MIM Notes

This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.

The paper tigers for this issue were corrupted, and Under Lock and Key is missing.--mim5@mim.org

I N T E R N E T ' S M A O I S T M O N T H L Y

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THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

MIM Notes 70 NOVEMBER, 1992

MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the
world's oppressed majority, and against the
imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in
the service of the people. support it, struggle
with it and write for it.

IN THIS ISSUE:
1. GUZMAN MAY HAVE BEEN CAPTURED, BUT GONZALO THOUGHT
IS STILL FREE
2. GONZALO'S CAPTURE ASKS: WHO MAKES HISTORY?
3. UNDER ATTACK, LATINOS FORGE UNITY
4. LETTERS
5. CAPE VERDE HISTORY
6. "FREE" ELECTIONS BREED CORRUPTION IN CAPE VERDE
7. [supposed to be PAPER TIGERS, but corrupted file]
AMERIKAN CULTURE:
8. REVIEW: SOUTH CENTRAL
9. N.Y. GUARDIAN BITES THE DUST
10. MS. MAGAZINE TRASHES PCP IN THE NAME OF "FEMINISM"
11. THE "NEW" SOUTH AFRICA LOOKS A LOT LIKE THE OLD

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a
revolutionary communist party that upholds
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection
of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist
parties in the English-speaking imperialist
countries and their English-speaking internal
semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging
Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties
of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of
the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of
MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-
speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.

MIM is an internationalist organization that works
from the vantage point of the Third World
proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans,
but world citizens.

MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups
over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM
knows this is only possible by building public
opinion to seize power through armed struggle.

Revolution is a reality for North America as the
military becomes over-extended in the government's
attempts to maintain world hegemony.

MIM differs from other communist parties on three
main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the
proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution,
the potential exists for capitalist restoration
under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within
the communist party itself. In the case of the
USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death
of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's
death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in
1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural
Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in
human history. (3) MIM believes the North American
white-working-class is primarily a non-
revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in
this country.

MIM accepts people as members who agree on these
basic principles and accept democratic centralism,
the system of majority rule, on other questions of
party line.

"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is
universally applicable. We should regard it not as
dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is
not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases,
but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of
revolution."
-- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208

* * *

GUZMAN MAY HAVE BEEN CAPTURED, BUT GONZALO THOUGHT IS STILL
FREE

On October 7 a secret Peruvian military court sentenced
Abimael Guzm‡n to life imprisonment for treason. Guzm‡n is
also known as Chairperson Gonzalo of the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP). Also sentenced to life
imprisonment were Elena Iparraguire, Walter Vargas and eight
other PCP cadre who were captured with Gonzalo at a house in
Lima on September 12.

The People's War in Peru cannot be killed if one or a few
leaders are captured. The liberation of Peru can only be
undone by a slip into revisionism and the abandonment of the
decisive political line which the masses have written in
their own blood. The strategy and tactics of the revolution
in Peru do not depend upon the leadership of one individual,
but on the strength of the masses.

PERUVIAN "PRESIDENT" SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON

by MC121

On October 7 a secret military court sentenced Abimael
Guzm‡n, or Chairperson Gonzalo, of the Central Committee of
the Communist Party of Peru (PCP), to life imprisonment for
treason. Also sentenced to life imprisonment were Elena
Iparraguire, Walter Vargas and eight other PCP cadre who
were captured with Gonzalo at a house in Lima on September
12.(1)

Gonzalo's trial took place in a navy base on the coastal
island of San Lorenzo. His lawyer, Alfredo Crespo, was not
allowed to present a defense-the verdict came as no
surprise. Although Peruvian law does not contain a death
penalty, the Peruvian state does have a practice of
murdering captured revolutionaries.

The capture of Chairperson Gonzalo has not stopped the
advance of the people's war in Peru. At least two-thirds of
the countryside has been self-liberated and turned into
socialist base-areas by the masses and the PCP. Forty-seven
percent of Peru's 22.6 million people, including the 6.4
million residents of capital city Lima, live under direct
fascist military rule by a decrepit Amerikan-backed regime
desperate to crush the most successful revolution in the
world today.(2) Lima is on the brink of explosion.

Imperialism bleeds too

International finance capital is addicted to the narco-
dollars-gathered by the Peruvian state apparatus-to service
the never-ending interest on a growing debt of $20
billion.(3)

Three days after Gonzalo's capture the transnational
Southern Peru Copper Corporation announced cash dividends to
its shareholders of $60 million for the previous six
months.(4) Ten days after Gonzalo's capture the Inter-
American Development Bank loaned Peru $221.83 million to
"help" Peru pay interest due on the revolving door of debt-
extortion.(5) Imperialism continues to prop up the Peruvian
banking system in order to keep the cash flow of coca and
copper dollars pumping into foreign accounts.

But despite short-term profit-taking, the transnationals can
never "stabilize" Peru-or the rest of revolutionary Latin
America.

Bankers cannot buy off the revolution in Peru; nor can the
incarceration of Comrade Gonzalo stem the development of the
People's War.

"Just two days after Guzm‡n's arrest, Shining Path
detachments were back strutting with rifles and painting
graffiti-no security forces in sight-in shanty-towns just
ten miles from [Peruvian President] Fujimori's government
palace."(6)

On the day of Gonzalo's sentencing a PCP communique stated,
in part, "We will freeze your laughter. Death to the
civilian and military judges and district attorneys,
anonymous or not."(1) On this day five powerful bombs
exploded in government buildings as police and soldiers were
cut down by communists who then seized their weapons and
escaped.(7)

Armed PCP actions continue to paralyze capitalist
institutions all over Peru (8) and even the bourgeois media
is forced to admit that Gonzalo's capture is but one chapter
in the People's War.

"Some analysts now argue that with Guzm‡n in jail, his
movement is beheaded-doomed to disintegrate. But others
point to the highly compartmentalized and clandestine
structure of [the PCP] organization, noting that probably
not more than a few dozen guerilla fighters have ever met
Guzm‡n and that they can and will keep on fighting just fine
without him."(6)

The bourgeois media played up Gonzalo's capture and
practically ignored the kangaroo trial. In this, the
international bourgeoisie is simply abiding by its
increasingly vital dictate to try and keep under wraps the
most explosive secret of our times: Maoism works!

