'BETWEEN the anvil of united mass action and the hammer of the armed strugThese words were written two years ago by Nelson Mandela, leader of the African National Congress. They were the last sentence of a smuggled out from Mandela's prison camp on Robben Island olI. Capelowi which finally reached the outside world last week.
Despite the time it has taken Mandela's message to get to his supporters IL remarkably timely.
Monday was the fourth anniversary of the Soweto uprising when thousands of blacks rebelled against the regime in South Africa. many as 600 blacks were killed, and four times many injured, when the rising was put down with a brutality which is part and parcel of the apartheid system.
The anniversary was marked in Soweto by a general strike and repeated clashes betweet blacks and the South African security forces The government was so scared of what the anniversary would bring that not only were public meetings banned, so were church services.
The announcement of the ban was accompanied by statement the African prime minister P Botha which gave, warning to those who underthe government's determination to maintain law and order. This followed a threat from police minister Louis Le Grance: "As far as l concerned we have had am enough.
All the signs are that the blacks in South Africa have also 'had enough'. Botha has maintained takt the wave of anger and protest which has HE TROUBLE SPOTS racist As NUARY 1, 1977: One killed in Soweto bom 1922: Two whites 1977: Black securlty police Ling: Targe a real lar in Catione Job: bomb explosion on ER 12, 1977: Germiston police station EX 11, 1877: Bomb at Benoni railway 1978: Two police kllled in clant Bomber kllis himself in Port South W final shaken the regime in the last two months is 'the work of professional agitators', breadth and depth of the protests exposes such claims as raiculous.
Whether it be the schools' boycott campaign hundreds of thousands youth, the increasing number of black workers taking strike action; or the armed struggle of which the latest success was the Botswana FOUR YEARS OF TROUBLE n injured killed.
BECEMBAR 16, 1978: Bomb blast on Easteri nation dee ador suermos sche ands blowing up of the SASOL oil plant two weeks ago, the Botha government is now faced with the most widespread opposition in South Africa's history.
involving with a traditional carrot and stick approach small carrot is being dangled, and a very big stick is being waived minorities, million Indians, mixed million represented whose pointed by sultative powers.
military Masterminding strategy Malan, African Woman killed in Port closest advisor. beneficiary sits on the 1979: Guerrilla killed in gun cil.
Other security head of the the chief of the police Silack on prote near ship. Springs, including rocke ting what Both has 'total strategy', 1980: Attack on Booysens Police military ured pulls school boyentt Both called enemy' determined and create The government is reacting alarmingly'. - except a very The carrot is the establishment of a 'President's Council' to replace the existing all-white Senate. Its 60 members will be drawn from the four principle totalling, SCYC people whites, Chinese and those of parentage. The will be on council, members will be apthe The council will only have 'conThe stick consists of a big, 55 per cent, increase in military spending, and the rise to prominence of the South African establisment within the country's ruling clique.
the General Magnus chief of the South Defence Force, and widely considered to be Botha's Malan is of General Staff training. He now powerful inner cabinet' in the Botha government — the state security counmembers of the council none o national intelli gence service (formerly BOSS)
police minister Le Grance. Together this bunch are plotcalled a which includes attacks on South Africa's black neighbours.
Malan and Botha know that their problems are increasing. At the start of the he called ree communist 'communist would 'attempt to confusion, discontent and disloyalty'. Admitted Malan, 'the total revolumonary onslaugil agaust our activities. entire population has escalated That was six months ago. Today the 'escalation' is showing signs of turning into a torGuyana WALTER Rodney, Marxist historian and a leader of the left opposition Working People's Alliance (WPA) was murdered by a car bomb in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, last Friday night. The car in which he had left a WPA meeting was blown up by a bomb placed under his seat.
This is the third murder of WPA members in the last three weeks, and follows searches and arrests of other leading members. It also comes a week after the adjournment of the trial of Rodney and other WPA members on a frame-up charge National Congress.
Walter's assassination is clearly a political killing by sections of the right, probably within the government itself, who are alarmed by the recent growth of the WPA. It echoes similar campaigns of political violence in the Caribbean, notably in Jamaica, where a situation is again developing similar to the attempted 'destabilisation' backed by the CIA in 1976.
In the late 1960s the banning of Walter Rodney from Jamaica sparked off the black power movement in the region.
WPA Support Committee mobilising meeting on Wed 18 June at Institute of Race Relations, Pentonville Rd, London, for rally on Sat 21 June. East Germany ALTHOUGH Rudolf Bahro and thousands of others were released under an amnesty to mark the 30th anniversary of the republic last October, the persecution of political dissidents has not ceased in East Germany.
On 15 May this year a court in Leipzig sentenced 22-yearold Simone Langrock to five years' imprisonment on charges of "anti-state agitation': Her crimes? Simone was accused of daubing the slogan Freedom for Rudolf Bahro' on à Leipzig monument in summer 1978; of distributing leaflets calling for the release of all political prisoners in the GDR and Eastern Europe; of discussing and distributing the writings of political authors like Herbert Marcuse, Eria Fromm, and Bahro.
Simone's father, Rolf Mainz, member of the ruling Socialist Unity (SED) party, and his brother Klaus have been imprisoned since October 1976, also for 'anti-state agitation'. Simone's grandfather, Albert Mainz, spent four years in Nazi concentration camps for anti-fascist Letters demanding Simone's immediate release should be sent to: Embassy of the German Belgrave Sq, London SWIX 8QB Denmark a former journalist and Democratic Republic, 34
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gle we shall crush apartheid and white minority rule.'