he

Palestinian
unionists
at centre

of struggle

Workers and their trade unions are the
decisive force in the struggle of the Palesti-
Mian people for national liberation. They
are also the first targets of the Israeli
repression.

In addition to numerous other harass-
ments, unions are repeatedly subjected to
taids by the military authorities, and
union members are jailed under adminis-
trative detention. These measures are
meant to paralyze unions and prevent
them from executing their duties towards
their members.

There are 38 registered labour unions in
the West Bank, and more than 100 others
which the Israeli authorities have refused
to license in obvious violation of the
labour law which is supposed to be
implemented in the occupied territories,
and the covenant of the International
Labour Organization.

In addition, the labour law imple-
mented in the West Bank is the Jordanian
law issued in 1965. Under the pressure of
Jordanian workers, that law has subse-
quently been amended and improved
three times in Jordan. In the West Bank,
however, it continues to be implemented
in its original version.

Palestinian workers in Israel are sub-
jected to military orders. Palestinian
unions are not allowed to represent them
or deal with their problems. Nonetheless,
in the West Bank, the unions are able to
deal with thousands of disputes annually,
including struggles involving wage increa-
Ses, annual leaves, and illegal firing. And
they manage to get many disputes involv-
ing Palestinian workers in Israel referred
to union-retained lawyers.

With the outbreak of the intifada, the

An Israeli soldier guards arrested Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

authorities’ repressive measures ‘against
unions escalated. Hundreds of activists
were arrested, many leading unions were
ordered closed or their premises raided by
the military.

The offices of the Union of Workers in
Public Institutions in Ramallah, Tulkarem
and Salfit, for example, were closed for
two years; union offices in Idna and Yatta
in the Hebron district, in Salfit, Qalqiliya
and Jericho were raided, their furniture
damaged and files of members confis-
cated. Some of these files relate to cases of
labour disputes which are still being dis-
cussed in court.

Three Palestinian workers were burned
to death in Or Yehuda, inside Israel, by
some Israeli fascist elements. Attacks
against Palestinian labourers in Israel have
been going on for a long time now without
any serious step being taken by the author-
ities to prevent them.

In 1988, the occupation authorities

renewed the administrative detention of
unionist Yusek Al-Tumaizi, member of
the executive committee of the General
Federation of Trade Unions of the West
Bank and of Yunis Tayyem, member of
the federation’s council.

Muhammed Bleidi, another member of
the executive committee, is still under
administrative detention. As of now, two-
thirds of the council’s members and one
third of of the executive committee
members are in jail.

After the ILO, in its 1988 conference,
protested against Israeli practices, the
Israeli authorities alleged that labour
unions in the occupied territories are con-
cerned with political, rather than labour
issues, and defy public order. Those alle-
gations have been endorsed by prominent
Israeli labour leaders.

All detained Palestinian unionists are
held administratively in accordance with
the Emergency Regulations of 1945, ice.

without ever being charged or tried.

The General Federation of Trade
Unions of the West Bank has demanded
that those detainees either be brought to
trial or immediately released. It has also
demanded an immediate end to the
authorities’ campaigns against unions and
unionists,

It demands that they respect interna-
tional law concerning the right of associa-
tion and the Human Rights Declaration,
and that they close the notorious detention
camp Ansar 3, where two Palestinian
detainees were recently killed and scores of
others have been injured by Israeli guards.

The GFTU asserts that peace can only
be achieved on the basis of a respect of
people’s rights in their homelands, and
through convening an international con-
ference attended by all parties in the con-
flict, including the PLO, the sole legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people.

— from the World Trade Union Movement

The Ulster-South Africa weapons connection

_ LONDON — The Thatcher government
IS up to its ears in embarrassment over activ-
ities in the British backyard by Thatcher’s
South African friends. These concern the’
supplying of arms to right-wing terrorists in
Northern Ireland, where both civilians and
British troops are targets.

On April 23, French police raided a Paris
hotel and arrested three Northern Ireland
(Ulster) Protestant members of the paramil-
itary Ulster Defence Association as well as a
South African embassy staff member and
an American arms dealer based in Switzer-
land. The group was caught in the midst of
finalizing-a deal in which the UDA men
were handing over a stolen missile-launcher
and a missile to the South African in
exchange for a reported $1.7-million and a
supply of arms to the UDA.

