Our protest comes at a good time: the Carter administration has undertaken the first steps towards a military adventure in Africa.

The State Department has rushed $2 million worth of "nonlethal" military goods to Zaire (the former Belgian Congo). Washington's NATO allies--Belgium and France--are also airlifting massive quantities of war material to the reactionary regime of Gen. Mobutu Sese Seko. Mobutu has launched a military drive to crush secessionist rebels in mineral-rich Shaba province (formerly Katanga).

Wary of profound antiwar sentiment in the United States, and the deep feeling of solidarity with Africa among American Blacks, Carter is moving cautiously. But his actions pose the danger of full-scale imperialist intervention in Africa.

The big-business news media are already preparing the way. The rebellion is pictured as a "communist invasion"--staged from neighboring Angola, led by Cuban troops, and backed by the Soviet Union.

It was under the same battle cry--"Halt communist aggression"--that three presidents marched thousands of American young people to their deaths in Vietnam.

As in Vietnam, the real aggressors in Zaire are Washington and its imperialist allies. Their aim is to maintain their grip on Shaba's cooper and cobalt resources and to check the liberation struggles mounting throughout southern Africa.

March 31, 1952
LOS ANGELES--Reaction was swift and impressive to attempts last Sunday of terrorists to put the Florida race relations pattern into operation in Los Angeles. The would-be assassins used the same tactics, but Los Angeles is not yet Miami, or Groveland or Mims, Fla.

Bombs were placed under two homes in a predominantly "white" neighborhood. Negro ownership was the issue in both cases. The bombs exploded within seconds of each other shortly after 1 a.m. on placid Dunsmuir Avenue. There were no casualties, but the living rooms of both houses were shattered.

Awakened by the explosions, neighborhoods rushed to the scene. A stream of people, Negro and white, kept coming all day, mounting in mid-afternoon to about 1500. A spontaneous meeting was held. Money was collected for the victims. Carpenters, painters, etc., volunteered to repair the damage. Other meetings were hastily called, one at the nearby American Legion hall, which was packed, another at a neighborhood church.

Air Force veterans, buddies of the victims who were both pilots in World War II, quietly made arrangements for an all-night vigil that night and on succeeding nights in the rear room of one of the bombed homes. They came prepared for action against a possible repeat performance. They remained on guard.

The NAACP, whose leaders were at the scene shortly after the dynamiting, called a mass protest rally for Sunday, March 23. The association sought--and quietly obtained--the cooperation of labor, minority, civic and liberal organizations.  
 
 
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