Army terror stepped up

rifles now in Belfast weekend were the new African leaders plan arms deal opposition FOREIGN Ministers of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia have reached agreement on the strategy to be adopted on any Tory arms deal with S Africa, it was reported from Nairobi at the end of yesterday's meeting there.

The joint communique stated that the four ministers had made 'a number of recommendations' to their heads of state for concerted • action on the arms sale issue.

And in London, the Tory Foreign Office formally denied earlier allegations that the Heath government has decided to end the Beira naval patrol, which has been carried out since 1966 by the British navy to enforce sanctions against the Smith regime in Rhodesia.

First choice FOULNESS, Essex, is still Greater London Council's preference of four possible sites for a third London airport, Mr A. R. Vandermeer, counsel for the GLC, told the Roskill Commission in London yor day. ATUA CONFERENCES DOCKERS Saturday, August 15 YMCA Room 1 Mount Pleasant LIVERPOOL further details write lavanagh, 5 Gamlin Birkenhead. latest innovations in military equipment. Others

Tory leaders

fight miners LEADERS of Britain's 300,000 miners today submit pay demands which the National Coal Board claims would increase its national wage bill by up to 335 per cent in a full year.

The claim - costed at £72 million - includes minimum- BY DAVID MAUDE wage demands of f20 a week for surfacemen, £22 for underground workers and £30 for those slogging it out at the coal-face itself.

It would mean rises of between £3 and f6 a week.

Although carried by only a small majority of delegates to of Mineworkers' these demands.

resolutions reflecting this militancy before the conference.

it the Yorkshire mıners ala in June, many miner I marched with placards demanding their leaders fight MINERS Sunday, September Danum Hotel High St DONCASTER further details writ emrite tos Parsons, 61 Derwent ] ry Fryston, nr Castli Continuous clashes in Ulster as courageous AFTER ALMOST a year of military occupation and six consecutive nights of vicious fighting Women have led many of the militant demonstrations in between British troops and Irish workers in day they stormed the Antrim Rd, Belfast, bartecks wüving Belfast, Ulster is being rapidly turned into an imperialist charnel house.

It is also evident that the reaction to the British army's policy of shooting, looting and booting, which has already claimed five dead, dozens injured and hundreds under arrest, would be much greater in Britain if it wasn't for the conspiracy of silence and distortion pursued by the mass media in this country.

The TV and press lost no opportunity in "embarrassing the Labour government bs giving close-up and first-hand accounts of the struggles and the viewpoints of the Catholic minority in particular.

Free hand

Since the Tories came to power, Ulster has been relegated to the inside pages and vital information suppressed, whilst the Army, equipper with a new and diabolica technology of repression, is given a free hand.

The extreme gravity of the situation, which is being exacerbated daily by the presence of British troops and RUC, has been admitfor minimum wages of between £25 and £35 or resign!

Strike action if the claim is not granted was the main plank of the successful S Wales conference resolution.

But a real fight for the official claim inevitably poses a major clash with both the NCB and the Tory governAnd—to pitch it at its very lowest-most miners will have grave doubts about the NUM's leadership's preparedness or intention to seriously campaign for this claim.

Writing in the July issue of his union's journal, "left'talking NUM general secretary Lawrence Daly set the tone with a statement that the implementation of resolutions adopted by the conference would depend on 'the outcome of negotiations not only with the NCB but with the new Tory government'.

Resistance

Yesterday's private consultations between Employment and Productivity Minister Robert Carr and seven other senior front-benchers have already given part of the Tory answer to this vain reformist hope.

The meeting was called to discuss pay claims submitted by workers directly employed BY THE EDITOR ted by both Catholic and Protestant MPs.

Mr Paddy Devlin, Labour MP for Falls, who previously welcomed troops, yesterday categorically attacked the army's role in the most surprising terms:

'The Army are deliberately provoking trouble in certain selected areas where Catholics live to justify saturation of those areas by troops. [800 troops were deployed in New Lodge Rd alone-ed.] "The British Army are now behaving like conquering Army of medieval times. With the restraining hand (1) of Mr James Callaghan gone from the Home Office, General Freeland is reverting to the type of General that Irish people read about in their historv books.' Mr Devlin is learning the hard way what the Workers Press pointed out a year ago: that the use of British troops by a Labour government would ultimately bring down the Labour government and lead to an even more intense repression by the Tories.

