[Militant No. 316, 6th August 1976, p. 8]
Remorseless pressure from the guerrilla fighters is steadily undermining the position of the Smith regime. Despite all the usual official denials, it is clear that the Rhodesian security forces are having more and more difficulty holding their own.
Not only have the guerilla incursions continued along the 800 mile border with Mozambique, but they have now been felt in Western Rhodesia as well. Last month there were ambushes along the main Bulawayo-Victoria Falls road, and there was a bomb attack in Salisbury, which spread panic among the white population. More and more of the black youth are leaving for the training camps in Mozambique and Tanzania. On the other hand, an increasing number of whites are getting out of the country.
Smith’s government has been forced to take more emergency measures. Severe limits have been imposed on the money that can be taken out of the country, to try to reduce the massive white emigration, which reached 2,220 net in the last three months (more than twice last year’s total). More Reservists have been called up, which will inevitably increase the already considerable strains on the economy. Defence spending has been stepped up by 45% – which white Rhodesians will have to pay for through increased taxation.
Sir Charles Mukham, a big landowner and businessman who now has a comfortable niche in Kenya, commented: “If Smith thinks he can carry on a war for an indefinite period of time – he needs his tiny mind examined. You cannot protect isolated areas for an indefinite period, nor restrain a huge population in perpetuity by force”.
Drain
Sir Michael Blundell, of the old settler’s party in Kenya, which was forced to come to terms with African rule after the Mau Mau guerrilla campaign commented,: „Rhodesia cannot sustain a guerrilla war for 10 to 15 years because of the drain on her manpower. In Kenya the limit was 1,200 people pulled out of the economy, any more and the country would have suffered. The same must apply to Rhodesia.“
“The widows and orphans of men killed in Rhodesia – and it must total more than during Mau Mau-must be asking what it’s all for.”
The Rhodesian government, however, which is stubbornly dedicated to preserving a regime based on a quarter of a million whites against the national and social aspirations of 5 or 6 million Africans, is still completely blind to the realities.
Smith’s government rejected the three main proposals of its own „Special Commission on Racial Discrimination“, which recommended that there should be a common voters‘ roll; that Africans should be allowed to buy land in white areas: and that there should be a Bill of Rights that could be contested in the courts. In answer to this, Smith came out with new proposals for “provincialisation“ or “regionalisation“, which would involve dividing the country’s administration into three groups, one for the whites, and one each for Rhodesia’s two main African tribal groups, the Ndebele and the Mashona.
This is obviously a crude attempt to introduce, a formalised system of Rhodesian Apartheid and to try to exploit tribal differences. Yet this was not enough for some of the diehards of the Rhodesian front. A group of twenty businessmen and politicians are reported tohave met secretly and denounced Smith’s proposals as a „moderate sell-out“.
But the Rhodesian government is facing even more intense isolation internationally, as well as crisis at home. The South African government, which was one of Rhodesia’s chief allies in the past, wants a safe buffer state in Rhodesia, not a battleground that could spread southwards.
Vorster himself has come under enormous pressure recently to lean on Smith to negotiate a settlement with the nationalist leaders. At a meeting last month in Munich, Kissinger discussed with Vorster secret plans under which the United States, West Germany and Britain would attempt to buy out the Rhodesian whites to clear the way for some sort of settlement.
Among proposals reported to be under discussion are schemes to buy out white farmers to allow the transfer of land to Africans; the possible guarantee of white civil servants‘ pensions: and the possible guarantee of right of settlement in the USA, Europe or elsewhere. ln Kenya, it cost Britain £100 million to do this. „Britain can’t afford to do this today in Rhodesia,“ said a Kenyan businessman, „but it would be chickenfeed to America.“ (Guardian 9/7/76)
Kissinger
US imperialism, which has been obliged to pay more attention to Africa since the victory of the MPLA in Angola and now the new political eruptions in South Africa, is desperately afraid that the blind, bigoted refusal to compromise of the Rhodesian regime will set off an even bigger explosion in Southern Africa. The lesson of old Portuguese Africa is that the longer the liberation movement has time to build up momentum, the further to the left will it swing, and the more radical will be the consequences of its victory.
The US wants to come to terms with moderate nationalist leaders like Nkomo, who would pose no real threat to international big business interests, while there is still time. This is why Kissinger is now facing the possibility of the US having to bear large share of the cost of any settlement.
Now, however, it is far from certain that a “Kenyan” type settlement will work. Rhodesia is not Kenya. Times have changed. Developments in Angola and Mozambique, and the prospect of even bigger struggles within South Africa, with its large African working class, mean that a new generation of Africans will not so easily accept political independence which leaves economic power in the hands of Western capitalism.
There is also no certainty that the US can now persuade the white Rhodesians to settle or afford to buy them out if they agree to go. Time is against imperialism, and the blindness and stupidity of the Rhodesian government is a big stumbling block to its policy.
Stupid
„Where Smith is stupid,’“ says Sir Charles Markham, „is when you have someone like Nkomo not to play him against the rest of the field. At least he now has a chance to negotiate with a person he knows, which is better than a stranger and from a position of desperation. Nkomo is said not to be a bad man. Smith should negotiate a peaceful solution with him while he can.”
Nkomo is already widely discredited because of his seemingly inexhaustible willingness to discuss with Smith and accept compromise. The minority of the African youth now support the Muwrewa faction of the African National Congress, which is actively waging the guerrilla struggle from across the borders.
At the same time, tendencies within this more radical wing of the ANC indicate that a section of the more conscious militants are searching for Marxist perspectives for the struggle. All socialists will support the liberation movement against the white supremacist regimes, which are the rotten legacy of colonialism. ·
But, with the active intervention of US imperialism in search of a „solution“ acceptable to itself, and with the armed power of the South African Apartheid regime casting an ominous shadow across the entire sub-continent, it Is clear that the liberation movement must go beyond purely „national“ aspirations to more basic socialist solutions. Under the conditions that now exist in Southern Africa and on a world scale it is only the aim of a Socialist Federation of Southern Africa which can provide reliable guidance to the struggle of African revolutionaries in search of the genuine political, economic and cultural emancipation of the African peoples.
By Lynn Walsh
Schreibe einen Kommentar