IN THE SHADOW OF THE GALLOWS

The bloody regime in Botha's South Africa continues to churn out crimes of every kind against the black population, while, apart from their ridiculous sanctions, the EEC [European Economic Community] countries continue to be their best commercial partners. The international press can also be considered their precious ally, given the silence and distortion of information deliberately carried out concerning the social and political conditions in that country. The foul regime in Pretoria is now preparing itself to carry out yet another in its endless list of crimes, once again raising the spectre of the gallows to terrorize the black population and make them desist from their purpose of rebelling, trying to channel their revolt onto the road of a few tepid reforms and an opening of the international market to black consumerism and an extension of the services sector.

Another 14 black people have been sentenced to death, and 12 more await the same fate. They make up the 26 demonstrators arrested during an anti-apartheid demonstration held in the town of Upington in 1985. During the demonstration a black policeman was killed and all the demonstrators charged that day were charged with murder. The court has separated the accused into two groups: the first has been found guilty by a white jury, using the infamous amendment to the penal code, "common purpose". Through this play on words those accused do not have to be charged with specific offenses, only to have participated in a demonstration attended by hundreds more people. In this way they can be sentenced to death without a trace of evidence. The same logic as that once applied by the Nazis: when one of them was killed they rounded up all the passersby in the streets and, applying the concept of "common purpose" they chose a number of people at random and shot them on the spot.

In the factories, the mines and every other place of work, racial discrimination presents itself as class discrimination. Not by chance the bosses, directors and technicians are all white, while the blacks and other "non-whites" make up the totality of the working class and the most emarginated of the population.

Upington is a town in the north west of the Cape where between 1983 and '86 the black ghetto Poballelo was the most advanced in the struggle against rent increases, taxes, the constitutional reform swindle, against arrests, and for boycotts of discriminatory schools and white-owned shops. The area was also in the lead concerning repression: all the black organizations were outlawed and their leaders arrested. Death squads killed many anti-apartheid activists. Dozens of black police handed in their demissions, councillors disappeared, the mayor handed in his demission and is now one of the Upington 26.

There is still a little time left before the multiple gallows of Pretoria Central Prison set to work (they can murder seven people at a time). This time must be used to carry out initiatives aimed at drawing attention to what is happening in South Africa.

Not having recourse to institutions, but making direct pressure, attacking the European and multinational industries that have commercial interests in that country, the banks investing in it, the companies that import agricultural and industrial products, with any means one thinks fit.

Nor are we forgetting the lucrative gold commerce with South Africa which also makes jeweller's shops accomplices to apartheid.

We must have confidence in our capacity to struggle and not delegate this to anyone else, or to the field of legalistic international bargaining. It is the task of all those fighting for a radical transformation of life to tear the Upington 26 from the gallows.

Let us put pressure on the press silence on this affair and force them to talk about it.

Antagonism as solidarity means only one thing in this perspective.

-- Milan anarchist group "Insurrection"

ANARCHISTS AGAINST APARTHEID

In South Africa the killings continue. The super-exploited black workers continue to be humiliated and abused as a lucrative source of profit for the multinationals. In one week, during the general strike before the elections, 3600 workers were sacked by Toyota, Japan's highest earning multinational. Volkswagen and Goodyear immediately followed their example. On the night before the elections at least 23 people were killed. Some spoke of 60 deaths. Among them were old people and children.

At the same time apartheid is trying to improve its image while maintaining its old privileges. Through its "new man" De Klerk an attempt will be made to paint a layer of political whitewash over the situation, negociating with some of the aspiring "leaders" of what is a mass social rebellion. As in all situations of social upheaval, the situation covers a wide spectrum and includes elements who are also out to get their slice of power or profit. The aim of the reform policy is to encounter this reality and offer it a few crumbs in order to placate public indignation and prepare the way for a slightly less offensive method of exploitation, forced by the growing wave of attacks on the companies who favour its unbeatable offers on the world labour market.

For years now there have been protests against the crimes of apartheid, many of them taking the form of huge demonstrations, petitions, pickets of consulates, boycotts, etc., all to no avail. But there is a growing qualitative change in the struggle against apartheid which has been developing recently in northern Europe, using direct means.

