Sudan Arrests

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ONE OF Reagan's favourite puppets in Africa, President Numeiry of Sudan, last week sent his police force to arrest thousands of homeless unemployed people in the capital Khartoum.

They were then expelled to the totally impoverished rural areas. Numeiry's vicious regime described these people as "vagrants, tramps and criminals" - the favourite words of dictators who are waging a campaign of repression against the oppressed.

In June this year, when Sudan's more than 40,000 railway workers went on a three week strike for higher wages, Numeiry arrested union leaders and militants, and threatened to execute them for their "criminal" actions.

For the working people of Sudan, struggling against terrible poverty and repres sion, the real criminals are Numeiry and the imperalists behind him.

For the sake of the profits of imperialist bankers and their Sudanese lackeys, the working people face even worse living standards and an even sharper battle to get the ie basic needs of daily life.

As the militant railworkers have shown, the working masses are fighting back, determined to win the basic right of all working people - a decent standard of living and political control over their daily lives.

Numeiry's regime faces a growing crisis over how to break this fighting militancy and defend the rule and the profits of capitalism. Reagan has been quick to give large amounts of military and other aid to help Numeiry in his bloody task.

Numeiry ON September 9th, Nicaragua's Sandinista government declared a state of emergency.

Strikes will be banned, and public spending is cut by five per cent. This state of emergency will continue for one year.

The background to the Sandinistas' decision is the devastation caused by the civil war against the dietator they overthrew, Anastasio Somoza, the flight of capital since then, and Reagan's decision to block $75 million US aid.

The Sandinistas have earned the hostility of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie and of the US, while at the same time failing to move decisively against the continued private ownership of over half the economy or to aim for a link-up with revolutionary movements in other countries.

Balance

So for two years they have been trying to keep a delicate balance. But the growing crisis, and the Sandinistas' latest move against the working class, must increase the danger of counter-revolution.

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 24 September 1981 Page Russian tanks mount a threat on the borders, while inside Poland bureaucrats menace the workers the S:9002 ACTION