The Third World War: August 1985

It was to be a far from peaceful Christmas.

CHAPTER 6: No Peace at Christmas

The Ryabukhin plan was accepted by the Politburo, and almost immediately began to move out of control. The chronology of subsequent events was as follows:

30 November 1984. Egypt, having renewed a military relationship with Soviet Russia, overthrows by subversion the governments of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait. It proclaims a new and immensely rich United Arab Republic (including these countries) and calls a meeting of OPEC heads of government for 7 December. Iran is invited to this OPEC meeting, which is to be held on neutral territory, but the new UAR threatens that there could be immediate military action against any country which interferes in the UAR’s ‘proper sphere of interest’ and which sends forces to the Trucial Coast and Oman. This is clearly a threat to Iran. Israel is offered guarantees which ensure her neutrality.

2 December. Rioting, led by students, in Soweto and some other townships which are capitals of ‘Uncle Tom’ black-ruled states or cantons of the former Union of South Africa. These are black states that have good economic relations with the three white South African states and daily send many commuters to work in them. Some of these riots are put down, with bloodshed, by the local black police.

3 December. Strikes in Madras, which appear to be politically inspired. A Pan Am aircraft is hijacked on its way to Singapore and lands in Bangladesh at Chittagong. The Chief Ministers of two capitalist states in the old Indian Union and the executives of some American multi-nationals active in Madras are aboard it. The hijackers announce that they are being held hostage until the demands of the Madras strikers are met. Two days later American marines (invited, it is claimed, by Bangladesh) try to storm the aircraft, as the Germans did in 1977 in Somalia. The Americans fail. The aircraft is blown up with total loss of life.

5 December. At a meeting in Zimbabwe the Organization of Socialist African States claims that the ‘fascist police’ in Soweto on 2 December used weapons that were clearly heavier than any allowed to states of the former Union of South Africa under the Brzezinski Agreement. That agreement is therefore now declared at an end. The white homelands and ‘Uncle Tom’ states must be dissolved and their component parts made subject states of a new black-ruled Confederation of Africa South. Military action will be taken to enforce this.

7 December. At the OPEC meeting the new UAR demands a sharp increase in the price of oil. It also announces an oil boycott against any country that does not meet its political demands. These include recognition of the proposed Confederation of Africa South. There is to be strict boycott against anybody who aids and abets the white homelands and ‘Uncle Tom’ states. The UAR insists that majority votes in OPEC are enforceable upon all members, and that the boycott may be policed by ‘friendly naval forces’, which the newspapers suggest means the USSR. Iran dissents strongly.

8 December. The Soviet Union proclaims support for the OPEC decision. It also activates its existing base and missile facilities in Aden. This may be in order to help enforce the oil boycott.

9 December. An unsuccessful attempt is made to hijack an aircraft carrying Iranian finance and petroleum ministers from the OPEC meeting home to Tehran. On the same day there is an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Shah.

11 December. Forays from Zimbabwe and Namibia are made into the former Union of South Africa. Poland and some Indian states announce that they are withdrawing their forces from the UN troops on the border. Polish, Mexican and Indian commanders on the spot declare that they are under UN orders and will obey these. There are signs that Polish and Indian troops in Africa are more in agreement with right-wing dissidents at home than with their existing governments.

13 December. Round-ups of intellectuals and some workers’ leaders are reported from East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia. These do not appear to be very successful, and reports appear in Western newspapers of communiques from an organized ‘underground’ in these countries and what is by now almost an open dissident movement in Poland.

20 December. Black African forces advancing, in some disorder, from Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique are now known to be commanded by Soviet, Cuban, and Jamaican officers. These clearly do not have their troops under disciplined control.

24 December. The UAR announces that it has discovered an Iranian plan to send forces into the Gulf states. It threatens that if this happens it will take direct military action against Iran, including air attack on Tehran. Iran threatens immediate retaliation and asks for US help.