'Blood and oil don't mix- Boycott Shell'

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Workers of America [see speech in this section]; and many others.

Lessons and controversies

Organizers of the demonstration said the event was an unqualified success. Still, the demonstration was only half the size of the one organized a year earlier. Why the difference?

The sizeable turnout on April 19 proved irrefutably that it is possible to organize mass independent actions against U.S. government policies. Yet many of the organizations that actively supported and built the 1985 demonstration in San Francisco did not make the same commit -ment this time.

Furthermore, the 1985 protest was one component of nationwide demonstrations in different cities, with the biggest (65,000) in Washington, D.C., organized by the April Actions Coalition. Unfortunately, as we reported in earlier issues of Socialist Action, the April Actions Coalition voted in the fall not to have demonstrations this spring. Instead, their priority was to get "progressives" (that is, Democrats) elected in the upcoming 1986 congressional In essence, with the exception of San Francisco, the movement was largely demobilized on a national scale at a time when threats of war have grown ever more The following is the speech to the April 19 rally by Richard Trumka, International president of the United Mine Workers of America.

On behalf of all 700,000 men, women and children of the UMWA family, I want to offer a'very special thanks to all of those among you here in the Bay Area who came to our assistance in 1977 and 1978 during our 111-day strike. To all of you I say that your support in our time of need will never, never be forgotten.

Now, eight years later, the United Mine Workers has an opportunity—as do all of us-to assist 24 million human beings who suffer grievously under the barbaric apartheid system of South Africa. Now, as national co-chairman of the National Labor Committee to Boycott Shell, I am here to urge all of you to commit yourselves and your organizations to help implement the Shell boycott.

Royal Dutch Shell is the world's largest single conglomeration of capital. Forcing them out of South Africa means that small - er corporations, by necessity, will follow. Since Jan. 9, when we announced our boy -cott, Bell and Howell and AT&T have announced their divestment from South Africa.

Unfortunately, apartheid can survive in South Africa without Bell and Howell and without AT&T. But it can't survive without the oil supplied by Royal Dutch Shell and other multinational oil com -panies. Without imported oil, the apartheid economy collapses. Without imported oil, the South African police and military can't move into the Black townships. They can't invade Mozambique or Angola or occupy Namibia.

Because of its military and strategic importance, oil under South African law is defined as a munition of war. Perhaps Con -gressman Perry Mitchell put it best when he said the following: "The laws of chemistry would say that blood and oil don't mix. But indeed under Shell's oper -ation blood and oil are mixing."

For every Black man or woman shot down in South Africa, that blood goes into Socialist Action/Joe Ryan UMW Pres. Richard Trumka the dollars that go into Shell's profits. For every Black man or woman beaten, until the blood comes out of them in a South African prison, that blood goes on the dollars that go into Shell.

1 am here to urge you to educate the vast majority of Californians opposed to apartheid. By that simple act of boycotting Shell they strike a small blow against oppression. Collectively, those small blows become a mighty hammer that will force Shell out of South Africa.

An old labor song goes, "Drops of water, turn the wheel, singly none, singly none. Shell, no, freedom yes, Shell no, freedom yes! Thank you.