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In Southern Africa: Peoples' Battle Intensifies

By VVAW

The struggle for liberation is growing throughout Southern Africa. Unwilling to live any longer under a vicious system of racism and exploitation known as apartheid, the people of Azania (South Africa) have organized a huge strike involving thousands of workers in the major industrial areas of Johannesburg and Capetown. Contrary to media reports of limited student rebellions, the strike has united the masses of Black Africans and other non-white whom the South African rulers had tried to pit against each other. In the face of these demonstrations, the racist government of Prime Minister Vorster has responded with murder and increased repression on the Azanian people.

The demonstrations also responded to Kissinger's fitting around the continent, by signs and chants of "Kissinger is a murder" and Kissinger Go Home." Yes, Henry Kissinger, famed jet-setter, able to sign agreements with a single hand was about his usual work of trying to prop up American business interests and save the failing white minority-ruled governments as thousands demonstrated and were attacked in the streets.

American interests are in bad trouble in Africa. The uprising in Azania, the growth of people's war In Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) plus the Soviet foothold in Angola, has sent the US and their friends in South Africa running for cover. Suddenly, after years of exploitation, they're looking for a "peaceful solution" and a "slow transition" to majority Black rule. What this really means is they're casting about for a solution that will slow down the inevitable victory of the African people, letting them try to stabilize their control once again by attempting to head off the struggle by phony "agreements." In time the people of these countries will truly decide the outcome.

Recent events in Zimbabwe have shaken the South African rulers soundly. The Rhodesian government, also comprised of white minority rule, is feeling the pressure as the liberation movement in that country grows. Rhodesia is seen by South Africa as the last block in its defense perimeter after the Portuguese were driven from Mozambique and Angola. But that last block is seen as quite a problem too. If something isn't done in Rhodesia and done fast that country will fall to the people and increase the danger of South Africa being liberated that much sooner, bringing an end to white rule in Africa.

Faced with this reality, the US and South Africa are trying desperately to bring to power in Rhodesia an African government that would be sympathetic to their interests. Kissinger has made his offer and called in England, former colonial rulers in Rhodesia in other words, to set up a pro-US government in Zimbabwe, could fall apart at any moment before the armed struggle of the masses.

In nearby Namibia (formerly South West Africa) the South African government has already attempted such a plan offering a multi-racial, majority rule, independent state in two years. But there also the people are not taking the bait. The Southwest Africa Peoples Organization (SWAPO), the main liberation force in Namibia has been excluded from the planning conferences for the handpicked "tribal government." Large numbers of South African troops currently occupy Namibia and are fighting a losing battle against the revolutionary movement of the Namibia people.

Wherever Vorster's apartheid government looks, to Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, or the Soviet controlled Angola, South Africa has problems. Things at home don't look so good for the racists either. Trying to divide the workers struggle in Soweto, South African police threatened Zulu tribesmen with their jobs and lives, and forced them to attack other workers who were maintaining a strike and boycott against South African businesses and industries. The dream of portraying the strikers as a handful of dissidents and "radicals" soon fell apart when the tribal leader of the Zulus, 4.8 million African tribesmen, publicly condemned the actions and exposed the attacks as the result of infiltration and provocation of South African police spies. Added to this was the rebellion of thousands of students of "mixed blood"--who are "colored" by apartheid laws who ran and demonstrated through the heart of white sections of Capetown.

When several hundred white students at the University of Capetown demonstrated in solidarity with the African movement, the police went into fits of attacking and arresting whites who had dared to punch holes in South African claims of "total" white support for their system of racism.

The South African government has tried every means of stopping the struggle of Africans, from terror to outright murder. But the growing strikes, the movements in surrounding countries, and the denunciations of Kissinger's proposals represent tremendous advances toward the eventual liberation of Azania. In short, it points toward the end of US and South African exploitation of the African People.