World

By WILLIAM POMEROY

National Congress, the South African
Front, the Pan-African Congress and

some of the emergency measures, can only
be greeted as victories for anti-apartheid
forces,

The fight for democratic rights enabled
these forces to mobilize the power of the
people for ending apartheid itself. This
included winning Black workers’ rights to
Organize in trade unions and to strike, and
forcing recognition of the rights to other
forms of organization and to hold demon-
strations.

The apartheid
regime’s attempts
to reverse these
gains through its
State of emergency
measures was a
great stimulus to
the international
anti-apartheid
movement. The re-
sulting economic |
sanctions gravely 4 -
affected the South DE KLERK
African economy. The country’s overall
anti-democratic image isolated it interna-
tionally.

President F.W. de Klerk is actively
promoted as a reform leader by his own
ruling white National Party and by his
Western allies in the U.S., Britain, West
Germany and elsewhere . De Klerk’s latest
moves have this character.

For some time, the de Klerk regime’s
reform propaganda has promoted shifting
the apartheid issue from the field of sharp
struggle to the calm negotiating table. If

_ Recent changes in South African poli-
cies, including the release of Nelson Man-
dela, the unbanning of the African
Communist Party, the United Democratic

other organizations, and the suspension of

the ANC has been skeptical and cautious
about this line, it’s because de Klerk has
done nothing to alter the apartheid system
itself and has persistently declared his
intention to preserve such essential fea-
tures as the Group Areas Act and other
racial segregation laws.

The ANC fully supports the Harare
Declaration adopted by the Organization
of African Unity’s Ad Hoc Committee on
South Africa. This backs the concept of a
democratic negotiated settlement of the
apartheid question and calls upon South
Africa’s apartheid regime to create the
necessary climate for negotiations. Min-
imal conditions. include unconditional
release of all political prisoners and detai-
nees, lifting of bans on all restricted organ-
izations, removal of all troops from
townships, an end to the state of emer-
gency and repeal of all laws, such as the
Internal Security Act, which limit political
activity, and an end to political trials and
political executions.

De Klerk responded partially to these
demands, moving some of the way toward
creating the needed climate. But the
regime also seeks to gain the political initi-
ative over the ANC.

It is aware of the mounting anti-
apartheid upsurge within the country,
including the January announcement by
the 2-million member United Democratic
Front, uniting over 600 organizations,
that, in defiance of the former ban, it
would reopen offices and hold a massive
national conference in April. Increasingly,
at mass rallies and marches, ANC and
South African Communist Party flags and
banners are waved.

The strike wave is also growing. The
recent three-month-long railway strike
against the state-owned South African
Transport Services (SATS) ended in sub-
stantial victory for the Black workers. It

De Klerk still manoeuvring in S. Africa

RALLY CELEBRATES UNBANNING
forced de Klerk to move.

was led by the South African Railway and
Harbour Workers’ Union, to which SATS
had refused recognition. Company thugs
and police killed 20 workers and 23,000
workers were fired. The settlement
included recognition of the union and
rehiring of all dismissed workers.
Popular sentiment was also shown by
the outpouring of Black demonstrators
against the British cricket team, headed by
Mike Gatting, whose members were
branded as mercenaries for breaching the
international anti-apartheid sports boy-
cott in return for enormous payments

funded by apartheid companies. Militant

demonstrations met Gatting’s team at
every playing field.

Western propaganda will likely try to
make the ANC look unreasonable
because it doesn’t now renounce armed

OF ANC ... pressure of mass movement

struggle. The ANC has insisted that it will
continue this policy until the conditions
which made it necessary are removed. It
points out that the regime continues to use
violence against people and says Umk-
honto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, the
ANC military wing) will continue to oper-
ate until violence is negotiated away by
both sides.

In response to de Klerk’s announce-
ments, the ANC has decided to rebuild its
organization inside South Africa and send
a delegation to meet with de Klerk to
discuss issues hindering the opening of
negotiations. It is recognized that a long
road must still be traversed before there
are real democratic rights in South Africa.

William Pomeroy is the London corres-
pondent for the U.S. People’s Daily World.

UNO win a dilemma for Washington strategists

This article appeared in the Sandinista
daily, Barricada, following the Nicaraguan
elections.

By MONICA ZALAQUETT

It is said that Ronald Reagan believes
that the Sandinistas did a trick with the
elections, so as to lose and not win. Perhaps
it would not have been such a bad idea, and

_ it does not take just an actor’s imagination

to suspect it, knowing the dexterity which
the Sandinistas have shown over the past
ten years of military, political and diplo-
matic adversities.