Most of the capitalist media slanders the PCP as "narco-
terrorists" and baby-butchers. These flacks claim, with no
substantiation, that the PCP has murdered 25,000 Peruvians.
The Peruvian government's own current figures for total
deaths during the revolutionary war that began in 1980 are:

presumed "subversives"-11,872
civilians-10,286
soldiers and police-2,095
narcotics traffickers-264 (9)

This is a ratio of 10 peasants and PCP cadre killed for
every well-equipped pig. Even Amnesty International admits
that the Peruvian government slaughters the peasant
population on a daily basis. And yet the people's revolution
continues to triumph step by step in the face of organized
state terrorism.

The magazine ITAL Covert Action END (no particular friend to
revolutionary Maoism) comments:

"To characterize Sendero as narcoterrorist is to misread the
movement. Sendero's involvement in the traffic is only a
means to an end: the destruction of capitalism in Peru and
its replacement with a Cultural Revolution-vintage Maoist
state ... [Actually, the PCP protects peasants from the
narcotrafficking state regime, Amerikan Drug Enforcement
Administration troops and drug-dealing Green Berets-as well
as from the Columbian drug warlords.]

"To achieve its vision, Sendero has embarked on a patient,
methodical, and ruthless 'prolonged people's war,' combining
careful political work with extreme but calculated violence.
The party possesses a chilling 'rationality' ... With cold
calculation, ideological coherence, superb organization, and
fierce determination, Sendero has become the world's most
effective revolutionary movement ... [W]ithin the confines of
its [Maoist] orthodoxy ITALIC the party displays a most
undogmatic tactical acuity and flexibility, even brilliance.
END

"In 12 years of armed struggle, the insurgency has grown
from making isolated attacks on remote Andean villages to a
self-proclaimed, but undisputed 'strategic equilibrium' with
the Peruvian military in large reaches of the country. At
present, conservative analysts estimate that 25 to 40
percent of the country is under Sendero control. Sendero is
equally adept at administering its 'New Power;' its
structures are complex, extensive, and redundant. As [a U.S.
government study] noted, 'targeting such a parallel
political infrastructure, under ideal conditions, is a
difficult task. In view of Shining Path's current level of
institutional development ... the task may now be impossible,
with or without U.S. military assistance.'"(10)

Thank you, ITALIC Covert Action END, for spelling out the
situation so clearly. The Amerikan left has lagged far
behind the imperialists in recognizing the effective power
of a people's revolutionary movement guided by the
scientific lessons of Maoism. The PCP has led the
international communist movement by example in recognizing
and acting upon the fact that the principal revolutionary
movement in our world is that of the oppressed nations
against imperialism.

Maoists in Amerika know that the only real internationalism
is to make revolution in your own country. Today, working
with MIM's concrete analysis of the economic, political and
cultural parasitism of the Amerikan white working-class, it
has become possible for the people to create revolutionary
organizations inside Amerika's oppressed nations. Through
building independent power of the oppressed, our
organizations will become capable of truly cementing the
identity of the international proletariat.

Notes:
1. Los Angeles Times 10/8/92.
2. UPI 9/24/92.
3. El Diario Internacional Oct/Nov 1991, p. 15-16.
4. Business Wire 9/15/92.
5. Xinhua 9/25/92.
6. Village Voice 9/29/92, p. 23
7. UPI 10/7/92.
8. UPI 9/12/92 -10/9/92
9. El Pa’s 9/20/92.
10. Covert Action Fall 1992, p. 60; emphasis added.

* * *

GONZALO'S CAPTURE ASKS: WHO MAKES HISTORY?

by MC121

MIM has been criticized in some quarters for saying that the
capture of Chairperson Gonzalo of the Communist Party of
Peru will not decisively subvert the course of the people's
revolution. Some of our critics have asked why MIM does not
work with any of the committees that sprang into existence
to "defend the life" of Comrade Gonzalo.

First of all, MIM wishes Comrade Gonzalo a long and
productive life. Gonzalo and uncounted PCP comrades have
brought forth a New Power in Peru that is an inspiration and
a catalyst for worldwide Maoist-led revolution.

In solidarity with the PCP and the Peruvian masses, MIM
strives to organize for revolution inside North Amerika. At
this time, we do not join, nor do we attempt to lead,
single-issue or mass organizations. These movements play a
vital role in weakening imperialism; and assumption of
leadership by communists inevitably results in the splitting
and fragmentation of these movements.(2)

While we are building a vanguard party step by step, we
recognize that the most advanced political groups in any
given national formation are not necessarily Maoist groups.
For instance, where Maoism does not yet exist, revolutionary
nationalist organizations often take the lead in fighting
and weakening imperialism.

Two-Line struggle

A hard-won fundamental lesson of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
mass struggle is that a new bourgeoisie is engendered in the
top ranks of victorious communist parties-hence the
necessity for a long period of overlapping mass Cultural
Revolutions against capitalist restoration and ongoing
patriarchal relations.

The PCP is the achievement of the Peruvian people. The
Peruvian masses brought forth the Party, nurture the Party,
die for the Party and are liberating their nation from
imperialism through the Party. The masses, not individuals,
are the makers of history.

The masses gave birth to Chairperson Gonzalo. The masses
supported Gonzalo in the struggle against revisionism in the
time of party-cleansing and preparation for the armed
struggle. This general line became embodied in the "Thought"
of Comrade Gonzalo-not simply of Professor Abimael Guzm‡n.

It is to the everlasting credit of Comrade Gonzalo and his
contemporaries that the Peruvian People's War cannot be
killed if one or a few leaders are killed. The liberation of
Peru can only be undone by a slip into revisionism and the
abandonment of the decisive political line which the masses
have written in their own blood. The strategy and tactics of
the revolution in Peru do not depend upon the leadership of
one individual.

In a 1988 interview Comrade Gonzalo remarked that the two-
line struggle is the basis of party unity and that "a
leadership cannot be improvised, it requires a long time, a
hard striving, an ardent struggle to forge a leadership
..."(3) Gonzalo did not pump up his personal command in this
interview, rather, he emphasized that it is the leadership
of the party organism that is principal.

When asked if he had "any kind of fear?" Gonzalo replied:
"What could be the greatest fear? To die? As a materialist I
believe that life will end some day, what is foremost to me
is to be an optimist, with the conviction that the work to
which I am committed others will continue and will carry it
on until the fulfillment of our definite task: Communism.

