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Talks Or No Talks: Zimbabwe Freedom Fight Advances

By VVAW

All over the southern part of Africa fierce struggle is erupting as the people fight to throw off century-old chains of colonialism. While this story deals with some of the specifics of the struggle in Zimbabwe, at this time the focus of some of the most intense fighting, similar struggles are going on all over the southern part of the continent.

The people of Zimbabwe have won great advances in the last year in their struggle to liberate their country from the clutches of the white settler Rhodesian government headed by Ian Smith. The convening of the Geneva talks, which recently collapsed, was a response to this growing strength. The purpose of these negotiations, which were set up by the US and conducted by Britain, was not to end minority rule in Zimbabwe but to cool this struggle and attempt to preserve through a peaceful settlement their economic and political interests in the area. Until then Smith had tried simply to ignore the liberation struggle politically and crush it militarily.

Last September there was a great hoopla in this country's press when Smith announced his agreement to negotiations and to majority rule "in principle." Kissinger, Ford and others declared that the "Rhodesia conflict" was on the way to settlement and there was no need for further fighting. This was their primary purpose for negotiations, to undercut support for and stop the armed struggle and to prevent through negotiations what they were losing on the battlefield.

The Smith regime has faithfully protected the billions invested in Southern Africa by US and British corporations and they will continue to support him for as long as possible. But as the struggle in Zimbabwe has grown stronger, together with the collapse of Portuguese colonialism in southern Africa and upsurges against white supremacist rule in South Africa, the US and Britain are not betting all their chips on Smith winning.. For, in the last year, the number of guerrillas fighting against Smith's rule within Rhodesia has increased tenfold, while the zones they are more or less free to operate in have increased fourfold in area.

Also, as long as the conflict there continues, the rulers of the US and Britain are concerned that the Soviet union will exploit the war by stepping in as they did in Angola, to further their own imperialist aims for Africa. Thus, through a negotiated settlement, the US and Britain hoped to appear to be "responsive" to the liberation forces and to put over a settlement short of complete liberation. By setting up and promoting "moderate" black leaders who would be dependent on them and look favorably on continued investment by Western countries, they hoped to preserve the area and its resources for their continued plunder and profit.

PHONEY ACCEPTANCE OF MAJORITY RULE

Smith, on the other hand, hoped to stall for time through negotiations to allow him to strengthen his military, economic and political positions to continue to fight to preserve minority rule. Smith stuck to the "Five Point Plan: reached privately between him and Kissinger as the only basis for a settlement. But his settlement was no settlement at all, but a ploy to preserve the status quo. The main thing it called for was an immediate cessation of the armed struggle by the liberation forces. The plan then would set up an interim government which would keep the ministries of police and internal security--the armed forces of the government--in the hands of Smith's ruling party, as well as allowing it veto power over any actions of the interim government.

In addition to his insistence on this plan as the basis for negotiations. Smith's actions throughout the Geneva conference showed what a sham his acceptance of majority rule was. At the same time he was making pretensions at peace, his government stepped up attacks on the people of Zimbabwe and neighboring countries, killing 600 civilian men, women and children in one raid along the Mozambique border.

But the plans and schemes of the imperialists and the Smith regime to trick the Zimbabwean people to lay down their arms have come to nothing. They know that the only reason talks were conducted at all was due to their successes on the battlefield and the growing desperation of Smith and his imperialist backers. They were not about to give up through talk the gains their struggle was winning. Instead, they used the negotiations to strengthen their own forces while further exposing and weakening their enemies.

As those of us in VVAW who fought in Vietnam learned by experience from the Vietnamese, the strength and unity of the Zimbabwe people will continue to grow by their not waiting passively and futilely for independence to be handed to them but instead by mobilizing the people to take their destiny into their own hands. The Zimbabwean people have shown that they can break through the schemes thrown in their path and fight on to complete victory.