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Last month, a page was opened on the cloak-and-dagger operations of the South African Defense Force, which is working to preserve white control in the era of "post-apartheid."

Nico Basson, former chief of propaganda for the SADE, told the British newspaper The Independent that his department had "managed to infiltrate the South African media across the board." One of his tasks was to bolster Gatsha Buthelezi's conservative Black party, Inkatha, by getting "their name known and fixed in the public consciousness."

Basson said that millions of pounds of secret government funds had been spent to arm Inkatha and to "orchestrate their entire strategy" of fomenting violence in the Black townships. In addition, he said, the SADF is steering money toward conservative Black churches that stress anti-communism in their preachings.

The government's objective, according to the Johannesburg Star, is to shepherd the churches, Inkatha, and leaders of the Black "homelands" into a "Christian Democratic Alliance," which could compete with the African National Congress in any future elections.

in E. Europe In the wake of the U.S. bombing of Iraq, deaths from malnutrition and poor sanitation continue to mount.

The bombing attack severely disabled Iraq's electric power grid, including its water-purification and sewage systems. As a result, epidemics of cholera, typhoid, gastroenteritis, and other diarrheal diseases have been raging.

In May, a Harvard University medical team concluded that the mortality rate of Iraqi children under five Nearly 175,000 Iraqi children will die as a result of could double because of disease compounded by malnutrition.

More recently, relief agency officials have begun to speak out against the U.S.-enforced trade sanctions, which, they say, make the situation far more precarious. The ban on Iraqi sales of crude oil and the embargo on foreign financial transactions have made it difficult for the goverment to import sufficient food and medicine. Even in hospitals, most patients are only receiving half the normal ration of food.

ers need solidarity After four years of intermittent strikes and mass demonstrations against brutal repression at the Mexican facilities of the Ford Motor Company, workers at the Ford plant in Cuautitlan have finally won a court decision.

The court ruled in favor of recounting votes in an election to allow the workers to replace the gangsterstyle control of their union and to affiliate to a different union federation. However, the danger remains that the union bureaucracy and Ford management might still conduct the recount in a fraudulent manner.

"This is a matter of interest to all North American working people," the magazine Labor Notes reports. The auto workers' present federation, the CTM, "is the U.S. bombing. Georgo Baramki AzaI only labor federation in North America that supports the free trade agreement. If the Ford workers at the Cuautitlan plant are able to gain their own democratic union, they will open the possibility of working with other non-CTM unions in the Mexican auto industry to establish genuine collective bargaining."

Messages of solidarity should be sent to CILAS, Dr. Liceaga 180 A-S 1001, Col. Doctores, Mexico, D.F., Mexico.