Pta Renewed

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interest, the RCT promote from a position of weakness, hopeless clashes with the reformist bureaucracy to "prove' the Labourites and Stalinists are class collaborators.

Mousetrap

By staging artificial confrontations they aim to 'expose' and dispense with the workers' official leaders-Ireland is the cheese and the RCT is the mousetrap.

To complete this simpleminded schema, those on the left who reject such futility are of course summarily dismissed as accomplices of the proExplicitly rejecting the hard task of taking workers through experiences against their present leaders from which they can draw strength and make a development, the RCT substitutes short cuts and exemplary actions such as last Saturday's conference--supposedly to galvanise the masses from their stupor.

Labour MPs embarrassed at the continuing flow of arrests of innocent Irish men and women under the so-called Prevention of Terrorism Act have been forced into mealy mouthed Parliamentary protest.

The latest figures show that over 5,000 people have been detained under the PTA in the last seven years-only 70 of whom have been charged with offences under the PTA.

Some 249 have been charged with other offences: and 240 people have been simply excluded from Britain without ever being brought before a The Act was rammed through Parliament by Roy Jenkins as Home Secretary of the Wilson government in 1974. Since then it has been backed by both Tories and Labour MPs.

But last week the PLP's Home Affairs group unanimously recommended that its renewal be opposed.

This is not because of any shift of sympathies of Labour MPs towards those fighting British imperialism. Home Affairs Groun chairperson Alex Lyon pointed out that the group wished to see the legal proscription of the IRA continued.

But they argued that the Act's impact on other civil liberties was unacceptable.

This view however, is not shared by their fellow La bour MPs-who have decided si nply to call for a review of the PTA and its workings. minority of left MPs will carry the banner of opposition to the PTA as a vestige of independence from the reactionary "bilateral" policy on Ireland.

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party needed contribution to the liberation military and struggles throughout the world for its exister In Zimbabwe over the past few weeks, several hundred guerrillas, workers and youth have been killed during fighting between ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas.

Many more have been killed at the hands of Smith's Rhodesian African Rifles, sent in by Mugade to maintain 'law and order' Smith's airforce was put on the alert by Mugabe, ready to bomb the camps into which Nkomo and Mugabe had ordered the guerrillas as part of the imperialist Lancaster House settlement.

The deaths of these people, and the confusion and frustration which gave rise to the fighting are the results of the class collaboration polities which Mugabe and Nkomo have followed.

Not so long ago, Nkomo and Mugabe stood on a common platform, as leaders of the Patriotic Front, announcing that the combined forces of ZANLA and ZIPRA would soon be liberating Salisbury and Bulawayo.

At the same time, they were both involved in secret negotiations with the imperialists to work out a deal whose aim was simple class collaboration.

The imperialists demanded a guarantee from the PF leaders that they would defend private property and hold back the struggle which was set to escalate amongst the masses in the urban areas, in exchange for a PF majority in the government.

Believed:

• The masses of Zimbabwe followed, fought for and voted for the PF because they believed that it would create a government which met their needs and which would carry out the reforms and socialist policies which Mugabe and Nkomo espoused whenever they faced the masses.

But under the new government, the capitalist state remains by and large intact; property remains in private ownership; martial law has been extended; there is widespread poverty, , unemployment and hardship.

As the June 30 election date approaches, desperate attempts are being made by newly appointed finance minister Yoram Aridor to buy' the Israeli voters.

Tax cuts on cars, televisions and electrical items, linked with new loans schemes for housing and many other proposed tax concessions are a last-ditch attempt to restore popularity to Begin's reactionary Likud As is often the case in periods of capitalist crisis any short term gains may well be overshadowed by further deeper economic collapse in the near future.

Despite their world record inflation and gloomy emigration figures, the Israeli Zionists will have gained some comfort from the election of Reagan.

Himself a well-known 'hawk' Reagan is surrounded by Zionist advisors, and in the words of che PLO, "the Palestinian people and the PLO are expecting a hard time ahead."

As reported in Socialist Press the plan for a Rapid Deployment Force able to intervene against liberation struggles in . The masses of Zimbabwe are coming up against a bosses' government which tramples on their needs.

Increasingly, Mugabe's government bases itself not on the guerrillas, or the masses who voted for it, but on the capitalist state machine.

