arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

An interview with jailed National Land Committee media officer and Landless People's Movement activits Ann Eveleth on the wave of illegal arrests by authorities in a pre-emptive move aimed at silencing popular protest ahead
of the World Summit.

Comrades, today I visited political prisoner Ann Eveleth in jail at the Kempton Park police cells. She was in good spirits and is grateful for the messages of support she has received from around the world -- as well as the food taken to her by well-wishers. Police fed all prisoners except her this morning, but she remains unbowed by the state's blatant attempt to choke the voice of the Landless People's Movement in its criticisms of the centre-right-wing ANC-IFP government's neoliberal campaign against the poor.
Ann has been in South Africa since 1993, working initially as a journalist who established a reputation for dogged pursuit of the truth of state sponsorship of so-called "third force" destabilisation campaigns. Over the
past three years, she has been working for the National Land Committee, helping advance the cause of the rural poor in their fight for access to land stolen from them and their ancestors, and has been involved with LPM since its formation in July 2001.

The LPM has about 100,000 supporters across the country many of whom have over the past months been harrassed and intimidated by spooks from the National Intelligence Agency. The government is clearly concerned that the
LPM will mount a substantial protest next week during the World $ummit on $ustainable Development that will embarass them by pointing to its unsustainable policies that have seen 1-million people lose their jobs, 1,5-million evicted from their homes and 3,5-million disconnected from water
and electricity.

The defensive actions of the LPM and of allied organisations like the Anti-Privatisation Forum has seen the development by the authorities of a dirty tricks campaign to demonise protest: the constitutional right to free assembly has been arbitrarily - and illegally - trampled on by unilateral police action; spying and harrassment has increased; and the illegal jailings without charge of scores of poor people has escalated.

Speaking from behind bars today (Friday August 23), Ann said: "The government has taken the old apartheid rule-book out od the dustbin because it has decided it can't afford democracy."

She described the dirty tricks campaign as "an undercover State of Emergency". The fight against apartheid peaked in the late 1980s with a series of more and more severe States of Emergency that attempted to curtail protest.

That attempt failed and so will this one. Ann insisted that the LPM's march through Sandton -- super-wealthy site of the W$$D meeting -- would go ahead on August 31.

She said the illegal arrest this week of 72 LPM activists, while dispersing peacefully after a legal march, plus the arrest of 98 Soldiers' Forum members on equally false grounds last Saturday were clearly part of a campaign to stifle dissent ahead of the $ummit where the wealthy of the
world will dine on fine foods and pretend to discuss poverty.
The protests, she swore, would "make it impossible for the South African government to hide poverty under the illusion of cosmetic efforts to beautify the city for delegates."

Ann was clearly arrested for alleged contravention of the Aliens Control Act as part of a pre-planned strategy by authorities when she went to try and arrange bail for the arrested LPM marchers. She is a US citizen, but considers SA her home and denies she is in the country illegally, having worked here legally for almost the past decade. A team from Lawyers for Human Rights is handling her case and will be fighting all the way against her threatened deportation.

We call on all organisations and people concerned at the police suspension of the constitutional rights of freedom of assembly and speech in South Africa to mount protests outside the relevant state institutions or embassies.

NOTE: The Anarchist Black Hammer (Southern Africa) is a new support network for jailed class war prisoners, including revolutionaries, activists, dissidents, workers, peasants and the poor formed today in response to the dirty tricks campaign of the SA authorities. The ABH will draw on almost a century of proud history, starting with the formation of the Anarchist Red Cross in Russian-controlled Poland during the 1905 Russian Revolt. The ARC spread around the world and renamed itself the Anarchist Black Cross in 1919 following the Russian Revolution and ever since has worked for the relief and release of prisoners jailed for their political activities. We decided to adopt the usual Scandinavian form of the name, Anarchist Black Hammer, both to remove any possible religious bias that could be inferred by the word "cross" and to symbolise the demolition of all prison walls.

**** For the liberation of our comrades from the Soldiers' Forum, the Landless People's Movement and the Anti-Privatisation Forum / Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee and the defense of working class organisations against state repression!

ABH ad-hoc organising committee