NEW FROM THE ZABALAZA FEDERATION:

Michael Schmidt of the South African Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation has produced an interesting commentary on the conflict in Darfur. The article is entitled 'Blood, water &oil:fallacies of the Darfur War'. He first of all says that the portrayal of the conflict as an "ethnic one" is incorrect as the language, religion and physical appearance of the combatants are basically the same. The conflict is tribal rather than ethnic. He also states that the Sudanese government is not an Islamic fundamentalist state, and he also goes into the ecological causes of the war ie the progressive desertification of western Sudan. He also asserts that UN peacekeepers will not help the people of Darfur. Schmidt's report is the result of a visit that he recently made to Darfur. Schmidt goes on to give a brief history of the Sudanese left and the possibility of anarchist communist initiative in that country.

Michael Schmidt is also the coauthor, along with Lucien van der Walt, of a new book that is due to be published this August by AK Press in the USA. It will be 'Counter-Power: Volume 1' subtitled 'Black Flame:The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism'. Volume 2 titled 'Global Fire:150 Fighting Years of Anarchism and Syndicalism' will follow six months later. To get an overview of volumes 1 and 2 go to an article on the anarkismo site at http://www.anarckismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=5603 . The preface to both editions will be written by Stuart Christie. The book appears to be a greatly !! expanded version of Schmidt's previous pamphlet 'Five Waves' available from the Zabalaza Federation as a downloadable pdf (see their site).

All told looks very interesting to Molly.