Viewing page 17 of 26

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

on their struggle for freedom and defense of the oppressed workers of South Africa.

2. Arab Rebel Leader Hanged.

Reports from Rome state that Omar Almunter, the leader of the Arabian rebels in Kerina-ike, who for many years has fought against Italian imperialism has been arrested and hanged.

3. Mass Pressure Gains Reduction of Sentences.

The organizers of the strike among the fruit-packers in the Imperial Valley, California, America, who were arrested and sentenced to fourty-two years in jail have had the sentences reduced to five years through mass pressure and great

[[image]]
International solidarity with Negro Workers, 100,000 workers demonstrating at Hamburg, Germany, for international solidarity and against imperialism in Africa

demonstrations of the American workers. Two of the convicted men are to be deported to Panama and Mexico respectively after having served their sentences. The workers are not yet satisfied and will continue to agitate and demonstrate until their comrades are entirely freed. They have also pledged themselves to see that no deportation takes place.

4. West Indian Leaders Jailed.

Two leaders of the Native Defenders Committee, an organization of the Negro masses of Jamaica which is organizing the workers of Kingston and carrying on the struggle against British imperialism and the local autocratic European officialdom have been arrested on a frame-up charge of "sedition" and after a farcical trial before a white capitalist judge, sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. This is how Great Britain hopes to maintain her domination over the Negro masses in

the West Indies. Behind all of the empty, bombastic boast of the British colonial rulers about "Democracy" and "Justice", is the rule of gun-boats, machine guns, bayonets, and the prison cells. Whenever the Negro masses in Africa and the West Indies attempt to organize and demand their rights, the government immediately raises the cry of "Bolshevism" and resorts to the most repressive methods against the working class leaders under the pretext of maintaining "law and order". Police terrorism is so widespread in the British colonies that even the most elementary rights of freedom of assembly, speech and press are denied to the native masses.

5. Flogging Legalized in Rhodesia.

Southern Rhodesia is one of the latest so-called self-governing dominions of the British Empire where a few thousand whites impose their will by armed force on many hundreds of thousands of defenceless natives. To-day there is a law called the Native Juveniles Act in operation which provides for a system of indentured labour or camoflaged slavery for native children under the age of 14.

This Act also permits the flogging of native boys on a complaint from any white capitalist or manager or if a Government official considers they have refused to obey any order.

6. Another Sample of British "Democracy".

For reprinting in his newspaper articles from the Daily Worker, published in the United States, Herbert Barnes, a native of Jamaica, is being persecuted by the Jamaica government.

Barnes has been forced into hiding following a fine of 50 dollars in the Kingston courts which he was unable to pay.

The British bosses and imperialist agents are trying to prevent the Negro masses from knowing what is going on in the advanced countries. They are afraid that the savagely oppressed native masses would draw inspiration from the struggles against starvation of militant Negro and white workers in the United States and England, and also begin to organize unemployment councils and demand food, clothes and free rent from the government.

The native masses are suffering frightfully as a result of the growth of mass unemployment, starvation, and lowering of wages with which the colonial bosses and the absentee landlords, who own the sugar and banana plantations, are trying to shift the full burden of the crisis on the backs of the workers and peasants.

Barnes had only recently started his paper, and printed it as a one sheet newspaper. Most of its material was quoted from the Daily Worker, and other English and American working class papers, which his friends sent him. The paper was eagerly read by Jamaican workers. The heavy fine against him represents a brutal attempt by the British officials to kill the paper and in this way keep the workers ignorant of what is going on in the outside world.

7. Chinese Leader Beheaded.

In no country is the terror against the working class so great as in China, where war lords and generals, supported by the imperialist powers in America, England, France, Italy and Japan, are carrying on war among themselves and extorting the very last cent out of the working class and peasantry through taxation. Workers who protest and organize the masses against this system of robbery are immediately arrested and handed over to the hangmen of General Chang-Kai-Shek who is supported by American dollars and battleships.