"Because the fear that I could have is that the task would
not be continued; but this fear dissolves when one trusts
the masses. I think that the worst fear, in the end, is not
to trust the masses, to believe that one is indispensable,
the center of the world. And if one is forged by the Party
with the proletarian ideology, principally Maoism, he will
understand that the masses are the ones that make history,
that the Party makes revolution, that the advance of history
is determined, that the revolution is the principal trend;
the fear disappears from him, and remains only the
gratification of being mortar, and together with other
mortar serve to put the groundwork so that some day
Communism may shine and illuminate all the Earth."(4)

When the secret police caught Chairperson Gonzalo, he
remarked, "My turn to lose." Gonzalo understands that his
imprisonment or death does not spell the end of Gonzalo
Thought. Presented to the media in a cage on September 24,
Gonzalo defiantly sang the ITALIC Internationale END even as
the PCP "detonated bombs in the portals of at least six
branches of Banco de Credito, Peru's leading financial
institution."(5)

Personality cults

Mao Zedong basically disavowed the personality cult that the
treacherous Lin Biao created around him during the Cultural
Revolution. He remarked, "To be a genius is to be a bit more
intelligent. But genius does not depend on one person or a
few people. It depends on a party, the party which is the
vanguard of the proletariat. Genius is dependent on the mass
line, on collective wisdom ... I am no genius."(6)

Marx wrote, "Neither of us [Marx or Engels] cares a straw
for popularity. A proof of this is, for example, that,
because of aversion to any personality cult, I have never
permitted the numerous expressions of appreciation from
various countries with which I was pestered during the
existence of the International to reach the realm of
publicity, and have never answered them except occasionally
by a rebuke. When Engels and I first joined the secret
Communist Society we made it a condition that everything
tending to encourage superstitious belief in authority was
to be removed from the statutes."(7)

The creation of international public opinion highlighting
the ongoing achievements of the PCP is an honorable task for
communists. Even if the reaction murders Guzm‡n, the
revolution in Peru will continue to unfold.

May the strength of the masses always be with you, Comrade
Gonzalo.(8)

Notes:
1. MIM Notes 69 10/92.
2. Write to MIM for a reading list on the history of
settler-radicalism in Amerika.
3. Interview to Chairman Gonzalo, PCP Central Committee
1989, p. 26.
4. Ibid., p. 150.
5. UPI 9/24/92.
6. Stuart Schram, ed., ITALIC Chairman Mao Talks to the
People END, p. 293.
7. Karl Marx in Robert Tucker The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd
ed., p. 521.
8. Write to MIM for the essays ITALIC On Personality Cults
END and ITALIC Lessons in Single Issue Organizing: Mass
Organizations and the Vanguard Party END ($2 each postpaid).
We also distribute a ITALIC Study Pack on Peru END ($15.00
postpaid) and other PCP materials. Copies of the video
ITALIC The People of the Shining Path END ($20 postpaid) may
be obtained from the CSRP, P.O. Box 1246, Berkeley, CA
94701. Spanish materials may be obtained from Committee to
Support the Peruvian People (CSPP), P.O. Box 216, Paterson,
NJ 07524. The excellent bulletin ITALIC Peru Scholars/News
and Notes END may be obtained from Peru Scholars, Dept. of
Sociology, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO
80639. The September 1992 PS/N&N states that, as far as is
known, "no organization in the United States has been
generated by the PCP's ITALIC Movimiento Popular del Peru
END, as have several groups in Europe." MIM does not yet
know what has happened to the European ITALIC Sol Peru
Committees END or ITALIC El Diario Internacional END since
Fujimori requested deportation of Peruvian revolutionaries
living abroad; with one exception: According to the October
19 issue of the Boston Globe, Sweden decided to deport a
contingent of vocal sympathizers of the PCP.

* * *

UNDER ATTACK, LATINOS FORGE UNITY

National liberation struggle focuses the energy of the
masses against imperialism and the state. Wherever national
liberation leads, the movement starts to make sense on all
kinds of issues.

On the heels of an interview with the rap group Subversive
Element, MIM returns to Massachusetts to get to know a new
and growing revolutionary Latino movement, the Messengers.

One leader, CIA (Chicano In Action) says, "The first issue
is to throw the cold water on the face of your people, wake
them up, and point them in the right direction."

And sooner or later, he adds, "The government turns around
and sees you making a unified and collaborative effort to
make changes here. That's when you become a subversive,
that's when you become an operation to undermine a
government, and that's when you can hear knees shaking in
the White House."

Drill Sergeant believes the oppressed nations have to start
with their own unification. "Revolution has to come from
within. It can't come from without. If we're not ready as a
people to come together, there's no way we're going to do a
revolution."

MIM says, the time to build for that unified and
collaborative effort, the time to make that revolution, is
already upon us.

THE MESSENGERS: LATINO LIBERATION STRUGGLE
by a comrade

In MIM Notes 67, MIM published an interview with CIA
(Chicano in Action), a leader of the rap group Subversive
Element. CIA is also a leader of the Messengers, a growing
revolutionary movement of predominantly young Latinos. In
this issue MIM follows up with a greater emphasis on the
Messengers themselves. A comrade interviewed Drill Sergeant,
and CIA again, in Holyoke, Mass. Excerpts follow.

Drill Sergeant

MIM: What is the message of the Messengers?

Drill Sergeant: From my point of view, I think the message
of the Messengers is to empower the Latino people in a
positive way, to educate them more about Puerto Rican
history and their culture, so that they can become more
attuned with what's going on in this society, and what
actually is happening in their environment that's causing
all the problems...

When I come I speak to them about Pedro Albizu Campos, the
Puerto Rican revolutionary leader that made an impact on the
island of Puerto Rico. I talk to them about the Taino
Arawaks that were extinct due to Spanish conquest in Puerto
Rico and the Caribbean region, as well as Central and South
America. So that's my job here, so they feel good about
themselves as a people.

MIM: How would you describe the political state of the
people, in terms of who's ready for a revolutionary
movement?

DS: Revolution has to come from within. It can't come from
without. If we're not ready as a people to come together,
there's no way we're going to do a revolution. Because a lot
of people think of revolution in a negative kind of way. I
look at a revolution from an intellectual point of view. A
revolution has to be brought in when people think the same
way, they all share the same common interests and concerns.
Not having people come together with different interests and
different agendas. People have to be together and think
about one thing: Latino empowerment. Because right now the
majority of Messengers are Latinos, but we're hoping that
other people-Afro-Americans, Native Americans, Asian
Americans, maybe some white people-come and join us so that
we could be more united and understand each other's point of
view.

We could do a revolution if we understand the concepts of
Mao, of Guevara, of Castro, and other people who have made
an impact on this society. We don't want, y'know-revolution
is not all about violence. Revolution is about making a
change, of making people aware of the things that are
imposing on us, like people looking on us in a negative type
of way, of stereotyping us as gangs. We're not a gang, we're
a classroom. We're here to teach people, get them out of the
streets.

