battles in Bogside

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WHILE Sinn Fein candidates canvass for electoral support in the Six Counties of Ireland, republican supporters took to the streets last weekend in the biggest riots since the hunger strikes 500 petrol bombs were thrown at the RUC by youth in the Bogside area of Derry on the second anniversary of the death of In Belfast on Tuesday a massive 700lb car bomb demolished Meanwhile in Britain the rooftop protest in Albany, Isle of Wight, has thrown the spotlight once again on the discrimination against republican prisoners held in British jails.

These are the visible reminders that whichever party wins the next election there will remain a long hard battle to force the withdrawal of British troops from the six counties, and ensure the right of the Irish people to self-determination. two years ago.

INLA hunger-striker Patsy O'Hara.

the Andersonstown RUC barracks. Troops arrest black demonstrator While the guerrillas courageous blows against the regime are no doubt supported by the vast majority of black workers, they do little to organise the mass class action and mass self defence that are vital if the apartheid-capitalist state is to be overthrown.

Apartheid will not be reformed' away. Further evidence of this is the new constitutional proposals being pushed through, which would give virtually dictatorial powers to an elected Executive President, who would singlehandedly supervise the business of the proposed 3-chamber Parliament (whites, coloureds, Indians), appoint ministers, proclaim or terminate martial law, declare war and make peace, appoint or remove civil servants, and chair the cabinet.

As the black working class faces draconian repression and mounting exploitation, the task of international solidarity is an urgent one.

It can be begun in every union, through steps to build direct links with the emerging black trade unions. of South Africa. FURTHER moves by the Khomeini regime to cement its links with imperialism have accompanied new threats to exterminate members of the now banned Tudeh (Communist) Party:

Last week saw a visit to Japan by an Iranian delegation secking a resumption of work on the delayed Bandar Khomeini petrochemical complex.

A joint company comprising the Mitsui group and the Iranian government will operate the complex which came to a halt in the Iran-Iraq war.

But this link-up between Khomeini's " professedly "anti-imperialist" regime and one of the world's most powerful multinationals is only part of a broader scheme for economic links between Iran and Japan, which will be discussed by a further Iranian delegation to Japan in mid June.

This open move towards restoration of broken links with imperialism runs alongside the heightened witch-hunt of left wing oppositionists within Iran, and the purge of the Tudeh Party.

Khomeini on Monday made a speech in which he lumped together Tudeh supporters - until now some of the most craven supporters of the "Islamic republic" and US sympathisers.

In a chill warning to Tudeh members - who are bing rounded up by Islamic "revolutionary guards" - Khomeini compared them to the banned Mujahedeen.

"Except that you are wearing a different mask, the mask of sympathy with the impoverished masses, of patriotism.

Let me tell you that you will not live to witness the return here of the US, nor will you live to see the return here of the Soviet What they will live to witness is further repression and - if captured - torture, already inflicted on the Tudeh Party's General Secretary to force him to make bogus "cônfessions" that he has worked for the KGB since 1945.