The Next Step: No. 3, 27 January 1989

the next step Revolutionary Communist Party Weekly • 27 January 1989 • No 3 • 40p GIBRALTAR: It was murder!

IRELAND: Troops out now! IT'S a long way from Derry to Gibraltar. But for Irish nationalists they are separated by years not miles, as the scenes of shoot-to-kill operations and legal cover-ups. In 1972 the British government set out to whitewash the cold-blooded murder of 14 Irish rationalists by British paratroopers in Derry. In 1989 it is trying desperately to hide the truth about the SAS killings of three unarmed Irish republicans in Gibraltar. The row over the Death on the

NO MORE

BLOODY

SUNDAYS!

Rally Friday 27 January, 7:30pm Caxton House, 129 St John's Way London N19 (Archway tube) Speakers: Irish Freedom Movement; John Mitchell, sacked general secretary of IDATU, the Irish shopworkers union Followed by disco with bar; refreshments from 6.30pm Admission £3 waged/€1.50 unwaged (rally and disco) March Saturday 28 January Assemble 12 noon Grange Park, Kilbum London NW6 (Called by Committee for British Withdrawal from Ireland) Rock investigation of the Gibraltar executions shows that 17 years on from Bloody Sunday, the British authorities are still trying to cover up their colonial war against the Irish people. On 30 January 1972, British paratroopers shot dead 14 nationalists in cold blood as they took part in a peaceful demonstration through the streets of Derry. On 6 March 1988, SAS assassins gunned down three unarmed republicans, Mairead Farrell, Sean Savage and Danny McCann, in Gibraltar. In both cases the killings were premeditated; in both cases the British authorities spared no effort to-cover up the truth about the killings. After the Bloody Sunday massacre, the British Army claimed that it had been fired on. Every independent witness rejected the Army's version. The Derry coroner described the killings as sheer unadulterated murder. However, a government inquiry under Lord Widgery absolved the Army of any blame. To drive home the point, the Queen awarded Colonel Derek Wilford, the commander that day, the OBE for his services. And to make easier any future cover-up, the British authorities rewrote the rules of inquests in Northern Ireland, to bar coroners courts from returning verdicts of 'unlawful killing by Crown forces. After the Gibraltar killings, the government claimed that the three republicans had been shot by Gibraltar police in a 'gun battle' after planting a 500lb' bomb. In fact there was no bomb in Gibraltar, the three IRA volunteers were unarmed and were killed by SAS gunmen. The Thames TV documentary Death on the Rock produced evidence that the SAS had laid a carefully-prepared ambush, that Farrell and McCann had their hands in the air when they were shot and that Savage was shot in the back as he tried to escape.

Death on the Rock caused outrage. It had broken the unwritten code which now governs the media: Thou shalt accept the official version as truth. Having failed to prevent the programme being screened, the government launched a campaign through the press to discredit the documentary. Rupert Murdoch's Sun and its Wapping stablemate the Sunday Times led the backlash, accusing Thames of distorting evidence and pressurising witnesses.

To the embarrassment of the government, the inquiry into the making of the programme chaired by Lord Windlesham, a former Tory Northern Ireland minister, shows that the allegations against Death on the Rock were spurious. It is now likely that the government will introduce new reporting restrictions on coverage of its undercover war against republicans to prevent any future exposure of its shoot-to-kill policy. From Bloody Sunday to Gibraltar the British authorities have followed a policy of terror against the Irish people. And for 17 years they have tried to cover up the fact that they operate a shoot-to-kill policy against anyone who opposes their right to rule in Ireland. But no amount of media whitewash can hide the Irish war. So long as Britain occupies Ireland, Irish people will continue to resist £1 solidarity price Can electoral pacts beat Thatcher? See pages 4 and 5 nu Morony

BANS AND

BIGOTRY

THERE are two issues arising from the furore over Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. The first is the need to defend Rushdie against the clamour for censorship of material deemed by some to be blasphemous. The second is the need to defend Rushdie's opponents against the chauvinist outbursts of those who would use the controvery for racist ends. The Satanic Verses, shortlisted for the Booker Prize and one of five contenders for the Whitbread Prize to be announced this week, has caused a storm of protest in the Muslim world. Salman Rushdie's novel has been banned in India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Malaysia and South Africa. Now it is the target of a vigorous censorship campaign among Muslims in Britain, who claim that it denigrates the Prophet Muhammad, his family and Islam. Thousands of Muslims have attended demonstrations in London, Bradford, Láncashire and other parts of the country, at which copies of the book have been burned. It was after one such rally in Bradford that The Satanic Verses became the subject of political controversy, when WH Smith succumbed to pressure from protesters and police and withdrew the book from its shelves. A spokesman for Britain's biggest bookseller claimed that it had taken its decision for commercial reasons, because the novel was selling only 100 copies a week. The fact that it was number six in the best-seller list and rising suggested on the contrary that the move was a capitulation to censorship.

WH Smith has since been persuaded by the high sales generated by the row to put the book back on the shelves. But others have now stepped forward to press for censorship measures against 2 the next step * 27 January editorial 27 January • No 3 • Editor: Joan Phillips

BLASPHEMY,

the book and blasphemy prosecutions • against its author. The controversy has led to some strange alignments among unusual political bedfellows. Some prominent left wingers have lined up behind the campaign to censor Rushdie, while notorious right wingers have pontificated about freedom of speech. Others on the left have denounced the Muslim bookburners as fascists, and fuelled the campaign by the right to give the row a racist slant. Let's take each issue in tum.

The left-wing MP for Bradford West, Max Madden, is an unlikely ally of the right. Yet he has tabled an amendment to a Tory early day motion deploring the publication of The Satanic Verses. His amendment, which has been supported by Bernie Grant and Brian Sedgemore, two Labour MPs with radical reputations, goes even further, demanding that the laws of blasphemy be extended to cover religions other than Christianity. Their argument is that Muslims are discriminated against because the present laws do not allow them to prosecute people like Rushdie for offending against their faith. Such a move would do nothing to challenge discrimination aaainst Muslims. But it would reinforce repressive legislation that should have been abolished long ago. There has been only one successful prosecution under the archaic blasphemy laws in well over half a century. In June 1977 at the Old Bailey Gay News was found guilty of contravening the blasphemy laws by publishing James Kirkup's poem The Love that Dares to Speak its Name. Mary Whitehouse objected to the poem because it had Jesus fantasising on the censorship. open the left itself to bans and victimisation. • advancing state censorship and repression. cross about a homosexual affair.

In calling for the blasphemy laws to be extended, Madden and other left wingers are aligning themselves with the likes of Whitehouse, who is constantly bemoaning the fall into virtual desuetude of the laws against blasphemy. In another recent blasphemy row Whitehouse and various Tory MPs threatened a prosecution against Martin Scorsese's film The Last Temptation of Christ, which showed Jesus hallucinating about having sex with Mary Magdalene while on the cross. The way in which these sorts of religious controversies are acquiring a political focus is a telling sign of the reactionary times we live in. But what is most worrying about the debate over The Satanic Verses is that the left should be leading the charge towards The question at the heart of the debate about The Satanic Verses is not a • theological one about the humanity of the Prophet Muhammad. The central issue it raises for us is how it impinges on the drift towards censorship in Thatcher's Britain. It should be obvious that any attempt to outlaw views as blasphemous or insulting can only be to the advantage of those who are seeking to shift society in an authoritarian direction. There is no shortage of examples from recent months of how the state is assuming increasing powers to control through censorship what we see, read and think. As their system slips further out of control, the authorities are seizing every opportunity to strengthen their grip over society by promoting stricter measures of social control.