MIM: MIM has described America as being a dominant nation
with internal nations or colonies inside it, and that's one
of the best things for applying Maoism in terms of national
liberation struggle. Is national liberation the way you look
at this?

DS: Yes, I think liberation, within the Messengers, within
the Latino people, from the Pioneer Valley, from around the
United States and hopefully around the world, is the way to
go. Because we have to liberate ourselves from the
environment. This negative-it feels like the type of
environment that the majority of Latinos live in, from the
lower income class, is that they're trapped, they can't get
out of the dependency mode.

We can't live like that anymore. We have to structure our
lives and look beyond. Because I believe that if we all
educate ourselves-because the majority of Messengers are
between 14 to 19, and there's some older ones too, but most
of them have dropped out of high school-so we tell them to
educate themselves and that's one way, that's a step toward
freedom, toward liberation.

MIM: Within the U.S. MIM has talked about the Black Panther
Party as being the last revolutionary vanguard movement that
was a movement in Amerika. You talked before about Albizo
Campos and the Puerto Rican struggle. What other kind of
inspiration or history do you look at for motivation?

DS: I also go into the Chinese Revolution-Mao Zedong-and
also the Bolshevik Revolution: little revolutions that
happened in the 20th century that have made a change. But we
have to focus on our own struggle, the Latino revolution,
first. We look at those as models, to look up to, to get
information from, to get knowledge from, but we have to come
with our own concept of what we perceive as a revolution.

CIA

MIM: How do you see the role of education and ideology in
the political development of the people?

CIA: I see that we take what we have, which is a common
knowledge, that surpasses what most people have in this
community by virtue of the fact that that knowledge is not
easily accessible to them. Our purpose here is to be the
tool for them to gain that knowledge. I mean, if the city is
working against the community, to deny them that
information, then it is our duty, for our community, to
inform them.

MIM: So one of the things going on here is miseducation or
counter-education in the public schools. That's a lot to go
up against. People spend a lot of years in school.

CIA: Oh yeah. Well we witness a lot of ignorant things here.
We have students even in the Messengers who want to learn,
they realize that the system as far as education goes wasn't
built to be attractive to Latin Americans students, and yet
we encourage them to learn it anyway, to get through it,
because it wasn't meant for them to get through. And yet,
even though they have the desire, they have come up against
obstacles like being denied the right to sit down in a
classroom as a result of not paying a $20 fine for a book.
... The effort to keep students in is not as much of a
concern to them as to keep them out.

MIM: There's cross purposes where the people want education
and the state wants social control...

CIA: I think they're the same thing. I think that in this
society the idea of education is social control. How could
it not be? I mean, if it doesn't represent this community,
the Latin American community, if it doesn't represent them,
it represents something else, then they are thereby
controlling what they learn, and controlling how they react
in society. If they don't swallow it, then they're going to
react in society as something ... they're going to act lost.
When you act lost, and when you act like you're dying and
you're throat is cut, you're going to run around in a
confused state, having mindless actions about you. You're
going to do some mindless things. And that's exactly a
control there itself. They let you run around mindless, and
at the same time they got the control over what you look
like in society. So I think it's the same thing.

MIM: I want to talk about this gang thing a little bit,
because drug trafficking and a lot of other crimes against
the people do go on; at the same time we've taken the
position that those are disputes among the people for the
people to work out, and that the state coming in and
condemning gangs, the mainstream media coming in and
condemning gangs, will create more of a negative effect than
a positive effect in terms of combatting any actual
problems. Does that make sense?

CIA: That makes perfect sense. [laughs] Think about it. I
know for a fact that in this particular city $500,000 was
asked for by the police department in order to increase
enforcement, an additional $3,000 to make sure that they had
foot officers in the schools, and $5,000 for a DARE ["anti-
drug"] program. Now, that might seem all good and well to
help out the efforts of the police force to "police"-and
that's a strong word-the community, but the community isn't
actually seeing any of that money. The community could use
some of that money for reparations to its own buildings, to
its streets, to its school system for books.

MIM: The majority of the white public and the white media
does not make a distinction between "good" oppressed people
organizing, and "bad" oppressed people organizing. Oppressed
people organizing for themselves, they have a label for it
now, they call it gangs, they assume it's about drugs and
terrorism...

CIA: Exactly.

MIM: We're dealing with that now with the revolution in
Peru. The story is that they're really just drug
traffickers. But if you go back and look at history, you
look at China, the Russian Revolution, whatever, and look at
what the Amerikan press said-they said they were terrorists
every time.

CIA. Exactly. I mean, I'm pretty clear-headed when it comes
to things like that. I know the difference between the
bandit that Poncho Villa was supposedly and the
revolutionary that he actually was [Pancho Villa was a
Mexican revolutionary who led an armed uprising from 1913
till he was killed in 1923.]...

And in terms of what we're doing out here, they don't want
us to be united. OK, once we're united as a community-I'm
speaking on Latin America, I'm not just speaking for Puerto
Ricans alone or Mexicans alone, or Colombians alone,
etc.-you talk about pan-Latin Americanism where you're not
just dealing with 16.3 million Mexicans in the United
States, and then you start dealing with a community of close
to 100 million, the government turns around and sees you
making a unified and collaborative effort to make changes
here, that's when you become a subversive, that's when you
become an operation to undermine a government, and that's
when you can hear knees shaking in the White House.

When we speak about the white man, we don't speak about the
white man in terms of the person that you see every day. I
mean, why would I want to go and attack a puppet, when I can
get the puppeteer? There's a difference...

The first issue is to throw the cold water on the face of
your people, wake them up, and point them in the right
direction. Once you get them going in the right direction,
and not to the side-oh, the police force is wrong; oh,
education is wrong; oh, health care is wrong, they're all
problems within those institutions. But, they're just on the
string of the puppeteer. And if you keep going headlong,
then you're going to see a battle. Too many people get
sidetracked about the results of the efforts of the persons
in charge of the system.

MIM: You get caught up fighting symptoms instead of fighting
the problem.

CIA: Exactly.

* * *

LETTERS

AFRICAN AMERICANS NEED INDEPENDENT MEDIA

Dear MIM,

I went to the Eye Gallery in San Francisco today. It's where
they exhibit the pictures supposedly taken by homeless
children of their surroundings. A guy named Hubbard started
this program and I'm sure it may have some good points to
it. However, Hubbard is a white male and I'm sure it's like
almost every other program designed and run by white males
for Blacks and other people of color. Most of the real
benefits and economic fall-out will go to the white males.

