-

Tribute paid to South African leader

50 fighting years —

By JAMES LEECH

TORONTO — Tribute was
paid here September 7 to Dr.
Yusuf Dadoo, an outstanding
leader of South Africa’s anti-
apartheid struggle, on the occa-
sion of his 70th birthday, which
actually fell on Sept. 5.

Dr. Dadoo, who was not in
Canada for the tribute, will have a
memento of the event, a book of
greetings from all those present.
Just weeks earlier he had been
honored by the United Nations
Special Committee Against
Apartheid ‘‘in recognition of his
great contribution to the national
liberation movement of South
Africa.’ The Committee also de-
cided “to invite him for consulta-
tions on the present stage of the
struggle for liberation.”

Dadoo, who has been active in
the liberation struggle for 50
years, currently holds the posts
of: vice-chairman of the Revolu-
tionary Command, African Na-
tional Congress; president of the
South African Indian Congress;
and chairman of the South Afri-
can Communist Party. He is, as
well, a member of the presidential
committee of the World Peace
Congress.

At the Toronto celebration,
Canadian Communist leader, Wil-
liam Kashtan, whose 70th birth-
day preceded that of his South Af-

rican comrade by mere months,
recalled his meetings with Dadoo
in a number of world capitals.

“The lesson of our history is
that the key to freedom is a
united people fighting for a
single common goal: People’s
Power over every inch of an In-
divisible South Africa! Whilst
deriving inspiration from the
deeds and traditions of past re-
sistance, we must build the
unshakable unity of all. We
must deepen the unifying na-
tional consciousness of all our
people — African, Indian, Col-
ored and democratic white —
which is a prerequisite for a
nation-wide uprising and vic-
tory along the lines of our Free-
dom Charter! In this year of
1979, we march forward to
further develop the process of
mass political mobilization —
bringing together of all organi-
zations, groups and individuals
opposed to apartheid — unity in
opposition to all aspects of the
inhuman system of apartheid,
laying the basis for a people’s
war in which we combine armed [
actions with all forms of politi-
cal struggle. In this struggle the
working class has a central
role ...*

— Dr. Yusuf Dadoo, London,
January 1979.

‘

“I feel quite personal in recog-
nizing Comrade Dadoo’s. birth-
day,’ Kashtan said. Dadoo ex-
pressed the characteristics of a
true patriot and a true inter-
nationalist, he pointed out, ‘‘and
that’s his source of strength and
the source of strength of his
Party.”’

Kashtan said they had met first
in 1946 in Moscow, at a con-
ference of Communist and Work-
ers’ Parties, where the Canadian
and South African Communist
Parties held generally similar pos-
itions in the face of difficulties
raised by China.

After that, in a number of
places, including the 1969 Com-

munist and Workers’ Parties con- .

ference and a few years ago in
Vietnam the two had met.
Kashtan praised not only
Dadoo’s political ability to ad-
vance the views of his Party, but
his very human relations with
others. Wishing Dadoo ‘‘happy
birthday,” Kashtan expressed
the full solidarity of the Com-
munist Party of Canada with the
South African Communist Party.

African National -Congress
spokesman Peter Bunting intro-

duced the ANC’s deputy chief

representative in Canada, Don
Mooljee, who offered highlights
from Yusuf Dadoo’s career; Wil-
liam Kashtan; George Poonen, an
active South African trade union
organizer and anti-apartheid
fighter, a comrade-in-arms of
Dadoo before coming to Canada
several years ago; and Dr. John
Morgan, president of the Cana-
dian Peace Congress.

Mooljee related that Dadoo,

“who had joined the Communist

Party in 1940, had become in-
volved in political activity while
studying medicine in London and
Edinburgh beginning in 1929. Re-
turning to South Africa as a doc-
tor in 1936, Dadoo immersed him-
self in radical politics, advocating
the closer cooperation of Indians,
Africans. and *‘Coloreds’’.

In the course of his struggles for
non-European rights, including
freedom of movement, against
the pass laws, and in anti-war
campaigns he was associated with
other well-known figures such as
J.B. Marks, and Dr. Naicker, and
experienced arrest and
imprisonment. In 1960 Dadoo
was persuaded to leave South Af-
rica, and took up the work of the
ANC in London, England, where
he now lives.

George Poonen, twice detained
under the banning law of South
Africa, greeted Dadoo’s birthday,
and outlined the fightback stretch-
ing from the 30s and 40s whenever
new legislation was introduced to
deprive the Africans and other
non-Europeans of nights.

“Freedom will come to South
Africa," Poonen~ declared,

‘because nobody can destroy the -
_ fight for freedom.”’ in which

Dadoo, Poonen himself and
others had engaged and were en-

gaging, “‘even though they use.

exile, prison and torture.”’

Peace Congress president John
Morgan, like Dadoo, a member of
the World: Peace Congress presi-
dential committee, called atten-
tion to Dadoo’s ‘tremendous zest
for life’’ along with his will to
struggle. In thinking of those mil-
lions of people in South Africa
“who will not stop, who will
win ... we hope those things will
be won during the remaining
years of his life,’’ Morgan said.

_ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 21, 1979—Page 8

WBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS

c

|

Canadian. Communist leader William Kashtan, Don Mooljee and Peter Bunting of the ANC liste

George Poonen, an ANC veteran delivers a tribute to Dr. Yusuf Dadoo on his 70th birthday.
s Vv

He linked the many struggles of
the world’s peoples, saying that
‘‘oppression hides behind racism,
behind chauvinism,’’ whereas
people fighting for their liberation

also want a peaceful existence.
‘*Those of us working to prevent
World War III and for disar-
mament know our allies,’’ he
said.

In saluting a peace activi

Yusuf Dadoo, and wishing hill)
happy birthday, Morgan wishe®

‘‘a happy new day of birth to thé
South Afican people; aa

British unions tell Thatcher

D

hands off the labor movement

18,000 came to scab but instea? |
stood timidly across the street, 2”

By WILLIAM ALLAN
BLACKPOOL — The Tory
Thatcher government’ was

warned here by the 1,200 dele-
gates representing 12- million
British unionists at the Trade
Union Congress (TUC) to keep
its hands off the labor movement
— or else!

The government has said in Oc-
tober when parliament re-opens,
they will introduce bills to outlaw
the closed shop, ban secondary
picketing and control union elec-
tions on strike votes and union
Offices.

Delegates without one single
dissenting vote passed a resolu-
tion detailing a vigorous campaign
of mass resistance in the event the
government tries to pass
union-curbing laws.

In 1974 another Tory govern-
ment, headed by Edward Heath, °

put into effect an Industrial Labor
Relations Act which put hand-
cuffs on labor's rights. The min-
ers’ union fought these laws,
which set a “cooling off’ period.
The Heath Tory government fell
because of protest strikes and
mass demonstrations.

Moving the resolution at the
current Congress Joe Wade of the
National Graphical Association
(printers) declared, ‘‘if the
government won’t listen to
reason let them feel the weight of
our industrial strength.”’

The Congress also condemned
the widespread use of court-
issued injunctions against ordi-
nary picketing by union branches.
The Congress called for disband-
ing Special Patrol Groups of
police which act independently of
regular police forces and are used
against strikes. The delegates re-
ported many cases of police brut-
ality. One woman doctor attend-
ing a struck picket had her hand
split open by a police club. The
special cops have been particu-
larly active in racist shootings and
attacks on oppressed peoples.

Support was developing for a
proposal by the timber and furni-
ture workers’ union to extend the
two-day strikes (occuring weekly
in support of the engineering
workers’ demands for a minimum

wage of £80 weekly, and the shor-
ter work-week) into a national
one-day stoppage by the entire
12-million-member TUC. The
Amalgamated Union of Engineer-
ing Workers (AUEW), last month
conducted every Monday, one-
day stoppages in an effort to win
their demands. Two million
AUEW members stopped work
each Monday.

Now in September, it’s two-
day stoppages. Despite a
nation-wide effort by employers,
press, TV and radio to whip up a
back-to-work movement, two
million workers were out Sept.
3-4 in another stoppage.
Employers like Leyland Bus
Company are threatening to fire
thousands, but it has had no ef-
fect. ;

The AUEW decided to back
the furniture workers’ amend-
ment for one-day TUC demon-
strations in support of the
engineering workers, against the
£648-million cut in social services
proposed for October by the
Thatcher government, and to de-
feat curbs on unions.

Other national unions backing
demonstrations against the
government were locomotive en-
gineers and the building trades.
TUC general secretary Len Mur-
ray, told reporters the TUC will
resist the attacks. Murray seemed
to favor the TUC going over to
mass protest movements on the
job and streets. He said the TUC
now has a membership of
12,128,078, out of a total work
force of 25,000,000.

The Congress is under great
pressure to do this because back
out in the streets overwhelming
support, for the two day weekly
strikes of engineering workers is
shutting down huge sections of
British industries. The Sept. 3-4
two-million protest completely
routed the high pressure cam-
paign of the employers, backed
by TV, press and the government
forecasting a ‘‘big rebellion”
against the two-day strikes.

At the main Leyland factory in
Birmingham, the company pre-
dicted more than 1,000 would

‘cross picket lines. Only 50 out of

‘signed an agreement with ving

raid to move. Throughout Scot

land an estimated 150,000 stop”

ped — 100,000 of them in #
Glasgow area. No one tried
cross picket lines.

The Engineering Employes,

Federation (EEF) made up %

1,600 companies admitted Sept.4 '
that their efforts to build a back t0

work movement have failed
Some 250 of their members havé

signed agreements with the)

AUEW for the £80 minimum
wage, a cut in the hours towards 4

35-hour work week by 1981, fol)
one single expiration date for tW® |
million workers under contra®)
and for two extra days holiday: |

The Morning Star, Britain $)
Communist daily newspape |
commenting on these events)

wrote, ‘‘these developments
mass popular struggle based
the labor movement but bring
in ever-wider sections of

population and extending ov
the whole area under attack bY
the Tories, can open the way
defeat of the Tories and the retu™

Tories, 10,000 in shipyards, é
thousands more in public service
will hit women and Blacks wo
declared Christina Page, of ¢
shops workers’ union, on bei
presented at the Congress Wi
the Women’s Gold Badge
achievements. in unionism.
member of the union’s execull
and a Communist, she has 4!
been a youth leader.

PLO-Turkey

ANKARA — The Palestife
Liberation Organization bee

the

Government of Turkey 9!” "
PLO representatives diplomati?
rights and privileges and grant!

the PLO the right to open an offic?
in this city. _ :

BOYCOTT P
CHILEAN GOOD>

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