The left has often fallen into the trap of calling on the authorities to outlaw or censor views which it finds offensive.

Many left wingers subscribe to a policy of 'no platform' against those who express reactionary ideas on issues such as racism. This has often involved the left in calling on the authorities to ban demonstrations by far-right extremists for example. The first problem with this approach is that it puts the onus of fighting racism on to the very institutions which are responsible for making racism respectable. The second problem is that it allows the authorities to strengthen their powers of proscription and lays Similarly, any campaign to persuade the government to extend the blasphemy laws can only set a useful precedent for the authorities in helping to legitimise wider censorship. The real target of such bans will not be Satanists, but the • establishment's political opponents. It is from this perspective that we should approach the row over the Salman Rushdie book. We are not especially concerned about the ins and outs of the dispute over its presentation of the Prophet Muhammad. But we are concerned about the way in which such controversies become a vehicle for The other issue which should concern us about the Rushdie row is the way it has become the focus for a racist tirade against Muslims. The speed with which a religious controversy was transformed Publisher Revolutionary Communist Party, BM RCP. Landon WCHN SXX ISSN 014 350 X 27 January 1989. Registered as a newspaper at ing Post Office.

into a chauvinist crusade shows how almost any issug can be perverted for racist ends by he establishment. While we have no truck with book-burners, we are resolutely opposed to the racist slurs which have been thrown at them.

Predictably the Sun was the first to cash in on the controversy and give it a chauvinist edge. An editorial in the Murdoch mouthpiece declared in ringing fashion that freedom of speech is a precious British tradition which is in danger of being overturned by foreigners out to impose their own alien creed.

Coming from a paper which has supported every act of censorship by the government, from the suppression of Spycatcher to the broadcasting ban on Irish republicans, this was flagrant hypocrisy. The Sur's outburst against the book-burners was nothing less than a racist attack on all things foreign, masquerading as a defence of freedom of speech. The Sun's sister-paper the Sunday Times also gave an editorial lecture about the need to defend civilised British traditions of tolerance against the excesses of heathen foreign savages.

After celebrating the triumph of the values of live and let live, the Sunday Times leader complained that decent British folk do not take kindly to religious frenzy in the streets. Muslim fundamentalism may be all the rage in the burt-out ruins of Beirut or the twilight days of the Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran. But it is an alien force in Britain and will be seen as such when it erupts in public display. In other words, most foreigners are fanatics who threaten to undermine British culture and civilisation. To drive home the message the editorial went on to defend the deportation of Viraj Mendis on the grounds that he transgressed the parameters of tolerance by flouting Britain's racist immigration laws.

Instead of standing up to this racist tirade, some left wingers agreed that the activities of the book-burners posed a problem for those who wished to see an end to racial discrimination. The radical New Statesman and Society drew a parallel between the burning of books by Muslims in Bradford and the burning of books by the Nazis in Hitler's Germany. It was impossible to avoid the conclusion that these left wingers were agreeing with the Sun and the Sunday Times that 'cantankerous Islamists' among Britain's Muslim population are a threat to decent British values. If this is how the left succumbs to a crude campaign of racist vilification, there is indeed a problem for those concerned to combat racism.

We should defend Salman Rushdie against all those who call for his book to be interfered with, taken off the shelves or censored, in the knowledge that the state censors, the police chiefs and the judges will ultimately use their powers against the working class. And we should *resist all attempts by the media and the establishment to manipulate a controversy about religious censorship to foment chauvinist sentiment, in the knowledge that the spread of racism can only undermine the ability of the working class to resist the mounting assault on democratic rights.

letters

STABBED IN THE BACK

LAST week the London executive of the National Union of Students voter to abandon plans to hold an all-London anti-loans demo on Wednesday 1 February. Their excuse was that it would be hijacked by a handful of trouble-makers. An emergency all-London activist meeting voted to go ahead with the demo and organise it independently. This is a useful initiative but the meeting raised problems which need clarifying.

Some activists expressed reservations about their ability to get large numbers of students to the demo at such short notice.

The problem is that rather than rank and file organise someting independenny or ine NUS, we've been forced into a corner by their botch-ups such as a meeting place in the middle of nowhere. no nublicity. etc The idea of a demo on 1 February was first raised at the NUS conference in December.

We needed to start organising then. If we could have negotiated a decent route and sorted out technical problems long before nOW As Is vus nave etus no choice our to go it alone at the last minute.

The problem is that even left-wing groups

GADAFFI AND

HIROHITO

JONATHAN HEPWORTH says It is wrong for revolutonaries lo redress the balance of the biased media treatment of Gadalli and Hirohito by 'going too lar in the opposite direction' and supporting them (letters, 20 January) This is absolutely correct. I cannot recall 3nane in me next stan enthusing shoul Gadalf's Green Book, or praising the virtues of Hirohito. We merely point out the when the war criminal Kurt Waldheim was ANDY CLARKSON makes some good points one important question (letters, 13 January).

acknowledge that individual cases must he approached as such. and that in the case of the national republics in the Soviet Union, dismemberment would strengthen impenalism. But how can we sunnort the right of a people to secede if, when they decide to do it. we immediately withdraw that We might recognise that secession of the Soviet republics is not in the interests of the

ET IN SCOTLAND

ON WEDNESDAY 11 January, protesters in Machow walkor tar nupr epvan houro visiling 14 Jobcentres, UBOs and DHSS . The Glasgow Campaign Against offices. Social Securily Cuts organised the event to highlight the Tories' Employment Training scheme (ET). unemployed) into round holes' (slave labour nes). In the process it will reduce the ine government to harass a simants tis voluntary at the moment, but may well Next on the agenda is a not genuinely seeking work clause, the Restart scheme. Hundreds of thousands of claimants will stand to lose benefits as It was therefore a pity that the Glasgow event wasn't better supported. The march was well received by both claimants and workers, but despile promises of support me edoersnip our aiso a reucance to organise the rank and file on our own.

it is not only that NUS leadership is subservient to moderate public opinion. The attacking students. It therefore operates Brutely wine us abuse ove aumonties The argument that the NUS has pulling power, that official NUS backing means that don't even know who Maeve Sherlock is. All an NUS card means is cheap beer in a grotty bar. discounts in local hairdressers and al clique of bureaucrats who defuse any effective action eac our tonioack nis time we ye bepr forced to go it alone. We should seize this PeTer HAle New Cross the subject of lofty condemnations from the millions of people on its hands.

Just for the refer clearly describes Hirohito as a war criminal, wno was responsible in parucular for the slaughter of countless thousands of Asians. But even Hirohito could not hold a candle to men like Winston Churchill when it comes to crimes against the working class.

There is an important difference between our attitude lo Hirohito, former leader of an imperialist power, and lo gadain, who leads a weak state dominated by imperialism. In any conflict between the imperialists and a third world regime such as Gadaffi's we give our support unreservedly to the Libyan people. SuSan Heeves Barnsley

AGAIN ON THE NATIONAL QUESTION-

working class, and therefore argue against it, if it was being prongsed by non-workinn class leaders. But would we accept the decision if it went against us? Why support sel-enterington Tors non workinG cEs movement in the first place?