So what happens to the children in this program when Mr.
Hubbard and his friends and associates have accomplished
what they want from this-or tire of it? What will these
children do with all they've learned? Who will hire them for
their experience even though they are twice as good as their
white counterparts?

African Americans that know the past know this, and African
Americans that are really aware of their surroundings today
know this. That is why when you see a few people struggling
against the huge power of the System, like HUD and their
rich and powerful management companies, we applaud them. We
can even applaud the Eye Gallery. We understand they still
have a little faith in the System because they think it may
be only a few bad people in HUD and a very bad management
company like John Stewart's. But do they realize the power
of oppressed people?

White men control the media and the mainstream art and even
many supposedly radical newspapers.

We have to have our own media to keep tabs on what is going
on and to keep people from becoming victims of the terrible
violence that the powerful are able to carry-out in
situations like at Geneva Towers. Children, single-mothers
and courageous older men are perceived as a threat to the
system in God-forsaken places like Geneva Towers. And they
are.

They seem not to be afraid, saying I'd rather die fighting
than being a slave. These people seem to truly understand
the System with its built-in racism. Geneva Towers Manager,
Security and Maintenance Head all look like they could have
been neighborhood pimps of sorts a few years back. So it is
no wonder why these kind of men would be just the right type
to put in a den of women and children. These men can easily
be into almost anything. So there is no surprise when sexual
harassment and brutality and child molestation is accepted.

-MA63
August 1992

MIM PUSHY ABOUT MONEY

Dear MIM,

Your representative to the study group would make a good
used car salesperson. His/her hardline sell really put me
off, especially his/her pressure for donations. (Does s/he
sell caddies for GM?)

I have "donated" about 30 hours of free time distributing
MIM Notes and peddling Theory. I have no problem with that.
But I do not have the money to drive to [X city] weekly for
study group or finance a MIM rep's trip to [my city] for the
same purpose!

That is why, in the beginning, I agreed to study group in
[my city] if you were willing to come here, ITAL at your
expense END, to hold meetings.

My position remains the same. Please, if you wish, come to
[my city] and educate me. But please, no more high pressure
tactics.

I have three questions:

1. Are you a group of intellectuals sitting around talking
the issues to death without a pragmatic plan for action?
2. Why aren't you in Peru right now? I know what "incoming"
is and I think it would do you a lot of good to see what the
nasty side of war is like!
3. When the Third World wins "final victory," why would its
leaders include you in the Vanguard Party?

Finally, I am committed to your ideology and P.O.V. (but not
your salesmanship! Ha!)

In Struggle,
-Friend in the Midwest
July 1992

P.S. Try not to take yourselves so seriously and add some
humor to MIM Notes. Thanks.

MIM responds: MIM appreciates this comrade's efforts to
struggle with us over points of disagreement in tactics and
line. It is important to recognize fundamental agreements,
as this comrade does, and struggle over other issues as we
attempt to construct the best individual and party practice.
The following response (slightly edited) was sent to this
comrade.

You may have agreed to participate in a study group at the
party's expense; but we did not make such an agreement. MIM
does not have wealthy benefactors who make it possible for
us to do work without concern for the expense. Our requests
for donations are not a "hardline sell" which supersede
political discussion; we have to gather financial as well as
political support from people with whom we have contact.
This is what makes our work possible. What this comrade
refers to as high-pressure tactics are simply the reality of
our work.

Our financial practice is a political issue we are happy to
debate further if people are unconvinced. We believe our
politics are worth supporting with the gas money, in
addition to the cost of reading materials, for people who
talk to us and can afford these costs. MIM donates
literature to prisoners who often cannot afford to send
money, but this money has to come from somewhere, as does
the money for all of our political work. We hope that those
who support our work understand that ideological support
alone will not fund the work that our organization does.

If you are still willing to donate your time, handing out
the paper on your campus and asking people for donations to
help support the paper is a good way to raise the money it
takes to pay for producing and shipping the papers. As you
said, you are committed to our ideology. We trust that you
will continue to help us make it available to others; this
is where it is important to see how our ideology and our
"salesmanship" are not so easily separable. Our principal
task is getting our ideas out to the masses, and as we have
already discussed, this costs money.

On to your questions:
1. You already have the best introduction we can offer to
our plan of action: Lenin's ITAL What is to be Done? END

In terms of "talking the issues to death," you may find the
second chapter of that book helpful; Lenin discusses the
importance of developing a consistent line on all aspects of
political theory in order to distinguish (both for the
masses and the people in the party) between the vanguard and
less advanced elements. MIM recognizes the necessity of
distinguishing ourselves from other parties through
development of our line; and using our newspaper and theory
journal to create public opinion, gain popular support and
build the Party.

Part of this process has and will continue to include
incorporating criticisms of our line and practice. This is
another reason putting out a newspaper is so important-it
reflects our line on various issues and gives the people a
place to criticize and discuss political issues with us. We
build the party through actions you can see reflected in the
newspaper, providing a contact point for activists
internationally, and we work to build the party to the point
at which we can launch greater actions.

2. MIM's task is to organize a communist party in the United
States. We maintain that carrying out this task is a more
effective means of cooperation with our comrades in Peru
than running to help them in battle. There are two sides to
this position: First, we trust our comrades in Peru to
organize effectively in their own country. They hold a
strong position among the people of Peru based on decades of
building support and organizing the people into their
struggle. Second, if MIM (or any other Maoist organization
outside Peru) were to vacate the country it is based in, who
would be left to build a party there?

Just as we trust our comrades in other countries, we accept
the responsibility of organizing in Amerika. Vanguard forces
must organize in the places they have best access to, so
that we can build an international force for the most
efficient end to imperialism.

3. When imperialism has been destroyed, it will be up to the
international proletariat to choose their own leaders. MIM
cannot predict the point at which MIM will be included in
this international vanguard force. We do know that this
victory will come in stages-that vanguards in some oppressed
countries in the Third World will achieve victory before the
vanguard in the United States. MIM will continue to work in
the alliance with our Third World comrades until we have
succeeded internationally.

MIM says that the Third World is the principal force for the
victory of socialism over imperialism at this time because
national liberation struggles in the Third World have thus
far dealt the greatest blows to imperialism. It seems that
you are asking, "Why would Third World proletarians accept a
multi-national party in its revolution?"

But this is not really how we look at the question. We talk
about our own struggle in the First World from the vantage
point of the Third World proletariat, and we do all our work
from this perspective. Between now and the victory of anti-
imperialist forces everywhere, exclusively oppressed-nation
vanguard forces will arise in greater numbers. These
organizations, like the PCP, will function as national
vanguards to overthrow imperialism and to build socialism in
their liberated territories. But following the defeat of
imperialism, we don't foresee any reason for the people to
reject MIM's work on the basis of some members' national
origins.