Ulster during the occupation and during curfews. On SunMore weeping and wailing from BRITISH-LEYLAND chairman Lord Stokes added his voice on Tuesday to the anti-strike clamour being generated by company executives in an effort to explair the group's nose-diving profits.

The upturn in trade which he had forecast in February had not materialized, he told shareholders in London.

He was speaking at a meeting called to approve a scheme to provide senior executives with valuable new 'perks', including the to buy shares with money borrowed from the company.

This has the added advantage for British-Leylana, recourses a for ter stee in I course ensuring that the company's profits rise.

The company's profits in the last six months were only fl.1 million, compared with £19.3 million for the same period last year.

In the past year labour costs had risen by 10 per cent, Stokes told the meeting.

This, in turn, was affecting the company's ability to maintain adequate investcranemen return on August 1 by the national stoppage.

This affected their own demand to match the £37 10s-a-week wage offered to the 1,700 Southampton dockers in exchange Devlin Phase Two proposals.

Under this deal employers can operate a waiver clause when shipping is slack and force dock workers down to the £ll Is 8d basic rate. banners and chanting slogans against the tronps.

Stokes tried to lay the blame for this, as always, on the workers:

'We have been plaguea with the effects of strikes by outside suppliers of components. To keep our factories going we have been building cars without tyres, glass, wipers or starter motors, storing them Lord Stokes as far as possible under cover and fitting the missing components later.

'No company or country can indefinitely survive these perpetual unofficial wild-cat strikes which are ruining our international remarks are in line with the threats to British-Leyland jobs issued earlier this week by mandeclared very soon.

Phase

continue MANOEUVRES by London port employers and Transport and General Workers' Union officials to push through modernization have been resumed after the three-week interruption.

Already tally clerks in the enclosed docks have been offered an extra £1 - the sum awarded to all dockers under the Pearson settlement - in a bid to complete a modernization deal this month, today London dockers will be offered £l extra on the proposed £34 10s minimum for modernization.

On Friday the Londor Docks Modernization Com• mittee will meet the employers and union chiefs hope to put the finishing touches to the arrangements for introducing Devlin Phase Twe pay and productivity deals in the port.

Threads

Union officials and employers now aim to pick up the threads of the modernization proposals, broken and seriously jeopardized by the claim for a higher basic rate, and clear the path to speed-up and massive redundancies in all the British ports.

Their greatest fear throughout the dispute was that the £20 basic, if won by dockers, would be reflected in piece rates and bonuses encourage men to reject Devlin outright. corrusion and i complainee among dockers due to the Pearson deal will be a basis for introducing Devlin.

These desires must be dashed by all portworkers who must now be more vigilant than they have ever been in the past and expose and reject these back-stair negotiations on modernization.

In her Knesset (Parliament) speech on Tuesday, however, Israel's Prime Minister Mrs Golda Meir declared that she would only talk on certain conditions.

Washington had first assured them the US would strengthen Israel's defences:

And there would be no withdrawal from the ceasefire lines until a binding peac treaty had been agreed But most important was her declaration that there was no ine stie- 1967 borithdrawal to IPPROV! T i tha wing Gahal Party from th Cabine Israel's second largest party, Gahal is led by Menachem Bity which was formed by Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization).

This group was not only engaged in fighting the Britist forces before 1947, but was also responsible for the massacre of the inhabitants of the Arab village of Deir Yassin in April 1948.

eigin and his followers a:

roud of the fact that th attack, killing 254 men, women and children, set off the flight of large sections of the Palestinian population.

While Meir receives applause for her 'peace-making' acceptance of negotiations, it should not be forgotten that Beigin has been a member of her Cabinet, and that she spent 1970: Thirty years since Trotsky's assassination SOCIALIST FIGHTING broke out yesterday in N Jordan between the Nasserite Action Organization for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. There were dead and wounded on both sides.