I find this contradiction confusing, and similar to the British left's unconditional but critical support for the Irish freedom struggle Simon Kray Campaian and West of Scotland NUS, nobody was informed and nobody was sent.

order to build on the support that arrange future activities. This will be held in Maryhill Burgh Hall at 7pm on Wednesday 8 February. Glasgow Write to the next step

BM RCP

London

WCIN 3XX

have argued for the NUS to take the initiative.

bureaucrats avoided by holding their meeting an hour early) not only show naive illusions in NUS is funded by the very institutions that are nant, mies in une tace or realty, most students Never again should we look to the NUS to initiative and keep in control of future actions.

exercise. record, the article to which you tackle it? The fuels- Heat atmospnere. human For instance, Thatcher and the greenhouse effect

A LOT OF HOT AIR

Nigel Lewis exposes Tort claims to be doing something about the greenhouse effect The profit system pollutes the air n a speech to the Royal Society last September, Margaret Thatcher professed her commitment to action against the ozone hole, acid hence. rain and the greenhouse effect.

Her conversion to the Green cause has been greeted with scepticism by many environmentalists who regard it as little more than a vote-catching There is now a consensus that the greenhouse effect is the most pressing environmental issuc.

and it has thus come in for special attention from Thatcher. A recent top-level cabinet meeting came up with an anti-greenhouse package that proposed limits on aid to the third world to stop waste and environmental damage and an energy conservation scheme at home linked to an increase in energy prices to limit wasteful consumer habits. What is the nature of the greenhouse effect, and is there any substance to Tory promises of action to problem of the greenhouse effect is that gases produced by the burning of fossil - principally carbon dioxide (CO;) and some manmade chemicalschlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), methane (from the burning of natural gas and from beef and rice production) and other gaseous hydrocarbons (from car exhausts) dal. are keep ing heat in the atmosphere. CO is said to add 50 percent to the warming process, methane is said to contribute 20 percent.

CFCs 15 per cent, and oxides of nitrogen 10 per cent. Under natural conditions.

heat from the sun reaches the carth and is absorbed. This energy is re-emitted from the earth. Gases in the atmosphere such as COz and water vapour absorb some of this radiation.

but 70 per cent escapes back to space. The effect of the CO, and water vapour absorbing the reemitted radiation is to warm the The greenhouse effect thus occurs naturally, as the natural levels of CO: and water in the atmosphere maintain a temperature conducive to climates where life can flourish. The problem arises when activity upsets this balance and increases the concentrations or adds new substances to the greenhouse gases.

the burning of fossil fuels from the industrial revolution to the present has increased the CO, content of the atmosphere by 25 per cent. This 25 per cent increase in 100 years is set to double over the next 100 years, as industrial processes burgeon in the third world. It is estimated that the extra heat absorbed by an atmosphere with double the concentration of CO, will lead to an average three to four per cent increase in global temperature 25 years The effects of this global increase in climate are not at all well understood. Many of the scientific models used to predict the likely outcome of the greenhouse effect fail to take account of the effect of the oceans absorbing about half the COwhich is put into the atmosphere consequence of the or the cooling effect of more cloud Three studies of the cover. effects of climate change on the American Midwest all assessed the rise in temperature along similar lines, but came up with an increase, a decrease and no change at all in the amount of rainfall in the region (New Scientist, 19 November 1988).

Profit Attempts by scientists to rationalise the production of greenhouse gases come up against a scemingly insurmountable barrier: capitalism. The complex chemical nature of the greenhouse effect means that the widest knowledge of the emission of greenhouse gases is required, knowledge that com panies and states are unwilling to provide for fear of being implicated in a pollution scan- Information on the likely consequences of the burning of the Amazon forests in Brazil is withheld to prevent restrictive conditions being placed on Brazilian capitalists attempting to rob the soil in the region.

Funding for scientists to research the problem is constantly denied them as money flows

LIVING

MARXISM

THE February issue of Living Marxism is devoted to the issue of the environment, giving a fresh perspective on the problems of pollution, nuclear power and Green politics. Can capitalism go Green? Frank Richards looks at how the market economy sells the environment short and identifies some gaps in the Green response. Petra Kelly, MP for the world's foremost Green movement in West Germany, speaks to Sabena Norton about the crisis that threatens to ruin Red, white and Green. Nigel Lewis examines how Green ideas have become respectable at a time when the environment gets into more short-term profitable ventures in the chemical industry or into agribusiness. Britain just £1.25m to the United Mations Environment Programme, one of the main international bodies dedicated to this type of research.

Arguments among capitalist powers, which say they are committed to eradicating the problem, expose the real reason for interminable wranglings: profit. It is widely accepted. for example. that fumes from car exhausts contribute to the greenhouse effect. But while the USA has developed the catalytic converter to eliminate gases from exhausts. Britain has developed the so-called lean burn engine which minimises the emission of the gases. An international agreement on exhaust emissions is stymied at every stage by Britain's insistence on levels being set that would be advantageous to Its lean burn technology. while the USA is seeking to squeeze

STADOO CHISEKED

setting levels making only its converter technology admissable Notorious By far the biggest preventable culprit in the production of the greenhouse effect is carbon dioxide emission from power stations, the plumes of which contain 17 percent CO; Recent studies have indicated that the decarbonisation of smoke stacks in the USA would use up lo-per cent of the outnut of power stations, and increase capital expenditure by anything from 70 per cent to 150 percent.

Investing in this technology is anathema to the energy magnates, whose only criterion for success is the upward profit curve. The Central Electricity Generating Board is notorious throughout Europe for its refusal to clean up its CO. and acid rain pollution. Tory talk about combating the greenhouse effect is a lot of hot air. The British government was a meeting of 33 involved IN nations in Geneva last Novemwhich agreed only ber. to collaborate in assessing the Since greenhouse effect. then there have been more talks about talks, but no action. The barrier of profit which prevents the capitalist class from acting on issues of global significance such as the greenhouse effect is a powerful argument for the system and its replacement by one organised on the basis of social need, not private profit.

On sale now! No nukes here? John Gibson investigates wnetner nuciear power is a potential force for progress, a threat to humanity, or both. Plus an interview with Bernadette McAliskey; an eye-witness account of the Spanish general strike; British Coal provocation at Betteshanger pit; sackings • in the City; football fanzines; the gay scene; tabloid TV and much more. Living Marxism costs £1.50, or £15 for a 12-month subscription. Available from all good newsagents or from Junius Publications Ltd at - BCM JPLtd, London WC1N 3XX. Cheques payable to Junius Publications Ltd. Phone (01) 729 3771. 27 January * the next step 3

what we fight for THE WORKING CLASS in Britain and throughout the West has suffered a series of setbacks in recent years.

These setbacks have strengthened those who argue for moderation, realism' and a strategy of defensiveness. The Revolutionary Communist Party takes a different view. We believe that these setbacks are the responsibility of the old parties and union machines of the official labour movement. In Britain the Labourist tradition has exhausted itself and can no longer relate to even the most modest aspiration of the working class. The exhaustion of Labourism in no way undermines the potential of the working class to change the world.

The RCP is committed to the construction of an independent working class movement. Only a movement which recognises that the interests of the workers are irreconcilably opposed to those of the employers can fight effectively in the struggles ahead. For the RCP, working class politics cannot be reduced to trade unionism or the affairs of the workplace.

Workers must take a stand on every issue and express an independent point of view if we are to liberate ourselves. The fatal flaw of British Labourism is that it restricts workers' horizons to economic matters, while it allows the employer class to monopolise political debate. Workers must define every problem from our point of view and fight for the rights of every section of society if we are to constitute a politically independent class. While the RCP supports the fight for real reform or improvements in the lives of the working class, we believe that no durable gains can be won within capitalism. The RCP argues that the overthrow of capitalism provides the necessary precondition for the liberation of the working class and of society as a whole. The British state exists to protect the wealth and privilege of the capitalist class. The RCP aims to destroy the state, which maintains the conditions for exploitation. We believe that the state cannot be used for progressive ends. Any attempt to use the soft side of the state, such as local goverment.

inner-city partnership, or police authorities, lends legitimacy to the entire state apparatus. It can only strengthen the authority of the capitalists' coercive machine.

