by the Thatcher government with a clear sigh of relief.
control.
won, however, by Carrington's brilliant diplomacy. They were gained by the stepped-up bombing, by Rhodesian forces, of forces.
CONCESSIONS 'independent' Black government but with built-in advantages entation in Parliament and a tight grip over the police, army, firmly loaded against the Patriotic Front. Not only has the election time been cut short to give them an inadequate time to prepare. The cease-fire stipulates that the 1700 Patriotic Front guerrillas report to 16 'assembly points' to be confined for the duration of the elections.
of support in the villages and leaving them 'vulnerable' to British, South African and Rhodesian troops.
NEUTRAL?
The Thatcher government claims that Lord Soames - and his ilise the liberation struggle has been revealed very clearly in Soames' acts as governor.
While the Patriotic Front guerrillas have been rounded up & installed in 'confinement' camps, their opponants - supporters of the Muzorewe regime - have been given full freedom of action. This has not only led to the breaking up of peaceful demonstrations by ZAPU or ZANU supporters or police raids on ZAPU offices in Salisbury. It has led to the cold-blooded murder of Patriotic Front members.
were murdered without them firing a shot. They merely retused to lay down their arms and, for this, they were gunned down where they stood.
SOUTH AFRICA The broader aims of the Thatcher government can also be ian army).
The fact that this is in defiance of the London agreement -as has been pointed out by Mugabe - clearly does not worry Thatcher's representative in Salisbury. Renewing links with Last month, Lord Soames flew to Rhodesia to 'supervise' the elections agreed to by Patriotic Front leaders, Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, in London. Clearly such an agreement was met It represented the last attempt to contain the mounting struggle for Black majority rule and independence that neither the Smith regime nor the puppet-Muzorewe government had proved able to The concessions made by the Patriotic Front leaders were not neighbouring Black regimes offering sanctuary to the liberation The agreement itself provides for the establishment of a new, for the white minority. These include a disproportionate represMoreover, in the build-up to the elections, the dice have been This was quite clearly aimed at isolating them from their base Commonwealth 'monitoring' force - are there to play a neutral role. But the real intentions of the Tories to disarm and demobThe seven guerrillas who were killed near Lupane last month seen in the decision by Lord Soames to retain the services of up to 2,000 South African troops (working alongside the RhodesOn Jan 28th, thousands of workers will respond to the Welsh TUC's call for a one-day protest strike in support of the steelworkers. The fact that the strike was called is, itself, a sign of the mass opposition building up in labour ranks against the Tory plans to cut plants.
For, if the steel plants are closed, it will not be just steelworkers who will be thrown on the scrap-heap. South Wales will begin to look like an industrial cemetary as cuts are also made in rail transport, road haulage and mining. According to the Welsh TUC, a cut-back in steel product. ion would lead to 21 pits being folded up and 21,000 miners' jobs being axed.
HUMILIATING The Tory government, of course, has always maintained that it has nothing to do with the steel strike. It's a dispute "between the management and workers" This is a lie. It was Sir Keith Joseph himself, who, last year, told Sir Charles Villiers that he would have to "balance the books' and make the 'necessary cuts' It was the Tories who were behind Villiers' insulting pay offer to the ISTC (only recently) of 4%c at a time when intlation is raging at over 17%. And it was the Tories who were behind the announcement - in the same week - that steel plants all over the country would have to be closed down to remove over 52,000 jobs.
Workers trom Shotton to Teeside, from Corby to Clydeside were expected to bail out the British Steel Corporation by taking virtually a cut in wages and allowing thousands of members to be sacked.
RAM THROUGH The Tories no doubt thought that pushing such a 'deal' through cut in the worktorce. union leadership be easy meat. come.
WE in the steel industry would not provoke much opposition. Atter all, the union leadership had shown its weak-kneed spirit on a number of occasions in the past. agreeing to plant closures and erosion of working conditions that had already led to a drastic Where better than in steel to implement their industrial strategy of making workers pay for the massive 'rationalisation' plans they have to bail ailing British firms out of crisis? Fearful of taking on the miners, they no doubt hoped that a weak and vacillating - combined with a demoralised workforce - would Having implemented a drastic defeat on the steelworkers, they also no doubt hoped that this would serve as a clear precedent for other workers who will also feel the Tory axe in the years to COR COR:
DETERMINATION But they miscalculated. Far from rolling meekly over, the reaction among steelworkers up and down the country was so strong that they forced even their vacillating leaders into action. As steelworker Ray Davies from Lanwern put it: "We've given management massive co-operation, even to losing 40,000 jobs, but we're not going down on our knees to grovel".
Far from grovelling, before the Tory attack, the steelworkers have organised. Strike action has been 100% solid. Mass picketing.. as at Talbot in South Wales - has blocked steel production in private firms. Flying pickets have blockaded railyards and incoming steel at the docks.
Such determined action has brought forth howls of protest from the Tories and their press who no doubt see Margaret Thatcher's anti-union laws against
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