The Action Organization declared its support on Friday for Nasser's acceptance of the US plan, while the Popular Front, led by Dr Habash, was the main organizer of the first demonstration in Amman against the neer tiations.

STALINISM IN BRITAIN Now on sale ON THE occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, New Park Publications Ltd has published 'Stalinism In Britain'. Its 440 pages not only trace the degeneration of the Party after Lenin's death right up to Its present 'Parllamentary Road to Soclalism', but they also contaln materlal no longer easlly accessible to Communist Party members and supporters: 'Stalinism In Britain' Is now avallable from New Park PubIlcations Ltd, 186a Clapham High St, London, SW4, at 22s 6d soft cover and £2 hard cover. (Postage extra.)

Intended to abstract the event from Its historical context and to cover the collaboration of International Stalinism in the imperialist slaughter of the Second World War.

While the United States ruling class prepared to obliterate Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stalin, cynically sat down with his Imperialist allles at Potsdam (see and agreed to the reconstruction of capitalism in W Europe, the dismembering of the German working class and the crushing of revolution both Inside and outside his 'sphere of influence'.

What the 'Star' will not mention is that Stalin and, In particular, the British Communist Party wholeheartedly supported the dropping of the bomb as part this filthy deal.

Ex-President Truman remarked:

'On July 24 I casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force. The Russian Premier showed no special Interest. All he said was that he was glad to hear It and hoped we would make "good use of it against the Japanese"!

The CP's 'Dally Worker' greeted the event editorially with the greatest joy and, out of the entire British press, absolutely uncondiflonally.

So much for the crocodile tears that the 'Star' sheds today!

'Peaceful coexistence' 'collective security' and all the Stalinist jargon of class collaboration has produced In practice a state of affairs where, after two Imperialist wars which have claimed the lives of millions of workers and 53 years after the Russian Revolution, the destruction of the entire human race remains on capItalism's agenda.

The yearly ritual of wreath. laying, prayers, vigils, fasts and other conscience-salving, pacifist rubbish is applauded by Labour leaders and Stalinists alike in order to prevent the historical lessons from being learned and reducing the events of August, 1945, to the level of 'horrific' Incidents outside the class struggle and to drag the working class blindfold behind Its 'own' bourgeoisie.

The Kremlin's support for Heath's election and the sell-out of the Stalinists In the dockers' struggle continues the tradition that led to Potsdam and the nuclear destruction of thousands of Japanese workers and their familles.

'Socialism or barbarism'this is the lesson of August 6 and today, as the working class takes the offensive throughout the world, the Fourth • International is preparing to head the struggle for power and the socialist future. nearly a week trying to keep him there.

While the Israelis prepare their bargaining position for the negotiations, the Arab leaders try to cover up the retreat of Nasser in agreeing to the US plan.

TRIPOLI TALKS

Representatives of Jordan, Egypt, Libya and the Sudan, which have accepted the Rogers plan, and of Syria which has—in words-rejected it, assembled in Tripoli yesterday.

Their talks, due to start on Monday, had been held up while the Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, went to Baghdad to try to persuade the Iraqis to attend.

His mission, however, was unsuccessful.

Neither the Iraqis nor the Algerians will be represented at the Tripoli 'summit'.

Both have denounced the Rogers plan as a betrayal of tne Palestinians and condemned Nasser's acceptance.

But the semi-official Cairo paper 'Al Ahram' has stated that at the previous Tripoli meeting in June Nasser made it clear to his colleagues that Egypt would keep a free hand in her international affairs.

In other words, all the Arab leaders, as well as the guerrilla chief Arafat, could have predicted Nasser's reaction to the 'peace' moves which began three months back.

The Syrian government, backed by the Stalinists, has already retreated from its verbal rejection of the US plan by attending the Tripoli meeting.

The Iraqi opposition may not be much longer-lived.