The South African, Daniel Storm, was
released after claiming diplomatic immun-
ity, a status normally not recognized unless
a person is pursuing official duties. Storm
was understood to be an agent of Armscor,
the South African state-owned arms manu-
facturing and procurement operation. The
American, Douglas Bernhard, was identi-
fied as an “arms specialist.”

Reports of a South African link with
ultra-right groups in Northern Ireland have
been circulating for a year or more, but have
been sat on by the Thatcher government.
Weapons supplied to the UDA were used in
an attack on civilians attending an Irish
Republican Army funeral last year, causing

William Pomeroy

three deaths.

The one-time loyalist UDA, antagonized
by the Thatcher cross-border agreement
with the Republic of Ireland, has also been
turning on the police and British army. At
least six such deaths can be traced to arms of
South African origin.

The aim of such deals, for South Africa,
is obtain know-how to produce the British
Blowpipe surface-to-air missile and its suc-
cessors, the Javelin and Starstreak, which
are developed and manufactured by the
Short Brothers company in Belfast. Pro-
testant ultra-right paramilitary groups have
many members in key industries in North-
ern Ireland. The theft of weapons, materials
and parts has been occurring since last year
in Short Brothers, and a Blowpipe model
was stolen in April from British Territorial
Army base in County Down. Those are the
weapons, it seems, that turned up in Paris
for transfer to the South Africans.

In the past, claims of a Libyan arms-
supplying connection with the IRA have
brought strident denunciations of terrorism
from Thatcher, who, in revenge gave the
U.S. Air Force permission to bomb Libyan
cities from British bases in 1986. The British
government’s reaction to the South African

NEWS ANALYSIS

connection, however, was little more thana
gentle admonition.

At the time the Paris hotel episode was
revealed, Thatcher was engaged in talks
with South African Finance Minister
Barend du Plessis — intended, government
sources said, “to demonstrate a more
relaxed atmosphere” between the two
governments. Thatcher merely said she was
“gravely concerned” about the arms deal,
and the talks proceeded. Not until May 5
were three South African diplomats
ordered expelled from Britain.

Bombarded with questions from the
opposition Labour Party in the Commons,
Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe
would only say that he took a “‘grave view”
of the incident, refusing to discuss it on the
grounds that it was under judicial consider-
ation. Under Labour pressure the speaker
of the House ruled that the matter could
indeed be discussed.

Howe then ignored the call by Labour’s
shadow Foreign Secretary Gerald Kauf-
man for “urgent consultations with other
European foreign ministers to seek united
action over the expulsion of all South Afri-
can intelligence agents and arms purchasers
posing as diplomats.”

Labour spokesman on Northern Ireland
Kevin McNamara said: “This must repres-
ent a serious embarrassment to Mrs.
Thatcher, who makes Britain South Afri-
ca’s only ally in the West. It makes her look
extremely foolish if, while she is posing as a
friend of South Africa, the Pretoria
government is busily supplying arms to ter-
rorists in the United Kingdom.”

_ As the Thatcher government did every-
thing possible to gloss over what amounts
to a major scandal, South Africa’s apar-
theid regime has been brazening it out in a
manner that could only lead to the breaking
of relations if indulged in by any other coun-

South African Foreign Minister Pik
Botha defended the right of Armscor “to
consider offers of weapons technology.”
Defence Minister Gen. Magnus Malan, was
even more blunt: “The international arms
embargo compels South Africa to use
unconventional methods to ensure its secur-
ity,” he said.

This virtual admission of the Northern
Ireland intervention caused a furore in
South Africa itself, where the opposition
called for Malan’s resignation.

Such a crisis could only occur, it was
admitted, if Thatcher displayed anger and
demanded action. The likelihood of that is
as great as Thatcher’s conversion to the
anti-apartheid movement.

William Pomeroy is London correspondent
for the U.S. People’s Daily World.

Pacific Tribune, May 29, 1989 « 9