Blacks in S. Africa unite against terroi

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16 SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 1986

COSATU

Violence increased sharply in South Africa last month despite President P.W. Botha's show of rolling back his "state of emergency." Government statistics admit that, on an average, three to four people die each day in politically related incidents. Most of the more than 300 people killed since the beginning of the year died in unprovoked police attacks.

But repression has only fueled the liberation struggle. On March 21, demon -strations took place throughout the country to commemorate the anniversaries of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre and last year's police massacre in Langa township, near Capetown, that killed 29 funeral marchers.

About 600,000 Black workers in the Eastern Cape region marked the an -niversaries by staying away from their jobs. The cities of Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage were left practically deserted. The one-day general strike was the first largescale political action called by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), a non-racial federation formed at the end of last year.

In Langa, about 50,000 joined a memorial rally at a sports stadium. In Johannesburg and Durban, Black demon -strators braved police attacks as they marched into the white city centers. Young people sang and danced the "toyi-toyi," a war dance symbolizing resistance to white rule.

Speakers at the commemorative events emphasized the need for unity in the struggle. Curnick Ndlovu, chairman of the United Democratic Front (UDF), told the Langa rally, "The apartheid system is trying to keep us divided and quarrelsome so that we end up fighting each other and not the Pretoria regime."

Earlier in the month, Saths Coop -er—who is a leader of the National Forum, a coalition that includes community, socialist, and Black Consciousness-oriented groups-invited the UDF to a congress in Durban to coordinate the campaign against the government. "The time has come for all resistance groups to seriously consider an alliance of the left," Cooper said.

The March 21 commemorations were a prototype of the coordinated national ac -tions that anti-apartheid leaders hope will soon become more commonplace. As we go to press, anti-apartheid leaders are meeting to determine whether to resume their mass boycott of white businesses in the Eastern Cape. A nationwide consumer boycott may also be in the offing.

While they expand their ability to orchestrate events throughout the country, anti-apartheid leaders also hope to tighten their organizations in areas where they have control. Networks of street committees have already been formed in key Black townships such as Alexandra (outside Johannesburg, Mamelodi (near Pretoria), and Duncan Village (in the Eastern Cape).

The Wall Street Journal likens the street committees to "Bolshevik block com -mittees before the Russian Revolution." These units, staffed mainly by young people known as "the comrades," have filled the vacuum of public administration left after municipal fled.

The London Observer reports that in Alexandra: "Residents no longer pay rent to the government administration boards. Instead, the comrades collect fees, conscript troops for their campaigns, decide when strikes and boycotts should be called, take over the funerals of unrest victims-turn -ing them into political rallies-and set up people's courts to try and punish anyone deemed to be assisting the white administration.

"What is the ultimate goal?" The Observer asked. A young committee member pointed to the industrial buildings on the outskirts of Johannesburg: "When we have conscientized them all, then at a word from us we can stop all these factories with a strike or cripple the shops with a consumer boycott. That is how the struggle is going to be fought."