Broad- water Farm. DAVE PALMER looks at what lay behind the action, and how socialists should build solidarity
It is generally accepted that the main reason for the raid was that Chief Superintendent Melvin had been charged with offences by the Police Complaints Authority, primarily relating to the way he treated the juveniles in the Blakelock murder case.
Melvin was in charge of the Serious Crimes Squad at Scotland Yard and of the inquiry into the murders on the Farm and the investigation following it in 1985. So the raid is being seen quite rightly as a hit-back by the Metropolitan Police because of the miniscule moves taken against Melvin - which in any case are unlikely to result in prosecution or discipline.
So the raid took place, based on the bizarre evidence of an observation team who had been watching the local launderette. They claimed that of 2500 people going into the launderette only 250 took in any washing. This ignored the fact that there is a phone in the launderette and was used to back a claim that the building was being used as a centre for drug-dealing.
400 police sledgehammered down people's doors and left notes on their kitchen
WORKER ASHER zanse noto
Huge demonstrations have greeted the release from South African jail
of veteran ANC leaders Including Walter Sisulu. Page 12
FEATURES Farm raid with the Farm tables saying 'Sorry we couldn't find any- thing, yours the Metropolitan Police' They strip-searched people. They made very few ar- rests and found a very small quantity of drugs - some cannabis and a small quantity of cocaine. Clearly the amount of force used was completely unjustifiable and the amount of resources allocated bore no relation to the ac- tual scale of the drug problem. The way the of cannabis is use criminalised and the law applied in a very ar- bitrary and uneven way against black youth is part of a criminalisation of black youth them- selves. This raid is a particularly extreme and farcical example of this process. It seems possible that there was collabora- tion between the police, council officers and Haringey Council itself. Accusations that Dolly Kiffin was a police informer were made by people who were present when the police arrived on the Farm. Kiffin used to run the Youth Association and had a de facto control over the activities of the Defence Campaign - which severely limited its effectiveness. She had resigned from the Youth Association two days before the raid. There are accusations of corruption against her ( she was convicted in court earlier this year on charges of obstruct- ing the course of jus- tice) and she has now disappeared to Jamaica. It is alleged that she knew of the police raid in advance and had neither op posed it nor informed anyone on the Farm that it was about to happen. The police have been highly criticised for this raid and the resuiting anger gave new impetus to the Defence Campaign. A lot of people tumed up the subsequent to picket around the Tot- tenham 3. For the first time in 4 years there was a mass meeting on the estate that was overwhemingly op- posed to the raid and
bitter and angry about the actions of the police. There was also a large picket of the police station the following week. But now that these mass mobilisations have taken place, strategio questions still have to be answered.
Prior to the raid the campaign in support of the Tottenham 3 was in abeyance. The Law Lords had refused grounds to appeal against the original conviction. Although there was a very successful picket last year outside Wornwood Scrubbs the day before the Law Lords heard the case, there has been little op portunity to do anything since. The only way that the situation could be shifted is if the Home Secretary agreed to reopen the case. In the absence of that there hasn't seemed much room for manoeuvre.
Although the campaign has been relatively successful it hasn't sufficiently assessed the way the political situation has changed, par ticularly the political relation between the black population and the police. At the begining of the 1980s there were a number of suc cessful campaigns against state harassment of the black community. In the mid- to late-80s there has been progress on the question of black self-organisation in the labour move ment, but less headway inmass anti-racist campaigns based in the communities.
There have been long term internal problems on the Farm, basically in relation to the operation of the Youth Association and the unaccountable power of Dolly Kiffen, but also because of the objective problems outlined above and an inability of all concerned to grasp the potential for building a really broad-based campaign.
It's clear however that a new situation has opened up. The whole Guildford 4 ruling changes the whole ball game. Now is the time to go on the offensive and exploit any shift in the judiciary's usually hardnosed position towards these things.
The problem has always been to try to link the Tottenham 3 case to these other cases in the mind of the public. In fact, it is virtually identical in that it is based entirely on confessional evidence, but as yet there has not been the same weight of support mobilised around it. IThere must be a massive demand across the labour and students' movements for the Home Secretary to review the case. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 19, November 1989
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