'Lin Piao dead'-statement

PEKING'S year-long silence on the fate of Lin Piao, the former Defence Minister who was once Mao Tsetung's right-hand man ended yesterday with a statement from the Chinese embassy in Algiers.

A spokesman confirmed that Lin was killed in an air crash in Mongolia last September. He refused to give any further details.

The Algerian government newspaper 'AlMoujahid' carried a lengthy statement from 'an official Chinese personality accusing Lin of making many errors, of arrogance and of trying What we think Puppet troops routed UNITE TO DEFEND DOCK JOBS WHAT IS at stake in the dock strike? Jack Jones, T&GWU leader, and the Communist Party say more job guarantees for dockers in containerbases. The dockers made their views clear by roaring 'Heath out' when they heard the news of the national dock strike. This important political understanding has not simply been grafted onto the struggle-it arose out of it.

For years the dockers have been sold modernization by union officials and many shop stewards' leaders, like Jack Dash in London. Older portworkers got blood money and were pensioned off and the rest got a few pounds extra for operating modern berths where productivity increased a hundredfold.

Eventually the attack on the dock labour force became so severe. that dockers took matters into their own hands and the picketing began.

They quickiy found that they were faced with a political fight. The government jailed five dockers who were defending their right to work. Now there is a near universal belief that the crisis on dockland cannot be solved until the Tories are brought down.

is this political development that Jack Jones and the Communist Party-ever faithful to the politics of class compromise-want to stop.

ley say firmer guarantees on jobs would solve the issue.

This is nonsense and only a desperate ploy to re-channel the struggle back along safe 'trade union' lines.

Firstly the jobs available in container bases could not possibly absorb the run-down of labour on the docks.

One example illustrates this. At Liverpool, Ocean Port Services, a stevedoring firm owned by Ocean Steamship, are containerizing their Far East trade and shipping through Southampton.

›S say this means they will be 500 men surplus on Merseyside. Now suppose these dockers were allowed jobs in container bases. Where would they go?

sean Steamship is part of the giant OCL container consortium. They send all their containers through inland depots owned by the Containerbase Federation. Could the Containbase Federation offer jobs to all the 500 from Merseyside?

No, the group's six depots currently employ 190 men—nearly three times the number of surplus Liverpool dockers. to "hoodwink masses'.

It said he had 'attempted a coup d'etat and tried to assassinate' Mao. 'After this plot was foiled, he fled on September 12 towards the Soviet Union on a plane which crashed in the People's Republic of Mongolia, the statement said.

Lin Piao, born in 1908 in a poor Hupeh family, joined the Chinese Communist Party as a cadet at the Whampoa Military Academy in 1925.

Lin played a continual role in the Party's struggle for power and headed the Chinese Red Army in Manchuria at the end of the last war.

The 'jobs guarantees' demand is totally inadequate for another reason. The workers who are employed in the bases are union members. They also have the right to work. It is not a question of warehousemen, drivers and dockers fighting desperately for a diminishing pool of employment in • the transport industry, but a united fight by the three sections against all redundancy.

The third and most important reason for rejecting this formula is that it only disguises the further drift towards a smaller dock labour force.

Containerization as a system reduces jobs all along the transport network. The redundancies will not stop just because dockers get a handful of jobs in container bases. le drivers, warehouseman and dockers have found that the container is a thing to be feared not welcomed. This is because employers use it to destroy jobs and increase profits and not for the benefit of the working class. le control of the whole transport industry is therefore at stake in the dock strike and that means the survival of the Tories is also at stake. Dockers must be joined by other workers to force this vicious and discredited government out of office.

Labour government pledged to socialist policies which must include: • No redundancies for dockers, drivers containerbase • An immediate shorter working week. Keep workers whose jobs are threatened on full pay until the transport industry is nationalized and planned on socialist lines.

Abolition of the unattched register. all dockers.

The immediate registration all non-scheme ports.

Recall of the nial conference policy and plan to implement it. ese demands can only be won if the Tories are forced from office. The solution to the dock crisis is not job guarantees but the nationalization of all the transport industry and shipping, without compensation under workers' control.

I trade unions must join with the dockers to win this massive political struggle. The Tories are shaking-let's bring them down!

He later demolished Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang in northern China during the civil war, despite Chiang's numerical superiority.

After the liberation in 1950 he became a member of the politburo, the party's top policy-making body.

Standing on the 'left' wing of the Chinese bureaucracy, Lin Piao was a prime mover in the Cultural Revolution which began in 1966.

The youth and students were mobilized to purge the bureaucracy of time-servers and careerists.

