Discussion on unions

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10 SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 1988 (continued from page 9: “AZAPO leader's assessment of Black miners strike”) that the reason for the exclusion was that AZACTU's participation in the merger would not have suited the Stalinist people who sought to direct things from behind the scenes. AZACTU was perceived as a real political threat to their own quest for hegemony in the new federation. This element is behind the attack on CCAWUSA now.

Question: One of the major federations that formed COSATU is the National Union of Mineworkers. The NUM seems to have taken more radical positions on many things. Are they lined up with the To order and for list of other Socialist Action pamphlet titles, write to 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, SF, CA 94110 UDF unions?

Answer: Well, let me say that the NUM was the first union after the formation of COSATU to adopt the Freedom Charter. And Cyril Ramaphosa pushed for this resolution, which was very crafty. It said that by not giving clear political direction, the leadership of COSATU would only be adding to the confusion, and that therefore it was necessary to have a clear political statement-which meant that the Charter should be adopted.

When workers and shop stewards at the NUM national conference asked their Pamphlets for struggle!

The Legacy of Malcolm X Is the 'Rainbow' a Real Alternative?: A Response South Africa: The Black Unions Go Forward Everyday Life in Capitalist America by Hayden Perry ($1.25)

Student Activism in the 1980s by Adam Wood and Suzanne Forsyth ($1.00)

Dynamics of the Nicaraguan Revolution by Alan Benjamin and Jeff Mackler ($1.50)

How Can Labor Fight Back? A Strategy for Today by Nat Weinstein and Carl Finamore ($1.25)

The Meaning of Gorbachev's Reforms by Alan Benjamin ($.75)

Note: Please send 56 cents postage per pamphlet. anyway?" the president of the union had the nerve to reply that the education department would tell them what the Charter stood for after they adopted it.

Question: NACTU was born as a result of a fusion between AZACTU and CUSA. Is its position today to fight for the unification of all trade unions?

Answer: Yes. When CUSA and AZACTU merged in October 1986 they made a declaration where they announced that they seek unification of all the democratic trade-union forces in the country.

It is also important to note that NACTU believes in the leadership of the working class. This was a departure from the previous AZACTU insistence of Black leadership. It is the most significant position on leadership and on the form and content of the trade-union struggle to have emerged.

On the Workers Party Question: One more question on a somewhat different note. The FOSATU federation a number of years ago raised the need for a Workers Party emanating from the trade unions; something like that which occurred in Brazil in 1980 with the formation of the Workers Party led by "Lula." That party is based on the militant CUT union federation.

Do you think this perspective is in the cards in South Africa, or that it is even worth pursuing?

Answer: I think that the formation of a Workers Party is realizable. But I think that numerous political interests and organizations will make it difficult for it to be realized. I am talking of the ruling class and of people who support, at a fanatical level, the Freedom Charter and narrow nationalist positions. Those elements will tend to immediately attack the creation of such a party, which would pose a real threat to their quest for political hegemony.

Question: Would the formation of such a Workers Party represent a step forward for the workers' movement in South Africa?

Answer: If it is done on a principled basis, it will be really difficult for people to really assail it successfully. It could be a very important development and could help take us out of the impasse we face right now. But if it is merely translating unionism onto another plane, I think that would be ill-advised and short-lived.

I think the people in NUMSA and various other groupings in the National Forum who have been supporters of the need for a Workers Party have had a good conceptualization of it.

Question: What, in the view of AZAPO, are the tasks in the months ahead?

Answer: I think we need a mature leadership with sufficient vision to realize that people have different conceptions of the struggle and that we have a single enemy. The enemy, apartheid capitalism, is united even though from time to time it may show signs of having severe tensions within its ranks. We need that principled unity as a prerequisite in order to successfully wage a struggle against the regime and its imperialist supporters.

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SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 1988 11 (continued from page 1: “Palestinian revolt grows; defies Israeli terror drive”)

shouting in unison, "Falistin Arabia, Thawra Hatta al Nas'r, Allahu Akhbar" [Arab Palestine, Revolution Until Victory, God is Great].