The RCP believes that workers have no nation. British workers share the same interests as the exploited in other countries. British workers have nothing in common with the employers and must resist the appeals of patriotism and chauvinism. As internationalists we recognise that the enemy is at home. Since Britain remains an imperialist power around the world, the only international role it can play is that of the oppressor.

The class struggle is inextricably linked to the struggle against imperialism. The RCP supports all antiimperialist struggles. Workers who live in the imperialist heartland have a 4 the next step * 27 January New readers start here special duty to back those fighting against the British oppressor. Thus we fight for the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland and for Irish self-determination. We opposed Britain's colonial war in the South Atlantic, and support the return of the Malvinas islands to Argentina. We oppose British and Wester interference in the Middle East. We support the destruction of the Zionist state in Palestine and of the apartheid regime in South Africa. We uphold the same principles in every struggle against imperialism. The RCP is a fervent opponent of all forms of British militarism, nuclear, and 'non-nuclear alike. The RCP believes that the fight against oppression is central to the construction of an independent working class movement. Workers must defend the oppressed if we are to fight for our own liberation. This is why the RCP is wholeheartedly committed to the fight against racism.

The struggle for the emancipation of women is another fundamental issue for the working class. We unreservedly oppose any form of discrimination against lesbians and gays and call for the decriminalisation of homosexuality. Workers must take a stand on these issues, not out of altruism, but because it is in our class interest to fight for the fullest extension of democratic rights.

Workers need combat organisations capable of defending our interests. The existing organisations of the labour movement are singularly unsuited for this task. The RCP belleves that the Labour Party is a bosses' organisation that should be fought and exposed.

Despite its working class constituency the Labour Party has always follpwied the dictates of the capitalists.

Whenever Labour has beenwin office, it has always betrayed the hopes of workers. The RCP is against giving any electoral support to Labour. Workers need a party that is 100 percent our own and only responsive to proletarian Interests. The existing trade unions are heavily bureaucratised and incapable of representing the aspirations of their members. The RCP argues that rank and file trade unionists should fight to take control of the movement. Trade unionists should organise across the workplace and industry and demand that we run our own affairs. Rank and file committees organised on an Industry-wide basis could ensure that the unions truly belong to their members. The RCP's aim is social revolution in Britain and internationally. We believe that this perspective is no less essential in Easter Europe and the Soviet Union than in the West. Only the working class has the capacity to liberate humanity. Our job is to contribute practically to the realisation of this objective. If you would like to discuss these issues further, please write to: RCP. BM RCP. London WCIN 3XX, or phone (01) 729 0414. anti-Tory political parties: possible electoral agreement.

21 January) In these Party munist between Labour the polls. Instability Labour announcemen of electoral pacts and Pact against the Tories? ommunist Party general secretary Gordon McLennan has added his voice to the chorus of calls for an electoral pact among the *We ask all Communists, Communist Party branches and organisations to discuss the issues of proportional representation and including in forthcoming local elections, with members of other political parties and democratic organisations, especially with colleagues in the Labour Party.... Such an electoral agreement will naturally encompass the withdrawal of Communist candidates in the next general election. (Seven Days, terms the British Comannounced its former quiescence. intention to withdraw its own candidates in support of a pact and the centre parties as the only way to overcome Thatcher's apparent invincibility at This declaration follows the initiative by John Evans, MP for St Helens and a prominent moderate on Labour's national executive, who first proposed a pact between Democrats last Left Review. month. While this strategy has long Drift been promoted by David Owen's SDP rump, it has been formally ruled out by both Labour leader Neil Kingock and Paddy Ashdown for the Social and Liberal Democrats. However, given the poor standing of the major opposition parties in the opinion polls, and the likelihood that forthcoming byclections as well as local and European elections will bring little cheer, we can expect growing of the month support for clectoral pacts and coalition governments from both the Labour and Democrat ranks.

Given the decline in the Communist vote over many years, its decision is unlikely to have much volatility in consequence in any future election.

the right. It is. however, significant as an The indication of a general trend on the left. Before looking in more detail at the question of anti-Tory pacts, it is worth commenting on three features of left-wing politics in Britain today which are wellillustrated by the Communist Party

LIVING

MARXISM

An assessment of the role constitutional reform in the strategy of the left will be explored further in a special feature on the state of British politics in the March issue of our monthly review Living Marxism, which is

THE GREAT

Mike Freeman looks at the clamour for electoral pacts and asse The first is the instability of the left. It is scarcely a year since tony Benn launched his campaign to 'refound' the Labour Party, declaring that it was essential to restore the party's roots in the unions and in popular struggles. This campaign was rapidly superseded by another.

featuring a series of private member's bills intended to promote constitutional reforms a bill of rights, freedom of information.

Ripe legal controls over the executive.

reform of the house of lords, etc.

This too was soon overtaken, this time by Benn's joint campaign with Eric Heffer to win the Labour leadership. Meanwhile the Socialist Society organised a couple of conferences in Chesterfield aiming the to galvanise the left. and made abortive approaches to the Greens, before apparently returning to its Last November the New Statesplay man and Society launched Charter 88, adding proportional representation to Benn's list of constitutional reforms. While this ensured that Benn and other Labour left wingers would not endorse the Charter, it did succeed in winning sponsorship from prominent supporters of the centre parties as well as several members of the editorial board of the New Looking back over the 18 months since Thatcher's third general clection victory, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the left has lurched from one stunt to another without ever stopping to ask why each of its initiatives attracts less support and creates wider cynicism than the last. Now electoral pacts are the left's flavour what next? The second striking feature of recent months is the drift to the right. There has been a notable proliferation of cross-party organisations and conferences and a new political affiliations. with the initiative coming from success of Charter 88 in pulling prominent figures from the Socialist Society, such as Hilary Wainwright and Anthony Arblaster, along with its bishops. lords and ladies, and Democrat intellectuals like David Marquand, is sympto- The newlymatic of the trend. available in March in your newsagent, or from Junius Publications. Living Marxism costs £1.50, or £15 for a 12-month subscription.

Write to BCM JPLtd, London WCIN 3XX, or phone (01) 729 3771 for more details. launched journal Samizdat boasts prominent members of the Labour and Communist parties as well as Democrats on its steering group. Its latest issue rejects pacts but urges the left to broaden its anti- Thatcherite project to include some on the Tory backbenches, where several of the prime minister's most effective critics are to be found! The price of broadening opposition to the government to include Tory wets is that the left's programme must be narrowed by excluding policies which might alienate such potential supporters of the proposed popular front of mind" as Edward Heath, Michael Heseltine. Francis Pym.

etc. Hence it has become increasingly popular on the left to downissucs that might create tensions with ardently sought friends, issues like socialism", trade union rights". "anti-militarism' and ta united Ireland. Instead the journals of the left are now filled with articles about the virtues of 'democracy, 'individualism' and 'the market. The third feature of the British left today that is thrown into sharp pact debate is the relief by the evasion of the urgent task of mobilising working class resistance to the mounting authoritarianism of the Thatcher regime. In a significant editorial at the end of 1988 the Guardian declared 'Come in Charter 88. Your Lime is ripe" (29 December). The editorial proceeded to detail the gross restriction of civil liberty resulting from the British government's use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and its defiance of the European Court of Human Rights on this issue. Indeed this decision followed a year in which Ireland was repeatedly at the sharp end of the repressive drift of the British state a year marked by the refusal to prosecute the RUC shoot-to-kill squads exposed by John Stalker, the SAS bloodbath in Gibraltar and the subsequent cover-up, the television ban on Sinn Fein, the removal of the right to silence.