The left turn came to an abrupt end two years temporary Full pay for T&GWU biento adopt this out the • fight ago, though was Lin confirmed as Mao's heir.

Internationally the Maoist leaders prepared the way for rapprochement with the United States by betraying the struggle in Bangla Desh, solidarizing themselves with the Ceylon regime against the JVP revolt and supporting the butcher Numeiry in the Sudan.

Lin Piao's position in relation to these events is still far from clear. But the Chinese statement makes it clear that the rightward turn produced an upheaval in the Maoist leadership. at Quang Tri SOUTH VIETNAMESE forces have' suffered a stunning reverse in their highly-publicised efforts to retake the provincial capital Quang Tri, tured by liberation April 28.

Their paratroopers, who claimed to have reached the city's citadel on Wednesday, have now been withdrawn from the fighting around the city and replaced by marines. The citadel is still in the hands of the liberation forces.

Officers at the front told correspondents that the paratroops had never been inside the citadel for very long and never held more than a small corner of the 50-acre walled fortress. S4,000m trade deficit forecast for US THE UNITED STATES the fourth largest montl Commerce Department exports actually dropped $552.4m in May.

The total deficit for the first six months of this year stood at $3,342.8m and administration officials have predicted that it will top the $4,000m mark for the year as a whole.

This would more than double last year's deficit, which was the first this century. Since last December's international currency realignment forced by the US to make American goods more competitive on world markets the US trade accounts have been getting worse instead of better.

This has already led to several serious- runs against the dollar, as holders of the US currency have tried to buy other currencies thought to be more likely to retain their value.

present trade figures are almost certain to precipitate a Un Pleo (right) with Mao during the Yet on Wednesday Lt Gen Du Quoc Dong, the paratroop commander, said his troops had raised the South Vietnamese flag over the citadel and 'virtually cleared' it of North Vietnamese troops.

•The commander of US forces in Vietnam, Gen Frederick Weyand, visited the paratroop headquarters on Wednesday to decorate Gen Dong with the US Legion of Merit. He said the drive to retake : Quang Tri was 'going very well'.

He added: 'No American units could have done better in this situation.' In fact, said a US adviser on the spot: 'They were taking 150 wasnt worth hanging in it just According to the 'New York Times', the paratroopers 'have been in continuous heavy combat in the Quang Tri sector for weeks. Casualties and the exhaustion of jungle life have taken their toll!

Behind their smokescreen of balance of trade plung lly deficit on record, ar in Washington. While 0.2 per cent, lifting the new round of speculation the US currency.

Faced with a continuing deterioration in its trading position, the US government is stepping up the pressure on other countries for trade concessions. US and Japanese officials are currently bargaining at Hakone, Japan, over a long list of American demands for lifting of Japanese tariffs.

The Americans also want Japan to contract to buy $300mworth of US aircraft and $160mworth of enriched uranium. The Japanese negotiators have said the aircraft are of no use to them.

Similar pressure is being applied to Europe, and at the GATT meeting earlier this week, the US succeeded in forcing the Common Market countries to lift certain tariffs on US food imports. lies and propaganda about the course of the battle, the South Vietnamese are in deep trouble. They originally expected the liberation forces to thrust down from Quang Tri towards Hué, the ancient imperial capital.

Instead the North Vietnamese forces have turned their flank. As the 'New York Times' puts it: 'In recent weeks there has been growing evidence of massive communist movement all along the western flank of Hué, especially, near the south-western irebases.

One of these firebases, Bastogne, which straddles the approach to Hué from the A Shau valley west of Hué, was abandoned to liberation forces by its South Vietnamese defenders on Thursday. Having failed to retake Quang Tri, the South Vietnamese now face a direct threat to their base in Hué.

The tenacity and determination of the liberation fighters has now turned the tables on their opponents and opened up a new phase of the offensive. ed deeper into the red in June cording to figures released b y the imports increased by 0.7 per cent, next trade deficit to $590.3m, remove the dollar's gold backing on August 15 last year destroyed all basis for the stability of international currency relations.

The half-yearly American trade figures were anxiously awaited by foreign dollar-holders and they are certain to fuel another run on the dollar.

The dollar has been extremely exposed since Britain floated the pound at the end of June and an all-round revaluation of European currencies against the dollar was staved off only when the Federal Reserve Bank intervened in the market to support it.

• Gold reached a new record price on the bullion markets yesterday. By mid-afternoon it reached $67.45 an ounce.

Sterling continued to waver and firmed at $2.45. The •Financial Times' index dropped almost three points to 497.5.

saturday