Bassam Shaka'a described the attempts by the Israeli army to spread panic and terror in Nablus and outlying villages:

"Fleets of helicopters fly over Nablus at night dropping a dense, green toxic gas over the city. The smell pervades every house. Armed units fire canisters of the substance into houses at random. Doctors at Ittihad Hospital reported several deaths and severe lung injuries from this as-yet unidentified asphyxiating chemical, totally distinct from tear gas."

Despite repeated accounts in Nablus and Jerusalem of the effects of the green gas, newspapers in the United States have not carried the story.

The Israeli army has targeted the hospitals. Army trucks ram ambulances and block them from reaching the homes of those overcome by the gas. Soldiers have entered the Ittihad Hospital in Nablus numerous times, arresting the wounded and those waiting to give blood to family members. Even the operating theater has been invaded while surgeons were operating on patients.

Doctors have been beaten and equipment smashed. Family members have been prevented from entering the hospital. The cars of the doctors and nurses have all been smashed by the soldiers.

Over half of the 100,000 inhabitants of Nablus live in the Casbah, which has been sealed off by concrete barricades and iron gates. The gas attacks have been particularly intense. Among the victims were the grandmother of the Da'as family and the 100-year-old father of noted Nablus attorney Mohammad Irshaid. Soldiers entered the house at 2 a.m., smashing furniture and firing a canister of the dreaded green gas.

Two of the children, age 9 and 11, were taken by the soldiers in their night clothes, frog-marched in the streets, and beaten as they were forced by the jeering soldiers to clear debris.

Meanwhile, all of Nablus maintains a total strike. All the streets in every quarter of the city are without open shops or business activity. As gas permeates the city, cries and chants fill the night.

A glimpse of the savagery One of the most vicious incidents occurred in the city of Qalqiya. Soldiers entered the house of workers and poured gasoline over them, setting them alight. Six workers were covered in flames. Four of the victims managed to rush out of the building and rolled on the ground, ripping off their clothes. Two were severly burned and are in serious condition.

On Feb. 20, two youths were arrested in Khan Yunis, beaten savagely and taken to the beach where they were buried alive under the sand. After the soldiers left, villagers managed to dig them out.

by Ralph Schaenman glimpse of the scale of Israeli brutality.

The Hebrew-language newspaper Hadashot was cited in Newsweek:

"We got orders to knock on every door, enter, and take out all the males. The younger ones we lined up with their faces against the wall, and soldiers beat them with billy-clubs. This was no private initiative.

These were the orders from our company commander." ("A Soldier's Account," cited Feb. 8, 1988)

The accounts make clear that Israeli protestations about excesses of individual soldiers are transparently false. Newsweek reported:

"Armed with 30-inch wooden clubs and urged by their prime minister to 'put the fear back into the Arabs,' Israeli soldiers have methodically beaten up Palestinians since early January, deliberately breaking bones and beating prisoners into unconsciousness.

Casualties included not only young men...but also women. Most of the injured shunned hospitals for fear of arrest."

The avoidance of hospitals by the injured has prevented accurate reporting of the vast scale of the savage beatings and of the deaths of those who endured them. But an indication was provided in the reports of the medical team inspecting the wounded in the hospitals.

Medical team's account Dr. Jennifer Leaning, a faculty member of Harvard Medical School and a trauma specialist, reported her findings:

"There is a systematic pattern of limb injury that is clearly organized to cause fracture...a consistent pattern of bone breaks across the back of the hand and in the middle of the fore-arm that...come from holding the hand or arm in place and applying a strong blow to the bone." (New This pamphlet by Ralph Schoenman, former executive director of the Bertrand Russel Peace Foundation and author of the U.N. report 'Prisoners of Israel, discusses the origins and sordid history of Zionism.

With thorough documentation, ple in this society about Zionism.

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Dr. Leaning and the team of Physicians for Human Rights traveled throughout the West Bank and Gaza. They concluded, "It is a pattern that is controlled. A systematic pattern over a wide geographical area. It is as if they have been instructed." (Ibid.)

