A hundred and fifty people took part in a demonstration in London last Sunday, as part of an international campaign on the 20th anniversary of the CIA-led coup which put the Shah of Iran back in power in 1953. Speakers from the Iranian Students Society Confederation, which organised the demonstration and also a large meeting two days earlier, emphasised that the coup had taken place in order to instal a regime which would safeguard the interests of imperialism and sup press the national liberation movement in Iran. These tasks had been carried out with a vengeance Thus the oil industry (nationalised under the previous government of Dr Mossadegh) has been de-nationalised, and 1,000 troops are assisting the British to suppress the liberation struggle in Oman - which threatens imperialist oil interests in the Arab Gulf. Half of the annual budget goes on arms, to back up such 'policing of the Gulf and to maintain the repression of the Iranian working class and its allies. There are no free trade unions or student unions. prisons contain the most barbaric torture chambers in the world, and during the last two years alone the regime has carried out 120 public executions of militants and patriots. This oppression, the speakers stressed, can only be smashed by the mobilisation of the Iranian working class, students and other oppressed sectors on a clear political basis; coupled with international solidarity. This last was unfortunately lacking last weekend, in Britain at least: a number of British socialist groups supported the meeting, but on the demonstration the British left was conspicuous for its absence. This is serious, not just because of the need to organise solidarity in Britain, but because without support from British groups Iranian students are particularly vulnerable to police intimidation and threats of deportation, etc.
Red Weekly 24 Auqust 1973 Page 7
litical initiatives, especially in Cammong the peasants and townspeople direct bombing, as he has threatened,