Mugabe's "cure' for all the suffering and oppression which has been created by the capitalist drive for profits is to call for more capitalist investment and promise more capitalist profits.

He has even put into his cabinet some of those same bosses who for 15 years supported Smith's terror against the masses they exploit.

Mugabe's policies of class collaboration make his government more and more a hostage to the capitalists, a greater and greater obstacle to the struggle of the masses.

Imperialist deal

Every day the working masses from whom the petty bourgeois nationalists and Stalinists of the PF drew their support are experiencing what the freedom' and liberation' promised to them by the PF actually mean, now that PF leaders head the government.

Nkomo and Mugabe, having dutifully completed their part of the imperialist deal continue to stand united from time to time.

They are united in ordering Smith's old army to attack guerrillas; in ordering Smith's police to attack strikers; in advising their supporters to remain patient; and in ensuring that they remain patient-at gunpoint.

And while the hardship of the masses continues, sections of the petty bourgeois leaderthem, moving into their new houses, with their fat salaries and their privileges.

Reality

Every day, the reality of class collaboration is being exposed before the eyes of thousands of workers and militants.

That is leading to a growing anger directed at the governthe Middle East is an important part of a general aggressive turn by the US, sharpening up many policy ideas previously floated by the Carter regime.

The US government is very much alive to the strategic value of the last third of the Sinai peninsula-which Israel is due to hand back to Egypt in April 1982.

This chunk is the site of three airfields, and the US may be set to pressure Egypt into accepting a large American military presence in the area.

It has been suggested that this area could well be a possible staging post for the Deployment Force.

Israel is of course in favour of this option which would strengthen even further their embrace with the US imperialists.

These developments are linked to the general interventionist US policy against national liberation struggles throughout the world, which is most starkly shown in El Salvador.

Reagan is attempting to make a stand at a time when world capitalism is in crisis and when such military campaigns can only be financed by swingeing attacks on the working class.

Cuts in the US, designed to ment-but it is also leading to frustration and confusion which are inevitably being misdirected in all directions and manipulated by opportunists who oppose Mugabe's reformism while maintaining their own.

And while this frustration and confusion is deepening amongst the ranks of the oppressed, the forces of reaction, saved from a mounting confrontation by the Lancaster House deal are growing stronger and bolder, as Mugabe comes to rest on them more heavily.

Working class

Socialist Press has consistently pointed to these dangers and criticised the class collaboration politics of the PF leaders.

We have argued that the forces fighting Smith must be brought under the leadership of the working class, and called for the building of the independent organisations of the working class.

We have put forward policies based on the independent class interests of the working class. • This is because we stand on the politics, method and strategy of the Trotskyist Transitional Programme which argues that in the epoch of imperialism -of capitalist decay -no genuine lasting reform can be granted by the capitalists.

This does not mean that we stand opposed to the struggle 10J reforms and partial demands. It means that we recognise that the struggle for them, if it is to be consistently carried through, can only be won behind the leadership of the working class. * The situation in Zimbabwe today is a direct confirmation of the Trotskyist position on the struggle for democratic rights and reforms in the imperialist epoch.

And it is burning proof of the need to address the tasks which Trotskyists recognise as crucial in every situation:

*to build the independent organisations of the working class;

*to build a working class leadership, behind which to rally all oppressed people;

*to build the, independent politics and party of the work1ng class.

release surplus funding for military expansion will stoke the class struggle.

Thatcher's fawning support for Reagan was brought down to earth last week by Defence Secretary John Nott who made it plain that a British contribution to the proposed Rapid Deployment Force would need to be cheap, small and probably little more than a political token of support.

European governments are constantly aware of the combativity of their respective working classes and it is partly this which accounts for the lack of enthusiasm in some governments for 'Reagan's confrontationist rhetoric.

The defeat of Thatcher by the miners and water workers will not have gone unnoticed.

We must recognise that the US operates from a position which has weakened since the Second World War-as demonstrated by the inability to intervene in Iran and Nicaragua.

Now is the time to press home the offensive against imperialism.

Support for and the politi Zionism in the movement will Homeless Palestinia Palestinians defeat of bearing in mind the fact that tish labour the racist state of Israel is à strong totally reliant upon outside

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ship are dividing up the spoils which imperialism has allowed