Less The significance of the Guardian editorial is that, though the time was indeed right, neither Charter 88 nor the British left in general has *come in' and seriously challenged British terror in Ireland and •consequences in Britain. The rights of the Irish people is not an issuc that well with talk of clectoral pacts. constitutional reform and proportional representation. While the left's evasion of Ireland is nothing new, its drift to the right can be measured by the fact that even on a matter like anti-union ¡egislation, which it once regarded as important, it now says little and does less. The same is true on an issue like racism: the recentlydeported Viraj Mendis got more from the Church of support England than he did from the British left. At a time when the need for extra-parliamentary mobilisation is greater than at any time for decades, the left has become more preoccupied with parliament than ever.

sses the crisis of the left This is all the more ironical because, while the possibilities of achieving anything in parliament today are lower than at any time in the post-war period, the scope for rallying resistance among the victims of Thatcherite austerity and repression are considerable. Let's turn to look at some of the issues raised by the proposed anti-Tory electoral pact. Pact proposals begin from the recognition that there were many constituencies where the combined votes of the opposition parties easily exceeded the winning Tory vote at the last general election.

John Evans proposes that Labour and the SLD identify 60 seats in which their combined votes exceeded 50 per cent of the electorate.

In 30 in which Labour came second the SLD would agree not to contest the next election, and vice vérsa in the remaining seats (Guardian, S December 1988). Weakness Evans reckons that if the parties had made such a deal before the last election, Labour would now have 270 seats and the SLD 50. The Tories would still be the largest party, but Evans argues that they would have had difficulty pushing through unpopular legislation such as the poll tax, privatisation and the housing bill, and that Thatcher might even have fallen. Scottish Labour MP John Reid proposes an electoral deal in 100 seats, which he calculates could produce a majority for an anti-Tory coalinon.

EVASION

The major practical weakness of the pact proposals is the assumption that Labour and centre party voters will obediently switch their votes according to the terms of the deal negotiated among the party leaders.

All the evidence suggests that while Labour voters second preference is overwhelmingly for the centre parties, supporters of the Democrats and Social Democrats split fairly evenly between the Tories and Labour when asked about their Fudge The same pattern is evident throughout Europe: working class voters vote for the centre in preference to the right when the left drops out, middle class voters arc as likely to opt for the right as they are for the left when their centre party is out of the running. The advantage to the centre parties is clear.

Furthermore, deals at national level may well meet fierce resistance at local level where opposition parties with deep roots in the community would be reluctant to give up a long record of campaigning at council and constituency level to give a clear run to longestablished political adversaries.

This is particularly the case for Labour constituency parties in the South, where most of the SLD target seats would be. Such parties tend to be left-wing and intensely hostile to centre party politicians who are often well -known figures in local government. Pact politics leave workers on the sidelines and hand over the fight against Thatcher to the spineless middle classes tion pact in any future election.

More seriously, the focus of opposition class and the left. agreement: ownership and the Days, 21 January) ment as a convenient class. Choice pacts gives all the options to the middle classes and no choice at all to the working class. Once Labour is more closely allied to the SL.D.

middle class voters can choose between the Tories' aggressively pro-capitalist and anti-working class platform and the Labour a similar set of policies in a more liberal package. The Labour leadership has chough trouble ensuring that local panes scice malviduais whom to regards as suitable parlamentary candidates. While Gordon Mel ennan may not experience much difficulty in persuading Communist Party candidates to stand down.

Neil Kinnock can expect major ructions if he tries to force local parties to accept SLD candidates.

The horse-trading and manoeuvring around any pact arrangements run the risk of increasing the already high level of public cynicism about party politics and compoundopinion. ing the disarray of the opposition parties, rather than aggregating their voters. The Tories would have little difficulty in seizing the high moral ground and projecting a clear and distinct party profile Artificial against a cobbled-together opposipursuit of electoral pacts can only shift the campaigning towards an appeal to the middle classes and the centre and away from any concern with the working In the debate on the Communist Party's executive committee Monty Johnstone, opposing the pact proposal, accurately summed up the sort of fudge programme zens (including which would emerge from any pact *Il would mean the dropping of Labour's commitment to a nonnuclear defence policy, social repeal of Thatcher's anti-union laws. (Seven While David Owen and other Britain. centre party figures have always been explicit about these terms, Labour supporters of a pact demand no policy commitments from the centre parties. Indeed some welcome any such realignway of destroying the residual influence of the left and Labours traditional artificial identification with the working The move towards electoral Democrat pact's attempt to present Such a choice. indeed only a more extreme form of the alternaves on oner m aune 19o/, ouers nothing at all to the working class.

In general. working class people who identily with their own class have no alternative but to vote Labour, to vote for a party that repudiates any concern for the interests of the working class.

An electoral pact encourages the politics of the lowest common denominator. the selection of policies which are most acceptable to middle-of-the-road public It rules out any attempt to put lorward the sont of creative altern.

ative policies which are essential to protect and advance the interests of the working class into the 1990s.

In a tull-page article in the Guardian betore Christmas, the novelist and Charter 88 sponsor Margaret Drabble summed up the defensive and defeatist outlook that

CAINE

now prevails on the British left.

•The history of socialist thought in this country, she argued, has had a deeply sober, moral and religious strain to it, and at the least one would expect a show of respect for the sincerity of disinterested citiseveral Anglican bishops) who have thought long and seriously about such matters as social community, equality, humil ity. poverty and the light of God which burns in every man (21 December). This sort of pious pleading seems unlikely to impress or detera prime minister who has launched a crusade to 'eliminate socialism' in Why are so many high-powered individuals and once-powerful organisations in such a state of confusion and crisis? Why all this concern to discover some new idea that can revitalise the opposition or to patch together some kind of majority out of the disparate anti-Tory forces? The answer is that the existing opposition forces have failed to grasp the nature of the problem they are up against and hence their solutions lack coherence or conviction.

Important shifts in political life do not emerge from discussion circles and think-lanks or from reshuffling relations among different groupings in smoke-filled rooms, but reflect the changing balance of class forces in socicty.

When the capitalist class is in the ascendant, the rest of society moves towards the right: when the working class is making the running. the balance shifts towards the left.

Lacking a clearly-defined role in duction, the middle capitalist proc classes shift according to the relative strengths of the major antagonistie classes, thus defining the position of the political centre.

All progress in matters affecting the living standards or civil liberties of the majority of society is the result of the pressure the working class can exert on the system.

Hence the key

LUCOS CO

what to include in some grandiose charter or with whom to form an allance. Ine important matter Is how to mobilise the maximum working class resistance against the capitalist state under the Thatcher The problem is not at the level of ideas or of electoral tactics.

The problem is that the social basis for an anti-Thatcher alliance of the sort currently under discussion does not Spineless Here the opposition could learn something from the prime minister.

Thatcher's success has been achieved through the political mobilisation of key sections of the middle classes. supported by a smaller layer of upwardly mobile working class voters. around a wellarticulated programme of chauvinism. reaction and old-fashioned petit-bourgeois prejudice. The only way that Thatcher can be effectively opposed is through the mobilisation of an alternative base among that section of society which is most alienated from the Conservative the working class. The British middle classes are so fragmented in their outlook and so spineless in their political convictions that they could not even sustain the alliance between the Liberals and the SDP, never mind that between Labour and the SL.D.