P.S. MC17 adds: If this comrade or anyone else has some
revolutionary humor to offer MIM is happy to print all forms
of political education-see back issues for our previous
attempts at Maoist humor. We do take ourselves very
seriously, but this does not mean we don't see the value in
political humor.

* * *

CAPE VERDE HISTORY

Cape Verde was a colony of Portugal for 500 years. Between
1956 and 1974 the African Party for the Independence of
Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) under the leadership of
Amilcar Cabral fought a revolutionary war against Portugal
with Guinea Bissau.

The PAIGC and Cabral were influenced by ChŽ Guevara and Mao,
in particular by Mao's military writings. Cabral's
methodology of guerrilla warfare-several years building up a
base of power among the peasants-seems much closer to Mao's
and is in contradiction to ChŽ's focoist theory. In
addition, in the liberated areas during the war the PAIGC
implemented many progressive measures for the equality of
women, education of the people, production of food, and
better health care.

In 1975 the PAIGC won the war and achieved independence from
Portugal, remaining unaligned with any foreign power, and
instead building independent nations. From 1975 to 1980 the
PAIGC controlled Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde. A 1980 coup
in Guinea Bissau overthrew the PAIGC and ended the unity
between these two countries. From 1980 until 1990 the PAICV
ruled Cape Verde. The population of Cape Verde is less than
1 million.

* * *

"FREE" ELECTIONS BREED CORRUPTION IN CAPE VERDE

by a comrade

On October 3, Prime Minister Carlos Veiga of Cape Verde
visited Boston to speak at Roxbury Community College.
Approximately 300 Cape Verdeans came out to protest this
visit and the policies of Veiga's party, the Movement for
Democracy (MPD), which has been ruling Cape Verde since
January 13, 1990. The protestors were members of the African
Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV), the party
originally founded under Amilcar Cabral in the revolutionary
war for independence from Portugal.

Veiga and other MPD representatives came to the United
States to prove that the MPD has the support of the Cape
Verdeans here, and perhaps try to gain some support. Cape
Verdeans in the United States are represented by one seat on
the Cape Verde national assembly, which the PAICV won. MIM
spoke with Representative Francisco Fernandes of the PAICV.

In January and February of 1990 the PAICV opened the country
to a multi-party system and lost the presidential and
national assembly elections to the MPD. People have
speculated that the MPD was funded by Portugal, England,
Europe, and the United States, among other major powers, but
no one MIM interviewed could officially confirm this. The
MPD won the elections on the promise of change-they promised
to give everyone everything they needed including free
emigration, a four-times increase in the minimum wage, free
higher education for all, and a decrease in government
waste.

But in the course of the past two years, the MPD has
succeeded in raising their own salaries, censoring the media
to the degree that even their own president's recent public
address was censored, spending outrageous amounts of money
on "government business," allowing in foreign imperialist
investors who take the profits back to their own countries,
and persecuting members of the PAICV by kicking them out of
their jobs and homes.

"My brother used to work for the Party [PAICV] and so he was
kicked out of his job. Now I work to support him too," one
Cape Verdean told MIM.

Another said, "The problem is not that we are against change
in a positive way, they change anything that looks like
PAICV, they bring back symbols of colonizers, even changing
the streets named after nationals and put statues of
Portuguese colonizers in the best public places."

In the course of the past year the popularity of PAICV in
Cape Verde increased from 27% to 45% of the population with
a coincident decline in popularity for the MPD. Members of
PAICV speculate that if the MPD were to hold elections right
now they would lose. They are quick to add that the MPD is
not going to hold elections now.

October's protest in Boston focused on the issue of the
national flag and its symbolic importance for the
independence of Cape Verde. In July, the MPD decided to
change the national flag and national anthem from those
conceived by Amilcar Cabral as symbols of national
independence to an adaptation on the European Community flag
with no African symbolism.

The PAICV proposed that the government hold a referendum to
see what the people thought of changing the flag, but the
MPD ignored this suggestion as it ignored the 25,000
signatures sent to the national assembly opposing this
change. The new flag was raised in Cape Verde the Friday
before the Boston demonstration.

The revolutionary struggle of the Cape Verdean people was
handed a setback by the imperialist colonizers who now
control and exploit much of they country through the MPD. As
in Nicaragua and other Third World countries, the people
learn from these setbacks. Maoism is an ideology built on
successes and lessons from mistakes.

The revolution in Cape Verde was a relative success, but now
some of the advances have been overturned and the people are
no longer in power. Maoists do not throw out revolutions
like this one just because they did not achieve perfection
on the first try. These revolutions do advance the
conditions and understanding of the masses: they are
material advances.

And from the fact that the revolutionary governments could
be overturned we learn that our political line and practice
is not yet perfect. Communism will only be achieved through
the long struggle of revolutionary practice and study to
learn the lessons from this practice so that we do not make
the same mistakes twice.

Notes: GŽrard Chaliand, ITAL Armed Struggle in Africa. END
Monthly Review Press: 1969.

* * *

AMERIKAN CULTURE

REVIEW: SOUTH CENTRAL
Directed by Steve Anderson

Revolutionaries are always skeptical when Hollywood claims
to solve the problems of the Black nation. Even when the
filmmaker is Black, funding and guidance (ideological
enforcement) come directly from the capitalist mass media.

The timing of the anti-gang message of South Central is
obvious. Why does Hollywood speak out against gangs just
after the Los Angeles uprising has fueled an unprecedented
gang truce in that city? This truce has moved the Bloods and
Crips away from killing each other and toward focusing their
organized power against the police and the white nation.
Police figures show that gang-related homicides in South
L.A. dropped 88% in the month after the rebellion.(1)

One good moment is where a leader of the fledgling Deuce
gang tells his followers they must organize into a powerful
force to retake control of their neighborhood from parasitic
forces such as drug dealers from outside of their community.
It doesn't matter if the cops throw them in jail, because
then they'll just build the Deuce organization behind bars,
too. He plans to finance this new force by taking over the
drug-selling in their neighborhood once they kick out the
outside dealers.

While drug-selling shows the self-destructive and capitalist
side of gangs and must be eradicated, the rest of his talk
could be a Maoist speech about building power of the
oppressed to seize power. He points toward the importance of
gaining self-determination and self-sufficiency in oppressed
nations by expelling foreign capitalists, and he realizes
that this can only happen through an armed power struggle.

