Somoza claims victory

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in Addis Ababa for an 'international solidarity conference' which brought together SWAPO, the PLO, Mugabe from the Patriotic Front and of course Fidel Castro.

The Cuban leader's attendance, and the delegation of high-ranking Soviet bureaucrats signalled the 'solidarity' that was to be pledged by these "revolutionary' brethren—a unity against the workers and peasants they consistently mislead and betray.

The Ethiopian dictatorship now controls the strongest armed forces in the whole of black Africa, and Mengistu, leader of the Derg, proclaimed that these would be sent to "rally alongside the exploited and progressive peoples of the world at any time and at any place" • In practice, these troops have been used (with Cuban support, Soviet arms and Soviet advisors) to crush the rising in the Ogaden, and as the conference took place they were in action to suppress any popular mobilisation within Ethiopia and to attack the struggles of the Eritrean people for seifdetermination.

Undoubted social gains have been made in the last four years by the workers and peasants of Ethiopia, but their revolution has been decapitated Mengistu A week of indiscriminate massacres and atrocities by the National Guard have allowed Dictator Anastasio Somoza to regain control of Nicaragua's main cities from the Sandinist National Liberation Front (FSLN).

Despite thousands of civilian deaths and injuries and a huge amount of destruction, nearly all reports say that the ability of the FSLN to fight again has not been significantly damaged.

And despite the victory, the National Guard is now more hated than ever and substantially demoralised through being held up for days by small bands of youth armed with no more than revolvers.

It looks as if one of the consequences of the week of full-scale civil war has been that the Carter administration has grown even cooler towards Somoza and is now looking hard for a less provocative alternative before a new wave of mass rebeilion breaks out.

'Even the US Congress has now voted to send no more money to the Nicaraguan government because-like the aid after the earthquake 4 years ago- it all tends to get into the personal bank accounts of the Somoza family.

And that zombie-like organisation, the "Socialist International" called for Somoza to be deposed.

One of its components, Britain's 'Labour" government, TS T last week s atrocities Dy sending Somoza an extra £50,000. far tried to do a separate deal with Nkomo.

Castro would be quite aware of this:

So these latest manoevres and realignments are a part of the increasingly complex and important interplay between the imperialists " and the Stalinist bureaucracies of the workers' states over the sharing out control of the unstable African continent.

Kaunda British oil companies face the bleak possibility of having £3,000 million worth of assets in Africa seized following publication of the Bingham report.

Zambian president, Kaunda, is suing BP and Shell in the Zambian courts over the damage to the Zambian economy through trying to impose sanctions that the British and French imperialists were busy driving thousands of gallons of oil a day through.

Nigeria is reported to have volunteered to enforce any ruling through the Zambian oil assets in the country.

This threat was one of the aara re lee to fly to Zambia and to Nigeria last week.

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courts by seizing some of the £6,000M to £7,000M worth of