International New- Angula

Scan page 2

The desperate cash crisis of New York City was eased this week by yet another scheme to defer payment of its enormous and escalating debts.

This follows complex financial wheeling and dealing among major US banks over several months by Mayor Abraham Beame, desperately trying to stave off city bankruptcy.

The unusual aspect of the new scheme however is that it comes from one of the major unions, and involves workers accepting increas ingly worthless two year city bonds in place of a wage increase of 6% due at the end of the month.

This open union policy of making workers pay for capitalism's crisis follows the proposal of another union bureaucracy to guarantee the wages of workers threatened with redundancy by offering union funds. In other words economic crisis of New York City is the need to defend jobs and working conditions. This can only take place through building a new leadership which will expose these reformist plans and challenge the rights of capitalists and municipal employers to create unemployment.

Mayor Beame The likelihood of the promised October elections dence and an ending of the present Portuguese/Angolan transitional government grows increasingly remote.

On the surface the problem appears to be the failure of the three main Angolan nationalist movements - the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, the National Union for Total Independence of Angola, and the National Front for the Liberation of Angoal (MPLA Marxist, UNITA, and FNLA) - to cease the increasing open warfare between them despite their joint participation in the transitional government, and an agreement last month to find a way of ironing out their differences.

"COLLAPSE"

The Portuguese Minister of the Economy in the transitional government threatened to resign 2 weeks ago, claiming that the country, the richest economically of Portugal's ex-colonies, is on the verge of total collapse.

To the open warfare between the liberation movements is added mount ing ockers ind port it the potential mineral wealth of the country that is fundamentally the source of the conflict. Angola is rich in oil, diamonds, coffee and other raw materials and has been growing at an annual rate of 6% in recent years.

In a situation of general capitalist economic crisis the development of any independent Angolan capitalist class is undermined.

The situation is one where the existing forces both of international capital and the ruling classes of neighbouring African states are supporting particular factions of the liberation movement.

The right wing FNLA for example is generally favoured against the Stalinist influenced MPLA and the indigenous UNITA, whose main strength lies in the North.

At the moment the conflict focusses on the northernmost porvince of Angola - Cabinda, rich in oil, nearly all of which is being extracted by the US Gulf Oil Corporation.

businessmen wanting alist policies.

But Mrs Gandhi has imposed a semi-dictatorship of her Congress Party because she fears the explosion of vicious class struggle between these elements and the staving Indian masses who, for want of a socialist leadership, have talen behing JP Narayan's non-violent reformist Gandhian campaign.

The clouds of this storm have been gathering for at least two years, during which the Congress Party has been steadily losing ground in six state elections, as its promises of an attack on poverty have never been carried out.

DISPOSSESS

This is because living standards jobs and land can only be defended in India through the dispossession of the same businessmen and wealthy farmers who provide the main financial and electoral support of the Congress Party.

Poverty and exploitation are enormous and increasing - per capIn military terms, the MLPA appears to be in control of this area, much to the annoyance of Gulf and of President Mobutu of neighbouring Zaire.

Accordingly Mobutu, no doubt prompted by Gulf, is declaring that Cabinda is not really part of Angola at all and should be allowed to settle its own status through a referendum.

Meanwhile Mobutu has provided an open border between Zaire and Angola for ferrying large quantities of arms and recruits to the right wing FNLA, though he has for diplomatic purposes agreed to "seal" the border using his own troops in coordination with the Portuguese army.

At all costs a repetition must be prevented of the strategy of international capitalism, which set up Katanga in 1960, attempting to declare economically rich areas "independent" states under puppet governments loyal to imperialism.

This must be avoided in Cabinda The oil wealth must be nationalised along with all other Angolan mineral resources and the ports, being integrated into a socialist economic plan. This can only be done by a regime based firmly on the unity of Angolan workers and peasants.

This must be a first step towards a United Socialist States of Africa to overcome the arbitrary political divisions imposed by imperialism and use the vast economic resources of the continent for the benefit of the African people.

that is landless are under the

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

allowing Angola to follow Mozambique to full indepen-