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Standing Up For Oppression: Mercenaries

By VVAW

American boys exchanging the easy life of home of Africa; getting by on a measly $500 a month, sacrificing their lives to defend the last strongholds of white civilization against the blood thirsty Black hordes.

Sounds like the midnight Foreign Legion movie? Well, it's exactly the kind of crap the press has been putting out about American mercenaries who have found themselves a home in the Rhodesian army.

What kind of "Mom's apple pie" are these guys really defending? In Rhodesia and South Africa a minority of whites control the government. The Black majority is kept as virtual slaves at the point of a gun. Even the U.S. government has been forced by public outrage to pretend to cutoff arms shipments to these countries. The Black majority works under slave labor conditions to produce the gold, diamonds etc which the rich class of Southern Africa and the U.S. grow fat off. The constant struggle against Vorster in South Africa and Smith in Rhodesia has been met with bullets, imprisonment and torture. A powerful liberation movement has grown up and is now engaging in guerilla warfare against the Rhodesian army.

The Rhodesian ruling class sitting on a powder keg is scrambling to strengthen its military in any way possible. A number of technically skilled foreign mercenaries have thus been accepted into the armed services. The U.S. with $3 billion worth of investments in Southern Africa has gone along with this by allowing the "volunteers" to keep U.S. passports and putting out various forms of propaganda (CBS Special Reports, newspaper and magazine articles) to sanitize the mercenaries' image.

The democracy and freedom these soldiers of fortune are defending is the democracy of the white ruling class to decide how it wants to spend its profits and the freedom to continue to ride on the backs of the Black majority. They enforce their rule by the same systematic terror and brutal repression we became familiar with in Vietnam.

In fulfilling their role as butchers the American volunteers show their truce colors. In papers across the country at the beginning of December an article appeared exposing the efforts of one Major Mike Williams--an American--on a typical patrol with the Rhodesian army. A few highlights:

* Tie a wire around a Black politician's genitals and force his daughter to pull the wire in an effort to make him suck in water being poured over his head.

* Pull down the underwear of the politician's wife and tie her to a bed whose metal springs had been heated over a fire.

Yes, these are the same old stars and stripes boys who brought us the massacre at My Lai. Like My Lai, it wasn't just one Lieutenant Calley--or one Major Williams--who was responsible, but a systematic policy of murder and torture carried out by the capitalist class.

Many of the Americans fighting in Rhodesia will openly lay out their reactionary outlook. Says one ex-Marine, "This is the only country in the world willing to stand up and talk honestly about race relations (apartheid--ed) and willing to fight for what I believe in (slavery & the open facist rule of the rich--ed)."

One Rhodesian veteran recently returned home to the U.S. after both his legs were blown off by a guerilla mine. He is "without bitterness" according to news reports. He also learned nothing. In a press conference arranged by the American Security Council, a group of right-wing fanatics studded with ex-admirals and ex-generals, Keith Nelson is quoted as saying, "Rhodesia is the front line against Communism." If this sounds familiar, remember the statements about why the U.S. was in Vietnam?

Asked about the atrocities reported in U.S. papers, Nelson said that he had seen victims of atrocities buy they were all committed by terrorists. Again that should sound familiar. And finally, Nelson, who was an "armed medic" in the Rhodesian army, said that the U.S. will suffer seriously if insurgent forces capture Rhodesia's chrome and other mineral resources. He may be right--certain big corporations may have problems if the mineral resources return to the people of the country where they rightfully belong. And one again, it's exactly the same justification used by the rich to send us off to Vietnam. The same rich class which beat the drums about patriotism to get us all hot to murder Vietnamese are trying the same shopworn tactic by glorifying these mercenary scum.

To say that most veterans aren't falling for all this crap is an understatement. In fact, VVAW is launching a campaign to equip a company of Black liberation fighters with uniforms and boots by May 1978. We continue to support the efforts of the African Liberation Support Committee including their demonstration in May which will pay a call on "human rights" Carter. As for the bloody terrorist scum of the Rhodesian army, American or otherwise, the people of Zimbabwe will find a suitable reward for them!