Dr. Leaning's account of the new patients brought to Shifa Hospital in Gaza is compelling:

"They looked like they had been mauled. What is impressive is the number of fractures per patient. These patients look as if they had been put through a washingmachine wringer. They would have had to hold them down and just keep beating them." (Ibid.)

Even as the medical team was recounting their observations, new accounts were appearing in the press indicating that the policy of beatings unto death had replaced that of inflicting injury.

John Kifner reported in The New York Times (Feb. 14, 1988):

"The beatings of Palestinians by the Israeli army appears to have grown more severe, with medical workers and family members reporting that four Palestinians died this week after being beaten by soldiers."

Random shooting of villagers On Feb. 21, 2000 soldiers moved into Jerusalem, and army units fanned out into the towns and villages of the West Bank. Nassarullah Abdu Qadr, age 12, died in Tulkarm refugee center.

Soldiers opened fire at random in the village of Bani Naim near Hebron. Youths and old women were shot as soldiers opened fire on groups of villagers in the village of Tubas.

Later, in Tulkarm, a 10-year-old was wounded in the chest. In Ramallah, Abdullah Attah was shot at random by a 12 months for $6. 6 months for $3.

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Name Addres City State Zip Tel. jeep filled with soldiers. "An 80-year-oldwoman, Lulu Mahmoud, who had been sitting in the alleyway, said she saw the killing, "I saw him fall, the blood and brain coming out of his head. I was terrified."" (John Kifner, New York Times, Feb. 21)

The army raided the hospitals in the villages to kidnap the bodies so that claims of deaths could be discounted and so burials would not take place, with mourning leading to new demonstrations. But the people surrounded the area and carried off the bodies of the dead. "By the time the soldiers stormed the hospitals and declared the area a closed military zone, the body was gone." (Ibid.)

The army, cheated of their trophy, took reprisals:

"Tear-gas canisters were fired by soldiers into the hospitals, maternity ward doctors said. Five women and their babies had been evacuated earlier because of gas from canisters fired outside. (Ibid.)

The meaning of Shultz's visit Recounting the atrocities which are daily occurrences in the West Bank and Gaza, Bassam Shak'a was scathing in his remarks about the attempts by some Palestinians to meet George Shultz during his planned visit to Jerusalem. Bassam Shaka'a said:

"Shultz is coming with a clear mandate against us. He closed the P.L.O. office in Washington. He closed it at the United Nations. He vetoed a United Nations resolution calling on Israel to abide by the Geneva Convention.

"In Finland he announced that if the Soviet Union wants to be in an international conference, it must press us to recognize Israel. It must allow Israelis to organize Jews in the Soviet Union to go to Israel, no doubt to settle in the West Bank.

"After all his support and that of his government for the state of Israel, he now wants to come to Palestine. Perhaps he wants to determine the effectiveness of the toxic gas, the white phosphorus, the explosives, and the automatic weapons he supplies to Israel. Perhaps he wants to be certain they are efficient in their use against our children, in the crimes against our people and our uprising."

Bassam Shak'a was asked by journalists about the talks with Shultz and the willingness of some Palestinians such as Hanna Siniora, editor of the Jerusalem weekly Al Fajr, to meet with Shultz. He told me of his replies:

"Everyone knows clearly that the "Intifadeh" [Great Uprising] will continue, will deepen, will grow. Our entire people have risen up. The Israelis have been surprised that we can continue with our total strike, but everyone is helping everyone. Food is shared and passed from house to house.

"Our spirits have never been higher. It is the greatest moment in our history, greater than the uprising from 1936 to 1939 [against the British]. Siniora and the others who want to talk to Shultz are being used for a dirty game, dirty schemes, crimes against our people and their resistance. Shultz's visit is against our rights and against our future."

The Israeli army has found that the more the repression is intensified, the more the spirit of revolution spreads and deepens among the people of the West Bank and Gaza.

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South Africa: Unions Go Forward

Reports in the establishment press give a Thie hudder hustony of Zionism

it shatters the myths that color the consciousness of most peo-