conference in Scotland to lambast 'loony left' councils again, just in case anybody was thinking of standing up to the Tory spending cuts. He also declared non-payment of the poll tax out of the question a full 15 months before any Scot will have the opportunity of refusing to pay isee opposite). The open hostility which Labour now displays to any hint or active resistance confirms that it is set on a course away from the working class. The "Labour listens' initiative, which kicked off last week in Brighton, is a mindless exercise in portraying the party as an empty vessel walting to be filled with the thoughts of the middle classes it's not long since another political partv tried a similar aproach to courting public opinion. That one was called Ask the Alliance'. The inauspicious end of the project it sought to promote, in the farcical and AS we go to press, the Tory Local Government Bill is being debated in une nouse or lords Clause 28 of the bill, which seeks to ban the promotion of homosexuality, is a charter for further persecution of lesbians and gay men, which we need to tear up from corner to corner.

Clause 28, however, is focused slightly and protect the arts from censorship. Even if the Tories accepted such an that the works of Oscar Wilde could remain on library shelves, Clause 28 would have achieved Its central purpose - to endorse the status of ordinary lesbians and gays as 'sinners' against whom society must be protected. The present witch-hunt against homosexuals cannot be Publisher Revolutionary Communist Party, BM RCP, London WC1N 3XX © copyright Printer Morning Litho Printers Ltd (TU), 439 North Woolwich Road, London E16 Annual subscription rates • Britain and Northern Ireland £26 • Europe and Irish Republic £34 • North Africa and Middle East (airmail) £34 • Americas, Asia Central and Southern Africa (airmail) £37 • Australasia, Japan (airmail) £40 • Outside Europe - All All cheques payable to Junius Publications Ltd.

Circulation 01-729 3771. Newsdesk 01-729 3771. Correspondence to The Editor, the next step, BCM JPLTD, London WC1N 3XX.

ISSN 0144 350 X 5 February 1988. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office.

Editor: Mick Hume fractious SDP/Liberal merger of recent weeks, shows the impossibility of bullding a classless party of the middle ground in polarised Britain. Yet Kinnock is determined to follow the Alllance down the road to pontical oolvion, and Is renewing the campaign against the left as his next step.

Labour's anti-working class behaviour reflects much more than a simple pollcy decision.

It is a declaration of where the party now stands in the struggles of British society.

There could be no better Illustration of the need for a new political leadership entirely independent of Labour. best the established left can offer us is the possibility that Tony Benn will run againsi Kinnock at the Labour conterence. makine a doomed challenge for the leadership of a dead party on a platform of old-fashioned Labour platitudes which bear little relation to the harsh reality of political conflicts today. We should take a warning of our own from Labour's attempt to alert the establishment to the struggles ahead. If resistance to the Torv offensive is to be more than token, it will need to be directed by those who are not afraid to struggle against te system. And we will need to ignore the orders of those who tell us to surrender before the battle begins.

CLAUSE 28

fought by appealing to the authorities to recognise the artistic worth of books, plays or films by or about homosexuals.

Nor should we invest any faith in proposed amendments to Clause 28 which might make it easier for loca autorites to claim that their promotion of homosexuality was not 'intentional'. These objections all accept the premise that it Is illegitimate to argue for full equality for lesbians and gays.

That concession gives the government, the police and the reelance bigots a stick with which to beat homosexuals out of British society. It Is a concession we are not prepared to make. Our demand - and the only one capable of countering ue reacuonar climate is for the full decriminalisation of homosexuality. conference weekend. Yet the Kinnock. despair. Fruitless.' from April mission to the advance of despair. that amounts polls have tound between abandoning deputy of lords

FALTER

Urging poll tax strong that the perspective payable to Junius Publications Ltd

KINNOCK TELLS SCOTLAND...

'WE WONT

fight the Tory poll tax. But don't take our word for it.

poll Labour leader Neil Kinnock stamped on the idea of a campaign for non-payment of the poll tax at the local government Edinburgh last do not think non. payment ıs a teasible option, said counsel of For Scottish people facing the imposition of this punitive mesure 1989, Kinnock's subpoll tax a year in the true counsel IS The Labour leadership claimed non-payment was a non. starter because not many peopic would actually refuse to pay'. This blaming ordinary people for Labour's own retusal to challenge the Tory tax. Successive proved that there is community charge and plenty of people ready to fight it.

Kinnock argued that a campaign of civil disobedience which flouted the law would play into the Tories' hands by diverting attention from the 'deliberate injustice' of the poll tax. Sheffield MP David Blunkett agreed that a middle way could be illegality Labour protest. leader Roy Hattersley indicated what this meant when he suggested that Labour councils could drag their feet on preparation for registration and collection, in the hope that the legislation would emasculated in the house councils to take their time imposing the tax and telling people to lobby the house of lords is the sum total of Labour's anticampaign. Kinnock declared that opposition was so legislation could

OUT NOW!

This new book challenges the arguments for an assembly from a Marxist £3.95 plus 80p p&p Avallable from Junius Publications, BCM JPLtd, London WC1N 3XX. Cheques still "falter and fail before the April 1989 deadline. Even if the tax did passed, he

LACI

reasoned, it could end up so puny be case for a futue tabula a future Labour government to uproot. This approach means asking people to put their faith in Tory amend the poll tax, and to pray for the highly unlikely return of a Labour government some time in the distant future. Kinnock's up-front attack those advocating a campaign of nonpayment and non-implementation is keeping rightward trajectory of Labour's policy local government. The Edinburgh conference told Labour

COURCH

forcing through massive cuts in jobs and services to stay in power and stay within the Tory law. Even the soft-left Labour Coordinating Committee published a pamphlet tor ce conterence leng une tell Ec "grow up' and get on with passing on the cuts.

FORWARD

Surely now it must be obvious to left wingers who want to fight the poll tax and the cuts that the Labour Party cannot be a vehicle for defending the working class There is no point lobbying the lawabiding leadership, as the left did in Edinburgh last week, to have a Breaking with change of heart Kinnock's "counsel of despair', and organising meaningful resis- Lance amoure counckess expected to implement the poll tax and local communities who have offers the pay 1t way forward Those who want to help build such a movement can come to the next meeting of the Smash the Poll Tax Campaign, on Saturday 20 2.30pm February Partick Burgh Halls, Burgh Hall Road, Glasgow, or write to SPTC at PH8 340 West Princess Street, Glasgow.

IS THERE A

SCOTTISH

SOLUTION?

The working class and the assembly debate Mick Hume and Derek Owen 5 February 1988 • 3

international status Reagan resident like an old ham given an as he got a standing ovation from a joint session of the two houses of congress before his final 'State of the Union' address.

Even Jim Wright, Democratic speaker of the house and one of Reagan's leading opponents, caught up in the heady atmosphere, *They love shouting ya, President!' over open-air microphone that was not meant to be switched on. Reagan responded this nauseous display nostalgia for the golden days of his presidency by dusting off an old script and redang speech to millions of American TV viewers.

RAPTUROUS

by Reagan began announcing did wish

HOU

considered a lame duck. All he had offer, was however, The one dooul Values. principles and ideas that made America great'. Nevertheless, he nad to bause •In this rapturous applause. chamber tonight, said Reagan, Republicans, 'there Democrats, just Americans.'

The fact that they were American facing their greatest pollucials crisis since the Second World War seemed to slip everybody's mind.

What about the October stock market crash, the faltering dollar, the yawning trade deficit? They were not mentioned. How about Irangate, arms-for-hostages, illegal funds to the Contras? Not a word.

Reagan may have dropped his initial plan to talk about launching a US mission to Mars. But his rosetinted view of events is already worlds away from the several reality of America's decline.

Reagan did discuss the record budget deficit, but only to blame congress for making the budget process too complicated for him.

He even tried to explain cuts in education spending as a sign of the strength of American values; the cuts were a product of 'no longer having an obsession with dollars' now that it was recognised that *discipline and hard work' along with parental control over schools were the keys to better education.

IMITATIONS

Reagan gets away with avoiding the hard because opponents don't want to discuss them either. After the Robert Byrd, senate Democratic majority leader, complained that "the "feel-good" slogans have gone flat with time. What was needed then? Byrd said the USA had to *face the hard truths that once gave self-reliance and - hard work. pay as you go, and helping those in need.

Such pale imitations of Reagan's mom-and-apple-pie philosophy the real thing. can't Democrane contenders for une 1960 presidential nomination 4 • 5 February 1988

THOUGHTS OF A

LAME DUCK

The striking feature of Ronald Reagan's last 'State of the Union' address was his failure to mention the parlous state of the Union's economy and prefer to speak in vague terms, lest they alienate voters with threats of austerity, as areary Democratic candidate Walter Mondale did in his 1984 contest with Reagan.

Reagan's speech matter he has made his own Like his friend Reagan has responded to economic got trouble by moving quickly on to Mr the ideological high ground.

relerred to tae lamy as the very support system the poor need most to lift themselves out of poverty.

As part of his plan to have the poor look to themselves, Reagan went out of his way to let very one now of his desire to keep trapped in the home, through an be tired

NICARAGUAN CONTRAS

s the US congress votes on another round of funding for ine contra terrorists, ue pressure of events is forcing the Nicaraguan regime into a corner. his The recent summit meeting of five Central American presidents in San Jose, Costa Rica looked speech, like being the usual stalemate. The five were trying movement into the Arias peace plan for central America and, as usual, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega took most of the blame for the lack of progress world towards peace. But at the eleventh hour Ortega surprised his critics and offered major concessions to his opponents. The Sandinista leader agreed The for the first time to hold face-toface talks with the Contra also

'STATE OF THE UNION' ADDRESS

attack on abortion rights. And he couldn't important Nancy's phoney war on drugs was in maintaining values. Behind the flattery for the First Lady lies an attempt to make centred on a millions of other American women pay the price for the impending Thatcher, recession. Three quarters address was affairs, and even his statements on He foreign policy were domestic emphasis was placed on Nicaragua since it is 'so Reagan extolled women some concessions guerrillas; to release all political prisoners once a ceasefire had begun; and to lift the five-year Ortega's concessions are a major about-turn. Some observers saw a new round of funding to the Contras. The US congress votes on renewed Contra aid on has indeed reduced the amount requested to expected $100m. Ortega's concessions are a him by external pressure and the lack of international support.

BLATHER

Reagan has already got most of what he wants in Nicaragua Washington. But US economic attrition have driven the Sandinista regime to a point where it is prepared to make major concessions. being upstaged by the original good use of the breathing space provided by the negotiations.

Following the unilateral Sandinista ceasefire which was part of the Arias plan, the CIA Party, out.

PUPPETS

mennonig now Reagan faces as Tamily the Contras Helms of Reagan's hardliners their devotee to Prime consumption. our borders near the freedom fighters, his Contras, for forcing than of the

OUL

Sandinistas. Upping the rhetoric

COUBLEYS LIULIE

NICARAGUA ON THE RACK

REAGAN'S LAST

VICTIM?

state of emergency in the country.

coastal targets.

HEEL

them as a shrewd gamble designed to undermine Reagan's appeal for the Thursday 4 February and Reagan $36m from an But in reality setback for Nicaragua, forced on Ortega previously refused to talk to Reagan's Contra puppets, and demanded instead direct talks with pressure and the drawn-out war of short supply.

WANING

Reagan may have objected to Arias peace plan, but he has made stepped up arms drops and in late

OLD HAM, OLD SPEECH: REAGAN

over Nicaragua is a useful device for Reagan in putting his 'anticommunist crusade' back on top of the political agenda and placating the right wing of his Republican who see the recent Intermediate Nuclear corces accord with Gorbachev as a sellduck much pressure from his own party over signing away Euromissiles as he does from the Democrats over the funding of Senator Jesse But thẻ of rest needn't worry about presiacal

-HILLO

peacenik. For all his blather about ending the nuclear threat, another passage in Reagan's speech gives a better indication of what he has in keep mind: 'Of all our accomplishments, none can give us more satistactior knowing ouryoung people are again proud to wear our limits December the Contras launched an offensive against radar facilities, mines and Reagan wasn't impressed by Ortega's concessions. A White House statement confirmed that president would persist requesting aid for the Contras, noting that pressure by the Nicaragua resistance is what brought the Sandinistas to the negotiating table. The reduced amount of aid requested by Reagan suggests that America believes a little more pressure will bring Ortega to heel, given the enormous pouncal and economk problems now facing Nicaragua. A permanent US blockade has ruined the economy, with inflation running at 1000 per cent and 1987 export earnings only half that of 1980. As Ortega was announcing his concessions in San Jose, electricity rationing went into effect and petrol was in Even if the US congress decides to freeze further spending on arms for the Contras, Nicaragua faces growing internal upheaval. Given the sharp policy turns of the recent period and the depth of the economic crisis, support for the regime is waning. Taking advantage of the end of the state Circus acts like the State of the Union' address worry some in the US establishment. The Wall Street Journal complained that Reagan's talk about local government 'can't fulfil the world responsibility political leadership'. Reagan's address confirms that his lame government is paralysed, with no intention of tackling its economic problems. The Republican Party will not allow Reagan to impose austerity measures, which capitalism alive, because it knows this would finish off presidential candidates George Bush and Robert Dole.