South Central posits gangs as the problem, and implies that
absent fathers are the main source of this problem. Single
mothers are assumed to be incapable idiots who will
degenerate into vegetable-like deadbeats without a man
around.

South Central does not point to the capitalist economic
system that has caused the breakdown of the family structure
in the Black nation. Misogyny is evident as the single
mother's character is not developed at all, and she is
blamed for passively allowing her son to get into gangs. She
is only shown as a helpless drug addict. But this woman-
blaming flies in the face of the reality that single mothers
are successfully bringing up a great number of Black
children under state terrorist and neo-colonial conditions.
This is incredibly hard work, and while a few women do break
under the pressure, most don't.

The big secret of the movie is this: to bring about change,
the only thing you have to change is your attitude; then
things will magically start working for you. But to have any
chance of reaching angry youth with this accommodationist
message, it had to be dressed up with a little "pro-
Blackness." So now they say that as long as you know a few
quotes from Garvey and King, then its OK to accommodate
yourself to the white supremacist system.

MIM sees the potential for advancing the liberation of the
Black nation in organizing collectively, not in individual
attitude changes. "Thinking positively" won't get rid of
oppression, but properly organizing oppressed and angry
youth for armed revolution can. By presenting the
organizations of angry Black youth as a problem, South
Central is working against the revolutionary movements of
oppressed youth.

Notes: 1. LA Times 7/17/92, p. B1. (For more info on the
gang truce, see MIM Notes 67, August 1992)

-MC251

* * *

GUARDIAN BITES THE DUST

by MC5

In September, the Guardian: Radical Newsweekly apparently
published its last issue. According to a bookstore that
carried the paper, the Guardian issued no press release or
explanation for its dissolution.

The Guardian had made large fundraising appeals earlier this
year claiming it would go defunct if the appeals were not
met. Even if the Guardian eventually comes back in some
newly reorganized form, MIM would say the Guardian has been
politically dead for years.

From MIM's perspective, the principal reason the Guardian
fell to an unsustainable circulation has to do with losing
its revolutionary roots.

In the late 1960s, the Maoist upsurge radicalized the
Guardian, which carried favorable articles about socialist
China. At this time it garnered the largest circulation of
any newspaper on the "left;" closely rivaled by the Black
Panther papers and the Progressive Labor (circ. 90,000 in
1970).(1)

The Panthers were smashed; and PL careened into Trotskyist
oblivion, but the Guardian chose a slow opportunist death.
The Guardian is an excellent example of what MIM calls the
problem of "sizeism" and "pragmatism"-bourgeois influences
that say moderating one's political line and watering down
the truth are the best way to unite large numbers of people
who can then fight for a watered down goal.

In 1973, the Guardian had "sponsored a series of forums ...
'What Road to Building a New Communist Party.'" At that
time, a Maoist-influenced but eventual turncoat Irwin Silber
said, "Today, Marxist-Leninist forces in the U.S. are moving
inexorably towards the creation of a new communist
party."(1)

One thousand people attended one meeting of these
conferences on building an anti-revisionist, non-Trotskyist,
non-anarchist party. It appeared that Maoism was going to
lead the "movement" inside U.S. borders forward; however, as
we have detailed elsewhere, a lack of political development
and rampant rightist and ultraleftist opportunism crushed
the Maoist forces who were trying to regroup after the state
smashed the Panthers.

At this time, the Guardian had quite a presence, including
coin-operated newspaper boxes and a professional staff.

To get to this point, the Guardian had to break with
something of a more opportunist past. However, by 1973, the
Guardian was having other kinds of internal breaks: the
Maoists from the Revolutionary Union were kicked out of
their jobs on the Guardian.

The articulate Irwin Silber of the Guardian also took to
bashing Maoism, almost as a lecture-circuit profession. In
particular Silber took advantage of naive and moralizing
revolutionaries who thought the world ended when Mao shook
Nixon's hand.

Silber's efforts were to culminate in the early 1980s when a
number of Maoist-influenced forces like the Communist Labor
Party and Communist Workers Party lined up more clearly with
the pro-Moscow revisionists. Other previously Maoist forces
lost their orientation completely or dissolved.

Eventually the Guardian gave up its "Marxist-Leninist"
pretensions and simply adopted the word "radical" in its
masthead. Many fence-straddlers, individualists and
opportunists have asked MIM to do the same thing-incorrectly
viewing the legacy of Marx, Lenin and Mao as an albatross
that must be tossed aside. Time and again we revolutionaries
are told we isolate ourselves by taking definitive stands on
the large historical questions of our time.

Yet, while the Guardian was watering down its line and
taking an eclectic stance-attempting to tail pseudo-
feminism, reformism and anything else that moved-MIM Notes
was growing with a tiny fraction of the budget that the
Guardian had. The more it watered down its line and confused
its readers, the more the Guardian itself went down the
drain. Despite the support of some key wealthy backers, the
Guardian's eclecticism only encouraged the lack of political
commitment and confusion that ended its existence.

It is not likely that racist and pro-white working class
social-democracy will die. Nor will the idealist-nihilism of
Trotskyism and anarchism die. These ideologies have solid
material bases. However, the niche of the far left claiming
to be eclectic, anti-anti-communist, "radical" and
"effective" is sustained only when the bourgeoisie seeks to
undermine successful and genuine communist movements.

One factor in the Guardian's demise was a decline of the
international communist movement, and the second factor was
the Guardian's own internal political death.

Where there is a vibrant communist movement and a petty-
bourgeoisie vacillating in response, a paper like the
Guardian can thrive for a time on eclecticism, opportunism
and any politics just short of real commitment. Since the
Guardian did not base itself in the revolutionary science of
Mao Zedong Thought, it did not have a basis in the
revolutionary class, the most desperate and determined
fighters for anti-imperialism, anti-militarism, anti-
patriarchy-the international proletariat.

Like the CP of the late 1930s, and the Black nationalist
movements, the Guardian found that the more it strayed from
its revolutionary roots, the more able it was to attract
occasionally large financial backers, but the less able it
was to sustain large movements-a supreme irony considering
that political opportunism is almost always advocated as a
matter of attracting support.

With the collapse of the Guardian and a number of other
radical organizations, our own commitment to building MIM
Notes is underscored. The blatant slide of the ex-Soviet
Union into pro-Western capitalism is winnowing the field of
"radical" organizations. MIM welcomes aboard ex-Guardian
supporters and others who have analyzed the relative success
of genuine communism compared with mushy, opportunist
movements.

Notes: Jim O'Brien, "American Leninism," Radical America.

