Smith down - Botha next? Despite the arrest of hundreds of Black demonstrators, the South African regime has been unable to crush the wave of student protest and strikes that have been sweeping the country for the past few months.
By June, the student boycotts, called to protest the regime's racist education system, had spread to parts of Namibia, a mineralrich country occupied by South African troops and administered as a virtual colony.
The bulk of the more than 100, 000 student protestors are from that section of the Black population classified by the government as Coloured (of mixed ancestry), UPSURGE their real living standards.
6,000 and calling in the police. although African and Indian students in some cities have joined in.
The upsurge has not, however, been confined merely to Coloured students. It rapidly spread to Black workers who have been hit by a in solidarity. high inflation rate and a decline in The strike wave started in Durban which has a tradition of militancy.
Thousands of textile workers struck at the Frametex Company. The management responded by sacking After that, it spread as far afield day general strike. as the Stilfonein gold mine, where 4,500 downed tools, the Goodyear Tyre Factory at Uitenhage and Cape Town where more than 6000 meat and clothing workers walked out. The strike by the meat workers was particularly popular - a consumer boycott of red meat was organised by the Black townships GENERAL STRIKE The extent of labour unrest was so deep that - towards the end of June - more than 200,000 of Cape Town's African and Coloured workers took part in a virtual twoHumphrey Tyler, in the Christian Science Monitor, pointed out how the action "..cut production in all major factories and greatly reduced the traffic on Cape Town's usually bustling streets and sidewalks".
While supporting the demands raised by the students, the Black workers also put forward their own demands for wage increases and an end to job discrimination;
CLAMPDOWN As it has done during previous periods of Black resistence, the apartheid regime has sought mainly to clamp down the lud through cont. on back page
(Streatham CLP) and Black people? AWARE fight for". slashed, or the attacks on women Moreover, these attacks -. if they are allowed to continue - could create such demoralisation among working people that there is no guarantee that Labour would be re-elected in 4 years' time.
Many delegates, representing thousands of party activists, are only too aware of this. One Edinburgh CLP delegate pointed out that 'if the Tories are allowed to last their full term, then in 4 years' time there could be nothing to She clearly spoke for many others - those Labour Party . activists fighting, in their various areas against the Tory cuts, jobless totals and harassment of Black people etc. They realise that the fight for socialism cannot wair four years but has to be taken up now.
And they are right. Labour can only win back its mass base if it is Socialist Action