Until the November election for Reagan can only his successor. look to Japan and Germany to keep the US economy ticking over of platitudes up a sucam about American values and hope that the recession holds off until he is safely back on his California James Malone of emergency and the restoration of the right to strike, anti- Sandinista trade unions plan to organise strikes and protests against government-imposed wage-

HOMESPUN

In a desperate search for friends to prevent the Arias plan becoming a noose for thi Sandinista government, Ortega last week paid a flying visit to Spain. He hoped to persuade EEC countries to put pressure on the United States. Instead he got an EEC statement calling for the USA to give 'constructive support to the Arias plan and some homespun advice from Spanish Socialist premier Gonzales on how to democratise Nicaragua.

Reagan might claim that Nicaragua is a Soviet satellite, but the Sandinistas can expect no help from Moscow. When Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze paid the first visit by a senior Russian official to Central America in more than a decade, he conspicuously avoided Nicaragua. Moscow even brielly suspended what little military aid it gives to the Sandinistas last summer, in protest at their initial refusal to cooperate with the presi The Soviets are eager dent Arias. not to identify too closely with vicaragua s pligat so as not le damage their diplomatic links with larger countries in the region such as Mexico.

ISOLATION

Reagan recently boasted that he hoped to see the fall of the Sandinista regime before the end of his presidential term next January. The isolation of Nicaragua has played into his hands. There is a danger that with each new concession from the Sandinistas, the imperialists will simply up the stakes again and demand more. There has never been a more important time for us to show solidarity with the beleaguered Nicaraguans who Reagan has set up to be his last victims Russell Osborne the next step

PROFESSIONAL SADISTS

typical fashion the headlined its two-day survey *Blacks "Yes" to repatriation' "Immigration must be curbed", and Black leaders stir up racial hatred'. No doubt. the weighted its questions to encourage a racist response, but even so the results give scant comfort to thee gutter press racists. There was a minority of bigots whose views fitted in with those of Murdoch's rag. Eighteen per cent thought that racism Was problem, 21 per cent supported repatriation, 23 per cent objected to inter-racial marriages and to black MPs, and 24 per cent denied there discrimination Was the workplace.

STEREOTYPES

The bigots were outnumbered three to by people recognised the reality of racism: 67 per cent thought that racism was a serious problem in Britain and 61 percent thought that employers discriminated against blacks.

majority rejected the anti-black stereotypes which the Sun cultivates.

Six months ago the Sun wrote a scurrilous piece about rasta poet Benjamin Zephaniah, and demanded •Would you let your daughter marry him?' The answer from the survey was 'Yes" - 58 per cent saw nothing wrong in inter-racial And 60 per malllage. opposed repatriation. revealed a The

SUVCY

sizeable minority of anti-racists.

More than one in four thought that racism was very serious and 9 per cent rejected tighter immigration controls. wnal the sun described as a 'very worrying

ARMY BULLYING

THE defence ministry has announced plans to hire 50 extra welfare workers to counsel soldiers complaining of abuse by their colleagues. But despite their disolav of concern, the authorities still recruits inside the army, to train them to terrorise people in the world outside. *Major lan Murray Granville Strong, then acting CO of the Royal Signals in West Germany, made no attempt to stop the humiliation of Lieutenant Ben Alexander. Military police later discovered why the 39-year old major supplied the scissors used for the horrifying haircut.'(Sun, 16 November 1987) Alexander's scalping by seven of his fellow officers last July is one of at least 100 incidents of bullying exposed since January 1986. Junior officers and squaddies have been choked by CS gas, halfdrowned in rivers, branded with red-hot pokers, frog-marched barefoot over barbed wire, made to eat soap, drink urine, sit in baths full of shit, beaten with baseball bats, and had their groins shaved and boot-blacked with scrubbing brushes. Army bullying is nothing new.

For years recruits have undergone initlation ceremonies after volunteering to join the British army. The spate of complaints from outraged parents and the growing number of court cases have finally provoked government action. Besides additional welfare counsellors, junior minister of defence Roger Freeman announced a ban on initiation ceremonies.

the next step Sun Sun LOL d in who number' - 33 percent - thought The that the porce were racist The survey the myths attitudes to race held by both racists and the left. It showed that most people do not regard themselves and many are sympathetic towards blacks who suffer overt racism.

However. opposed racist violence or repatriation still said that immigrats were a problem tor Britain. The survey confirmed that people's views racism of rags like the Sun, but by the respectable racism' promoted by mainstream ponucians The authorities' main concern, however, has been to excuse and cover-up all but the most of brutality. The imes set the tone last misinterpretation and, since army lie was not tor une hypersensitive and shy, such abuse could be seen as 'no more than the hurly-burly of communal life'. Meanwhile, it warned its readers to remember that the army thrives on discipline'. The Times was concerned above all to draw a line. It wanted the military authorities to distinguish berween disciolinine and torturing the army's volunteers.

Wherever the authorities decide to draw the line, the brutalisation of army recruits will continue. From time Immemorial the basic training of civillans has been designed

RACIST BUL...

Last week the Sun published the results of a major survey of racist attitudes — Kenan Malik looks at the results and the While discrimination, demolished some of working class immigration controls. as racist. people black The Tories, me extreme can contribute All

AGGRESSORS NOT VICTIMS: GUARDS ON PARADE

to accomplish what army bullying only endorses - the dehumunisation of the individual. The objective of basic training' is to destroy any loyalties the individual recruit has outside of the army and its regiments. The army has to rely on the working class for its recruits. The bullying, the 'bull' and the square-bashing all help to instil the 'military spirit, and break the remaining links that these recruits have with their class. For all the talk about the modern army being sophisticated professionals who pride themselves on operating technologically complex weaponry, a soldier in today's army must still be able to kill the state's enemies on command. The reason why the any das open-plan lawnes Is not because they were designew by oir erence Conran. It is because the army

SUN READERS SAY

TMNOT A

reaction from anti-racists most people opposed black people for creating racial tension. Thus, two thirds of those questioned supported tighter 'You don't try to put out a fire by throwing more wood - or petrol - on it, do you?' said one. The same number thought that black politicians were blame for inflaming racism.

These views reflect the sort of understated racism which has been instilled in British public opinion encourage by all of the major political parties.

Labour and the Alliance agree that immigration rising unemployment and declining services.

fair' controls,

DON'T JOIN THE

to order. its cogs. Jackie Reynolds 7 Loonies are condemned Racist? Not us, says black cop accept the need for immigration controls. By blaming black people for Britain's social problems, they racist sentiment. The idea that immigration control is necessary to relieve these problems free fuels anti-black feeling. Every time Neil Kinnock calls for 'firm but he reinforces the I'm not a racist but..' view that

BUTTO

high command recognises the need to eradicate the dignity and reserve of a normal human being to get them to kill same Informal bullying in the barrack room has long played lining an important role in the army.

That is why officers not only turn a blind eye to the bullying, but actively encourage it. They want to weed out the 'wimps' who have slipped through the i he official procedures and weld the rest together in the spirit of an elite force that has successfully endured suffering.

In this so-called 'buddy' system, regular troops develop a loyalty when only to their fellow comrades and will not hesitate to crush the enemy to save their mates.

The military authorities have no interest in doing anything about bullying. The present concern arises trom the real that the stories might affect recrutment. But this concerr Is tempered by the appreciation alternative to motivate No doubt many working class youths who join the army to gain a skill or get some the adventure have suffered at the hands of the professional sadists. But we should not waste much time worrying about army bullying. Our concern must be to put a stop to the terror which every squaddie inflicts on the Irish and other opponents of the British author ties at home and abroad. The British army is a killing machine. Anybody who makes the mistake of volunteering tor service can expect to get ground up in Day Two of a vital Sun survey on racism

BLACK LEADERS STIR

UP RACIAL HATRED

Bigots lose out to Gary's love

WE NEVER GOT A CHANCE

most people hold. If this is the message from the political parties, sympathetic workers might be to black people it is unlikely that they will break anti-

LEO SE

COvered Immigrant prejudice The Sun survey confirms that if we want to win white workers to the of anti racism, we nave to discredit the view that black people threat to white workers and immigration interest controls are necessary. We have to point out that immigration controls are at the root of racism they turn blacks second class citizens and target immigrants as the source of Britain's social problems. We have to show that racism is the threat to the working class: it assumes that British workers and British bosses have a common interest in uniting against the 'threat from immig rant labour. The working class has nothing common exploiters, and will never be able to unite against them if it shares the the pollical outlook bosses. On the other hand, the working class has every interest in with black

WOTKCI

against the system that thrives on exploitation and oppression.

TIRADES

official anti-racist ment has failed to tackle this political problem within the working class. Michael Day, the new head of the CRE, epitomised the approach of liberal anti-racism he replied to the survey He pleaded findings. with Sun readers to ignore the 'loony left' who were 'damagingly overzealous" and to 'care more about racism' Pleas about 'caring' will cut no ice with workers who think that the presence of too many black people is responsible for inner-city blight and the lack of jobs. Adapting to Tory tirades against the 'loony left' can only confirm workers prejudices about anti-racism. Day was addressing political not the problems of the working class, but prejudice of the Sun leader This defensive and accommodating approach will not build The novemen! central task we face is to challenge the idea that black people are responsible for the problems of a The survey declining Britain. revealed that a large section of WOrKCIS. -coaccially voull, nave a healthy distrust of the police and the bosses. The basis for a working class anti-racist movement exists It is up to us to win the political arguments that can turn healthy distrust into working class politics.

5 February 1988 • 5

YOU CAN'T SQUARE A CIRCLE

There can be no reconciliation between the aspirations of the Palestinian people and the survival of the Israeli state, argues recent uprising Palestine triggered a new round of international diplomacy. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, one of the West's favourite Middle Eastern leaders, has just finished a grand tour of the Arab Gulf states, Europe and the USA. US secretary of state George Shultz met Palestinian leaders last and UN under secretaryweek, general Marrack Goulding recently completed a tour of the West Bank and Gaza Strip following David Mellor's well-publicised trip.

GRANDIOSE

Every time there is unrest in Palestine or the surrounding countries Western politicians and diplomats are despatched to "solve' the grandiose conflict. this year tory minister David Mellor set the pace with a call for form oI determination for the Palestinians Just after Israel's last invasion of Lebanon in 1982, both the Arab summit at Fez and Ronald Reagan both talked the need recognise Palestinian rights. history Throughout the Palestine countless noble-sounding peace plans have The with all these problem schemes, however, is that accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel. There are certainly differences in empnasis ana presentanon. Alab leaders generally talk independent state in the whole of the area occupied by Israel in 1967.

The USA and Britain are usually keen for King Hussein of Jordan to establishing blay a bart autonomous Palestinian region in the West Bank and Gaza. In recent years European leaders suggested alternatives which fall somewhere between the Arab and Anglo-American positions.

LEGITIMACY

All these schemes. explicitly, implicitly for Israel's security. guarantees The EEC Venice declaration 1980, for example, stresses that all of the countries in the area are entitled to live in peace secure, recognised and guaranteed borders.' The 1982 Fez summit called on Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders, thus acknowledging the legitimacy of the Zionist state.

