Chad guerrillas score fresh successes

Scan page 3

As we to press, a further imperialist puppet ruler is on the point of defeat in Africa.

President Malloum of Chad is reported hiding out at the airport under the protection of French troops.

The latest collapse of his army is the culmination of 13 years of civil war which have 'been slowly pulling the immense central African republic apart.

Last week fighting broke out in the capital city of N'Djamena between forces supporting the prime minister and troops loyal'to the president. The 'Government of National Reconciliation" was dissolved in blood, as its two leaders vied for supreme power.

But this violent quarrel between imperialism's puppet and its stooge, is little more than a sideproduct of the real civil war in Chad.

Chad is a massive territory-larger than France, Spain and Portugal put together. It is also one of the poorest countries in the world. Agricultural methods are primitive and the climate hostile. Natural resources are few and far between, while industry is virtually non-existent.

Material factors

The mass of Chad's 3½ million people live in conditions of total poverty and recurrent starvation, worsened by the periodic droughts which afflict the region.

It is these material factors which have caused the civil war; and driven increasing sectións of the masses to support and fight within the FROLINAT.

The war began in 1965 against the corrupt and dictatorial. regime of President Tombalbaye. Chad had gained formal political independence from French imperialism in 1960. But when the tricolour was hauled down from the flagposts, the French troops remained in Chad.

Exploitation

And there-with only one short break-they have remained to this day.

• Under Tombalbaye's rule, the imperialists continued their profitable exploitation of Chad unhindered, and the masses found no lifting of their oppression.

Yet, because of the specific conditions within the country, the struggle which developed against imperialism took the form of inter-racial and even inter-religious strife.

Like the neighbouring Sudan, and some other African states, Chad is peopled in the north by Muslim Arabs and in the south by Christian and animist black Africans.

Tombalbaye's regime was drawn entirely from the south, and the war seemed at first to be a powerstruggle between two ethnic groups. Even today the. bourgeoisie still presents the conflict in these misleading terms.

Skilful imperialist manipulation has certainly produced considerable racial antagonism. Yet this divisive rivalry has already come to take second place.

As the FROLINAT extended its control from the north, the black African masses flocked to join in the struggle against imperialism. The anti-imperialist content of the fight has ripped through the artificial barriers of racial conflict, and this development has brought far bigger problems for the imperialists and their agents.

French called Even the might of the French army could not keep Tombalbaye in power as he battled against the FROLINAT. The war took its toll in the south too, as massive military expenditure combined with catastrophic droughts to produce explosive social unrest.

In this dangerous situation, the army moved in quickly and toppled Tombalbaye in 1975. As General Felix Malloum made himself president, the French troops withdrewbut not for long.

Unable to end the war by military or diplomatic means, Malloum soon called the French army back, in larger numbers than before.

But all this armed might has not prevented the FROLINAT from advancing further to a position where it now controls more than half the country, and can launch damaging mids within the area controlled by Malloum.

It is extremely difficult in Britain to reach a political assessment of the FROLINAT. Organised in regional armies, it has been FROLINAT guerrillas subjected to constant faction struggles which appear to be based on the conflicting ambitions of rival opportunists rather than on political divisions.

Territorial ambitions The FROLINAT's main backer has been Gaddafi, the left dictator of Libya to the north. Gaddafi has supplied the movement with arms, and Libyan. troops have moved in to the north of Chad.

However, this exercise has been dictated by Gaddafi's territorial ambitions and not primarily by any motive of giving concrete support to the rebellion.

Libyan forces have occupied and annexed the 'Aoun zone' along the border-a small fraction of Chad, about the size of England. (Gaddafi bases his claim to this territory on a deal made in 1935 between the French premier Laval and Mussolini. Libya was then an Italian colony).

This move seems to have alienated the FROLINAT, and Gaddafi was last year unable to persuade them to participate in peace talks at Tripoli with Malloum.

Serious rival

Even without this setback, the Libyan demagogue had a serious rival in the race to become 'honest broker' of the Chad dispute.

President Numeiri of the Sudan long ago staked his claim to interfere in Chad, and recently his attentions have become more insistent.

Numeiri has been using his year as president of the Organisation of African Unity to consolidate and promote the position of his government as a major diplomatic power within Africa.

These manoeuvres have led him to seek an agreement with the Ethiopian Derg for ending the war in Eritrea (the EPLF's supply lines are fed from within the Sudan). He is now forging ahead with plans to organise a conference of the states in northeast Africa to 'resolve' all the conflicts within the Horn of Africa.

Parallels

Numeiri's commitment to the anti-imperialist struggle was illustrated graphically last year when he declared his support for the French imperialist intervention in Zaire.

