[SINCE THE independence of Angola, troops of the…]

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SINCE THE independence of Angola, troops of the South African apartheid regime, together with hired mercenaries, have launched repeated raids into southern Angola.

Over the last weeks, these have been escalated into a full scale invasion. South African generals have brought in tanks and have massively stepped up air attacks on towns in the Cunene Province.:

These attacks have been designed to massacre SWAPO guerrillas and Namibian refugees, and assert a terrorist discipline over the Angolan masses. At the same time, they are useful to the South African ruling class as a method of stepping up the militarisation inside South Africa -which more and more -IS being used to attack the black workers' movement, as weil as to assert control through military discipline over the base amongst white workers and the white middle class on which government depends.

This new invasion has been met by expressions of opposition from sections of the imperialists. It is not concern for the welfare and well-being of the masses of Angola which prompts these statements.

During the entire period of the Portuguese colonial occupation of Angola, the imperialists were delighted to share in the spoils of profiteering and to support the brutal colonial repres sion which made that profiteering possible.

New challenge But the escalating struggle of the oppressed masses of southern Africa has created a massive new challenge to imperialist control.

However much they have to say in comdemnation of the raid, the imperialists are forced to depend more and more on the maintenance and stability of their central agent in the area -the South African state.

In reality, their opposition to the raid comes from fear of the escalation of conflict in the region the raids could provoke.

The imperialists are determined to contain and control the development of struggle. Their international crisis of profits forces them to hit out more and more viciously to defend capitalist control and profits.

Divided

But faced with a developing movement of struggle, the imperialists are divided and confused as to how best to crush the threat to their rule.

Many of them do not yet have the confidence for the massive and vicious attacks on a worid scale to which they are propelled if their capitalist system is to be defended.

At the same time, not one of them has hesitated for a second when it is their immediate interests which are at stake. Thatcher moralises about the brutality of her class allies in South Africa, while the defence of capitalism in Britain has meant the brutality of more than three million unemployed and the defence of British imperialist rule in the north of Ireland has meant open military-police terror.

In reality, the brutality of the forces of the South African state in Angola is an indicator and a fore-runner of the brutality which faces the developing struggle in other places.

The haste with which the imperialists acted to crush a left wing coup in The Gambia, the open support from Reagan for right wing butchers in El Salvador, the declared intention of Reagan to provide more support for the right wing forces of UNITA in Angola - all of these have emboldened the South African regime to launch its attack.

More and more, the South African government can count on the support of the Reagan government which has openly launched an international offensive against the workers and peasants movement internationally. It is absolutely no coincidence that the South African raids were escalated in the aftermath of the American sabre rattling and shooting down of Libyan planes.

In Angola, southern Africa and internationally, only be defeated by the strength of the working class, mobilised behind workers revolutionary parties, drawing behind them their oppressed allies. The military • brutality of the South African state throughout southern Africa underlines the crucial importance of the workers' struggle in South Africa itself.

Threat It is only the victory of the working class in South Africa that can free the countries of southern Africa from the immediate threat of constant attacks. And it is only through the building of workers' power inside South Africa that the great wealth and developed productive forces there can be unleashed from the destructive grip of capitalism and used to the benefit of all in the are?

Real ally

The defence of Angola and SWAPO against South African/imperialist attack is an immediate task in the struggle for: the liberation of the southern African working people.

The only real ally of the workers and peasants of Angola and Namibia in this task is the international working class.

In Britain, the fight must be taken up in the labour movement for solidarity action that can strengthen OuT class allies în Angola and Namibia, and obstruct the ongoing material and political aid to the South African state from its imper### Lubango Moçamedes Chibemba Porto Cahama Alexandre ¿Cune NAMIBIA ZAIRE Luanda Labito; ANGOLA Maçamede ZAMBIA NAMIBIA BOTSWANA ATLANTIC SOUTH OCEAN AFRICA LES.

ialist backers.

The South African armed forces must not be allowed to move against the oppressed with weapons produced by other workers.

*Full blacking action

Miles

ANGO Catequero ‹Xangongo Ondangua TANZANIA MALAWI ZIMBABWE MOZAMBIOUE Pretoria INDIAN SNAZ. OCEAN against all military and related supplies to the South African regime!

*Maximum support to the working people fighters of Angola Namibia!