But the Israeli state which was imposed on the area by the Western established at powers and expense of the Palestinians never ive in peace. Israel could not have come into existence without Western backing.

belief that the Zionism tne establishment of a Jewish state is a solution to the Jewish question — began to grow with the rise of antisemitism. European Jews gradually lost, faith in the possibility fighting and in. creasingly looked to the formation of a Zionist state as a solution. But without help uncel mandate and American patronage more recently, the Zionist movement would not have had the strength to establish or maintain such a state. Britain and the USA were clear about the reasons for supporting Israel. The first British military 6 • 5 February 1988 in has with self- LO they an governor of Palestine talked of the establish a Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially have hostile Arabism'. Jewish settlers from abroad would inevitably come into conflict with the indigenous would have to rely on outside support. America's emphasis on include Israel as a 'strategic asset' is the modern-day equivalent of Britain's divide-and-rule tactics of old.

OPPRESSION

within One reason Western leaders can be so sure of Israel as a reliable ally is that it was built at the expense of the Palestinians. The formation of Israel blatant Was project. It involved setting up an exclusive Jewish state inhabited by existence of Israel presupposes the can denia of the democratic rights of the Palestinian people. Given that the Zionist state was built on the foundations of oppression, a clash between the Zionist usurpers and the Palestinian was inevitable There can be no reconciliation between the preservation of of Zionist regime and the rights of the Palestinian people. the start the From movement had to Palestinians. drut, the Israeli conglomerate that combines of with

CLOILONLY

department, was set up to exclude market. The first activities of the General Confederation of Hebrew Workers in the Land of Israel

ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS

ISRAELI TERROR IS ENDEMIC IN A STATE BUILT ON THE OPPRESSION OF THE PALESTINIANS included *little loyal Jewish employers who wanted to hire Arab workers He meant that the green line are shunted off into a special integration department' of population and the Histadrut. the Histadrut but cannot become members. To celebrated 'socialist Kibbutzim, which are part of the Histadrut structure, do not allow Palestinians to become members. In Palestinians resident in the area controlled by Israel suffer severe discrimination. Palestinians colonial and are barred trom large areas of other people. The the labour market for reasons'. arbitrary arrest.

POLICED

The Palestinians dispossessed the potentially Palestinians are heavily Zionist indigenous population. As long as discriminate The Histathe Israeli they will a trade union wherever they are. the cannot suggest any clear solution.

Daniel Nassim organising pickets of Labour's outflanked Today Palestinians from inside Palestine: Workers from the West Bank and Gaza pay dues to this day the Israelis every sphere of social life

RHETORIC

face ol an nition' restrictions on Palestinian land ownership, poorer welfare benefits Palestinians. "security Palestinians also suffer systematic brutality, curfews and have live outside the Zionist state are also denied democratic rights. For the Arab states surrounding Israel the links with Israel. Palestinian liberation struggle is a destabilising force the pace, policed socialist and generally segregated from the Palestinians are denied the David right to national self-determination express sufter discrimination In Britain the Labour Party and much of the left express sympathy Palestinians' plight, An editorial in the Kinnockite calling talks the Tribune newspaper admitted that soft left had been the Tories by on •Tribune does not often praise Tory ministers, and this editorial may not improve David Mellor's career prospects much. But he was absolutely right to react as he did on seeing the conditions which the impose on Palestinian refugees, and witnessing the abuse of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli military' (8 January) Both Labour and the Tories talk ill-defined mutual recog Israel and the between If there pilference between the two it is only in the sense that Labour has been a stauncher supporter of the Zionist state. While both support Israel's right to exist, the Tories generally importance of good relations with the Arab regimes. Labour has argued that British interests are best served by cultivating closer While Labour lets the Tories set the radical left uses rhetoric to justify its acquiescence to Israeli oppression.

In common with Tory minister Mellor, radicals

STIESE

revulsion Israel's at excesses. The left then goes on to use Marxist rhetoric to justify its support for Israel's existence Militant declared that 'the future of all workers in the area, Jewish and Arab, are inextricably linked together, and there can be peace for neither, without the right to self-determination for the other (8 January). This amounts to the impossible, by demanding guarantees for both the Israeli state and the rights of the Palestinians. In reality there can be no peace in the Middle East as long as Israel exists. It is the existence of on the denial of a state based Palestinian rights that has led to a permanent wal Salon the region.

ABANDONMENT

Like Militant, another left-wing Socialist Organiser, news sneed grandly of the need for a 'socialist federation of the Middle East'. Nobody could object to such a desirable ambition. Unfortunately Socialist Organiser goes even further than Militant in speculating about 'socialism' in the future while supporting the existence of the Israeli state today: "There are two nations, so we call for two states... No solution is possible that does not recognise the national rights of both peoples' (14 January).

between Israel's right to exist and Palestinian right selfdetermination. Israel is an inherently oppressive state which helps to police the region on behalf of the West. The Palestinians

CULCOSCE

people fighting for their freedom The destruction of the Zionist state would be a giant step forward for the working class of the region and precondition "socialist

TOT

Middle East'. Trying to reconcile the existence of Israel rights of the with the Palestinians effectively abandoning the Palestinians to their fate under the status quo.

Socialist Organiser betrays the shallowness of its understanding when its argues that because the powerful' it 'will take a lot to win Palestinian demands for their own Zionist left. In the process 750 000 Palestinians were expelled from their land. In 1967 the Israeli Labour Party led the invasion of the West Bank and Gaza. Today a Labour defence minister, Yitzhak Rabin, enforces Israeli repression against the Palestinians.

PRECONDITION

Zionist of the oppression Palestinians is not a policy option.

The security of Israel depends on brutally suppressing the Palestinian threat to its existence. Israel has only survived the past 40 years inrougn ruh-scale minarisation of every able- Virtually society. bodied man and many women are in une army Stripped of rhetoric there is little difference between Western diplomacy on Palestine and the left's formulas for peace. All make gestures towards Palestinian 'selfdetermination', all project peaceful solution into the future, yet all accept Israel's right to exist.

For us self-determination for the Palestinians can only be achieved with the destruction of the Israeli state. Only then can the Palestinians have the right to determine future. This is the pre condition for peace and an end to the permanent state of war in the Middle East. the next step

HEALTH WORKERS' PROBLEMS

AND

ON 9 January in Whitehall the political nonsense of Gay Pride finally gave way to gay anger.

The thousands of lesbians and gay men who marched in London were a demonstration of our determination not to be driven back into the closet by the Thatcher regime. But if we are honest we must recognise that it was also a demonstration of our isolation.

Where were the Labour parties and the trade unions who have paper policies on lesbian and gay rights? Where were the miners, print workers, black people and others who have felt the lash of state repression?

PALESTINE:

BLAME

BRITAIN

I WAS shocked by the brutality used by Israeli troops against unarmed Palestinians. They have crowds of young Palestinians and killed them. They even attacked mosques with tear gas and, when the Palestinians fled outside, they were harshly beaten.

Many Palestinians have been accused of taking protests, and dragged where Israeli officers hand out punishment on little or no evidence. Palestinians are being deported from their homeland when their only crime was protesting against the Israeli occupation. It's time that people in the West opened their eyes, instead of listening to the government telling IC COVere. David Mellor, a junior government, has voiced mis condemnaton or une treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. But British governments are to for the saualor blame which Palestinians are torced to live in. It was they who helped to give the palestinians a zionist state. Tony Benson HM Prison Frankland the next step

LESBIAN AND GAY ANGER

led by people whose strategy top of the hill, reading us the cast list of EastEnders, then marching us down again to lords. If Clause 28 really was the work of a few well-placed loony bigots then a bit of public pressure and some manoeuvres in parliament might have a chance. But you have to be extremely naive or dishonest not to notice that Clause 28 is one part of a sustained state-sponsored political offensive which includes the Aids panic, new immigration laws, Alton's Bill,

SCARGILL: NO SOLUTION

I THINK Dave from Cotgrave pit is wrong to see Scargill as the only future for the miners (letters, 22 January). Our call for a vote for Scargill in the NUM presidential election was based on the threat that Walsh poses to the miners, and nothing else. Walsh has stated that he wants to return to the good old days of negotiations. Meanwhile I WORK at Pendlebury Children's Hospital which is facing £300 000 cuts as part or a dum cuts programme due to be Implemented in Salford Inspired by the strike at North Manchester General, hospital workers and local people came together to form an area. But we immediately had problems with the 'share out the misery' syndrome. There were people arguing that Pendlebury should take precedence over the local psychlatric hospital. Somebody even suggested children not drug addicts' as a slogan for our campaign. If we're going to get anywhere we've got to get one thing straight: we want a Lesbians and gays are being amounts to marching us to the await a miracle in the house of Anthony Nottingham British Coal has made it clear that it is not interested in talks unless tey are doout Hexiole working. With the odds stacked in the board's favour since the end of the strike, any move towards negotiated compromise can only mean that miners will lose outcarill says he is against Walsh's 'talks at any price'. But he still decent health service for all, and decent pay and working conditions for all the people who work in it. We must not fall into the trap of thinking that some of us are more 'deserving' than others. Nupe member Pendlebury Hospital AS a student nurse 1 jolned the Royal College of Nursine because it was the only organisation ! knew about.ent it to join Nupe during the 1982 strike, because opposed the RCN's noround, I get the feeling that many RCN members support our action although most will not letters page the Broadwater Farm showtrials, etc. Jill Knight, David Wilshire and Margaret Thatcher are without doubt ignorant, prejudiced and malicious. But that is not why we face this attack. The crumbling system that they run needs to keep a potentially rebellious population divided against itself by appealing to deepseated prejudices. For the authorities, scapegoating blacks and homosexuals is simply a necessity. In this situation, the outraged respectability displayed by our 'leaders' is positively grotesque. The Stop Clause 28 Campaign with al its talk of human rights, tolerance and amendments, is putting us on a road to nowhere. As Don Milligan rightly points out tns, 15 January), unless we can break out of our isolation and enlist the support of the wider working class, straight and gay, we cannot prevent our criminalisation let alone achieve our liberation. Lesbians and gays wake up!

Don't waste your anger! sees negotiations as the way forward, with some form of limited industrial action as a back-up. In his pre-election speech at the leave the wards except during their breaks. Their confusion has brought home to me the importance of being in a union which includes all sorts of health workers, rather than a professional organisation exclusively for nurses. Nupe steward John Radcliffe Hospital Oxford

LAMBETH: RESIGNED

TO REDUNDANCIES

OUR Nalgo leadership has decided that it's useless to fight against cuts imposed by Lambeth Labour council, and that we should recognise that the lories are the ones te blame. A recent mass meeting of council workers assented to the leadership's approach, giving the go-ahead for branch officials to sit down with the council and sell our lobs down the drain. I'm not surprised that most people are resigned to doing nothing. While our jobs were in the balance, local Nalgo leaders passed paper ANDY CLARKSON argues (tns, 29 January) that 'Britain's victory in 1982 served to strengthen the hold of the Western powers over Argentina. During the Malvinas War victory for the Argentine military would be the best result for the working Gass neese nor agree then, and I still do noT As a refugee from that brief for Thatcher's task had not been defeated by the British in 1982, their Kellingley social club. Scargill said the problem is that the coal board won't talk. This begs the question: if the board is OVER 200 nurses attended a joint RCN, Nupe and Cose meeting at Guy's Hospital, South London. Speakers from the floor displayed anger and determination as well as indecision and moral action. Numerous Write to tns

BCM JPLTD,

WC1N 3XX

motions and patted us on ne cek unen counci leader Linda Bellos gave 90 days notice of compulsory redundancies, they organised a one-day token strike Yet there was a positive side to the mass meeting.

Most people backed a call for industrial action in support of 71 vehicle engineers locked out by the council. The vote showed that council workers still want to fight.

But most will opt for 'new realism' as long as there is no lett-wing altemative on offer. Lambeth counci temporary worker

ARGENTINA AND THE WEST

position would have been strengthened, to the detriment of Argentinian people. I can understand you 1 wanting to belittle Britain's outdated imperial adventure in the sout Atlantic. But, whoever was esponse tote introduction of democracy preferred to dictatorship?

Didn't Lenin write tha democracy provides the best conditions with which to expose capitalism? Birmingham only interested in talking to une Num about six-ady working, why bother to Ted Horton, director of ine sout yorkshire coalfield, made British Coal's intentions clear by issuing warning letters to 11 men from Bentley colliery involved in spreading the recent dispute across the Doncaster area. The board means to crush any opposition to their drive for profitability by next year. We need to be just as rumess in re-ounding the NUM based on the sort of action led by the Bentley men. Dave Burroughs Wakefield questions arose about 'emergency cover. When the chair took the views of union representatives, both the RCN and Nupe gave no-strike positions.