The working class, on the other hand, has an objective interest in uniting against the Tory government. The opposition in Britain is in a mess because it has constantly evaded, postponed and delayed the task of rallying the only force that end the tyranny can really of Thatcher's Britain. Mobilising the working class against the Tories requires not a pact among the parties of the past, but the struggle to build a party that can begin to create the society of the future through resistance to the decadent society of the present 27 January * the next step 5

THE CHILDREN OF BOHEMIA

SUMMER OF BLOOD AND TEARS

week in the

IRISH

WAR

* Monday 16 January: A bomb at Dungannon courthouse in County Tyrone causes extensive damage. The IRA later warns builders and contractors not to attempt to repair the building.

The West Fermanagh brigade of the IRA issues a statement explaining why it killed a former RUC reservist in County Donegal on Sunday night. The statement says that Harry Keys had been using his cross-Border visits to his girifriend to spy on local republicans. In talks with Libyan officials, Tory minister William Waldegrave warns the Libyans that they would have to end their support for the IRA before relations with Britain could improve. Home secretary Douglas Hurd returns the cases of the Guildford Four to the court of appeal 14 years after they were given life sentences for a series of IRA bombings. Paul Hill, Gerard Conlon, Carole Richardson and Patrick Armstrong were framed on the basis of confessions which even many establishment figures now admit were extracted under duress. * Tuesday 17 January: A group of broadcasting journalists is given leave by the high court to challenge the government's ban on interviews with members of Sinn Fein.

* Wednesday 18 January: lan Catney, a 27-year old Catholic, is shot dead by two Loyalist gunmen at Smithfield shopping complex in West Belfast. The sectarian Ulster Volunteer Force claims responsibility, saying that Catney was a member of the Irish National Liberation Army.

Both his family and the Inla deny the claim. The Law Society of Northern Ireland calls for an explanation from junior home office minister Douglas Hogg over remarks he made about solicitors in the Six Counties. 'Certain solicitors in Northern Ireland', said Hogg, were unduly sympathetic to one or other terrorist organisation, indicating that he meant the IRA. The law society protested that the comments would put solicitors lives at risk.

* Sunday 22 January: The Sunday Times continues to earn its reputation as the state's most abject mouthpiece. With his unique access to police and intelligence sources', defence correspondent James Adams reports that an IRA active service unit is in hiding in London, preparina to launch a mortar attack on Buckingham Palace or the house of commons. Adams' friends at Scotland Yard's SO13 counterinsurgency squad toid him of their discovery after raiding a house in Clapham before Christmas. As the man who was given the onerous task by his sources of changing the story of the Gibraltar assassinations from week to week, Adams' servile capacities seem boundless. Mark Reilly 6 the next step * 27 January potent demonstrations in Prague to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the death of Jan Palach, a student who set himself on fire in protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, marked the awakening of a new generation of opposition to the conservative Czechoslovak regime. All protests are banned in the centre of Prague. So, when demonstrators tried to lay flowers at the site of Palach's self-immolation in Wenceslas - Square, they were beaten, hosed down and teargassed by baton-wielding riol police. Youthful protesters yelled their defiance, and. undeterred, the scquent days. only to be met with more bloody reprisals, and large numbers of arrests. Spontaneous The Czechoslovak regime has allowed no public opposition for 20 years. change of leadership in late 1987.

the new party leader Milos Jakes is a Stalinist of the old school.

personally responsible for purging half a million errant party members after the crushing of the Dubeek retorm experiment in the Prague Spring of 1968. Soviet-style glasnost has made little progress under the Jakes regime. Attempts to commemorate the 196% Soviet invasion were violently suppressed last August. Jakes blamed the old Charter 77 group of dissident intellectuals for stirring up trouble, but it was obvious at the time that a new laver of oppositionists had emerged.

Charter 77 was the position grouping in the country for many years after 1968.

group denied having any political objectives, calling itself instead the "conscience of society. Its stated aim was to get the government to observe the law and comply with international human rights agreements, Not surorising vinas failed to impress many younger Members of Charter 77, along Brazil's leaders promise...

razil's president José Sarney B has announced an austerity programme to tackle the country'seconomic crisis The prolonged public sector strike wave and the nationwide collapse of the government's credibility have piled pressure on the regime to take decisive action. Following hard on the heels of the govern. ment's humiliating defeat in the November local elections, the Summer Plan, as the economic programme has been named, is intended to reassert Sarney's faltering control over the country.

Crippling The official goal of the programme is to reduce Brazil's crippling hyper-inflation, fast approaching 2000 per cent a year.

But the target of the austerity measures is the working class, as Sarney made clear when he warned that 'if we want to avoid blood and tears, we must have sweat and sacrifice. As the urgency of the current crisis forces up the stakes only op- The police, established opposition groups.

almost valueless. Perilous down the working class. Mass protests in Czechoslovakia

RISE UP

Prague 1968: the spirit of resistance is alive again with various newer opposition groups, played a significant role in the recent protests. Indeed many were beaten and arrested by police.

But there is clearly a new spirit abroad among the thousands of young people who took on the riot A spontaneous movement of resistance is growing outside the Most of those who confronted the police were born after the crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968. Increasingly resentful of declining living standards and persistent repression, young people nave overcome the icar and resig for Brazil's rulers, they have abandoned the traditional slogan of growth at all costs in favour of a natchertie swie mone ery soteeze Hampered by a $120 billion foreign debt and $50 billion internal debt, the Brazilian economy has never recovered from the body-blow of the world recession.

Average growth rates in the eighties have been barely a third of those achieved in the seventies, and high rates of inflation have rendered Brazil's currency, the cruzado, The weakening of the domestic economy has thrown the debt question into sharp relief. The high Lifeline interest payments on the debt are a burden the capitalist class can ill afford. In 1987 a drop in exports forced Brazil to suspend payments for nearly a year. But any longterm default would bring punitive regime. sanctions from the West, and weaken the regime's ability to face nation which have immobilised the older generation for so long.

They are behind a series of spontaneous demonstrations over the past five vears. In the first of several such events, they gathered in Prague in 1983 to remember John Lennon, and marched through the city chanting freedom slogans.

Several rock concerts have since turned into anti-government demonstrations. The Jazz Section of the official Union of Musicians ran cut into trouble with the regime in 1985 for publishing allegedly unorthodox material, and leading members were jailed in 1987. Now it is a movement several thousand Sarney's only option is to pass on the cost of the debt to the working class, yet this is a high-risk strategy. Attacks on working class living standards sparked off unprecedented class conflict last year.

Strikes engulfed major state industries and services, forcing congress to legalise previously outlawed public sectof strikes which it had no hope of stopping.

The perilous position of the regime was emphasised when millions of workers backed the radical Workers Party against the government in the local elections. The ruling PMDB party was all but swept away in the industrialised southern half of the country. The rapidly changing balance of class forces has led sections of the Brazilian establishment to question their support for the Sarney Some industrialists. anxious to avoid both the debt burden and class conflict, have come out in favour of the radical strong, fighting for freedom of expression. Another new group, the Children of Bohemia, was formed in May 1988. Initially regarded as inconsequential, the group was among the chief organisers of last August's anniversary demonstration. Organisers describing the invasion as fa crime committed by the USSR on the Czech and Slovak people.

and 10 000 people marched through Prague taunting the police as "gestapo' and "fascists: Thousands more young people are drawn towards a growing ecology movement, particularly over the issue of the white elephant Gabcikovo- Nagymaros dam project on the Czechoslovak-Hungarian border.

