THE SOUTH African regime has signalled its intention to murder the Sharpeville Six. The refusal by the trial judge on Monday 13 June to reopen the case on the Sharpeville Six marks Botha's determination to have the lives of these six innocent people in a show of strength against the rising tide of opposition to apartheid.
The decision immediately follows the unparalled success of last week's 3 day stay away by South African workers. As Oliver Tambo explained this was the longest in duration, the biggest in mass involvement, organised during a state of emergency and during the banning of the very organisations which would normally organise such an event.
International opposition has also grown to unprecedented levels as recent events have further exposed the brutality of apartheid. Last week's screening of the reality of child torture in apartheid's prisons reached new depths of shock.
Saturday's birthday concert for Mandela, transmitted to 60 countries, was the largest and most successful mass event ever attempted by the anti-apartheid movement, whose message will have reached hundreds of thousands for the first time.
Under increasing international pressure both the EEC and the US Congress are being obliged to discuss new economic sanctions.
Pretoria's response is a brutal show of strength. On Thursday 9 June Botha announced the extension of the state of emergency for a third year. In a further attempt to control opposition by limiting freedom of speech, measures have been widened to ban calls for election boycotts or quoting members of restricted' organisations. Even the BBC is under threat of ban or strict curtailment, in response to the Suffer the Children programme the Mandela concert.
The decision on the Sharpeville Six is part of this callous revenge by Pretoria to make the power of the regime unmistakeably clear, and the methods it is prepared to use against opposition.
The British government's response has been sickening apologetics for apartheid. Thatcher's opposition to sanctions, as Tambo states 'the one international measure which could end apartheid', is notorious. Whereas 24 Tory MPs put down Commons motion of 'distaste' at the BBC's decision to broadcast the Mandela concert, the Speaker refused a request for an emergency Commons debate on the Sharpeville Six.
Geoffrey Howe's role at a meeting of EEC foriegn ministers was to successfully water down a statement of protest at the decision on the Six. As a result all references to their 'astonishment' and a direct appeal to Botha were excluded. The substitution that all legal options' should be used to save the Six is a sick joke.
The clearly massive international opposition which exists to apar theid must be mobilised in time up to 19 July to defend the Six. Weekly Wednesday lunchtime pickets of the Foriegn Office are being organised by the AAM. The AAM Mandela demonstration on 17 July must be a huge and unequivocal outcry in defence of the Six.
Socialist Action ACTiON July 1988
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Save the Sharpeville Six! Demonstrate 17 July!