The protest' tactics they put forward were virtually indistinguishable. With only Cohse opposing, an indecisive vote was inevitable. Although this meeting left people confused there is still plenty of opportunity to get things going. Further meetings have been organised about revoking the RCN's no-strike clause and about organising for 3 February and afterwards. These are all new departures for Russell Guy's Hospital 5 February 1988 • 7

GUILTY OF BEING BORN IRISH

andora Andersi

NO BRITISH SOLUTION

ast Thursday three court judges Terecled Le appeal of the Birmingham Six against their convictions for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings. The six Irishmen, who have endured 13 years of solitude in prison and are set to serve the rest of their days inside, are captives of a judicial system which brands all Irish people as potential terrorists. On 21 November 1974, bombs planted by the IRA exploded in two Birmingham pubs, killing 21 people and 162, injuring Hill, severely. Paddy Walker, Johnny Callachan Richard Mellkenny, Gerry Hunter and Billy Power were arrested within hours of the blasts and were saoi convece au scicuccu Lo life imprisonment. The case against the Birmingham Six has long been seen as suspect by anybody who has looked critically at the evidence. They were convicted on the basis of contessions Wee Susequently withdrawn, and forensic evcence wuce nas suncc ocen discredited. When the six defendants appeared in court covered in and oruises arter interrogation by the police it was ooveis lo everyooav exceol luc British judiciary that they had been beaten into signing confessions.

Expert wiLesses SOOCaC demonstrate that forward to smoking playing cards activities in which the men engaged before their arrest - would have given a positive result in the tests scientist conducted bv torensic Frank Skuse. In 1986 journalist Chris Mullin, now a Labour MP, revealed that he had tracked down and interviewed the men who did organise and carry out the pub bombings, effectively demolishing the case against the Birmingham Six.

BEATINGS

The campaign against the men's convictions began almost as soon as the trial finished in August 1975.

Three eminent judges turned down the men's appeal early in March 1976. In June of the same year the courts acquitted 14 prison officers of assault, although it was clear from the court appearances that the six sustained severe beatings in 10am from Cambridge Street.

8 • 5 February 1988 (risil Freedom Mavemen The Crossmaglen Patriots from Wishaw, Scotland, on the march last week Winson Green prison. In 1977 the high six began a civil action for injuries inflicted by the police. In 1980 the court of appeal, led Denning, the Master of the Rolls, upheld a police appeal for the civil action to be struck out as an abuse of process. In 1981 the house of lords confirmed judgement. October 1985 Television's World snowee unal new scientic test contradict the forensic evidence wolch e seCOnyer Home secretary Douglas many Hugh ordered In 1986 Chris Mullin's inquiry. book Error of Judgement deprived the Crown case of all credibility. In December the same year another World in Action featured former policeman om Clarke, confirming that the were beaten up by the police. Hurd ordered a new police inquiry. In January last year Hurd referred the case back to the court appeal, tne appeal November and six weeks. After the first week of appeal it must have become apparent to all but the most bigoted observer that their the Birmingham Six were framed.

SMEAR

After all this, why are the six still inside? In the aftermath of last week's judgement against the men, COn meLaLOS whether or courts had conspired against the accused. But there was never anv for need conspiracy. conviction of the Birmingham Six must be seen in the context of a sustained campaign by the British establishment to smear the Irish liberation struggle and criminalise Irish opponents of British rule.

Only this Irishmen who had no involvement in the IRA's military campaign have been caged for life.

The Birmingham the culmination

•WCIC

republican bombing campaign in Britain which began in 1972 and lasted almost three years, leaving 50 people nearly bombings were attempt to take the pressure off the nationalist areas of Belfast and Frank Stagg Commemoration Sunday 7 February 1.30pm Wakefield Prison West Yorkshire The Irish Republican Prisoner of War Campaign is organising the annual commemoration to honour republican POW Frank Stagg, who died after 62 days on hunger-strike in Wakefield jail fighting for the right to repatriation to reland. Transport leaves Birmingham at remains the force for violence and

THE BIRMINGHAM SIX VERDICT

by Lord killed in the war in Ireland republican the stepping up anti-Irish hysteria Denning's new levels of ferocity. promoted the stereotype of the fanatical Granada in Action terrorist psychopathic - to the centre important the

SIX.

mUrC Hurd internal scientilic Birmingham pub bombings.

CRIMINALISATION

Together, press programme men bigotry and violence the began in lasted a record This draconian nothing weapon central propaganda advantage of freedom Irish Irish person not the police and who anybody The The British police, conspirac) Birmingham Six. explain why six They bombings life-long stretch in prison of criminals. The could dead. ment a desperate revoking

VICE OSS

that the V ece were improperly On Saturday 1000 Irish Freedom Movement supporters joined the Bloody Sunday commemoration march in London, in the week when two cases confirmed that Britain oppression in Ireland. Joan Phillips reports Derry, where British military rule have to was at its height of savagery. In the period of the bombing campaign in Britain, nearly 1000 people were The British establishment responded to bombings to The media now familiar

IRA

evil, cunning and of public attention. No event played a role for the that authorities in their campaign to brand every Trish man and woman as a potential terrorist than the politicians by and whipped up anti-Irish prejudice to a fever-pitch, unleashing a wave of British against the Irish community in Britain. Within Labour government passed the Prevention of Terrorism Act in one sitting of parlament legislation had with stopping bombings. It was to become the in the state's Irish war against nationalists. The government took the climate of chauvinist reaction over Birmingham to criminalise the fight for and depict every in Britain as potential terrorist. By implication supported the struggle against British rule in Ireland was a terrorist sympathiser.

The PTA provided the framework for constructing an anti-trish consensus and suppressing opposition to the Irish War in Britain.

courts and politicians had no need to concoct to convict the had convinced the vast majority of the British people that any Irishman was fair game for a They had succeeded in spreading the lie that Irish freedom fighters were nothing more than blood-crazed The British establishnot contemplate the Birmingham conwithout calling question the whole basis on which it conducts its propaganda war against the liberation struggle in Ireland. This was the meaning of Lord Denning's 1980 judgement: *If the six men win, it will mean ponice were gulty perjury, that they were guilty of that and threats. confessions were involuntary and admitted in evidence and that the convictions were erroneous. That would mean the home secretary would either they recommend pardoned or would have to remit the case to the court of appeal. This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say: "It cannot be right that these actions should go any further."

In other words the Birmingham Six will go on rotting in jail to maintain the fiction that British justice has been done against a criminal threat from the Irish people. This too was the meaning of last week's judgement. It proves British justice is a lethal weapon in the British state's war against the Irish people. The only way to fight for freedom for the Birmingham Six and for all the Trish people is to challenge the authorities' criminalisation strategy.

upholding the Irish people's right to fight for an end to the occupation and for the liberation of their country

PS DUT

No Brittish salution he events of this week only confirmed to us that we can't possibly have any confidence in the judicial processes of British courts, just as we couldn't have any confidence in the Widgery Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday. How could we expect anything other than a whitewash when Widgery was an ex-British Army colonel himself? The only thing which we must be concerned about is the possibility of more Bloody Sundays. And of course Bloody Sundays there will be. There is

IRISH

ONLY S

Sunda addre no doubt in my mind that what we experienced in 1972, and what we have experienced since, such as the shoot-to-kill policy, is the Inevitable result of the Involvement of British Imperlalism in our country. The only way we can stop more Bloody Sundays Is to rid our country, finally, once and for all, of British Imperlalism.

Terry Robson from Derry, speaking about Bloody Sunday 1972, at an Irish Freedom Movement rally in London last week.

FREEDOM IS THE

SA SOLUTION!

rishi Freedom Movement Out Now!

DOLUTION

re than 3000 people joined last Saturday's march commemorate the sixteenth anniversary of Bloody (above). Police kept the Irish Freedom Movement ntingent out of the end-of-march rally so speakers sed the crowd outside Islington Town Hall (below) last against the forces. public brazen government to-kill ambushed McKerr and 100 bullets. stopped

THE ARMAGH

SIX VERDICT

he British attorney general Patrick Mayhew announced Monday that there would be no action taken Con stabulary over the shooting of six unarmed nationalists in Armagh in shoot-to-kill policy authorised at the highest levels of the state security declared that Mayhew although there was evidence of a criminal conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, as revealed in the Stalker-Sampson inquiries into the shootings, it would not be in the proceed with interest prosecutions against the RUC. The announcement by the

CONTENS

member of the Crown forces can kill of any Irish nationalist and get away In the closing months of 1982 the RUC's covert E4A unit — the shootexecuted five squad republicans and an Irish youth in the Border county of Armagh. • On 11 November RUC marksmen a car

IRA

carrying volunteers Eugene Toman, Gervais Sean Burns outside Lurgan and shot the three unarmed men to pieces in a hail of more than • On 24 November

RUC

an undercover squad gunned down 17year old Michael Tighe and Martin McCauley at a farm near Lurgan, while they were inspecting three 60year old disused rifles planted by the RUC, killing Tighe and critically wounding Deceauley. On 12 December an RUC patrol and shot unarmed Irish National Liberation Army volunteers tailed Seamus Grew and Roddy Carroll ruled after all bringing coroner Britain's how • Shoot-to-kill is state policy through the back of the head on the road into the Mullacreevie estate outside Armagh city. The six shoot-to-kill "hits' were presented as routine police operatons at ine time, and later became the subject of a top-level cover-up.

The RUC created an elaborate tissue of lies around the cases Police reports claimed that both carloads of republican volunteers had broken through (non-existent) the three road-blocks, that (unarmed) IRA men had fired on the police, and that the two youths at the farm had threatened the RUC. To this last lie they even charged MeCauley, who just survived the attack, with possession firearms conspiracy and murder. He was found guilty of the 1984. Growing charge In disquiet about the police version of events prompted the authorities to charge four RUC men with murder.

The aim was to put them in the dock, let the legal process run its course, guilty and thus find them not vindicate the

RUC

impartial upholders of law and order.

FABRICATED

Unfortunately for the authorities, the trials raised further dangerous questions about the nature of British 'peace-keeping" in Northern

•ILS

Ireland colony. In April 1984 RUC constable John Robinson appeared in court charged with the murder of Seamus Grew. Robinson admitted that the initial police statements were fabricated to conceal the fact Special Branch and British Army agents had been involved in the operation, and that the RUC had Border into the Repuanis of Velande republicans Justice MacDermott Nevertheless that Robinson had used reasonable force' in shooting Grew and Carroll at point-blank range, and acquitted the RUC gunman commending him 'sharp shooting of the E4A gang were found not guilty of murdering Eugene Toman.

Lord Justice Gibson threw out the case without even bothering to hear the defence. His summing up broke legal precedents when he commended the assassins for their and determination in the deceased justice, in this case, the final court of justice'. Two months later Armagh Gerry Curran resigned after finding 'grave irregularities' in the RUC account of the killing of Grew and Carroll.

COVERT

The Armagh killings and the charged reaction to the court cases threatened to blow the cover covert war against the The authorities appointed John Stalker, deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester, to conduct an inquiry, make a few criticisms and restore public confidence in the RUC. They calculated that a rising career cop uke blalker would do what they wanted, by conducting a mock investigation and delaying une inquests into te deals.

Dul when his report was completed in 1986 its conclusions included some embarrassing observations about

RUC

killing machine the operates. The British government with

RUC

that agreed the something had to be done to blacken his name and get him off the inquiry.

Stalker was suspended trom the police force after allegations corruption, and his place on the West takeny Yorkshire chief Colin police Sampson. Last week's decision to shelve the shoot-to-kill inquiry was the government's response to the Sampson report.