If we accept that the Nicaraguan people’s
vote was against the war and its consequen-
ces in the life of the nation, in an attempt to
halt an unjust and cruel aggression, it
becomes clear that the FSLN did not lose
the elections because of the support people
gave to the UNO and the hodge-podge of
interests the parties claim to represent.

On the contrary, many voted for an end
to the contras and to the threats and pres-
sures coming from the U.S. administration.

| This U.S. strategy is well known, especially

' by Ronald Reagan, whose government

began the policies of erosion and economic

| destruction against Nicaragua, which have

caused a deep resentment among thousands

of Nicaraguans who have lost their friends

and family to an army he himself begat.
How else could you explain the sad

é paradox of those who voted for the UNO?

¢@ Reagan is rightly worried, because he

understands that for the foreseeable future,

| the new government of Nicaragua will have
| to face the consequences of the chaos result-

Everything points to the U.S. having bargained on winning
the 1996 and not the 1990 elections. They are now forced
to face the unexpected challenge of administering the

disaster they themselves have caused.
[SEE SSSA SCRAP a ER PS oh POR VERE OS RE Ear RN SS ES asseCEIS OE WE aca SoC TT Se ee Te eR ee eee Tee

ing from his policies, a punishment he had
reserved solely for the Sandinistas.

The strategy of low intensity warfare was
conceived as a long-term strategy, designed
to destabilize and overthrow a government
using a: diversity of methods. It was not
meant ‘to allow the same government to
hand over power after impeccably free and
democratic elections, just as the economic
crisis was reaching an all time low and it was
becoming impossible to tackle it without a
real social consensus.

Reagan’s strategy was aimed at finishing
off the Sandinistas’ prestige and destroying
their organizational force. In no way did it
contemplate converting them into the
strongest and most dignified opposition
force in Latin America. Reagan and his
followers never counted on a group like the
UNO having to pay the political costs of
U.S. military and economic undermining of
Nicaragua.

The situation is even more acute because
with the situation in eastern Europe, the
financial responsibilities it has acquired fol-
lowing the Panama invasions and its eco-

nomic commitments with various Latin
American governments over the drug-
trafficking problem — and its own internal
financial tensions — the United States has
been forced to tighten the purse-strings.

That is perhaps why the Bush adminis-
tration was preparing for the next period of
Sandinista rule, without contemplating new
investment in the failed contra project and
under the illusion that this would be the
FSLN’s last six years. What is certain is that
the current U.S. government hoped that the
grave problems in Nicaragua resulting from
the economic strangulation would put the
Sandinistas in an unresolvable situation,
causing them to lose -once and for all —
their social base, their strength and their
representativity.

Everything points to the U.S. having bar-
gained on winning the 1996 and not the
1990 elections. Its surprise at the results was

therefore understandable, as was its original *

fear of ‘ta Sandinista trick,” as it is now
forced to face the unexpected challenge of
administering the disaster that U.S. policy
in fact created.

The election results brought little eupho-
ria in the administration, after so many
years of war, the huge amounts of money
invested, the bitter disputes in Congress and
after so much Nicaraguan blood has been
spilt.

It is clear that the administration was not
ready nor eager to take on the economic
commitment of Nicaragua so soon, as was
indicated by the surprising announcement
that the U.S. asked the Soviet Union to
continue economic aid to Nicaragua. The
incredible irony of this has not been lost of
the 60,000 Nicaraguan victims of the brutal
policy which was justified on the basis of
restraining Soviet “totalitarianism and
expansion” in Central America. Now the
U.S. asks the Soviets for a helping hand in
the problematic situation they now face in
Nicaragua. Reagan is right when he predicts
the that Sandinistas will come out of all this
self-assured and triumphant. It is now the
turn of the UNO to face the people and
respond to them for the consequences of 10
years of U.S. aggression against the coun-
try.

In the meantime, the Sandinistas will
continue reaping the abundance of deep
respect the people have for them, having led
the struggle against U.S. aggression with
dignity and valour. Reagan was wrong,
however, in thinking that the Sandinista
election defeat was premeditated. The San-
dinistas also admit to having been surprised
to see how this setback in the polls has
become in reality a victory, both in moral,
and ultimately political, terms.

Pacific Tribune, March 19, 1990 e 9