To defeat Tories Engineer miner alliance C is needed

ingineers' prosident Hugh Scanion in pensive mood with London protest over jailed seamen 'Slur' on scared Bengalis FATE of 22 Bengalis who jumped their lee rather than return to W Pakistan has la Desh officials in London. Guerrillas hold politicians in contempt BY A EIGHT leading Bangla Desh politicians-including the acting president and the prime minister-made a triumphant entry into Dacca-the capital of their new nation-yesterday.

However, the upsurge of the mass movement frightens the official Bangla Desh government as well as the Indians.

It wants to see the guerrilla movement disarmed and its leaders neutralized. At present the guerrillas still hold a key position because they have close ties with the masses of the people who want, to see collaborators punished.

According to Henry Bradreporting from Dacca "The Washington Post', the bulk of the young guerrillas hold the Bangla Desh politicians in contempt.

They feel the politicians who formed the exile regime in April should have been fighting inside Pakistan instead of sitting comfortably and safely in India,? he commented.

The most radical wing of the guerrilla forces call themselves the 'Mujib Bahini' to distinguish themselves from the larger and more official ance to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, they actually stand for a programme which is much more radical than his. Most of them are university students.

Even the Mukti Bahini feel themselves. independent of the politicians sitting it out in Calcutta. As Bradshaw puts it: "The Bangla Desh regime are conservative in orientation, as was the, Sheikh. The aniversity students had always pushed him to the left to: Employment Secretary Robert Carr. FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT.

adopt a more radical position.

'It was the students who demanded independence while Sheikh Mujib was trying to negotiate autonomy for E Pakistan within a Pakistani framework. Bangla Desh officials now say that it was this radical pressure that brought about the Pakistani army crackdown' In other words, those who claim to speak on behalf of Bangla Desh believe that they would have been able to do a deal with Yahya Khan but for the revolutionary upsurge of the masses and the guerrillas.

In Pakistan the archdemagogue Lulliqar Ali Bhutto is still keeping his options open.

BEFORE surrendering, Pakistani troops murdered at least 280 Bengali intellectuals in Dacca.

Similar killings were intended to wipe out all intellectual leaders in the country, a BanglaDesh government spokesman said in Calcutta yesterday.

The troops were assisted by armed levies known as 'AlBadr' who roamed the country for months carrying out killings, torture and rape of supporters of Bangla Desh.

That is why the anger of the masses has burst out against all those who supported or collaborated with Yahya Khan's forces.

Steelmen FIRTH BROWN joint stewards' committee assed a resolution t‹ inancial and material S to the Young Soc ba shop has give ipport alists' DAVID A FIGHTING alliance between Britain's miners and engineering workers could decide the fate of the Tory government next month.

their £5 to £9 pay claim. he country.

ships at Rochester and 'shocked and saddened' I was under the impresto hang on their belts.

on they would be treated honourable and lawabiding citizens', Mr M.

Ahmad, second secretary at the Bangla Desh Mission told me yesterday. of the working class.

'Why should they be taken into custody and sent to prison? It characters, is a slur on their Eleven Bengali seamen left the 6,148 ton cargo vessel 'Bagh E Karachi' in Dundee and another 11 walked off the claim. the BP tanker 'British Vision' the Isle of Grain, near Federation - like the NCB Rochester.

Mr Ahmad said the captain the Tories will back to the and officers of the 'Bagh E Karachi' were • W Pakistani 2.8 million engineers. and relations between them and the Bengali crew were gance is that they have replied strained to breaking point to just one aspect of the when they tried to drum up claim, for minimum-rate incash collection to aid creases of £5 to £6, with an Pakistan. offer of just £1.50.

The crew also feared what would happen to them when sections of workers still talk they returned to W Pakistan, in vague, guarded tones about where the safety of over 'suspecting' possible govern400,000 Bengalis is in ment intervention behind the jeopardy following the victory scenes-without ever saying in Bangla Desh. how they propose to combat The tanker crew felt the same way, but BP agreed to fly them back to BanglaDesh as soon as circumstances permitted. is: Do you think you can beat / Good faith the Tories alone?

Both groups of seamen reported to Bengali authorities tion of engineers and miners. when they landed and the matter was referred in good faith to the Home Office. Accession to the Commo The Tory response was to Market sight unseen by those commit 21 of the men to Pentonville prison and to suffer its effects: the British clap one youth into Ashford working class. remand centre.

They will be kept there until arrangements are made mons vote on the Tories' sellto return them to Bangla Desh, a Home Office spokesman said.

'I am terribly sad the government has done this,' said Mr Ahmad. "They have treated the seamen as illegal majority. immigrants but there was never any question of that.

They asked only for a limited mon Market entry. time to stay?

:k campaign no newing bour MPS.

lon has 'Right - to - Work' campaign.

The committee also wants the Sheffield Trades and Labour Council to support the campaign. it.