RIGGED

The way in which the authorities have gone about their cover-up has provoked heated discussion in the media about what really happened 1982. Armagh Liberal journalists from the Guardian and the Independent have written reams deliberating about the veracity the police story, and sympathising with the plight of Stalker. But if they really find out what happened all they have to do is go to Armagh and ask local people, who exactly how the tel them shootings occurred. The official explanations don't cut any ice with nationalists in Armagh. They know from bitter experience that British law and order is just a code word for colonial terror. They know that the six men were set up and shot down without warning. They know that

RUC

story rigged, the was killings whitewashed in court, the inquiries launched as part of the cover-up. The Armagh shootings were part of a deliberate shoot-to-kill strategy authorised British government level. In the aftermath of the hunger-strikes in 1981, which left 10 republicans dead in the struggle for political authorities Status recognised that the nationalist community was more bitterly opposed to British rule than ever before. To undermine the resolve of the republican movement and its base in the nationalist enclaves Westminster gave the go-ahead to security forces mount campaign selective execution with the aim of intimidating the Irish into submission. RUC chief John Hermon sent his gang of SAStrained assassins into action.

DEADLY

The 1982 Armagh shootings only confirmed to Irish nationalists that the British forces are engaged in a dirty colonial war against the Irish liberation struggle The Armagh cover-up only confirmed that the Northern Ireland courts operate according to British colonial law which sanctions the use of lethal force against republicans and nationalists. The Armagh announcement by Mayhew last week only confirmed that the British establishment is not embarrassed about admitting that shooting-tokill is state policy. Taking his cue forthright from his superiors presentation of imperial policy last week, RUC chief Hermon observed that the law allowed the use of "minimum force against "terrorists, but that the IkA's new armourpiercing grenade justified the use of "deadly force'. After five years of and it's

LOVE UD.

Cunsulace as usual for the British security forces in their war against the Irish people. 5 February 1988 • 9

'W hy should we support the nurses now they never supported when WC threatened with privatisation." words of one hospital ancillary worker last week expressed a familiar theme. In the past the government has successfully exploited divisions between nurses and ancillary

WOIRCIS

belween amouance other health workers, between workers in domestic, catering and laundry departments - which can be fairly easily hived off to Conco other departments. The result is a legacy of sectional conflict and lack of trust which undermines any attempt to mobilise all-out action in the current dispute.

To work how

OUL

est to challenge the divisions in our ranks it is important to recognise the ways in which the government is trying to take advantage of the tensions among workers in the health service. The current focus on patient care and the problems of funding the health service suits the government because it can use these issues to stir up conflicts tunately, the unions - and many activists in the health service nave nol yer woken up to tne dangers of these arguments and set about refocusing discussions in such a way as to promote unitv in Let's look at the anKs. government's strategy more closely.

EMBARRASSED

In her Panorama interview last week Margaret Thatcher emphasised yet again the government's commitment to providing increased resources tor patient care in the health service. She reminded everybody that her government had set up the special review body nurses" pay aller the 1982 dispute on the specific grounds that the Royal College of Nursing would never go on strike. Thatcher values the RCN because it puts its professional commitment to patient care before its commitment to defending its members' pay and conditions. She offered to meet her friends in the RCN at Downing Street, separately fróm the leaders of the health service trade unions, who recelved an appointment to mice tu scal services secretary John Moore, at the tradesmen's entrance the Bovernent Embarrassed at receiving such a public embrace from the prime minister at a time when nurses including members of the RCN are taking against government, the RCN declined the invitation. But Thatcher's approach 10 • 5 February 1988

FORGING

UNITY

The biggest obstacle to effective action in the health services is the disunity among health workers.

Mike Freeman examines how divisions are exploited and outlines how they can be overcome

WCIC

in reveals key government strategy. Ever since the formation of the

NHS.

successive Have LaKCI duvantage commitment of nurses and other health workers undermine organisation and action. The effect of the review body set up after the 1982 dispute has been to deepen the division between nurses and hospital WOLKes workers in domestic, catering and laundry services subjected to job losses, changes and cuts in wages as a result of the launched in 1983. nurses have received slightly better pay offers.

The recent wave of aucun ou lac snordre or nu ses 'THIS is not strike action in pursuit of a pay claim. It is protest action against wholesale underfunding of the NHS.' So declared Michael Meacher, Labour's shadow health minister, after last week's meeting of the party's national executive. statement followed the executive's rejection of a motion from the left - Benn, Skinner and Livingstone the party should support this week's proposed strike action in the health service. The Labour leadership has become so craven in its quest for respectability that it cannot even summon up the courage to support industrial action by the nurses. The Labour Party's attempt to her redefine the purpose of industrial action in the health

ACTION IN THE HEALTH SERVICE

NURSES WITH THEIR HANDS DOWN STILL NEED CONVINCING

of asDeCI traming and skils in these ared: should receive caring for Thus While cleaning, kitchen have workers. The Deen shift privatisation drive avidea among themseives, media pressure on the government to get

THE ENEMIES WITHIN

patient care can only reinforce the divisive ideology that the Tories have so successfully promoted against the health workers in the past. It can only weaken resistance and strengthen the government.

It was significant that the Meacher's resolution finally approved by the national executive to support protests for higher funding for the health service that was moved by Tom Sawyer of Nupe and Colm O'Kane of Cohse. After the meeting Sawyer, a top Kinnock aide and normally eager to give his views to the press, suddenly unavallable for comment. Kinnock's PR men Larry Whitty and Peter Mandelsohm answered the questions, while his top union link man crept out by the back door. As Nupe's general secretary Sawyer is eager to broadcast point that her service ways of extending measures. Lawson use in highly specialised units caring for children having heart surgery une seau or for premature babies has led to proposals that nurses with special question higher rewards. a new division is being created among nurses, while the gulf between nurses and the rest also increases. It is important to note that even the highest paid nurses will still be badly paid, but they will be slightly better off than and laundry promoting the issue of patient care is that health workers are paid efficiently. according to how close they are to the patient, but because they are largest they

SCVCE COSES IS

are not strong enough to put any Unity GaTe these Jone decent pay for anybody. The second theme in Thatcher's was the question. of resources for the beath service The prime minister repeated her government has increased spending on healthcare, though she failed to acknowledge that this falls far behind what is necessary to maintain an adequate based in crumbling institutions catering for an ageing population. However, in what was widely regarded as a successful ploy in regaining the initiative in she opened the current dispute. discussion of a range of alternative generating revenue. Thatcher's announcement echoed earlier statements by Moore that he was looking into schemes for increasing private sector involvement in the health service, through basis and other While in parliament opposition MPs continued to demand that chancellor Nigel his forthcoming and budget to allocate more funds to than provide tax cuts for the rich', the whole debate shifted away from pay and conditions of health workers to the problem of how the government could finance the health service.

The focus on finance suits the Tories because it allows them to shift attention on to what they recard as the key to successiu management of the health service the drive to raise efficiency.

They have made clear that they will only spend more money on the health service if it is spent more Given that by far the single factor in health wages, "TaIsIng efficiency means health workers working even harder for even less

NUPE'S TOM SAWYER

avold being seen in public to be undermining the action that Is being taken by thousands of Nupe members around the country. Yet his response is characteristic of a union leadership that is now much more terrified by its own members taking action than it is by another government Meanwhile the TUC has brought forward its day of The bottom line in the whole debate about health service finance is that health workers pay Measures price. efficiency will fall inevitably heaviest on ancillary workers, who have already borne the brunt of economies over the past 10 years, and will deepen divisions among the workforce.

DIVISIONS

in the causes of patient and more funding for the health service means exacerbating divisions among nurses, ancillary workers and others in the health at the themes centre discussion in the health service dispute, they retain the initiative and we will be unable to rally our forces against them.

How we challenge the can divisions the health among and unite our forces workers against the Tories? The answer is by emphasising what we all have in With the exception of COTOn. senior managers, nursing officers and consultants, every worker in the health service is poorly paid.

Nurses, technicians, ancillary and clerical staff are all among the lowest paid in the country. Health workers also all endure poor working conditions, often involving unsocial hours and sometimes considerable risks of disease and injury. All workers in the health service suffer the effects of decade of cuts in understaffed wards, unfilled vacancies, shortages of everything required to do a decent job. If health workers got together and drew up a set demands covering the sort of pay maintain a decent rcoured to living and the sort of safeguards needed to ensure decent working conditions, this could provide a uniting all health workers together

PARALYSED

A set of basic demands to maintain decent living standards working conditions could provide the basis for overcoming the divisions long nave paralysed effective action in the health service. Unity around such demands could mobilise a powerful force against the Tories.

If one million health workers were united they would soon be forced to concede to our demands. For 40 years health workers have been lectured about patient care and puzzled about where the money should come from. It's time made clear the first condition for high standards of healthcare is healthcare workers who have decent living standards and working conditions. Let them worry about where the money - so long as it does not come from making us work harder by paying us even less.

action from June to 5 March, like the Labour Party, to protest against underfunding of the NHS. The TUC health service committee dismissed calls for strike action in support of health workers, but urged workers to find time to express their support for the nurses'. For much of the left the appeal for the TUC to take the lead in the dispute has become a major campaign theme. Those who expeci leadership from the TUC should recall the events of 1982 (see opposite) and remember that the current strength of the Royal College of Nursing is largely the responsibility of the TUC, which did so much to discredit trade unionism in 1982. The lesson of the past five years, confirmed by the past two weeks, is that If health workers want to win, they will have to take the initiative Into their own hands.

Additional reporting by Andrew Calcutt the next step

1982: THE YEAR OF DISCONTENT

THE TUC'S leadership of the 1982 dispute not only produced a demoralising and divisive defeat; it discredited trade unionism and encouraged the growth of the non-striking Royal College of Nursing. We reprint extracts from the next step, December 1982.

POPULAR

THE TUC welcomed the health service dispute. It was an opportunity for a much-needed display of strength against the Tory government and a chance to rally some public sympathy by using the popular cause of nurses pay. The TUC wanted to be at the head of a popular protest against the Tory government. But it did not want to lead a campaign of militant strikes to force the government to pay the health workers a decent wage. The result was a drawn out campaign of token stoppages. April: 24-hour "token stoppage" May: 24-hour "token stoppage" June: 24-hour "token stoppage" July: Three days intensive nationwide industrial action" August: Five days' intensive nationwide industrial action" September: 24-hour "day of action", including sympathy stoppages October: Regional "days of action" November: Transport workers solidarity day - cancelled.

*For the TUC the high-point of the campaign was the 22 September "day of action".

Many workers from other industries stopped work and more than 100 000 attended a demonstration in London. The minutes of the next day's meeting of the TUC's health services committee record the bureaucrats sense of satisfaction: "It was recalled that media coverage had been sympathetic and the government's aims for undermining the event had failed.

Speakers at the rally had emphasised their support for the health service workers and not commented on wider political matters. In further comments concern was expressed about the assembly point for the march and toilet facilities."

DIFFUSE

*The toilet facilities were a problem but what mattered was that the speakers had kept politics out of it. This was what the TUC liked: something big and national, but chiuse and directionless.

Better to have 100 000 listening to apolitical speeches in Hyde Park than 100 or even 10 causing trouble on picket lines. *The September day of action was the high-point for the TUC but the beginning of the end for health workers. The origins of the sel-out. however. are to be found much further back. The TUC's health services committee hoped to resolve the dispute through official channels rather than through rank and file action.

*The discussion at the committee on 16 March - before the industrial action even began reveais te cynical carculation behind the bureaucrats conduct of the dispute. One official tentatively "suggested that some form of industrial action might be necessary". Why were such measures being contemplated? Because it was Important to test une resolve or the NHS staff in how far they were prepared to pursue the common core claim." This was the attitude of the bureaucrats throughout: industrial action was the next step considered and organised to test the resolve" of the NHS workers not to test the resolve of the government! *The TUC wanted a quiet start: "It was suggested that the committee should organise workplace meetings, perhaps of one hour duration...with full emergency cover provided." The committee suggested that the various unions should consider other forms of industrial action, and outlined its fighting strategy: "It was important that the unions should show some leadership and exhaust all options which were available to engender an atmospnere agalist te existing offers. If the staff then showed themselves to be unwilling to respond to the lead of the committee, then it would be clear that the existing offers might have to be accepted."

DISORGANISE

"The committee's perspective was to organise the campaien to create a situation in which the workers would fail to respond to cals for further action. Then the committee could turn around and say We were prepared to lead an al-out strike, but te memoers were not prepared to follow." The bureaucrats could then accept the offer and blame the rank and file for not being prepared to fight.

