17 August represented a new level of aggression and audacity on the part of South Africa.
letter-bomb or other means with anything'.
The assassination of First and the attempted assassination of her colleague, Braganca COUR bomb failed go off) Tollow la lac wake bombing of the ANC office in London, a renewed full-scale invasion of and mounting Arcold. subversion and destabilisation in Mozambique. The key area Western response to South African aggression is the negotiations on a settlement in Namibia. the line taken by the Western powers in inese negotiations, the South African regime judges the protection extended by the West African cominent and to the asub- dominance the subtheid system itself. First's assassination as one more act of defiance to international opinion, and it must not go unanswered.
But who was Ruth First? She lived in Britain since being forced into exile from South Africa in 1964. At the time of her THE assassination of Ruth First in Maputo on Although many militants have been killed - by this is the first time that someone of Ruth First's stature on the international scene has been made the target. 'If the South Africans are allowed to get assassination in Mozambique, where she had helped establish the Centre of Alcan the University of Maputo, she Was still secondment the University Durham. She used to live in London, in a house in Camden Town still cupied by members of her family.
Her husband Joe Slovo is a leader of the military wing of the ANC and lives Africa, but her mother and three resident in Britain.
She was well known in this country, as a scholar, an author, atepagandist in the solidarity novement. She travelled frequently as an invited SOCaNCI participant. and Her conference interests and reputation as a critical thinker extended beyond southern Africa - among many other activities she was recently a member of the International Tribunal on Eritrea, and co-author study wive Schriener, an early socialist feminist.
She made her reputation writer and in politics as a political journalist exposing the brutalily or ine apartnera system. in a series of publications which were banned by the authorities. She joined the ANC and the Communist Party, and was jailed. She wrote an account of hel experiences in solitary continement, 117 Days, which was published by Penguin and made into a film Ull British television.
In exile, she continued as a political activist in the liberation movement but also researched and published further books on Africa. She became an important scholar in studies, and helped found the of African Keview Political Economy, an independent Marxist jourIn their statement on her assassination, ner coeditors on the Review said: 'this premeditated murder killed a woman who by her intellect and ability to analyse and publicise was seen by the South African as dangerous enemy. It is snocking ou instructive to claritv issues and speak out fearlessly are regarded as serious crimes by those who killed this remarkable woman.
Memorial activities for Ruth First and further protests are being organised. For further details and By S McBirney Her cos i These d cilizens Bonus to So. RE How * Them
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away with this,' said Mike Terry, secretary of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, at the picket to protest the murder, 'then they can get away