Defending women's

Scan page 1

Two survivors of the Boipatong massacre where 42 Blacks were kil Millions of Black South Africans are engaged in a vast three-month campaign of mass action. The African National Congress (ANC) is the main sponsor of the campaign, along with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party.

The ANC has called the activities a Black "referendum" in support of ending white rule. "The disenfranchised have unmistakably voted with their feet for democracy and peace now," said ANC Secretary General Cyril Ramaphosa.

The high point of the mass action was a two-day nationwide "stayaway" on Aug. 34. It was the largest political strike in the country's history. According to Jay Naidoo, general secretary of COSATU, 4 million people responded to the strike call.

The strike was particularly strong in the AUGUST 1992 CE IS demonstrations, such as "Mandela, give us arms!" and "Away with CODESA! The workers will decide!"

Despite the grassroots enthusiasm for mass action, however, the "tidal wave for peace and democracy" had been somewhat slow in gaining force. Original plans for a three-day general strike, including factory occupations, were cut back.

According to The New York Times: "The strike, which sponsors originally portrayed as a longer protest stunning the government into surrendering power, had been scaled back until it became more of a cathartic ritual aimed at letting off steam in the townships before a resumption of talks on the country's political future."

ANC rallies at the end of July had been relatively small. The size of the general strike and the Aug. 5 demonstrations took most observers-and even the organizers by surprise. Three days before, the ANC had predicted that only about 15,000 would march in Pretoria.

The ANC and COSATU lost momentum in building the actions in part because they spent weeks dickering with top business leaders and church groups over plans to scuttle the general strike in favor of a employer-supported holiday. This widely publicized deal, which was aimed at kickstarting negotiations with the government, was called off at the last minute.

In the meantime, however, these seemingly friendly talks with the employers had generated a great deal of confusion-and even anger-among rank-and-file Black activists and trade unionists. Taking part in the talks, for example, were the corporate executives of big mining and metal concerns who were simultaneously offering their workers a pay cut.

The mass action campaign was also hampered by the fact that several Black liberation organizations did not take part. Major non-participating groups included the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) and the Azanian Peoples Organization (AZAPO).

These groups do not support the ANC's demand for an interim government. They also point out that they were not consulted in planning the mass action. The ANC and its allies ran the entire mass action campaign in their own names, rather than attempting to build a broad united front.

Even more significant was the fact that the National Confederation of Trade Unions (NACTU)-which claims jurisdiction over more than 700,000 workers—was not (continued on page 8, in “Our main aim is to overthrow the [apartheid] government”)

----- pull-quotes -----

clinics See page 5.