AFRICAN WORKERS ON THE OFFENSIVE

The racialist lan Smith shipyard workers government in Rhodesia has closed its border with Zambia and enacted stringent emergency legislation which makes collective punishment the rule.

Smith's ally, Balthazar Vorster of South Africa, has struck his own vicious blow against the Zambian economy, barring the export of the foodstuffs, mining equipment and explosives on which Zambia relies.

The measures indicate the mounting panic among the white supremacists of southern Africa as the African nationalist guerrillas win support among the oppressed black populations they rule.

Smith and Vorster together with the Portuguese colonialists of Angola and Mozambique want to seal off Africa south of the Zambesi from the 'subversive' influence of nationalist ideas.

They have left it too late. All their armies and police forces and all their draconian laws are not enough to hold back the masses of southern Africa who have been robbed of their rights by imperialism.

The proof can be seen not only in north-east Rhodesia, where Smith's government claims tribesmen are supporting the guerrillas, but in southwest Africa where the Ovambo workers struck heroically for several months against the contract labour system.

It can be seen in Angola and Mozambique where armed resistance : to the Portuguese fascist colonizers is being organized and is winning support from the local people.

It can be seen in the heartland of apartheid, in South Africa itself, in the recent strikes of black dockers and shipyard workers in Durban, the country's biggest port. AL - 9-L:---It is this that has made necessary the introduction in Rhodesia of measures| which allow collective punishment to be meted out on an arbitrary basis to whole communities of black workers and farmers.

The state of emergency laws introduced by the Smith government empower the provincial commissioners (white administrators responsible only to Salisbury) to impose such punishments on people in their provinces.

Smith claimed that tribal authorities-the governmentappointed chiefs--had asked for •powers 'in line with the African tradition for collective punishment' in areas where guerrillas had obtained active co-operation from local people.

No court hearings need be involved in these punishments which depend entirely on the whim of the commissioner concerned. He does not have to listen to representations from communities he punishes.

At his own discretion any provincial commissioner can impose a fine of any magnitude he chooses on a community where he is. satisfied that any individual is guilty of subversion or of aiding 'terrorists' People who are fined under the regulations will be able to appeal--but only within seven days of the day they pay the fine. There is no formal legal machinery for appeal-they simply have the doubtful right to 'make representations' These powers appear sweeping enough but they are accompanied by others giving any member of the Defence Forces the power to impound property for three days 'if he considers the circumstances would warrant a fine'.

This amounts to a virtual legalization of looting by any soldier in the field. What is more the arbitrary character of the powers gives the government almost unlimited scope to organize acts of provocation against any opposition.

Smith claimed in a speech last week that the "simple, gullible people' of north-east Rhodesia had been misled by witch-doctors some of whom had doubtful qualifications.

But his admission that the guerrilla fighters are winning support in Rhodesia's border regions will come as a bitter blow to those white supremacists who felt secure in their Rhodesian enclave.

Even in South Africa there is growing psychosis among the white rulers about the prospects of warfare spreading south from Rhodesia.

Lt-Gen P. J.. Venter, the head of South Africa's security police, warned earlier this week that guerrilla fighting what he termed 'terrorist activity'-could soon spread to South Africa.

Interviewed by the Johannesburg 'Sunday Times' the general said it would be foolish for South Africans to believe that increased terrorist incidents in Rhodesia, Angola and Mozambique could necessarily be confined beyond South Africa's borders.

Venter naturally has a vested interest in creating as big a fear of terrorism as he can among the white population. He said: 'Just as the police are throwing everything into this fight so must the public be prepared for this danger-both physically and mentally' He added: 'I wish only too sincerely that I could say that the citizens of this country should forget about terrorism and relax, but only a fool would say such • a thing.' Terrorists could already have arrived in South Africa and be in hiding awaiting a chance to strike, he said.

The general called on South Africans to be prepared to Above: Mozambique fighters. spreading South Africa. 'sacrifice their sons and daughters in the defence of the republic' . It remains to be seen how many white South Africans would actually stay to make a last ditch stand in defence of the apartheid system and how many would take to their heels once the republic was really threatened.

Venter, of course, speaks for the ultra-right racialist wing of the ruling group. At a recent conference on combating 'terrorism', ', he described a 'sort of terrorism of the brain' developed in Moscow which reduces 'race inhibitions' South Africa has already participated in the defence of white supremacy in Rhodesia and Mozambique and some of the border patrols which have clashed with nationalist guerrillas have been South African.

According to Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda at least 4,000 troops from South Africa have been drafted into Rhodesia to aid the Smith regime since it closed the border to Zambian goods.

Smith has denied that the extra troops have been sent. He described the Zambian report as 'a complete figment of the imagination'. The story was also denied by Admiral Hugo Biermann, the commandant-general of the South African Defence Force.

However, Vorster has said he is unconditionally opposed to terrorism 'and I we shall in terms of our declared policy render assistance within our means to governments who seek it in their fight against This would appear cate a South African ment commitment to white supremacy whe threatened by the deve of the African na Liberation throughout to indigovern'defend' re it is lopment tionalist