Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No. 2, January/February 1980
On 16 November the ANC Treason Trial Defence Committee called a picket on South Africa House to protest against the death sentence passed on James Daniel Mange and to call for the release of the ANC 12.
The organisations present on the picket were the ANC, the AAM, London District Communist Party and the RCG. The banners of only these 4 organisations were displayed at the picket. Yet in its front page report of the picket the Morning Star managed to mention only three of these organisations. It said:
‘A banner saying “Remember Solomon Mahlangu — Stop apartheid murder of James Mange” was joined by the banners of the London District Communist Party, the ANC and the Anti-Apartheid Movement’ (Morning Star 17 11 79)
Given that only two banners from the British left were present on the picket, the CP’s and the RCG’s, the omission is a glaring one!
The RCG gave the Morning Star ample opportunity to correct this omission by writing to the Editor pointing out the mistake, even sending the letter recorded delivery to ensure that it was received. But no correction was printed. When telephoned on two occasions by the RCG, Morning Star Editor Tony Chater ‘could not recall’ the letter. Still suffering from a total failure to ‘recall’ the letter (which the Post Office assure us was delivered) Mr Chater informed the RCG that it was anyway too late to print a correction.
The Morning Star made no ‘mistake’ in its report of the 16 November picket. It was knowingly guilty of censorship. Such sectarianism damages the movement which must be built in solidarity with the liberation struggle of the ANC(SA). It does great harm to the building of that solidarity movement by concealing from the working class the support which revolutionary anti-imperialist organisations give to the liberation struggle in South Africa led by the ANC(SA).
The Morning Star would have aided the growth of the solidarity movement by printing a truthful account of the organisations supporting the picket. Then the real omission would have stood out — the shameful absence of the major British left organisations — the SWP, IMG, WRP etc, who while criticising the ANC(SA) in their newspapers have found it unnecessary to attend a single one of the weekly pickets.