Novel The resistance movement will of necessity develop along novel lines.

impatience with the legalistic oppositionists of Charter 77 having led many young people to expenment with new forms of protest. It may even develop along the reactionary, religious or nationalist paths of so many East European dissident movements, communist politics having been discredited by the experience of life under the official communist regimes. But whatever shape the movement takes, it seems the new opposition is here to stay. Faced with the emergence of a significant opposition movement, the government has tried to discredit it by claiming protesters are getting support from reactionary elements in the West. The Stalinists are hoping te harness nationalist feelings and head off further unrest. The of the Czechoslovak anniversary Republic in 1918 has been declared a national holiday and its founding fathers have been rehabilitated as national heroes. Coming from a regime which is so widely despised.

nationalist rhetoric of this sort will The battles of little ice. Wenceslas Square were just the start of a much bigger headache for the bureaucracy. Russell Osborne nationalism of the Workers Party.

This is causing fears in the government and military that the presidential elections 10 months hence will bring a radical coalition to power promising to cut Brazil's ties with the imperialist camp. If the government fails to regain control of the economy it is unlikely that the elections will ever be held.

For the embattled Sarney regime and the military power-brokers, defaulting on the debt would be risking too much. To protect their lifeline to the West their only option is to make the working class pay for the debt crisis through austerity and repression. Increasingly the military is intervening directly in strikes and the running Brazilian of the government. workers meanwhile have proved that they are not prepared to sacrifice their livelihoods. Sarney may threaten blood, but it is by no means clear whose blood will be spilled. Ian Haden

Q. When do the police pass up the chance of a crime panic?

A When the victims of violence are gay men n a front-page feature a fortnight ago, the Sunday Times warned of an explosion in the use of crack in Britain's inner cities. Crack is a crystal form of the euphoria-inducing drug cocaine.

which is virtually impossible to buy in Britain. For years cocaine-users have made their own crystals by heating cocaine in a solvent.

Known as freebasing, this process gives crystals that can be smoked for a quicker hit. According to the Sunday Times report, people come from all over the country to buy crack in Milton Court estate.

Steve Tippell at the Community Drug Project in Southwark discounts reports of'a crack explosion: *We don't like to play up crack.

There are considerable differences between what's sold as crack in New York and what's called wash Crack lasts about 10 over here. minutes while the hit from wash lasts about four. The reason it's made into wash is because it's easier to handle and cut up as crystals than as powder. The Deptford estate was the scene of a police raid on a so-called fficially attacks on homosexual men do not exist, because Scotland Yard says that it would be impractical to collect statistics. Yet the Gay London Policing Group's (Galop) annual report shows that 28 per cent of its time is taken up with assisting the victims of anti-gay violence. The refusal of the police to recognise attacks often amounts to collusion. A 20-strong gang of youths wielding chains, coshes and a baseball bat attacked five gay men outside a gay bar. One of the gay men ran to the local police station to report the attack. The police drove him back to the scene, dropped him on the pavement and drove off. The police station has no record of this incident. The local hospital, however, had to treat a broken knee, a broken nose and multiple cuts and bruises.

Usually police chiefs and government ministers are only too pleased to assail us with tales of mayhem perpetrated by lawless thugs. So why ignore attacks on homosexual men? Galop's report provides part of the answer: 42 percent of the cases it dealt with last year concerned people being prosecuted by the police. Most of these people (27 per cent) were in trouble for socalled sex offences; in other words behaviour which would be legal if THE TORIES are hoping that the sale of the water and electricity industries will restore some of the gloss to the tarnished image of popular capitalism. But all the evidence points to a government contriving to salvage a spent policy by careful packaging of shabby deals with big business. None of the various interests lobbying for government favours have much sympathy for highminded principles about free enterprise. The 10 regional water authorities are demanding measures to protect the industry after flotation on the market. They want immunity from prosecution in cases where their actions cause pollution, under the pretext of stopping crank antifluoride campaigners bringing crack factory last September.

Judging by the police use of oxyacetylene torches and a hydraulie ram to force their way in, anybody would have thought that the council flat was a fortified production plant. pective, says Tippell, a crack factory isn't an industrial process.

Anyone can make cocaine into crystals with a few basic household ingredients. The estate is an unlikely vice centre. Built in the 1950s it is wellthey were straight. The other 15 per cent were people charged with public order offences on demonstrations protesting against the government's anti-homosexual Section 28. The failure of the police to record or even recognise the rising level of violence against gay men stems from their role in enforcing unequal laws. In their eagerness to hound gay men for transgressing society's discriminatory legal code, they are upholding the atmosphere of hatred being promoted by the government. Just how successful the campaign homosexual people has been is made clear in the latest Social Trends report (Central Statistical Office, 1989). In 1983 62 percent of the population thought that homosexuality was always or wrong. Today that figure has risen to 74 per cent. A sustained campaign by the media to vilify homosexuals.

and repressive measures taken by the government, courts, police.

licensing authorities and the church have fomented bigotry and britality against homosexuals. It is the policy of the British state to deny basic rights to lesbians and gay men. It follows that the police cannot keep statistics on anti-gay attacks or do anything to stop them.

Don Milligan The myth of the free market expensive legal proceedings against the industry. In reality they want the government to be liable for any costs arising from their own negligence.

With attention focused on the case of the South West Water Authority poisoning the water of some 20 000 consumers with aluminium sulphate, the industry's demands have caused the government some embarrassment. To improve their lobbying power the water authorities have recruited 10 sympathetic Tory MPs. the Friends of Water'. In keeping with the masonic-like nature of much parliamentary procedure, three Friends of Water happen to be on the standing committee considering the Water BIll.

Nicholas Ridley, the environment minister •Get it into perslaugh: sensationalism.' of hatred against mostly responsible for overseeing the water sale, is notorious as the Tories' most pathological private marketeer. Yet this asn't stopped him promising protection from overseas competition for British water.

The government will maintain ndustry, making it immune from takeover for at least five years. Apologetic The committee stage of the Electricity Bill has been marked by infighting among different interests. The Central Electricity Generating Board.

independent power generators and the area boards responsible for distributing electricity all want the government to discriminate in heir favour. The Tories nian to split the CEGB into two companies-National Power and Power Gen-responsible for 70 and 30 per cent of existing nationalised power output respectively. The idea New drugs panic

POLICE CRACK DOWN

James Heartfield visited Milton Court estate in Depuford, christened Crack Cir bo the Sundar Times, and discovered a drugs panic in the making spaced with grass areas. There is a score of live-storey blocks interspersed with terraced houses and a handful of ugly tower blocks.

There are signs of deprivation: some flats are boarded and both the library and the housing office are closed for repairs. There are worse estates in London. Local couple Mary and Harry dismissed the stories of Crack City with a "Crack City! Where is it? It's just

GHA

Gays face increased violence and police collusion usually qualify as a services. privilege. Tony Kennedy - Some older people do worry about addicts on the estate. But drugs are emblematic of more general concerns about decay Single mother Dawn Quirke has been trying to get a transfer from her twenty-second floor flat for over a year. Only when she made an issue of drug users in the flat above did she get the support of her local MP Joan Ruddock. The drugs panic is no solution to the social problems Taced by peopic on the estate. Bargaining inquiry of one company running two thirds of an industry does not competitive market even in the most apologetic of Tory economic textbooks. The government has promised an Esther Rantzentype consumer watchdog to stop the electricity companies using their market monopoly to bump up prices. Yet the government itself has raised electricity prices by nine and six per cent in the past two years. Consumers will bear the brunt of the compulsion 1c make profits in the form of bigger bills and worse- The water and electricity privatisations are a far cry from the Tory image of gogetting entrepreneurs chancing their hand in the market. In both cases the existing state administrators will retain monopoly powers and we will pay for the for more resources is not on. given the state of council finances. It does. hower ver, give the police an excuse for higher profile in the area. We haven't had a rise in drug-related cases, said Lewisham Action on Policing. We've had a rise in complaints against the police. The reason they're there is that more drugs justifies more policing.* The police are eager to make a link between crack and blacks, and add another racist twist to the law and order panic. Scotland Yard has set up a 17man intelligence unit to study links between the growing cocaine market and the Yardies. members of a largely mythical Jamaican gang. Steve Tippellis not surprised: It's normal to blame foreigners.