Given the militancy of the health workers this situation was difficult to set up. But after eight months of delaying and disorganising the action, the bureaucrats finally succeeded in the aim set out at

GMUL

Health Sorter Worker

END LOW PAY

IN THE

NHS

IN 1982 THE TUC HELD BACK WORKERS WHO WANTED TO FIGHT

their March meeting. *The March health services Norman Fowler. But the Tories proved unwilling to make any began to increase the scale of their disruption of hospitals throughout the country. Despite back the pay campaign with selective walkouts, pickets and action gradually built up momentum through the summer

CONTROL

The March meeting had agreed maintained control over the campaign." Staying in control became the officials' biggest problem. In May regional and local coordinating committees were formed under the regional campaign. By July the local committees were coming under heavy pressure from workers any out treason conflict with the TUC. health services committee admonished them severely, and agree the local implementation of the strategic decisions agreed by the committee" appropriate" for the local committee meeting concluded with a declaration of intent...to seek a meeting with Tory health minister concessions and the NHS workers the feeble lead, workers rallied to other forms of direct action. The that it was essential that unions the unions."

MEEK

TUbes to keep a grip on the all-out strike leadership. In some areas, when they began to increase the level of The July won the strike. reminding them that their function "was essentially to discuss, plan It was "not stark alternatives: Pandora Anders committees "to act in a semiautonomous manner seeking to influence national strategy".

*It soon became clear to most NHS militants that the only way to win their claim was through allout indefinite action. Pressure for a national lead built up rapidly.

The Nupe national conference in June passed a resolution in favour of an all-out strike. The Cohse conference, however, voted against an all-out stoppage. This difference became crucial in the TUC's response to Rodney Bickerstaffe's recommendation of his conference policy: "While there was considerable logic to Nupe's proposal, the fact constitutionally restricted, either by their rules or by conference decision, from an all-out stoppage, meant that a recommendation to this effect would split the unity of The committee demanded that Nupe repudiate its mandate for an - not that Cohse overturn its conference decisio against a strike. Nupe meekly acquiesced to the abandonment of the on'v tactic that could have *By the meeting of the health services committee in late October, the campaign was getting nowhere. The local "days of action" had seen small turnouts of increasingly angry workers. The committee noted the changing mood and the "The members were expressing the view that they could not win.

unions were moving to the position where there had to be an all-out stoppage or move towards an unsatisfactory settlement."

*The TUC had to pretend to push towards an all-out strike in order to get the membership to agree to a settlement. This became the TUC line in the closing weeks of the campaign. It dragged on the dispute until workers became demoralised, then it chose its moment to recommend all-out strike action. "There was a risk that the members might overturn this recommendation, but there was nothing dishonourable about this." The TUC did not "risk" calling for an all-out strike in the summer when workers were ready for it — but it was happy to "risk such a cal when it could be certain it would be rejected.

PRESSING

•While the TUC agreed to seek a mandate from all health service unions for an all-out strike, its schemes to make a deal moved on apace. There was one problem however - the transport unions had agreed to a national "transport solidarity day" on 8 November. At the October meeting, it was observed that it might be "unwise" to be proposing a compromise to the government at the same time as the committee was calling for action on 8 November. This consideration was even more pressing at the November meeting when the committee decided to plead with the government's arbitration service, Acas, that it intervene to resolve the dispute.

*Four days later Acas chief Pat Lowry emerged from negotiations to announce that the transport workers' day of action had been called off at his request. Cohse chief Albert Spanswick indicated that the TUC had won nothing in return for declaring an end to the dispute. "We have been made no specific offer" he stated.

MISERLY

•Within days, the terms of the final settlement became clear. The mediun workers gamed noting in the 1982-83 pay round after the increase the Tories conceded in June. In other words, the health workers have been forced to accept a two-year wage deal which promises to bring a substantial cut in real wages. The Tories have also made it clear that they intend to fund these miserly increases by cutting jobs and services in the health service.

committee was that it had "unanimously concluded that these proposals represent the maximum that can be achieved through negotiation". *The government took full advantage of the TUC's weakness and offered the bureaucrats injury by setting up a pay review body for professional groups in the health service, including nurses, on which the TUC will have little influence. No new pay machinery was proposed for ancillary workers. The TUC leaders tried to use the health service strike to strengthen their own position. lo some extent. the bureaucrats schemes exploded in their faces. They did not dare to unleash enough militancy to force concessions out of the government.

Then ca mampulaton and containment of the health workers action and their failure to win their demands have discredited the officials in the eyes of many workers. 5 February 1988 • 11

t 2.45am on 30 January A 1968 a team of 19 National Liberation Front sappers blasted a hole in the wall surrounding the American embassy in Saigon and ran into the courtyard. The attackers, unable to break through the heavy door at the main entrance to the embassy, began pounding the building with rockets and cuntire. or the next the six, hours most important symbol of the American presence ins scene done on the most dramatic battles of the war. By 9.15am the attack had been esca. either killed or seriously wounded.

But in the city of Saigon itself, an 1000 armed fighters, backed by local political units, held off more than 11 000 US troops and soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam' from the South for three weeks.

12 • 5 February 1988 THE USA RESPONDED TO TET BY BLASTING VIETNAMESE TOWNS APART IN ORDER TO SAVE' THEM

TWENTY YEARS SINCE THE TET OFFENSIVE

IMPERIALISM

VANQUISHED

IN VIETNAM

The Tet Offensive of January 1968 was the turning point in the Vietnam War and the beginning of the end of America's role as the undisputed leading world power. James Malone looks back The attack on Saigon was one part of a synchronised onslaught known as the Tet Offensive (Tet is the Vietnamese New Year holiday.

It was launched by the resistance forces of the National Liberation rom done want t Army of People's directed from Hanoi in the North.

All the major cities, 36 of the 44 provincial capitals, and 64 of the 242 district towns were attacked.

"The enemy struck superb attention to organisation, supply and secrecy,* Habib in his state department report. The power of the liberation forces traumatised even though by late February most battles had the same result as in Saigon - heavy losses incurred by the National Liberation Front.

Although there military sustained proved to be a political victory for the South. This was evident in the response to the Washington. The Pentagon Vietnam, internal record department, hard with wrote Philip shock." Reports from military men like Washington, William commander forces as depleted, vel ge few National security

WOTC

Tet Rostow produced gains, showing that

OUL

around the corner. Tet had of imminent wishful thinking. The barked The character American order to save it' of the the liberation fighters against the the media combined forces of the Americans the war. and the "Republic of Vietnam' in

BURNING

offensive Public trom Papers, of the Cecile confirmed that the attack caught the Americans offguard. "The enemy's Tet Offensive, although it had been predicted, took the US command and the US welcomi public by surprise, and its strength, length and intensity prolonged this The Washington Washington General Westmoreland, field overseas Vietnam had previously portrayed the resistance demoralised seized ot surrender

LCHSIOUS

Walt reams of computer print-outs for the press after newly enemy deserton. were rising while ARVN desertions were declining. President Lyndon Baines Johnson insisted through- 1967 that victory Was Just demonstrated that after its years of fighting, the Vietnamese resistance still had the energy and 1967. capability to do serious damage to the mighty USA. It was the most dramatic setback the suffered since the Second World War, and it exposed claims victory to Tet proved that a military victory was not 'just around the corner'. On the contrary, the USA was bogged down in a war it could not win.

American people sat stunned in front of their TV sets as the Saigon embassy came unde •What the hell is going on?'

Walter Cronkite, thought we were winning the war!'

American media began to emphasise the brutal and protracted One the war. colonel's justification for his decimation of Ben re •We had to destroy the town in - was repeated over and again by media commentators to highlight the senselessness carnage. and

JONESOR

Westmoreland were later to blame America for losing come. opinion polls taken An during Tet showed that now only 26 per cent approved of Johnson's conduct of the war, and 78 per cent thought the USA was not making look any progress in Vietnam. A steady however, still cent, supported the war. The polls were boost tor anti-war protesters nonetheless. Tet Offensive caught preoccupied with burning ossues. A men eas strategic manpower reserves were stretched to the limit in early 1968 when North Korea the and rueDro along the thirty-eighth parallel dividing Korea led South Korea to consider an immediate withdrawal of its 49 000 men from South Vietnam. At home Johnson administration faced which racial conflict exploded in the riots in 125 cities Martin Luther King's assassination in April.

DICTATE

Before Tet, sections of the US establishment had discreetly admitted that was slipping from its word stair re- Tet eminence in affairs. accelerated and made public this discussion about US decline, and it became the focus for an unprecedented debate on the limits to America's world power During the post-war period, the American ruling class was con fident of its abilitv to mould the world in its own image. The USA emerged from the Second World War in a position to create a new international order and dictate the new rules to allies and enemies alike. America's unrivalled domination over the world economy provided the basis for a new international equilibrium and post-war expansion. The USA's capacity to police every corner of the globe was crucial for ensuring a stable world order. The escalation of the war in Vietnam coincided with the visible economic

• USA

decline the -OT relative to the dynamic growth of West, Germany and Japan. The balance of economic powers was bound te have political repercussions: now that US hegemony was threatened the Western allies would no longer feel obliged to follow the American line all the way. Indeed, of the major

OILE

constraints on the USA during the Tet crisis came from the pressure applied on Washington from its Buropean rivals over te ensul gold and dollar crisis. Since 1965 inflation had soared thanks to government borrowing to finance the war build-up.

and the USA had a $7 billion deficit in international balance of pavments in the last quarter of At the end of February a panic led to a flight from the dollar and the prospect of a gold embargo raised the threat of exchange rate and trading wars.

JOHNSON: "BASTARDS

On 14 March several European nations began to redeem dollars for US treasury gold to recoup the bullon uney nad lost supporung the dollar. After losing $372m that day, and fearing much more to the treasurv arranged t have the gold, market shut down.

meeting with European bankers Wa. called Washington for 16 March. Negotiators only had to White House the windows ane see protesters holding anti-war placards to be reminded that this was no purely The European economic matter. bankers refused to use their gold to save the dollar, and called on the to rein back its spending. The European nations

USA

were hinting longer called the the shots in world economy. The multiple constraints placed upon the USA, both on and off the battlefields of Vietnam led to growing dissent over foreign policy within the ruling class. On one side the next step

How America was humbled stood those who remained steadfast supporters of America's role as On the other global pencemal. side were those who argued that the USA should retreat from its responsibilities, limit world geographical commitments to a smaller selection of 'vital interests' and rely less on military force.

Both sides had to admit that international relations were not as Pax simple as winel Hucncala reigned supreme after the Second World War. Tet this debate took the After form of an argument over whether or not to step up the war effort.

The American Joint Chiefs of Staff requested a call-up of reserves, a move that would be politically unpopular for Johnson. General Earle Wheeler, chairman, went to Vietnam to consult with Westmoreland, and returned with a request for 206 000 more men to supplement the 510 000 already there.

WORSE

in Influential figures Pentagon, however, were convinced that sending in more troops cold worse. hey only make maters made their views known in an ad hoc committee set up by Johnson to review the request for further The committee was military aid. headed by secretary of defence Clark Clifford, who recommended that it consider the troop request not only in the light of immediate strategic aims, but in its long-term ramifications as well. The members of the task force were split roughly between the presidential adisers favoured support for the

WHO

troop request, and the deputies of the cerence acar act argued against escalation. hawkish Clifford had a change of and backed his deputies, heart proposing that the administration do nothing decisive until completed a full-scale review of the "political and strategic guidance' of the war. Paul Nitze, a member of the defence department and a participant in the committee, outlined how he saw the debate haping up at cae unc In one view, US foreign and defence problems would continue, indeed might become more serious as a result of Vietnam, and could well call tor even more empnasıs than had and greater prudence been devoted in the past. In the contrasting view, the problems of the past had arisen largely from our own errors springing from overemphasis on foreign and particularly its defence aspects.

WISE

Not satisfied with Clifford's suggestion that action be delayed, Johnson sought more adice from Advisory Group

OCUIOL

Vietnam, the so-called Wise Men.

These authorities from the worlds of finance, industry and corporate law had approved an escalation of the war back in November By the time Johnson met the Wise Men at the end of March, he had already received the vote of "no confidence" trọm terualiula financial leaders. Anotner snock came on 12 March when Egene McCarthy, a fellow Democrat and anti-war presidential hopeful, had a surprisingly strong showing in Hampshire primaries. Ene Four days later Robert Kennedy announced his intention to seek the presidency, the same day that the gold market was closed.

