Torture in Afghanistan

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an overwhelming majority for his constitutional "reforms". In a referendum that included only white voters and excluded Coloureds, Africans and Asians, the Nationalist government received a 2-1 majority.

The "reform" marks a shift from one racist constitution to another. Under the new arrangement, Coloured and Asians will each have their own racially defined assembly alongside but also thoroughly subordinate to the white assembly. Africans — the mass of the population — will continue to be excluded.

The cooptive and divisive nature of the government's strategy is already clear enough: the government is already speaking about conscription of Coloureds and Asians into the Army.

Opposition to the reforms came from the ultra-right within the white community organised under the HP; many whites were clearly scared by the spectre of fascism into voting 'yes' . I wouldn't be surprised if the ultra-right turn increasingly to terrorist methods to subvert the reform programme.

A call for a "no" vote came from practically all the major black and radical opposition groups: the black consciousness National Forum, the ANCNow all these groups are calling for a boycott of the assemblies. ..

My own tentative view from afar is that perhaps too much emphasis was placed by the UDF and other black groupings on calling for a "no" vote in a white-only referendum. Who was going to listen to them? Presumably the reaction of most whites was to vote 'Yes" if the dreaded UDF said 'no"!

Now that the reform has gone through, a careful tactical approach to the boycott question should be undertaken rather than refusal to participate in principle.

Radical

tradition of 'boycott, radical There is a strong radical South African left which, though understandable as a reaction to racist institutions, blinds itself to the advantages which blacks can sometimes secure by making effective use of even the most minor and timid concessions. -Lenin's tactical approach to the boycott of the Duma in Russia could provide a useful historical lesson.

For the present however, the entire spectrum of the left in South Africa seems committed to boycott of the assemblies.

In a new report published last week, Amnesty International made allegations of torture by Afghan security police.

Amnesty has named eight centres in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where security police turtured political suspects, according to testimonies from former prisoners. In some cases, prisoners were reported to have died or suffered serious injury.

The former prisoners told Ainnesty that torture was used systematically by the State Information Police, the Khad. Beatings, electric shock and deprivation of sieep were inflicted during interrogation, they said.

Known torture victims ranged from 16-year-old girls to people in their sixties.

Ex-prisoners reported that injuries resulting from torture included deafness and dumbness and mental damage. Two told Amnesty* International of the deaths after torture prisoners arrested with them| All Amnesy's information showed that the victims included not only many people reported to have been involved in armed resistance to the government, but many others seized on mere suspicion of opposition. They included civil servants, students, teachers and people who said they had been arrested as u waining to others..

Some were arrested for such apparent . reasons as having relatives abroad or having foreign literature.

Teenage students reported having been seized and tortured after taking part in demonstrations against the government and the Soviet presence in the country. Amnesty International and witnesses and reports from other sources, indicated that hundreds of students from he university and high schools in Kabul had been tortured during the past three years. THE treatment of Irish prisoners of war in Britain is savagely vindictive. Irish prisoners in British jails live under a different regime to that under which their comrades in Northern Ireland live.

There the blanket protest, the hunger strikes and other struggles over the years have loosened the penal straightjacket and prisoners have regained some rights within their captivity. Nothing like that in Britain's dark-age prisons.

That it is a matter of wilful vindictiveness and vengefulness by the British authorities is indicated by their refusal to agree to transfer Northern Irish prisoners in Britain to Northern Ireland.

In this article, Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein abstentionist MP for West Belfast, explains the plight of Irish prisoners in British jails.

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said the evidence, including its interviews with former prisoners