An article in the Baghdad paper 'Ath Thawrah' correctly assesses the Rogers plan as follows:

PLOT 'It reveals an imperialistIsraeli plot to isolate UAR (Egypt) from the question of Arab destiny ... to demilitarize Sinai, to set up permanent security, measures in Sharm ash-Shaikh and the Gulf of Agabah, and to achieve a permanent and final peace between the VAR and Israel in return for withdrawal from only Sinai and for the continuation of the Arab tragedy and the Arab East as it is now.' But at this moment, an Iraqi delegation is in Moscow, alizedhe industries local government, nationcouncils - with miners and railwaymen believed to have been high on the agenda — and almost certainly decided to follow Heath's dictum that they must be firmly resisted.

Nationalized industry chiefs. including the NCB's Lord Robens, will visit Carr's department today to hear the outcome.

Indications are that hardline opposition to the union's claims will, in the case of the miners, combined with attempts to swing their official leaders behind support for further productivity-based attacks on jobs and working conditions.

"The Coal Board, Robens told the NUM conference on July 9, 'could of course meet this [the claim] by adding £72 million to the price of coal.

'As a result, more industries would turn to oil or natural gas, more pits would close..

That, he said was not 'the clever or intelligent way to run the union or the coal Suggestion So, showing why he has reportedly already had several lucrative offers for his services from private industry when his term as NCB chairman ends, this former fulltime NUM official suggested another way. ( 'At the moment, he said, our mechanized faces producing roughly 290 tons of saleable coal per shift. The rest of the time is taken up with delays of one kind another, some unavoidable but the majority-with good management and co-operation -absolutely avoidable 'If we increased the cutting time of the machines by, say, 15 minutes per shift, that would increase the average shift output by, say, 35 tons.

"That would itself be sufficient to meet the cost of a £72 million wage increase without raising prices.

'And that is not all: the method studies that have been made on all mechanized faces show that they are capable, with existing equipment, of producing 420 tons a shift ... it is possible to have high earnings and security of employment, but only if those machines on the face are made nothing allowed to prevent them.

SUBSCRIBE On eve of LAP. conference (Posted dally) OR you select)

months • E4 a year Name...

Address.

LATE NEWS WORK-VOUCHER PLEA The Committee on United Kingdom Citizenship is pressing the Home Secretary to ssue unused Commonwealtr vork-vouchers to East Africar Asians who want to come to Britain.

Committee secretary, Praful Patel, said in London today that there are 9,000 families in the queue for entry to Britain — a total of 25,000 individuals-but of the 8,500 Commonwealth vouchers available annually only 4,000 were issued in 1969.

'Since 1962 each voucher has covered an average family of three,' he said. Ulster aging director George Turnbull.

Turnbull called on the company's workers to buckle down to more production-and promptly went on holiday.

His sudden departure just as the factory resumed full production drew sarcastic comments from workers at the Longbridge, Birmingham factory, where 270 paint-shop workers and 120 tool setters are on strike.

The tool setters are demanding that the company fill the vacancy caused by the retirement of a setter.

The paint shop strike is over a manning dispute. The two strikes yesterday brought the 1800 assembly line to standstill and caused lay-offs among engine assemblers.

WEATHER (73F) in the SW, 25C (77F) in Scotland and the north, to 27C (81F) in the Midlands, London and SE England. Outlook for DUCK A SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE PAMPHLET PRICE Gd discussing an increase in supplies of arms to Iraq.

There are already signs that Baghdad's anti-Nasser campaign is being toned down under Stalinist pressure.

The Arab Stalinists are also busy in defence of Nasser's participation in the US plan.

Three organizations Amman under Stalinist control-the Jordan Popular Front, the Gaza Strip United Front and the Partisans' Organization-hàve issued a joint statement calling on Palestinians to dissociate themselves from the 'senseless campaign against President Nasser' and approving the Rogers proposals.

Meanwhile, the Al-Fatah leader Yasser Arafat has still not commented on Nasser's acceptance of the negotiations or their backing by the Soviet leaders.

Al-Fatah has sent delegates to the Tripoli talks and will be unable to hide its position much longer. AVAILABLE do Workinn-rlace unity needed to defeat the Tory governme By Lary Cavar. 1)

Clapham High