Iran Oil chief

Scan page 2

The Ayatollah Khomeini declared last week how pained he had been by the 'unjust and inhuman' accusations that he was a dictator.

But, heroically, he is subduing these touching signs of human weakness in the drive to assert the supremacy of Islamic reaction in Iran.

The latest victim of this offensive has been Hassan Nazih, head of the National Iranian Oil Company.

Conflict between Nazih and the religious leaders reached a climax at the end of last week, with his dismissal and the certainty that he would be charged with treason.

Nazih's "crime" lay in not moving to purge the employees of the oil industry to the extent demanded by Khomeini's revolutionary council.

Khomeini and his fellow bigots are seeking the mass sacking of all 'communists' in the industry-a category i that probably includes every element of democratic opposition to the Islamic regime.

Nazih himself is no friend to communism, but knew far more accurately than the ayatollahs how deep would be the workers' reaction against moves to purge all their leaders and militants.

For this traitor', ' the interests of capital stand unequivocably before those of Islam.

Anxious to restore capitalism to its former glory in Iran, he had frequently urged the regime to reachi economic deals with imperialism at a far more rapid rate than the one prevailing.

Nazih's calls for the reestablishment of private capital, fully protected by the state, were accompanied by a firm resolve to avoid provoking the development of proletarian struggle by unnecessary and impractical attacks on the organisations of the working class.

With Nazih now on the run from the powers of Islamic reaction, Khomeini has installed a new and more pliable functionary to direct the crucial sector of the Iranian economy. have their bases line states. south African apartheid capital Parallel fears ensure that ists join with the British Tories in maintaining pressure on Smith to negotiate a pro-imperialist settlement.

_ Bowing to this pressure, Smith has now conceded defeat on the question of a white veto bloc in any new parliament. But his effective rejection of the principles of UDI finds its reflection in the concessions made by the Patriotic Front.

Defying years of fierce and uncompromising rhetoric, Josiah Tongogara (military commander of the Mugabe-led Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army) declared his complete willingness to work alongside Lt. Gen. Walls and the army of the Smith-Muzorewa regime in the transitional period mards inflamenting a now comstitution and electing a new indepen