Save These Victims of Apartheid Terror!

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We reprint below a resolution on South Africa passed by the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee at its meeting during the last weekend The Workers Socialist League will be conducting a campaign in the British labour movement on these lines and Socialist Press will carry reports of the progress of the campaign in future issues.

South African police fire on demonstrators of December.

In the face of the forward movement of black workers in struggle, the barbaric capitalist regime in South Africa is using the judicial murder of militants as just one of the measures aimed at repressing the courageous struggle of the working class.

The degree of class strength and militancy forged by the working class movement in struggle, coupled with the destabusing effect of the world capitalist crisis, confronts the South African ruling class most immediately as a crisis of political control.

The bourgeoisie needs to establish the political stability necessary for protecting and boosting profits. It needs therefore to adopt measures aimed at containing, controlling, and ultimately reversing the forward movement of the working class.

Indefinite detention without trial, banishment, bannings, murder of militants in and out of jail, right wing terror squads, perpetual army and police repression-these are part of the daily reality confronting black workers already weighed down by mass unemployment and a sickeningly low standard of living.

Yet despite all these massive hardships, the working class is repeatedly showing its determination and courage in struggle against the class enemy.

In its efforts to assert control over a rising movement of struggle, the South African state is trying to use the much publicised judicial murder of individual militants in an attempt to intimidate the whole working class.

First victim In 1979 Solomon Mahlangu, an ANC militant, became the first victim of the judicial Killing of political prisoners in South Africa for more than 15 years.

Four more militants have recently been sentenced to death by the courts of the capitalist state. Three of themMcimbithi Lubisi, Tsepo Masigo and Naphtali Manana are guerrillas of the ANC. The other, Markus Kateka is a Namibian farm worker. The charges against the three arose out of an attack on a South African police station.

Markus Kateka faces hanging for aiding SWAPO guerrillas in Namibia.

These four militants are amongst thousands whose determination to fight against their exploitation and oppression has taken them into the ranks of the ANC and SWAPO.

It is crucial that the united strength of the working class-in South Africa, Namibia and internationally -be mobilised to save these courageous militants from the gallows, as part of the struggle to build the defence of the working class against every attack which confronts it.

This task can in no way be left to the Stalinists and reformists who lead the ANC and SWAPO. Together with the reformist and Stalinist bureaucrats in the international labour movement, their politics of class collaboration leads them to seek alliances with imperialist governments, reactionary dictators, so- called "progressive" sections of the capitalist class-in short, popular frontist alliances with anything in preference to dependence on the independent strength and mobilisation of the working class.

This politics of class collaboration is as incapable of building a defence of individual ANC and SWAPO militants as it is of providing the policies on which black workers could build their defence against every economic and political attack.

It is only the struggle to build and mobilise the independent strength of the working class which can create that defence.

As the constant flouting of ing action of the international labour movement.

The reality of all international links with the South African government and ruling class must be exposed by the international working class in an ongoing campaign to open the books and break through the web of government and business secrets.

This is the way forward in the fight to nationalise, under workers control, all firms and banks trading with the South African bosses and their government-to bring every aspect of every link with South Africa and Namibia under the scrutiny and control of the working class.

For it is the international working class which is the only genuine ally of the Southern African working class and militants within the ranks of SWAPO and the ANC.

Action urgent

Immediate solidarity action in defence of the four militants now facing hanging is an urgent responsibility of the international labour movement.

Mass demonstrations must be organised and supported by every organisation of the working class to express an overwhelming voice of protest and solidarity. Such protests must not be allowed to become SOLIDARITY merely token protests-they must be used for developing more powerful working class weapons of solidarity.

This demands the urgent development of an extended programme of workers blacking in defence of the four militants. Blacking is the crucial immediate weapon in the ongoing programme of solidarity with the struggles of black workers.

In every demonstration, mobilisation and solidarity meeting, the voice and programme of independent international class solidarity must be at the fore.

These miiltants must not be left to hang. And the workers of Southern Africa must not be left to face the vicious capitalist state alone.

Labour Parties and trade nion branches should pass resolutions of solidarity with the four black South Africans and send telegrams demanding their release to the South African Embassy, Trafalgar Square, London WC2.