A PROPOSAL TO BUILD THE CAMPAIGN TO STOP SOUTH AFRICAN COAL

Contents: I.POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE • Political Errors on the Issue of South African Coal • II. PROGRAM • A. STRATEGY AND FORCES • B. GOALS DEMANDS AND SLOGANS • C. ORGANIZATIONAL FORMS AND METHODS OF STRUGGLE • D. TACTICS • Paper presented by the Birmingham Coalition to Stop South African Coal at the Conference to Stop South African Coal in Atlanta, Georgia held February 1 and 2, 1975. The presentation says the struggle that we seek to build must be seen within a world context, as a direct blow against imperialism by part of a united front against the two superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) as they divide and redivide the world. Developing the campaign by building the leadership of the working class to support the liberation fight in Southern Africa will push forward the revolutionary struggle, consciousness, and unity of the U.S. working class as well. Southern Africa is an important part of the strategy of U.S. imperialists to maintain hegemony over the people and resources of the Third World. The regimes of South Africa (Azania), Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Southwest Africa (Namibia) and until recently, the Portuguese colonies, act as client states of U.S. imperialism and hold the door open to U. S. capital investment. The keystone of the regime's power is the extreme national oppression of South Africa's majority Black population by the white settler regime and on the brutal exploitation of the labor of the Black South African workers. The paper says coal is a strategic and developing part of South Africa's economy. It says that, as the Southern Company and other U.S. corporations search for a way out of the general crisis of imperialism, they go after a cheaper and growing source of coal: South Africa. The paper says there is a need to build broad unity with church groups, community organizations, civic groups, trade unions and trade union locals, students and student organizations, while also bringing forward rank and file workers in developing leadership in these groups. The document also discusses the exploitation of natural resources, the labor force, semi-slavery, a pass book, colonialists, imperialists, military might, the South African fascist state, the capitalist system, contradictions, a chronic falling rate of profit, the proletariat, surplus value, the oppressed nations and peoples of the world, cheaper raw materials, monopoly capitalists, the common enemy, revolutionary unity, consciousness, role of the U.S. and South African governments, independence from the hegemony of the two superpowers, the USSR, the United Mineworkers union leadership, UMW (United Mine Workers), bureaucrats, liberation struggles, lay-offs, unemployment, Australia, importation of coal, the interest of the masses of workers in this country, propaganda, political education, freedom fighters, a united front under proletarian leadership, racist regime, campaign goals, slogans, South African imports, African liberation, port cities, the struggle against Rhodesian imports, Tapson Mawere, ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union), a Southwide demonstration, the African Liberation Support Committee (ALSC), organizations and individuals within this coalition, the right to continue to express their own particular viewpoints, and national oppression.