Unions must act to suppori Montt Rowntree strikers

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ABOUT 150 people, incud- Bob Fine reports on La strong Socialist the July 3 march in Organiser presence, onliannit, with African economies over the teller and his class that longer term, is the commit- millions of people are starvment to give as free rein as ing, when there is food possible to the private enough for all. leaders I met that if they of a country remains capitABOUT 150 people, inleuding a strong Socialist Organiser presence, marched to the headquarters of Rowntrees in York.

We were protesting against Rowntrees' refusal to recognise in South Africa the most elementary rights of black workers who have been on strike for over 16 months.

We demanded that Rowntree management recognise SAAWU as the representative union of black workers, that they re-instate all the 500 striking workers whom they sacked and that the SAAWU militants detained by the apartheid state be released.

Banners on the march included Hull Trades Council, Oxford Trades Council, Region 1 of the TGWU, USDAW North East Division, and BL Cowley Assembly Plant 5/293.

As ever, the Anti-Apartheid Movement's speakers appeared oblivious to the real problems of generating effective solidarity for black workers in South Africa.

This lack of concern was typified by their ritualistic praise of a large turnout, when what had to be confronted was how few people had been mobilised (perhaps in part due to holding the demonstration at such short notice, and after the universities and schools had ended their year).

The real problems (which some of the trade union Mugabe "I believe the key element in riding out the current depression and expanding sector: I stressed to the AN estimated 2,000 Honduran soldiers have crossed the border to El Salvador and lent their murderous talents to the Salvadorean armed forces.

And the world's press, which would have shrieked hysterically if Nicaraguan or Cuban troops had gone to the aid of the FMLN guerrillas, has relegated the news to inside pages -or blacked it out altogether.

The Honduran soldiers have joined . in a largescale offensive against the guerrilla forces of the FMLN which had begun extremely badly for the Salvadorean High Command.

The guerrillas had evaded the main concentrations of military force, Bob Fine reports on the July 3 march in solidarity with SAAWU speakers referred to) were these:

First, this demonstration was being held some 16 months after the dispute at Rowntrees started; and in the course of this time SAAWU and the striking black workers have been hit very hard. Yet no supporting strike or blacking action has been called for by any of the British unions. As a result, it is very hard now for this particular dispute to be won. If solidarity is to be genuine, and effective, a much speedier response is called for.

Second, calls for direct links between the independent unions in South Africa and unions in this country had been made by SAAWU as well as by local militants from the GMWU in the Rowntree plant.

Under the influence of the Anti-Apartheid 'boycott" policy, trade unionists have been boycotted while goods (and profits) have flowed freely between Britain and South Africa!

Unions at Rowntrees (GMWU, TGWU, and USDAW) refused to send a fact-finding delegation over to visit SAAWU in South Africa, and have done little or nothing to bring SAAWU representative here.

If such contacts had been made, there is no doubt but want more private investment, an essential first step is to create a climate that would make such investment attractive."

These were the words of David Rockefeller, ex-chief of the giant Chase-Manhattan Bank. He completed a ten-nation tour of Africa earlier this year, as chairman of the Bank's International Advisory Committee.

It is because of Rocke8 11 So long as the economy but hit other selected targets - roads, electricity supplies and a radar and communications station in Chamaltenango, which was destroyed.

But the guerrillas also claim that last month they engaged in a pitched battle with the butchers of the elite Atlacati Brigade, killing or wounding 550 of the state forces and capturing 44.

The Honduran reinforcements - totalling 30% of the entire Salvadorean army - come from another regime staunchly backed by US imperialism, and their arrival follows extensive training programmes in which Argentine military experts have been involved.

The 'US administration nichoront that the solidarity campaign would have received an enormous boost.

Third, Anti-Apartheid initiated for its 'week of action' a half-hearted and poorly publicised campaign to think before you eat Rowntrees' At the meeting the AAM speaker, Mike Terry, simply ignored opposition to this toothiess slogan from GMWU chief shop steward Trevor Haigh, who alist, that country is caught in the vice-like grip of monopoly capital, with no way out of poverty and oppres** sion for the masses of people.

The only force that can break that grip and open the road to planned economic development is the mobilisation of the masses behind working class leadership.

It is exactly this force which the radical middle class governments in Africa fear and oppose. This is why the governments in Zimbabwe, Angola, and the other countries remain hostages of monopoly capital.

Despite all their radical faces popular opposition to any military involvement in El Salvador and finds it embarrassing to intervene directly on behalf of the vicious Salvadorean regime, which is nominally headed by President Magana but in reality dominated by the extreme right wing D'Aubuisson and his Arena party.

In place of open military involvement, therefore, the State Department is pursuing its objective of quelling the Salvadorean struggle by facilitating actions by the Honduran dictatorship - who themselves have a material interest in bottling up the Salvadorean masses.

Indeed the Honduran military command itself has recently come into the limelight, not because of its Breakastri ko Have a. offer Rowntree workers a way of seriously supporting South African strikers without making any sacrifice themselves: but we should listen to what sympathetic workers' are saying and find in common with them forms of concrete solidarity into which they can channel their support.

Once the best means of fighting management is established, the fight must be taken up to convince convenors, stewards and the rank and file to carry it out.

Fourth, a call for a TUC conference on Rowntrees to organise solidarity, with a SAAWU speaker present if possible, has been made by the AUEW at the initiative of one of its shop stewards in Leicester.

This call needs to be actively pursued, not shrouded, as it was, in silence.

Fifth, the SAAWU strike at Rowntrees is only one of many industrial actions now being taken by independent unions in South Africa.

For example, at present FOSATU unions are on strike in the docks, the construction industry and

JOHN HARRIS

the aluminium plant at Richards Bay.

The AAM tends to take a passive or even antagonistie stance toward FOSATU unions because FOSATU has come out with a working class politics that is explicitly critical of the nationalist politics of the ANC, the South Africa Communist Party and its trade union wing, SACTU.

We need to support all the independent unions in South Africa and especially FOSATU which is the largest and arguably the most organised on national level.

It is not sufficient to offer support only to

digs

ARMY officers who staged a coup three months ago to overthrow the Guatemalan regime of General Romeo bacas -have realised that they picked a wrong 'un for his succesSOr.

General Efrain Rios Montt last week proclaimed himself President, unceremoniously elbowing aside his two triumvirate colleagues, and declared there would be no elections for at least 30 months.

This might seem routine in Guatemala: but Rios Montt is also increasingly revealed as a religious nut who believes himself installed in office by God.

The officers who brought Montt to power in order to provide a more flexible response to the rising popular opposition to the Lucas regime may now be having second thoughts.

But to topple him, they will plainly need a second coup. And Montt is well-placed in the affections of the Reagan administration - apart from being an expert in counter-insurgency: a talent which will be invaluable to the military machine in the months and years ahead as they face a 6,000-strong peasant based guerrilla army.