S.African racists invade Angola

Scan page 4

Farnham IN. RECENT weeks, the South African army has launched a massive invasion of Southern Angola, from its bases in occupied Namibia.

The South African government and its military chiefs have boasted loudly about what they call their 'hot pursuit' operations against Namibian freedom fighters of SWAPO, whose bases and supply network are concentrated in Angola.

But it is clear from the scale of the latest invasion, and from the six years of South African military aggression against Angola, that the terrorism of the South African capitalist class and their apartheid state is part of an even wider strategy.

This strategy is aimed both at crushing Namibian resistance, and at attacking the political gains of the Angolan working class and oppressed.

Behind the conspiracy of silence, behind the diplomacy and the verbal 'opposition' to apartheid and South African "colonial rule in Namibia, lies the active support of this strategy by the imperialist powers.

Guerillas

In 1975-6, the joint South African/imperialist efforts to crush the mass uprising in Angola were defeated.

The Angolan working class spearheaded the struggle that broke the chains of Portuguese colonialism, swept the MPLA to power, strengthened the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe, and opened up s base of support for Namibian guerillas.

la Namibia itself, workpeasants were drawing confidence se Angaten struggle.

ros that time on, the African government Ind wot ceased its military attacks into Angola - trying both to hammer SWAPO and to discipline the Angolan masses.

In May 1978 they launched a murderous attack on Kassinga refugee camp. Hundreds of Namibian workers, peasants and their children were blown up, bayonetted and mutilated by these butchers.

In June 1980, the daily raids escalated into a full-scale invasion of Kunene province in southern Angola.

Thousands of South African troops, with jetbombers and helicopter gunships, massacred Angolan peasants and Namibian refugees, destroyed villages, carried out massive economic sabotage and attacked MPLA and SWAPO fighters.

The current invasion has seen the same terrorist murders. and economic devastation. The imperialist governments have voiced the same token criticism of the South African government - while in reality their interests and their power are behind the South African ruling class.

The Reagan government in particular has moved to strengthen imperialist support for the South Afric an state, as the crisis of imperialist control • and profits in Southern Africa deepens.

Imperialism is facing a crisis of political control on every front, as the working masses of South Africa have driven forward in The great strike waves in Namibia and South Africa in 1972-3, the smashing of Portuguese colonial rule in Mozambique and Angola in 1974-5, the 1976 Soweto uprising in South Africa, the toppling of the racist Smith regime in Zimbabwe - these have been the landmarke of i forward movement struggle which has the grip of imperialisni.

That movement continues to develop - with a mighty upsurge of the black working class in bouth Africa; powerful strikes by mineworkers in Zambia; mounting anger and struggle against Mugabe's neocolonial bosses' government in Zimbabwe; the struggle of workers in Angola and Mozambique to carry forward their anti-colonial victories, against the obstacle of the MPLA and Frelimo governments which they put in power; and the courageous and unbroken struggle in Namibia against vicious colonial rule and forced cheap labour.

The butcher Reagan, his hands dripping.... with the blood of El Salvador, has taken up the question Angola as part of his anti-working-class cold war campaign.

He has seized on the presence of Cuban troops in Angola, and the limited military and economic support by the Soviet Union for the MPLA government and SWAPO - using these to justify the policy of the iron fist.

And for imperialism, the iron fist in Southern Africa is the South African state.

This has not riled out the possibility of drawing the SWAPO leadership into a new neocolonial bosses' government in Namibia, designed to politically weaken and control the mass movement.

Option

In fact, the strength of the mass resistance forces imperialism to keep this option alive; and the necessary secret diplomacy continues. But the depth of the crisis, and the power of mass militancy and struggle throughout the region land therefore of masS pressure on the leadership) maritat there in leas and te ta for DADDBUYTe.

has ropre eac mority tied the quest.

et hamibian tudoperaence to the overall need to site then imperiaist domination over Angola and the whole region. And this demands an escalation of attack.

The working masses face the crucial task of strengthening their defences -and they need the maximum support from the labour movement in Britain and internationally.

The immediate and urgent focus of international elass solidarity must be the defence of Angola and SWAPO against South African/imperialist attack.

This defence cannot be left in the hands of the MPLA government and the SWAPO leadership, whose politics of class collaboration are incapable of mobilising and building the independent strength of workers and oppressed.

It cannot be left in the hands of the Soviet and Cuban governments, who have been looking for ways of withdrawing from Angola, and who put their own interests as privileged bureaucracies above the interests of the working masses internationally.

Blacking

And it cannot be left in the hands of the bureaucrats at the head of the labour movement in the imperialist countries who have long shown that they stand opposed to independent workers' action on every issue.

The working class - and it alone - has the power to give real help to the Angolan and Namibian' masses, and to mobilise real obstacles in the path of the imperialists and the South African capitalists. The fight for such action must be taken up in the labour movement.

The labour leaders must be forced to back up their anti-apartheid words with deeds to mobilise class solidarity action.

A crucial part of SUC action must be the fight to organise blacki military and reli ed lies to the South Atrican state.