On Friday 8 September 200 anarchist comrades broke into and devastated the South African consulate in Copenhagen. Once inside the place they set fire to documents, furniture and stationary in the newly restored and refurnished fortress. When the police arrived on the scene they were met with a thick hail of stones and retreated. Within five minutes the group had disappeared. The action immediately qualitatively distinguished itself from the regular as they are ineffective picketings and sit-ins carried out in the western world against apartheid. It accomplished what demonstrations of thousands of people have failed to do: to effectively, not symbolically, attack one of the power structures of apartheid, maximizing damage to it, and resisting police intervention.

The attack in Copenhagen showed without half terms that neither apartheid nor its structures are symbolic, and that they should be confronted with real moments of well-planned attack. This attack is the fruit of a growing quality in the struggle against apartheid in northern Europe that has been taking place in countries such as Denmark, Holland and Sweden over the past five years. It started off from a few small actions, simple, easily accomplished and easily repeatable, against the multinationals, mainly Shell. From this an awareness has developed that the struggle against apartheid is a struggle against exploitation and genocide at a planetary level, and can strike effectively anywhere with equal effectiveness, be it an isolated village in northern Europe or a demonstration in a South African ghetto.

There is a growing awareness that apartheid is not confined to South Africa, but that it expresses itself all over the world in forms that appear to be different but which are essentially the same: the inclusion or exclusion from a whole system that can no longer be defined by simple electoral rights but which cut deep into the social and cultural tissue of peoples. Added to this there is the new European apartheid of thousands of black immigrants from the African continent who have no "civil rights", having entered Europe illegally through a deliberate strategy of toleration. Subject to continued racist attacks, a favourite of right wing politicians in their harangues, the former are victims of a deliberate strategy of demographic re-adjustment to compensate for the growing lack of unskilled labour, particularly in the chemicals and other deadly industries of Europe.

The attack carried out by the comrades in Denmark is therefore an important step along a new road that is emerging in the struggle with clarity. It is the road of qualitative relations as opposed to quantitative spectacular mobilization; clarity of perspective and incisiveness in accomplishing specific actions with the objective of succeeding in carrying out both economic and political sabotage in the perspective of internationalist solidarity and social revolution.

TOYOTA EXACERBATES APARTHEID

Some might be surprised to know that the car industry is still the absolute top profit-making industry at world level, without rival. From the US to Japan, to W. Germany, the automobile companies' figures confirm that they make profits at a rate that no other sector can keep up with, be it telecommunications, finance, chemicals, etc.

The Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan, according to a classification drawn up by the Teikoku Data Bank research institute, have surpassed even the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone company. They make over 1,000 billion lire more than Fiat. General Motors made 1,454 million dollars and Ford 1,407 million in the first three months of 1989, leaving behind IBM who made 1,340 and General Electric at 972. Now one of the protagonists of post-industrial capitalism, the car industry maintains its claim to wealth through its continued infamous practice as one of the most ruthlessly murderous monsters that capital has produced. Recent manoeuvres pont to the fact that, far from the workers' lot improving through restructuring and robotization of production, it is reaching the depths of an international hell of dirty-dealing based on the total negation of any human dignity towards those whose labour it exploits. From their luxurious yachts and private jets the glossy assassinators cold-bloodedly exploit every situation that presents itself at planetary level in order to further round off costs. With new flexible plant structures and operations carried out in real time, they are like vultures always ready to pounce on the most palatable prey.

Needless to say, one of those easy preys is the South African black labour force. Toyota has factories in Durban, Pinetown and a marketing division in Johannesburg. After a week of wild cat strikes the managers of the Japanese informed the 3,600 black workers that they had been sacked. The strike, called the week before by the 15,000 workers belonging to the Numsa metal mechanics national union, affected not only the Toyota workers but also Volkswagen in Uitenhage and the South African Samcor. Volkswagen then proceeded to close its establishment "for an indefinite period". This was followed by the Goodyear plant with its 1,425 workers and Eveready with 800 in Port Elizabeth. They have since all been sacked, and the factories closed indefinitely.

Insurrectionary Anarchists of the Coast Salish Territories