'All groups must refuse to register"? WESTERED

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25p each, plus 12½p for postage. (Orders of more than post free). From Socialist Organiser, 28 Middle Lane, Kinnock - 'inept and two-faced leadership' pport Seema Waseem years, and the Mayor of House of Commons, Haringey, have set up an London SW 1.

Ditta's case. And so it can win Seema Waseem's. iser about the campaign Why do you think the witch-hunt has come now?

I think it's the weakness of the leadership of the party. They are not prepared to fight for the socialist policies on which the party is by and large committed and they conveniently use the pressure that is put on by the media to say that left wing policies are unpopular because the media say they are unpopular.

They are therefore saying that the only way the party can get any support and win back any popularity is by attacking the left organisations and left groupings within the party.

The results of their activities so far seem to be the lowest ever support for an individual Labour Party leader and a very low level of support for the Party throughout the country.

What's been set up so far?

The Briefing editorial group decided that it was important that all the threatened groups in the Labour Party got together and did two things - firstly refuse to register under the proposals of the NEC and secondly form a collective campaign to gain support from CLPs and perhaps more importantly trade union branches.

This was endorsed unanimously by the Briefing conference at County Hall a couple of weeks ago. The Target 82 meeting on July 5 will be the springboard for setting the campaign in So far we've had a lot of indication of support from CLPs, and I understand hundreds of resolutions have been sent in to the NEC condemning their decisions.

So what sort of activities are you planning?

The details will be decided on the 5th but basically it is to expose the inept and two-faced leadership that is being given both by *Creche.

Chris Richardson, 0602 780124. Foot and by Kinnock and Lestor and others who purport to oppose a witchhunt but in effect have set up a control mechanism for political thought within the party. Secondly we need to take the campaign into the rank and file of the trade unions as far as possible.

It is generally being put over that the trade unions support the attitude being taken by the NEC whereas in effect the support of trade unions is largely through a small group of national leaders, not through branch discussions and branch decisions.

Quite a few trade unions have this year passed resolutions against witch-hunts, including some not normally regarded as being on the left. Is this enough to guarantee that they'!| come out against the NEC proposals?

We've had this problem before with trade union conference decisions. Last year a large number of unions, including quite right wing unions, passed resolutions calling for unilateral nuclear disarmament, and yet their votes were not cast in that way at Labour Party conference. ! suspect we'll have exactly the same problem over this witch-hunt because the national leaderships will always be looking for some clever way out of it, whereas we have to mobilise support within unions, to oppose any witch-hunts, any bans and proscriptions. The other side of it is that if a witch-hunt is established in the Labour Party it could spread over into the unions:

res, this has happened before in the last period of witch-hunting when there were attempts to proscribe groups and organisations within trade unions. Quite clearly the very close tie-up between Trade Unions for Labour Victory and Labour Solidarity on every political question but particularly on this one, will be brought into SU ON 23 February 1980 Mohammed Waseem drugged his wife, Seema, and two teenage daughters, Sameena and Kubeena. Then, during the night he abducted the two youngest children in the family, Khalid then aged 12 and Shahina aged only 1, and took them to Pakistan.

He had planned the abduction, unbeknown to the rest of the family, for some time. In the preceeding months he had talked them into moving from their comfortable home in Enfield to a run-down house in Wood Green; his reason for this, he told them, was to release the capital tied up in the house so that he could set up in business on his own and leave his job with the Civil Service.

However, his real intention was to steal the money amounting to $26,000, leaving his wife and daughters with a massive mortgage of $20,000 and no means of support. Incidentally, he removed the £26,000 from a joint bank acount on only his signature without the bank querying such a withdrawal! He also took with him the family's passports and his wife's jewellery.

Since this incident, Seema Waseem's life has been tragic. She has had to fight for Supplementary Benefit to live, she has had to fight to keep her home, affiliations to the Labour Party and their relationship to the Party in the normal way as in the past.

The activities that were exposed last year when they fixed the NEC election slate have carried on and got worse. This witch-hunt is the result of it and Michael Foot is the most willing prisoner there ever was of this group.

Target

Do you think Militant is the real target or is it aimed much further?

I think Militant is one target, but it is aimed much further than that. It is aimed at a very large number of, in many cases, non-aligned socialists that are active throughout the Labour The NEC know perfectly well that the vast majority of the Constituency Labour Parties have substantial left wing majorities on their GCs and throughout their membership and they feel that this is one way of hitting back at that. It could be the start of a very long war of attrition. and worst of all, she has had to fight, and is still fighting, for the return of her two children.

Khalid and Shahina are both British citizens and have been made wards of court. However, Seema Waseem has had to go to Pakistan to fight for their return. She left Britain in the summer of 1981, almost a year ago, and is still not back. Court proceedings have been long and drawn out, not least because at one stage her "husband bribed the Clerk of the Court to hold things up.

Being on Supplementary Benefit, Seema Waseem obviously had not means of paying to get to Pakistan, so the money for air tickets had to be borrowed. Neither is there any support to pay for legal costs in Pakistan. No legal aid is available for court cases conducted abroad to recover abducted children.

Before leaving for Pakistan, Seema approached a number of Pakistani and Muslim organisations in Britain for financial assistance. She was told that if her husband had left her and taken her two young children, he must have had a good reason and she can't have been a very ! good mother. It was also suggested that as she had two of her children left with her then surely that was enough, and she had no means supporting London N8.

My experience of canvassing activities in unions and strikes and so on is that the party's supporters are completely confused because they are not hearing what the Party's policies are.

All they ever hear is an almost subliminal advertising effect, attacking the principles of the party and the principles of socialism.

I think in some ways it's a last desperate throw by the right wingers in the Parliamentary Labour Party. They've lost on reselection, they've lost on the election of the leader, they've lost on very many of the policy decisions and they've certainly lost in trying to defend the very discredited record of the last Labour government.

So it is up to us to build the confidence of the rank and file in the party to fight them it was unreasonable for her to try and get the other two back.

Seema Waseem, therefore, left for Pakistan with no financial support and knowing that in fighting for the return of her children she would incur huge debts. Not only that, she had to leave behind her her two teenage daughters, both at college, to fend for themselves and to cope with the bills and problems of their dilapidated house.

After nearly a year, it looks as if Seema Waseem will win custody of her back against this.

What do you think of th position taken by some wh are generally regarded a being on the left like th Labour Coordinating Com mittee or the Tribun Group?

In the case of th Tribune Group | think i confirms what many peopl have been thinking abou them for many years. It i a totally useless organisatio that is not prepared to figh for socialism by one inch.

The Liberal Party durin the period of the Lib-La pact had far more influenc with only 12 MPs on the las Labour government than th Tribune Group with its 8 MPs has ever had on an Labour government.

The attitude of the LC is in my view one of appal ing compromise. If the imagine they can compre mise their way around thi children in Pakistan. She hasn't seen them since their disappearance; she doesn't know where they are - or who is looking after them. But she will fight on for as long as it takes to get them back.

She cannot do this, however, without support. The money for her air fares has to be found and for her legal costs. Consequently, her member of Parliament, Reg Race MP for Wood Green, who has been fighting her case for two

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