But Numeiri has concentrated much of his energy on neighbouring Chad." No doubt he has been driven on by the alarming parallels between the situation there and the history of the Sudan.

witir wili.:

Malloum Niger LARI example of where the tho central far more threatening With Khartoum Numeiri strengthen (southern) bringing in prme minister.

AOUZOU TIBESTİ Ati His own rule is based on an agreement of 1972 which gave limited autonomy to the south after years of bitter civil war between black African rebels and the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.

• Numeiri That fragile peace could easilv be disrupted by the events in Chad, struggle against pro-imperialist has taken advanced and character. last year's agreement, aimed to Malloum's government by a northerner as Discredited The man chosen for this part was Hissene Habre. A former leader of the FROLINAT, Habre l is totally: discredited with FROLINAT and with broader layers of the Chad masses for his willingness to compromise with Malloum.

When he finally arrived in N'Djamena in August, Habre brought with him his Biltine Km 800 only base of support-the 1,000 troops who formed his large entourage.

President and prime minister squabbled and sulked by turns. As the FROLINAT advanced, rumours of a coup by Habre chased one another round N'Djamena. Last week they were finally realised.

While their servants fight, the French imperialists are forced to stand aside and await the outcome. Numeiri's gambit has failed miserably-whichever i side emerges victorious, will have been weakened, not strengthened, by the conflict. • Numeiri has already reaped the reward of offering the best assistance he can to rescue imperialism from perilous straits. The French government has now released funds for the economic "development' of the Sudan-by French capitalists.

comfort But the situation in Chad offers the imperialists no comfort. The opportunities for the FROLINAT to seize power are growing daily. But French workers must not wait for the French imperialist army to be thrown out of Chad by the anti-imperialist forces.

The movement . which arose last year as French troops were sent into Zaire must be taken up once more and developed further. The fight against capitalism cannot be waged within a single country.

It is an: international struggle of class forces. To advance that revolutionary struggle, workers on the European homelands of capitalism must place themselves alongside the liberation struggles in Chad and throughout Africa, by organising their strength to demand the immediate withdrawal of all imperialist troops from Africa.

Scan page 4

SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesdas 21 Februar; 1979 CAMDEN, Bo John Seymour, NUPE shop steward at the Cressy Road refuse depot talks to Socialist Press about the steps now necessary to press home the partial victory over Camden Council in the public sector pay dispute.

The second week of the indefinite strike action by Camden General NUPE workers has seen a major breakthrough " with the Labour-controlled Council.

On Wednesday February 14 the news hit the pages of the national press that following a lobby of the Camden labour group the previous night, a policy was to be put to next full. council meeting conceeding the full NUPE claim for a £60 minimum wage and 35 hour week, with an almost certain chance of being adopted as council policy.

Apoplexy:

The London' Evening Standard under an editorial 'Red Camden Caves in' , went into a fit of apoplexy denouncing those who had supported the decision as 'white collared friends of the people, mostly employed by the state, who indulge their collectivist fantasies at the expense of Camden's rate payers"

Two things are clear from the events of last week.

First, that by no means is the offer put by the Labour group the total concession it's being portrayed as.

The Strike Committee know* full well that the strings attached present a threat to the conditions of its members. Secondly, despite these drawbacks, the Labour Council's offer represents a massive concession to the claim, going way beyond the miserable 9% deal that Fisher is now trying to cobble together with Callaghan.

Focus

If the eyes of workers in London were turning towards Camden's all-out strike before this breakthrough, the actions of the Camden General Strike Committee are now increasingly becoming a focus for the struggle nationally.

Our comrades and supporters fighting in the labour movement bodies in the borough have played a central role in the development of indefinite strike action, the attempts to set up an organised opposition to Fisher, and the political turn into the fight to force the Labour Council to concede the claim.

As John Seymour says, the struggle in Camden is on a much higher political level now.

After rejecting a major concession from the first council in the country to break from the national negotiations, the Strike Committee must escalate the action by forming a joint Strike Committee with the several major hospitals and ambulance • stations in the borough with an aim to get concerted indefinite strike action amongst al NUPE branches in the borough.

Following the example of Cressy Road dustmen the indefinite strike action has to be spread into other boroughs. The Council of Action which is the policy of Camden General NUPE. and Labour Party wards has to be built to control supplies and extend strike action. Camden's success must be the model for national indefinite strike action. of all NUPE members.

No acceptance There must be no acceptance of any sell out offer which rather than giving a real increase in wages and conditions merely consolidates bonuses already being paid.

A victory in Camden on this basis could provide the political way forward for; independent action for all public sector workers coming into struggle 'against low pay.

Part NEED LOM Prid NEED i Man Mike Taylor, NUPE full time officer addressing meeting called by Camden Strike Committee Workers NO

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

CHAD Djédaa Bol éché

Nigeria EN'DJAMENA Cameroon African Repablic

Libya Faya- • Largeau → Sudan Central