From: "Paul Martin" <PAULM-AT-socsci.uct.ac.za>
Date:          Fri, 24 Nov 1995 12:27:39 SAST-2
Subject:       Re: South Africa and Nigeria 



hello adam ... thanks for your response(s) ...

1. The S.A. government's first response to the crisis was extremely 
bad. The "quiet diplomacy" effort on the one hand presupposed the 
legitimacy of the Abacha regime, and on the other further legitimised 
it. The government later seemed to realise this, and embarked on major 
campaigns to force changes from Abacha. Of course, Abacha laughs in 
their faces. Yesterday Abacha said that Mandela's long imprisonment 
left him with an archaic notion of democracy out of step with modern 
African developments (!).

2. The secretary-general of the ANC, Cyril Ramaphoza, said they were 
"appalled" and "ashamed" with Shell's responses to the crisis. 
Rightly, he resisted Shell (South Africa)'s response that a local 
Shell boycott would only hurt local business. It is not possible yet 
to know what the ANC has planned, but it is extremely unlikely 
the ANC would call for workers to boycott Shell goods/products here. 
If it happened, it would come from below; and the trade unionists 
would probably attempt to squash it because they would be under 
pressure from bosses. (The biggest stick the South African workers can 
be beaten with is the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). 
Striking, too many public holidays, elections, etc are labelled by 
the bosses as threat to the RDP!) 
    Nevertheless, most of Ramaphoza's efforts are directed to 
talking with heads of state and the directors of Shell in order to 
enforce change. Nobody, not even that 'socialist party' the SACP, 
looks to working class action as a solution. They prefer to 
negotiate, using workers when necessary - it's sort of like turning a 
tap on and off. At the moment it is not feasible for leadership to 
think of mobilising the militants, and the militants are not coming 
forward with their own solutions.        



Other things that have been done in South Africa are:

(i) Miss Nigeria was pressurised by trade unionists to leave the Miss 
World competition at Sun City (low blow! low blow!);

(ii) The Nigerian soccer team was disqualified by the local football 
federation from attending a four nations football competition in 
Johannesburg. 

(iii) The ANC, who took over a building in central Johannesburg as its 
headquarters, threatened to change the building's name. The building 
is called Shell House (!). 

3. Mandela argued the opposition movements inside Nigeria must be 
held responsible for not mounting stronger resistance to Abacha, and 
he shows this by counterposing Nigeria to South Africa during 
apartheid. I think this is an important criticism. Obviously the 
'quietness' of the working class in Nigeria at the moment stands in 
real contrast to the brilliant struggles waged in the past, 
especially the long oil workers' strike last year.  

Obviously, Nigerian workers are the only ones who can smash Abacha. 
Perhaps we will see them out on a general strike soon (?).
 
in solidarity,

paul
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