* * *

MS. MAGAZINE TRASHES PCP IN THE NAME OF "FEMINISM"

by MC31

In the name of power for women, the July/August issue of Ms.
magazine blasts the Communist Party of Peru (PCP),
specifically denouncing the killing of Maria Elena Moyano.

The article explains that even some of Peru's poorest women
are helping others by providing local food and Glass of Milk
programs "to a population abandoned by the government."(1)
Ms. recognizes that the Peruvian state is one of the most
brutal in the world today, but Ms. speaks highly of those
who didn't "take to the streets" during the worst of
economic times in Peru, and instead went to a local soup
kitchen to have a hot meal that day.

One reformist "community organizer" quoted in the article
said that women "'want progress. They aren't exactly clear
how to get there, but they know they're going. They're
betting on something that they're making up along the way.'"

PCP members practice the science of Maoism and do know
exactly where they are going and how to get there. But Ms.
still prefers the vague analysis and goals of the reformists
to the hard-hitting Maoist ideology and revolutionary
practice.

The article refers to polls supposedly showing that
Fujimori's government has 70-80% support among the people.
If that's so, what are he and the military so worried about?
How is that the PCP (referred to as the "Shining Path" in
Ms. and elsewhere) controls so much territory and has as
much support as it does? Ms. claims that the PCP attacks
mostly civilians, but won't mention that the guerillas
target lackeys of the fascist state (who do not all ear
uniforms), enemies in a people's war.

After blaming the PCP for killing Moyano, for which the PCP
has claimed credit and provided its reasons to the people
(see MIM Notes 67), Ms. goes on to claim that the PCP itself
is a patriarchal movement that suppresses its women members.
(Note they spend an entire article discussing the death of
one woman and barely touch the Fujimori dictatorship's
killing of thousands of PCP cadres and civilians, many of
whom are women.) In other words, First World white women who
read Ms. can sift through the facts and decide their own
fates, but poor Peruvian women are just stupid followers of
a male oppressor.

Ms. offers no evidence of the suppression of PCP women, and
further did not interview women cadres to see what they
thought about handing out meals to some people versus
organizing for revolution so all Peruvians could eat. The
women organizers of the grassroots reformist groups are
glorified while revolutionary women are admonished for their
political work.

Ms. helped make great strides for First World women in the
1970s. It is now attempting to build a multi-cultural base
by having an international section in which to trash Third
World revolutionary movements which will ultimately make a
better world for most women of the world.

Notes: "Peru: The Government, the Rebels, And the Women in
Between" Ms. July/August 1992, p. 14-15.

* * *
THE "NEW" SOUTH AFRICA LOOKS A LOT LIKE THE OLD

by MA71

It has been three years since South African President F.W.
de Klerk ushered in the era of a "new South Africa" and
"closed the chapter of apartheid." Nelson Mandela and many
political prisoners were released from jail, the African
National Congress (ANC) and other political organizations
were legalized and a host of apartheid laws (many of them
meaningless) were scrapped.

De Klerk was hailed globally as an enlightened leader. But
the changes being made were not a gift from de Klerk, but
the results of heroic mass struggles by unions, civic and
youth organizations.

Having done little to lead the masses for change, the ANC
was the biggest beneficiary of these changes. And yet today
South Africa is no closer to freedom that it was before
February 1990. What went wrong?

The so-called changes de Klerk was talking about should be
understood for what they are, a not-so-ingenious attempt by
the racist regime to pump life back into a mortally-wounded
system of white privilege and capitalist exploitation.

The regime's plan has been elaborate and well-financed. It
involves both coercion and persuasion. Unfortunately for the
regime, nowhere in the history of humankind have people been
persuaded into slavery. Consequently, the linchpin of
Pretoria's plan for "change" has been coercion. The "new
era" for South Africa can be correctly characterized as an
era of massacres and political assassinations.

The list is endless:
The Jeppe Station Massacre - September 6, 1990, 32 people
shot to death;
Sebokeng - January 1991, 38 people dead;
Alexandria - March 26, 1991, 13 killed, 17 wounded;
Boipathong - June 1992, 42 killed;
Swanieville Massacre - 28 dead, more than 100 wounded.

There was Crossroads, Athlone, Kliptown Station,
Braamfontein, and, only a month ago, Bisho, where 25 people
lost their lives. This list does not include the province of
Natal-the headquarters of Gatsha Butelezi and his Inkatha
Party. In June of this year, 567 people lost their lives
through political assassinations at the hands of Gatsha's
police in Natal alone, according to the South African Human
Rights Commission.

Not one person has been convicted of these crimes, despite
eyewitness accounts and confessions by former members of the
police force. Who said de Klerk's cops cannot do their job?

Last June, an off-duty cop was robbed of his gun and a
watch. A huge contingent of armed police stopped and
searched a train in Soweto and recovered the gun and the
watch. Tens of thousands of tired workers were delayed for
hours as a result.

On the other hand, the South African Defence Force has been
busy setting up bogus trade and community organizations and
front companies. This program fell under the code name
Operation Henry. Some of the groups that were established
were the Domestic Worker's Association of South Africa, Save
the Child, Ama-Africa National Front and the Azanian
National Youth Unity-to name but a few.

The most chilling aspect of this has been the role played by
the ANC. In the face of all these killings, the ANC has
failed to protect the people. On the contrary, Mandela and
company have been responsible for some of these massacres.
They call for marches to places where there is a 100% chance
of being murdered.

To be sure, there is always a chance of being killed when
one marches in South Africa. But a national movement of the
ANC's stature and resources has the ability to ensure that
this does not happen. Just this July, 60 ANC members were
arrested after the police found two houses full of arms. The
people keep asking the ANC to give them guns and the ANC
keeps giving them to the government. The people keep asking
the ANC not to negotiate with murderers. Yet, Mandela and de
Klerk keep getting together for cocktails, cynical smiles
and meaningless handshakes.

The ANC urged whites to vote "yes" in a referendum early
this year. They did, and de Klerk won big. He is now using
that mandate to kick us around and retrench white rule. The
ANC has done the impossible, getting the ambitious Gatsha
together with the other Black puppet leaders to form a
national movement opposed to revolutionary change. The ANC,
with the misguided advice of the South African Communist
Party, is wasting time demonstrating against homeland
leaders. ITALIC The real locus of power, Pretoria, is left
unchallenged. END

Once again the murderous regime of de Klerk is calling the
shots, forcing the ANC to come hat-in-hand asking for
negotiations. These same negotiations have been rejected by
the people as nothing else but an attempt by the regime to
build a Berlin Wall around white privilege. Mandela should
be next for the Nobel Peace Prize.