The verdict from the Wise Men was a devastating blow for Johnson.

The concluded that Hd OLEL had to reduce America involvement in Vietnam and find a way out of South-east Asia. This desertion led Johnson to remark after the meeting establishment bastards have baled The post-war consensus on policy, American

OCSIE

had encompassed the executive, the broader establishment and the public, had collapsed. "I felt", said Johnson in his memoirs, the next step was being chased on all sides by a giant stampede coming at me from all directions." March president appeared on television.

He announced its and a willingness to bombings negotiations

CETECI

Then he revealed that he withdrawing from nomination presidentia! retiring to his Texas ranch.

Despite his pledge to scale down US nvo versenl committed to maintaining struggle until he left office at the end of the vear. A day alter nis speech, in which he promised to halt bombings reciprocal actions from Hanoi, US planes attacked sites about 500 Its kilometres north of the seventeenth parallel which divided the country.

Bombing attacks in April and May were more ferocious than those in the previous two months. A new proposal in Jonson's speech involved an expansion of the armed forces of the Republic the of Vietnam' to replace US troops.

This became the central plank of what president Nixon termed his 'Vietnamisation' policy. makers now spoke of a 'decent interval" before withdrawal. talked of 'victory" 'shield' was neded to protect the growth of ARVN. forced to admit its limitations, even if it was incapable of facing up to its decline as the world power.

BARBARITY

USA

could All the Vietnam after Tet campaign of destruction and death to new heights of barbarity, who extract as heavy a price as possible The Vietnamese, the

UTO BE

making plans to get out. THE Vietnamese people had spent many years fighting for self-determination by the time the Americans were kicked out in 1975. France was the traditional imperialist power dominating the country, but lost control over the region to Japan during the Second World War. After Japan's defeat, the French tried to move in again.

Ho Chi Minh's liberation forces declared war on the French policy, inaders in 1946. In 1950 the USA began direct economic and military grants to the French. When the French were defeated at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the USA took over. on Under the 1954 Geneva Agreements, Vietnam was divided along the seventeenth parallel. North and South were 1967. recognised as distinct territories, but the USA gradually redefined the accords to create the illusion of two nations. By the end of 1961 the USA had 3200 military adisers in South Vietnam, and John F Kennedy's package of medical and technical aid was aimed to win over the 'hearts and minds' of the people. It was not until 1965, however, that Johnson initiated a massive escalation of ground troops. The South Vietnamese army (ARVN) had been trained by US advisers to fight a conventional war; but the National Liberation its Front was engaged in guerrilla warfare. Inside ARVN, tere was a sharp differentiation between the Catholle officer *the corps and the Buddhist ground troops, with many officers being from the North as well. which Most Importantly, the South Vietnamese troops used as American stooges had no will *that I to fight. The NLF, on the other shown that the Americans had no chance of swinging the war in their favour, and they knew it.

the isolated took a long and tortuous route during the halt to the

COLO,

Vietnamese troops Hanoi. namisation' to the invasion of was 1968 Cambodia and and Domongs finally Johnson was the helicopter as the Minh city. return Policy

NIXON: BOMBER

an American Johnson no longer move during instead, America was

DO ONC

the US ruling class, do in never had to global credibility. The US establishment while Tet had force for liberation. The 'hearts and minds' of the to seize their land. The South's depleted economy was oniy held exacerbated in the latter USA had more South on the

HOTE

The USA's road out of Vietnam The lack military Nixon and Kissinger sequently From equipping the South "Vietunder the Christmas 1972, of Hanoi in imaclal ended in 1975 with the doubly American ambassador being lifted imposed off the roof of the US embassy by president's NLF marched into Saigon and renamed it Ho Chi

HARDLINE

Washington's every the tensions the to be elected figurehead hardline these years was the designed to extricate the USA from a war it had effectively lost by March 1968. The zig-zag course of deli- "bureaucrats" and diplomatic berations by Nixon and Kissinger from 1968 onwards reflected the tensions over foreign policy within which had dea with such defeat or suffer such damage to its Distory defeat in Vietnam strengthened those forces within the which wanted third world America to downplay its role as

THE LIBERATION OF SAIGON, 1975

hand, was astrongly motivated Americans could never win the Vietnamese. For example, when ARVN took over a village they brought with them landlords, who proceeded to collect back rents. When the NLF liberated a village, this inspired the peasants together by US aid. This was stages of the war when the Vietnamese brought into ARVN.

By the early seventies over half the able-bodied men of South the global policeman and concentrate narrower national interests of US capitalism.

for enES SH interventions was sub Middle dubbed the •Vietnam Syndrome'. The defeat in Vietnam cincided with Nixon's fall from office over the Watergate bugging sandal. The notion of astrong Presidency" was thus tarnished, and congress new limits on send US ability troops and military aid overseas.

By the late seventies, however, caused by the approach of economic recession led to a re-assertion of globalism With within the US ruling class the other capitalist powers closing the gap on the USA, and unrest in the third world Washington had to re-assert its supremacy. The policy of cautious management and diplomacy had ditched so that the USA could show the world it was still number one. Ronald Reagan was president in 1980 as the of resurgent the current American ruling class. Central to hardliners" case was a re interpretation of Vietnam along the lines of 'Rambo'. The USA lost the war, they argued, because the weren t . tryinglo win', that is, they didn't supply the forces with sufficient firepower This turned the truth on its head: the USA dropped more bombs on Vietnam than ever before in the of modern warfare asec box). But it served as an excuse for the USA to take a more belligerent also attitude to trouble-spots in the Reagan promised a reversal of eagle war. Vietnam were in the armed forces. Once a major exporter of rice, South Vietnam now produced almost nothing. Refugees worked for the Americans as construction workers, dockers, domestics and prostitutes. The Americans sought to comensate for problems on the ground with devasating bombings. By 1967, more bombs had been dropped than In the whole of the Second World War, and by 1970, more than on all targets in the entire history of mankind. Napalm scorched villages and 'defoliants' destroyed the countryside. Yet all of "Vietnam Syndrome" and a American might O1 resul gence He invented

WOT WCC

'communist conspiracies' to rattle his sabre at in Central America, the East and Africa. But Reagan's attempt to compensate for America's decline with a show met with little of strength has Behied ihs bluster, success. Washington remains wary repeating the Vietnam experience The humiliation of seeing the US marines bombed out of Lebanon in 1984 increased Reagan's fears.

Thus he has stuck to attacking easy like the tiny Caribbean Lal CeLs island of Grenada, and refused to involve American forces directly in conflicts in Central America.

IMPOTENCE

Today, America in decline would be even less capable of daling with Tet-style consequences offensive than it was 20 years ago.

Pressures on the USA from the third world and the rival Western make the question of powers America's 'crisis management' the major issue in world politics today.

Every sign of American impotence re-opens in the face of resistance the debate the US estabwithin sparked off after Tet, lishment, over how far the USA can throw its Thus Reagan's weight around foreign policy has become an unstable mix of intrigues like the Irangate episode, and displays of aggression like sending an American armada into the Gulf.

more senile, vicious and The unpredictable American imperialism becomes, the more necessary it is to put a stop to it. The legacy of Tet still haunts Washington. It should serve

FLO

LuS oTe struggling to free the oppressed from the claws of the American America's genocidal use of technology could not win the Tet proved to be the turning point. The NLF drove the US and ARVN troops out of parts of the countryside and took over some of the citles. The USA and ARVN were able to dislodge the NLF, but only after great effort. An estimated one million refugees were created in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive alone. Nixon took over after Jonson's demise, and his idea of 'peace with honour turned out to mean more bombings.

Nixon could not contemplate a Tutana verause ne knew it would guarantee an NLF victory. His gradual replacement of US troops by a beefed-up South Vietnamese army led to ARVN becoming the fourth largest milltary force in.

the world in 1975. In response to the NLF general offensive of February 1969, Nixon launched a secret war against NLF supply routes in Cambodia. The four-year bombing campaign was kept under wraps. The people who knew about It were the millions of Cambodians who died. When the Americans left in 1975 their record of destruction was unparalleled: in the course of the war they deployed six million US troops, dropped 10 million tonnes of bombs and spent $30 billion.

The claim that not enough money or willpower was devoted to the American cause is a lle. They threw everything they had at the Vietnamese, but they were beaten by an army which used bicycles and attacked from the sewers of Salgon. 5 February 1988 • 13

THE COMMUNIST

John Riddell (ed), Founding the Communist International: Procedings and Documents of the First Congress (March 1919), Pathfinder Press, £7.25 "f the First international foresaw the road that lay direction; If the Second and organised millions of Third International is the International of open mass action, the international of revolutionary realisation, the international of the deed.' Inus read the manifesto of the Third communist interatonal, founded 2 March 1919 in moscow, signeu Dy representatives from 17 different countries. The collapse of the Second International at the outbreak of the First World War, when its leading parties sided with their respective governments, made the foundation of a new International a necessity for the Bolsheviks. The corollary of Lenin's theory of Imperlalism, developed proletarian revolution was an immedlate goal. Capitalism had exhausted Its progressive stage, and the new international was world revolution. The hope and urgency Invested in this project burn through the documents collected here.

PRINCIPLES

There were two key elements behind the formation of the Third International. First, a theoretical strucc e for revolutionary principles.

Stuttgart conference in 1907 the Bolseviks had recognised the tendency of the leadership of the Second International to compromise with Imperialism — calling not fot the Imperialist powers to get out of the colonies but for them to implement a progressive colonial policy. During the war Lenin organised Internationalists into the *Zimmerwald left, who opposed Karl Kautsky's concept of the International as a body for peacetime - 'Struggle for Peace, Class 14 • 5 February 1988

INTERNATIONAL IN LENIN'S TIME

OUR HISTORY

AND OUR FUTURE

Struggle in Peacetime' and put forward the demand to Transform the Imperialist War into a Civil War'. The pollcy in favour of the dictatorship of the proletariat and soviets as organs of class power for the new international.

The second element is pointed out in Lenin's introductory essay, *The Third International and its Place in History'. The Third International emerged in 1918 when the long years of struggle against opportunism and social chauvinism, especially during the war, had led to the formation of several Communist parles and other sympathetic currents in Europe. But Germany was the crucial link. When Lenin heard that the Spartacus League was to found the German Communist Party he sent out the message via

OBITUARY

RAYMOND

WILLIAMS

Raymond Williams, the formost thinker and writer in Britain on culture and society, died last week at the age of 66. His death represents a loss to those interested in exploring how we experience and represent the world in which we live. From a working class background in rural Wales, Williams proceded via grammar school, Cambridge and adult education at Oxford to become Professor of Drama at Cambridge University from 1974-83. He wrote novels such as Border Country(1960) and Second Generation (1964), and political commentary such as May Day Manifesto (1968) and Towards 2000 (1983). It was as a critic that Williams made his most important contribution, first writing on drama, radio, the fastest means avallable, to found the new international. This book is the third in the serles on the Communist International, a genuine labour of love by the editor John Riddell.

The previous two, Lenin's Struggle for a Revolutionary International 1907-1916, and The German Revolution and the Debate on Soviet Power, cover the period up to the formation of the Third International. For this reason they are more stimulating, and should be read before the latest book, which gathers together the complete proceedings, resolutions debates ana decisions or the congress as well as the reports received on various countries, for the foundation of the Third International. •Great days' as Trotsky called them, they certainly were. Despite the decline and defeat of the new international in the twenties, these documents, and the volumes to follow, remain essential reading for all communists today. The theoretical and decisiveness of the revolutionary energy is our history and our future.

John Gibson then on English literature more widely and finally on culture generally. He became well-known in 1958 for his Culture and Society, an attempt to appropriate for 'socialist humanism the positive elements (solidarity, community, etc) from Romantic and radical literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was a moralistic and populist riposte to the individualism and elitism of the Great Tradition of TS Eliot, FR Leavis and the Scrutiny school. But it shared many deficiencies in method with them, not ledsl an insmerenuy conscious and critical handling of basic concepts such as 'English literature' itself. The Country and the City in 1973 and Marxism and Literature in 1977 marked a significant development towards a more Marxist approach to the subiect. As he said himself later, he was now looking at writers and reviews page

AROUND

Mohamed Lamine Gakou, The Crisis in African Agriculture, Zed Press, £6.95 Peter Anyang' Nyong'o (ed), Popular Struggles for Democracy in Africa Zed Press, £9.95 These books form part of a new series, produced in conjunction with the United Nations University, to look at economic and political alternaties to the post-independence crises in African countries.