With heroin it was the Iranians.

With cocaine it was the South Americans. With wash it's the Yardies.* From start to finish the authorities have concocted a drugs panic for their sycophants in the and set up the black community for raids and street scarches. Piper Alpha Profit before safety avin Cleland lost his son on the Piper Alpha disaster which claimed 167 lives last July. Last week. as the public inquiry into the disaster opened in Aberdeen, he led a protest by relatives of the victims

WHATE

incensed that the rig owners.

Occidental. have refused to bring upthe 31 bodies still on the sea bed.

The company intends to blow up what remains of the rig - including the bodies and what could be vital evidence about the cause of the disaster. Lord Cullen, presiding over the inquiry, dismissed fears of a coverup. But in an industry that constantly disregards safety in the drive for profits, few people take him seriously. On the day the opened, the case of a welder who was sacked after questioning safety standards on a rig was raised in parliament. The worker discovered that a crucial pipe was pressured-up after repairs without being X-rayed, that secondhand equipment was installed when making repairs, and that welding work was skimped to get When he the job done faster. complained he was sacked.

While the oil barons cover up the scandal of safety standards on the rigs, rig workers continue to fear for their lives. A disaster of Piper Alpha proportions was only just avoided over Christmas when a 210 000 ton floating oil storage platform, the Fulnar, broke free of its anchorage and narrowly missed colliding with the neighbouring Clyde platform as it drifted across the North Sea. No alarms were sounded. A worker simply noticed that the platform was drifting. Six months after Piper Alpha, rig workers are still being forced to risk their lives. Derek O'Dwyer 27 January * the next step 7

the next step Revolutionary Communist Party Weekly • 27 January 1989 • No 3 • 40p The case of Gurdip Singh Framed by police racists urdip Singh, a 30-year old physics G the mistake of driving through a noentry sign last October. He was stopped by the police and breathalysed.

When the test proved negative, he was savagely beaten by the police. PC Branwell'-the officer who breathalysed Singh-'kept squeezing and twisting my neck. recalls Singh. 1 was terrified he was going to break my neck and kill me. Singh still has to wear a neck collar as a result of the assault. Last week, at Wolverhampton magistrates court, Singh was found guilty of resisting arrest, failing to give a breathalyser and travelling the wrong way down a one-was street. The police claimed that Singh received his injuries while struggling with police officers. Branwell also told the court that the lumps on Singh's body were like what you might expect from mumps. A police surgeon testified that Branwell had sustained injuries similar to Singh's-though he could not provide any evidence of these injuries. Most people in the court didn't see Police brutality sparks US riots Miami burns lement Lloyd was riding his motoreycle through Miami last Super Bowl football final in the city.

He never made it. As Lloyd sped past police officer William Lozano, the cop drew his gun and shot him through the head. Iloyd died instantly; his pillion passenger was critically injured.

Local youth who witnessed the shooting took to the streets in fury, hurling rocks and bottles at the police. Within hours the entire Miami police force, dressed in paramilitary riot gear, converged on the black ghettos of Overtown and Liberty City. Local blacks replied with bullets and petrol bombs. Twenty years after riots in 125 cities across America rocked the US establishment, black people are still at the sharp end of police brutality. This time.

however, the response of the authorities is likely to be different. In the sixties, the government tried to draw the sting from black anger by drawing a section of the black community into the system. The 1968 governmentsponsored Kerner Commission report on the riots called for the recruitment of black policemen and city hall officials. the establishment of job creation schemes to keep black youth off the streets and aid for black business. Such an option is no longer viable.

Pouring money into the ghettos was possible in the booming sixties. Today.

with the USA facing record trade and Gabriel Gurdip and Jaspal a mark on Branwell. Despite glaring inconsistencies in police evidence Singh was found guilty on all charges. His brother, and a passenger in the car, were convicted of obstruction.

•We hoped we might get some justice.

says Singh's wife Jaspal, but we weren't too surprised at the verdict. There were so many mistakes in police statements, but nobody seemed to care. The magistrates always support the police. Jaspal added.

*Before all this happened we believed in the British police. Now all our friends call them "bastards" Krysia Rozanska budget deficits, there are no resources available for such a strategy. Open repression is the order of the day.

The George Bush election campaign last year showed the kind of treatment black people can expect from the new Republican administration. Night after night the Republican TV ads singled out for special attention the case of Willie Horton, a black prisoner from Massachusetts who murdered a white woman while on parole. The focus on Horton was symptomatic of the way the establishment is scapegoating the black community for America's ills.

Black people in Miami are no strangers to the coercive face of the American state.

Since the riots of 1968 there have been at least 18 major confrontations between local blacks and police. In May 1980 at least 18 people died in clashes between blacks and the police. Like last week, the street-battles were sparked off by the police murder of a black man, insurance agent Al McDuffie.

A dozen police cars chased McDuffie's motorbike through the streets of Miami; when they finally cornered him, they split his skull and then tried to cover up the murder by making it look like a road accident. At a subsequent trial, an all-white jury cleared the policemen of all charges.

In his inauguration speech last week.

George Bush called for a 'kinder, gentler' nation. But as far as black people are concerned there is little to look forward to in this vision of a new America.

Nancy Morton: t 7.30 last Thursday morning scores of police and immigration officials the Ascension in Hulme, Manchester, where Sri Lankan activist Viraj Mendis was sleeping. For 12 years Mendis has been fighting for the right to stay in this country. For the last two years he has claimed sanctuary in the church to escape the clutches of immigration officials. Earlier this month Mendis lost his final appeal against deportation.

As a supporter of the Tamil cause, Mendis faces possible death in Sri Lanka. Two Tamil activists who were forcibly deported by the home office last year are now languishing in a Colombo jail. Hundreds of political activists have been murdered over the past few months.

But as far as the home office was concerned, Mendis was an illegal immigrant". Despite the fact that both West Germany and Gibraltar indicated their willingness to accept Mendis, the home office refused to delay the deportation.

Handcuffed to an immigration official and surrounded by police officers. Mendis was Verses see page 2 Who's next after Viraj Mendis?

'GO OUT AND

WHACK THEM

airport. and smashed their way into the sacristy people in Britain. in Britain. Standing up to the racists: a protester outside Pentonville Prison last week £1 solidarity price Taking liberties with The Satanic bundled on to a plane for Sri Lanka at midday on Friday, as his supporters protested at the After this paramilitary-style police operation, home secretary Douglas Hurd went on the offensive and launched a new crackdown on black immigrants. He made it clear that others who contested the racist immigration laws and defied home office deportation orders could expect the same treatment as Mendis. The government announced new measures to harass black people, including the recruitment of 130 immigration officers to deal with deportations. Get lost, spongers' was the Sun's gleeful message to black Immigration officials claim there are at least a quarter of a million illegal immigrants in Britain-that is one in 10 of the black population. The new home office crackdown is a licence to harass and intimidate every black person. The word is to go out and whack them", one immigration official told Sunday's Observer. 'It is going to be like Mendissnatched and deported within 48 hours. The deportation of Viraj Mendis is just the start of a new wave of home office terror for black people