Expulsioys: Act Now!

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What's the matter ... you want to stay free, don't you? for the campaign to stop the deportations of American journalists Philip Agee and Mark Hosenball.

CPSA and ACTT, as well as many individual trade union branches, have endorsed the work of the Agee/Hosenball Defence Committee.

On Wednesdav 8th December a two-hour picket outside the Home Office attracted about 150 supporters, mostly members of the National Union of Journalists to which both Agee and Hosenball belong.

The Book and Magazine Branches of the NUJ passed resolutions calling for a one day strike by all chapels, (office branches) in connection with the picket.

But the NUJ leadership have done nothing to mobilise the union behind its endangered members. A meeting with Rees has been set up, a press conference is to be called, and a somewhat lackadaisical canvass of NUJ MPs has begun.

BLEATING

The National Union of Students invited Agee to address its full national conference last weekend and over 100 Labour MPs have raised their voices in protest, but only one, Arthur Lewis, has gone beyond ritual bleating, to withold his vote from the government.

Home Secretary Merlyn Rees first announced the deportations on November 16th and 17th. Rees declared that the two were to be expelled for "security • reasons" under a section of the 1971 Immigration Act.

All efforts to discover the charges have so far been in vain. Rees refuses to reveal them, again, for "security reasons"!

Agee The appeal will be "tried" before a hand-picked appeals tribunal. (Agee on January lith, Hosenball on the 19th), and even then they will not be told why they are being kicked out, nor will they be allowed legal representation.

Both Agee and Hosenball have denied posing any threat to British security. Agee, a former CIA agent, has provoked extreme hostility from the American government for his book exposing the Agency's terrorist activities (Inside the Company: CIA Diary).

His recent uncovering of CIA activities in Jamaica has also not endeared him to friends of imperialism.

In the absence of concrete information, rumours about the reasons for the deportations have been rife.

DENIED

At one point it was mooted that Hosenball had been planning to name members of MIG in the magazine Counterspy: and the theory was put forward about security and government agents in Ulster. Both these allegations have been denied.

Agee is now working on a second book, but Britain is not mentioned in it. It is reasonable to suppose that the force behind the expulsions is the CIA itself. There is a new Agency chief in Britain, Edward Proctor, and disrupting Agee's work may have been one of his first assignments.

With the recent loan negotiations with the IMF, the government is particularly sensitive, and even more eager than usual to act as lackeys for American imperial1ST.L.

We that if British "security" has been threatened, so much the better. British Military Intelligence, whether operating at home or in the Six Counties, does nothing to protect the interests of the working class. Its hand-in-glove collaboration with the CIA should be exposed wherever possible.

We support the demands of the Agee/Hosenball Defence Committee (Stop the deportations; Agee and Hosenbail must stay; Out with the CIA; Repeal the Immigration Act) and all efforts to build a campaign in the labour movement against this dangerous infringement of democratic rights.

We call on the NUJ to reject back-door haggling with this anti-working class government and to organise national strike action against the deportations.

Any Labour MP with a shred of principle should add his refusal to vote with the government to that of Arthur Lewis.

The Agee/Hosenball Defence Committee is calling a national demonstration on Sunday January 9th (assemble outside Embankment Tube Station at 12.45pm, to march to Home Office and US Embassy).

PAMPHLETS

A benefit film performance will be held at The Other Cinema, (25, Tottenham St. W1, near Goodge St. Tube) on Saturday December 18th, at 4pm.

The Committee have also published two pamphlets, CIA Briefing (20p) and Jamaica Destablised (25p), available from the Agee/Hosenball Defence Committee, c/o NCCL, 186, Kings Cross Road, WC1, to which donations and resolutions of support should also be sent..

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