Both suggest that 'popular' revolutions are needed to break the spiral of decline. The bulk of Mohamed Lamine Gakou's book is devoted to the west's long history of exploitation in Africa. Of particular interest is the section on the subordination of peasant labour to capital accumulation. This subordination has taken many different forms, with one constant - the failure of capitalism to develop African agriculture. Gakou calls on African countries to "delink', at least partially, trom imperialism to stand a chance of proper Ceve onen alternatives, however, amount to no more than the familiar proposals of economic nationalism such as import controls, and he gets bogged down their works 'not only in their historical background but within an active, conflicting Historical process, in which the very forms are created by social relations which are sometimes evident and sometimes occluded. Although at times his style was coy and ponderous, Williams always tackled the vexed questions surrounding the relationship between the fundamental forces at work in society and artistic production with subtlety and skill. He pursea d steduy pall between the vulgar Marxists on the one hand and fashionable distractions on the other (notably the poststructuralists). Under the rubric 'cultural materialism' ('the analysis of all forms of signification, including quite centrally writing') he emphasised the importance of widening the field of study, questong ure categories given to us by the dominant culture and specifying new ones of

WILLIAMS: IGNORED AS

A REWARD FOR HIS

GROWING

INTRANSIGENCE

REVOLUTION IN AFRICA

SECOND TIME

in demands for higher taxation and wage controls to pay for his plans. At the political level, Gakou belleves that delinking from imperialism can ve denieved by d movement for popular democracy. Movements for popular democracy are the subject of the essays edited by Peter Anyang' Nyong'o. Those that concentrate on the post-independence experience ot soecitie African countries Congo-Brazzaville, Zaire, Ghana, Liberia, Swaziland are very useful. However, each author has struggle failed because it was not sufficiently democratic, by which they mean sufficiently pluralistic. They hanker after the coexistence and cooperation of all class interests as the basis for an effective unity against the common enemy, our own. There always remained a strong idealist bent to his method, nurtured no dout by his academic isolation. It expressed itself most clearly in his more directly political writing, in the gradualist, reformist and utopian prescriptions of The Long Revolution and Towards 2000. Limited as it was, Williams' leftwards trajectory was against the erain. not onv ot the traditional path towards a ToTe conse alve o age, but also of the political mood of his time.

Only 18 months ago he complained of the poverty of the response to Thatcherism: 'Is there never to be an end te petit-bourgeois theorists makine long-term adjustments to short-term situations?' The reward for his growing intransigence has been the almost total silence with which his death has been greeted by the establishment and their media. Pat Ford imperialism. The problem with this commitment to a popular all-class alliance is that it obscures the role currently plaved ov the post-colonia state so far as the African working class is concerned. The dangerous lusion is tostered that the state can be captured by the people and democratised. But to accomplish this task in Africa the politics of the lesser evil nave to be elevated to the absurd. Hence Nyong o argues that, compared to Liberia's present leader, former president William Tolbert had "the decency sof a bourgeois democrat' in spite of his order to open tire during the Aori 1979 'rice' riots, resulting in 100 deaths. Samir Amin, in his introductory essay showend embarrassment in cling uat te Amricar state is 'too weak'. Even tor emmanue hansen, ir his otherwise excellent essay on Ghana under the Rawlings dictatorship, the army has a 'multi-class nature". In this context the popular revolution becomes an exercise ir drawing the African welke cass benine me very state powers which they would otherwise be fighting on their own account.

DIVISIONS

The strategies of economic nationalism and pluralism advanced by these books represent a reprise of the politics which were popular during the post-war struggle for African independence. Thus the oft-repeted call in Popular Struggles for Democracy In Arica TOr c 'second independence'. But the independence which the West granted to A cah contes was always accompanied by drangemens and measures which guarameed the pontica conditions for continuing economic exploitation. The West's most effective method of undermining anti-imperialist struggles has been the stimulation •eue tes oes ad divisions, as the situation in souter Amica today demonstrates. Neither of these books makes a single reference to this vital political problem reflecting the failure of the popular democratic movements to tackle it, not to mention their tendency to exploit it. Andy Clarkson the next step

SUPPORTERS GET

MANY supporters who attended our dayschool on women's rights said that its most useful function was to put them in touch with those trom other areas. The breaks in the dav were as vibrant as the sessions, with Fight Alton's Bill campaign activists swapping plans women said it was the Tenance never hear the problems facing women's rights campaigners in the provinces. The caucus for NHS workers was particularly useful, bringing together experiences from across the country. Since the dayschool lobby for a supporters' conference so that RCP activists can meet each Our supporters have been arguing for health workers to up the action, and for other workers to support their demands for a living wage and decent working conditions. GLASGOW: There was heated debate last week when more than 50 activists and union officials from all over Glasgow met to discuss what action to take in the health service dispute. union) steward explains what happened. 'As a result of Glasgow-wide meeting, from Monday (1 February) there could be indefinite strike action involving key sectors in Glasgow's five major hospitals. It's not the best possible option, but it is an advance on the original token proposals drafted by the Scottish TUC. the next step

TOGETHER

other and discuss our perspectives in detail. The bowed to popular demand, ane me conte ence wii de on Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 February. Attendance will be strictly limited to signed up/paid up' RCP supporters, so that we can have the full and frank discussion that is only possible when we can assume the audience is in broad agreement The conference will concentrate on three main dreds. • RCP strategy and tactics - the comrades leading our campaign work on Ireland, homosexual rights, women. and the NHo cuts will outline the issues for

NHS ACTION ROUND-UP

•Moc NU 'Joint trade union committee representative Tom Smith opened the meeting by speaking in favour of the STUC call for a 24-hour stoppage followed by a rolling programme of action. He also said that individual hospitals should organise their own action, because coromated, city-wide action was not feasible. "The majority of stewards rejected this suggestion. "What's the point of a 24-hour stoppage?" asked a rep from Glasgow Royal Infirmary. A TGWU steward trom southern Genera Hospital stressed the demoralising effect of 24hour token action. Many omers agreea win nim. I spoke for the shop the Western Infirmary, and rejected the STUC call for 24-hour action as a waste of time. I also pointed out party page activists to take up, the problems we lace and what we can achieve. • How the RCP works party organisers will explain how the party runs and what being a party member means. • Political problems we'll have a detailed look at some of the things that stand in our wav All supporters are invited to register in advance at a cost of £5. There will be a pooled fare (to make it easier for our Northern and Scottish supporters to come down). The conference will be held in London, and admission will be by Supporter's Card only. Accommodation and a creche will be available but let us know in advance. that, on the basis of our experience of the 1982 health strike, we would not be prepared to leave the joint trade union committee in charge of our action. Instead, we campaign of strike action hospitals in Glasgow." The upshot of the debate was that stewards agreed to lake back a proposal to bring out key sectors in turn at the Western, Glasgow Royal, Southern General, Victoria and York Hill. This tactic is not enough to win. When a similar tactic was used in 1982, it led to sectiona arguments between some groups of workers. while others telt vulnerable and isolated. But at east it shows that the district officials and abour Partv bolticians have not been able to Agenda: Saturday 27 February 9.30-10.30 Registration British politics 10.30 Plenary 12 30.1 45 Lunch 1.45 -3.45 Workshops: Fighting Alton's Bill Campaigning against Clause 28 take complete control. however, and if we don't start arguing now for allout action, they will drag us down to defeat. MANCHESTER: At a meeting on 27 January, nurses, ancillary workers, porters and patients came together to form the south Manchester action committee. Pam Lawrence reports. 'There were more than 100 people wanting action. A Cohse steward Trom Nor Manchester General, where 38 night nurses started the ball rolling on 7 January, said that the hospital would be coming out again on 19 February. It looks as if hospitals in south Manchester Christie's, Withington and Wythenshawe - will also take action. Nalgo council workers have already that day in support of health workers. *Also present were representatives of the local health authority management. Somebody pointed out to them that cuts and atrocious working conditions were the same whether implemented by the Tories or by "sympathetic" local bosses. There was litte support for the idea that autonomy for local nedit authorities would give health workers a better deal. *The main message of the meeting was a resounding "no" to the £1.7m cuts package due to be implemented in this area. But the fact that the Tories' local agents were allowed to take part in the discussion, as if they were Irish solidarity 343-4 ea wreak 41h-b1h Workshons A guide to the British left Health workers' struggles The problems of economism Evening disco Sunday 28 February 10.30-12.45 Workshops: How the RCP works помання Stop Cameramast Party the

WOMEN

Alton NEED Bill

ABORTION

ARIGHTS

Name on our side shows that we must get cracking and argue ter media workers to run their own show instead of relying on middle class support. LONDON: At Hackney town than 400 Nalgo members voted to come out alongside London health workers on 3 February. Barbara was one oi them. " invited a Conse steward from Middlesex Hospital in Bloomsbury to speak at our meeting. She began by saying that she'd left her halo and wings behind, and that she was calling for council workers in their demand for decent pay and Revoluti Selling and using tns A guide to state repression cemen ane student caucus 2pm Plenary: Where do we go Further detalls and ticket: from your local supporters or ring groups. (01) 729 0414.

BECOME AN

REP

SUPPORTER

Tel Postcode conditions. The applause for her was tremendous, and evervbody voted to action on 3 February. But what does it mean in practice? Chances are that most Naldo members will not cross picket lines.

take leave on 3 February rather than take an active part in the strike. When our branch officials accepted a redeployment scheme for Hackney fostered an atmosphere enthusiastic support for health workers shows that trade unionists have by no means given up. we have got to find a way of cemenung tel enthusiasm into hard and fast action. 5 February 1988 • 15

the next step

WORKERS NEED

NATIONAL ACTION

HANDS HIGH FOR STRIKE ACTION AT ST GEORGE'S HOSPITAL IN TOOTING LAST WEEK: NOW NURSES NEED TO UP THE ACTION

HOW TO UNITE THE HEALTH WORKERS

IF the Tories only planned to give health workers a hard time for one day in a month's time, then the day of action' planned by the TUC for 5 March might be an appropriate response. But it is a pathetically inadequate defence against a government which has spent nine years keeping health workers on the poverty line in worsening working conditions, and has now announced plans for more systematic 'efficiency' cuts and speed-ups. To defeat the Tories, nurses and ancillary workers need effective industrial action now, not a token gesture next month. And to get that action, they're going to have to take control of the struggle into their own hands. The TUC and the Labour Party are at pains to insist that they support 'protests' but not strikes by health workers. The professional body, the Royal College of Nursing, is sticking

ONE-DAY PROTESTS

WON'T WIN A PENNY

to its no-strike pledge. All of them are telling the health workers to look as harmless and pitiful as possible, in the hope of begging a few concessions from the Tories. But we should have learned by now that displays of weakness only encourage the Thatcher government to be more aggressive.

Instead of trying to avoid annoying the Tories and the media, we need to recognise that only action which upsets their plans can put them under pressure. The Labour politicians, union officials, top doctors and other dignified critics of Tory health policy all want to use the plight of the health workers to gain sympathetic publicity for their own ends. But none of them are interested in fighting for the living wage and decent working conditions which every nurse and ancillary needs - and which are the basic preconditions for any improvement in healthcare for millions of other people.

Ordinary health workers will have to take control of the campaign if they hope to organise industrial action which can win real gains. That must involve uniting across the sectional lines which have often undermined action in the health service before.

And the only way to achieve such unity is to break free from the professional administrators who run the RCN and the bureaucratic officials in the leadership of Nupe and Cohse.

Health workers should set up action committees in the hospitals, to bring together nurses, ancillary and technical staff to organise joint action

HOW

HEALTH

WORKERS

CAN

WIN

HEALTH

under the control of hospital staff not managers, doctors or union officials. All emergency cover provided during disputes should also be under the workers' control. Such committees can provide the basic units from which nationwide action can be coordinated.

They would also be a big step on the road to forming a united hospital workers' trade union - a body which could be of far more use to nurses and ancillaries than the TUC and its deadend days of action.

MEETING

Thursday 4 February 7.30pm Friends Meeting House Euston Road (Euston tube) See pages 10 and 11