An answer to Joan Baez on non-violence

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12 SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 1985 individuals can liberate the people from oppression. This impedes the mobilization of the oppressed for a mass struggle-the only road toward liberation.

The biggest terrorist The U.S. imperialist government is the biggest terrorist in the world today. James P. Cannon, who was the founder of the Socialist Workers Party, gave a description of Yankee imperialism in 1948 that could have been written today.

"The basic causes of this world crisis are no mystery. The first cause is the breakdown of capitalism throughout Europe-and Asia—and the colonial lands. The working people want peace and bread, which capitalism cannot give. The colonial slaves don't Here's where we agree with you: The South African white-minority government should lay down its arms and stop its bloodbath. It has killed over 750 blacks this year. Through the forced segregation policies of apartheid, countless thousands more have died from malnutrition, starvation, and disease.

Here's where we disagree with you: How can this be brought about?

The clear implication of your appeal for a non-violent response to the apartheid butchers is that somehow, this non-violence will lead to the disarming of the apartheid regime. Further, the fact that you have addressed your appeal to Bishop Tutu, and not to the regime, implies that perhaps you would withdraw your support for him should he abandon his strategy of non-violence.

When in history have tyrants voluntarily laid down their arms? Never.

The question then is: How can the white-minority apartheid regime be disarmed? How can this be accomplished with the least sacrifice of human life?

It seems clear that the Black masses of South Africa can only disarm the We hold that there is a fundamental difference between violence carried out in the struggle for freedom and violence carried out to maintain the apartheid state.

The South African police, military forces, and network of stool pigeons keep apartheid alive in order for the capitalists there to reap the highest possible profits from the labor of the Black majority. This constitutes the most repugnant system of organized state violence.

All those who abhor apartheid can aid the struggle against it, not by urging the oppressed to face their oppressors unarmed and defenseless, but by wholeheartedly supporting the Black majority in their struggle to win by any means they deem necessary-The editors.

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French military force is ever present in New Caledonia. nuciear tests since taking office in 1981. In 1983 France built another test site to further expand its facilities. The most powerful underground explosion ever detonated by the French, in fact, took place just last May.

France originally hoped to test its nuclear bombs in Algeria, but the radioactive fallout from its one and only test there floated over the Mediterranean toward Europe. Nonetheless, Algeria soon gained independence and France was forced to look for a new place to build a test site-this time on the other side of the world-at Moruroa atoll in French Polynesia.

Since 1966 France has exploded more than 100 nuclear bombs in the Pacific. It continued to explode its bombs in the atmosphere until 1975, since France was not a signatory to the 1963 ban on atmospheric testing.

Full of holes

France's claim that its nuclear tests are safe is as full of holes as the Moruroa atoll where it explodes its bombs. The atoll is extremely fragile from the effects of repeated underground blasts, as scientists from New Zealand, Australia, and Papua New Guinea reported after studying the atoll last year.

Because the atoll is made of coral, which is quite porous, there is real concern that radioactive materials will be released into the ocean. The scientists noted that it is certain that radioactivity will seep into the ocean over the next one thousand years, and could possibly be released even within five years of a