CHRISTMAS ON THE CREGGAN On-the-spot Ulster workers and their wives Leaders of the National Starts on p. 2 today Union of Mineworkers now appear convinced that their members are being forced inexorably towards strike action on January Q. over At their meeting with the union executive earlier this week, the Coal Board insisted chat they on no time o Contingency plans for …a strike are already under discussion between industrialists, coal-industry officials and electricity-board chiefs all over All the blandishments of TUC secretary Victor Feather after his meeting with the NUM top brass yesterday cannot disguise the fact that Heath and his ministers want the scalps of 280,000 miners The Tories badly need a repeat of last year's Post Office defeat in order to ram the Common Market, plus the effects of US President Nixon's trade war, down the throats FOUR DAYS before the miners are due to strike, leaders of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers will start a three-day meeting on the rejection of their pay The Engineering Employers' SIXTEEN men were arrested by troops in Ulster yesterday exudes smug complacency that in the 24 hours to 8 a.m. Most were from the Belfast area.

internment on August 9, 1,950 people have been hilt their hard line against the arrested under the Special Powers Act. At present 620 are being held in detention centres. Only 18 of these have A measure of their arro- been charged with offences.

Mr Geoffrey Johnson Smith, Defence under-Secretary (army), has admitted in the Commons that two boys, aged 13 and 15, were taken from their homes in Belfast by British soldiers. He said the boys were taken into custody by the army and then handed over to the RUC. The Yet the leaders of both Minister also revealed that both boys had been photographed and fingerprinted before being released. 'I do not intend to set up an inquiry? he added. 'This is a matter, for the N Ireland government.' Cost-of-living 1 question that the fizz out of But the Tories can be defeated by joint mobilizaOn January 22 the Tories THE INCREASE in family ropose to sign the Treaty o income supplements (FIS)

announced on Tuesday is who will be expected to no more than a cheap gimmick by the Tory government and a fraud from beter a Kill House to com ginning to end.

From its inception in out terms of fisheries, in October 1970, the FIS system which there must be no re- has been used by the Tories peat of the October 18 be- to drive another nail into the trayal when Labour's right welfare state and the free shored up Heath's tottering health service.

Allegedly catering for the Tanuary 20 will undoubtedly needs of Britain's poorest form a new focus for big 150,000 families, it is instead popular opposition to Com- a 'poor-law' system based on the holding down of wages Yet neither Lawrence Daly, and the most vicious means the miners' secretary, nor AUEW president Hugh Scan The £l increase takes the maximum pay-out up to £5.

This is sheer window-dressing Daly and Scanlon must be of the cheapest sort. forced to do so. Much more For the average pay-out to even than the fate of their date has only been £1.72 a own pay claims depends on week. And Brian O'Malley, a Labour's pensions' spokesman, £181.74 needed to complete December Fund IT REALLY is fantastic. {163.52 arrived yesterday bringing our total up to the grand figure of £1,068.74. We are overwhelmed by this magnificent response. There Is no doubt that if you keep this up we can clear our target in time. We cannot thank you enough.

Immediately in the New Year, our editorial board will be travelling around the areas to discuss plans for the expansion of Workers Press, with you, our readers. So let's press on in the last few days left. Rush all last minute donations to :

186a Clapham High St, London, SW4. Interviews with ST. s reckons only 50 per cent of those entitled to claim have done so.

The capitalist press as hail ocimp Security actinister Sir Keith Joseph's masterly stroke.

What they did not make clear, of course, is that the incréase will, in any case, only take effect from April 4, 1972.

In other words, the soaring cost of living will have more than swamped any possible few pence to be added to FIS.

With three days to Christmas the Tories have tried a stunt which only such a reactionary crew of bankers. financiers and monopolists could try.

Prices are rising at least llp in the £ each year, million are on the dole, millions of workers are offered wage-cuts and thousFROM STEPHEN JOHNS IN GLASGOW upper Clyde could collapse.

begin.

talks could start. ands of pensioners face starvation.

Try asking for more and the Tories reply with the same viciousness as that shown to Oliver Twist.

Yet what a charitable season the Tories and their Royal hangers-on have enjoyed.

One family not on FIS was awarded Elm.

As leader of Tory Symphony Orchestra, Edward Heath got another £6,000. For services to Europe another £37,000.

Harold Wilson-a 104 per cent wage increase.

MPs 37 per cent etc., etc.

What about their friends in business and the property world? A means test?

Jim Slater, former partner of Peter Walker, now Environment Minister, buys company after company. His firm Slater Walker Securities buyer for' tne Clydebank yard:

really must get on with this task? IN YOUR CHRISTMAS TOMORROW Tomorrow's edition will be the last before next Tuesday December 28. But we can promise you some entertaining and informative reading for that odd moment during the holidays. For instance: Just how much does Her Majesty änd the Burk House crowd really earn? Jack Gale will tell you, penny by penny . . . stable by stable •.. limousine by limousine in ...

'The Queen is in the counting house ..?

Of course, if you're not getting quite as much as the Royals, you can always. pop down the West End in London to do your shopping. IAN YEATS went among the Christmas crowds during the week. Just your ordinary common or garden shoppers Bond Street and Burlington Arcade, where the furcoated ladies slide from their chauffeured Bentleys to 'window gaze' at 2,000 guinea gems--and think nothing of laying out the cash (sorry, they're on credit accounts) for them, either.

ALSO :

How the revisionists see us and themselves'Comments on the Socialist Labour League by the International Marxist Group and International Socialists.

AND:

Your TV programmes for four days at a glance.

TOPPING THE LIST of a number of other articles will be exciting news about the expansion and enlargement of Workers Press In the New Year.

All in all, an issue to look forward to. So make sure of your copy now by telephoning our circulation department: 01-622 7029.