but they have received substantial economic, military, and political support from other countries as well, in particular from the Communist nations. It is useful to examine the reasons for this specific configuration of external assistance and to determine what, if anything, it indicates about the political orientations of the liberation movements and the sort of policies that they are likely to follow.

The liberation movements have found a natural ally and staunch supporter in the Organization of African Unity, which from its founding conference in 1963 has been dedicated to collective action against the "white South" in order to complete "the unfinished African revolution." The OAU has sought to maximize the effectiveness of its aid to the liberation struggle and to minimize the risks of big-power competition and intervention in it by insisting that all aid both from inside Africa and from abroad be channeled exclusively through the African Liberation Committee. Inasmuch as this aid was disbursed to the various movements in accordance with the priorities suggested by the Ben Bella strategy just discussed, this arrangement unquestionably affected the fortunes of the liberation struggle in different

areas.

However, the OAU has been only partially successful in enforcing its principle of exclusivity. To be sure, the bulk of economic and military aid from the black African states has been proffered collectively through the ALC to the various liberation movements, as has aid from the governments of Yugoslavia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Holland and from such nongovernmental groups as the World Council of Churches and the British Labor Party. However, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact states, as well as the People's Republic of China (before 1970 at least), have channeled only part of their assistance through the ALC. Perhaps the larger share of the aid that these Communist states have provided has gone directly to specific liberation groups favored by the donor states. Thus, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (Movimento Popular para a Libertação de AngolaMPLA), the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, the African Party for the Independence of "Portuguese" Guinea and the Cape Verde Islands (Partido Africano de Independencia de Guiné "portuguesa" e das Ilhas de Cabo Verde (PAIGC), and, to a lesser extent, the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frente de Libertação de Moçam

bique-FRELIMO) have all benefited from direct Soviet aid. In the 1960's, the Chinese, pursuing their rivalry with the Soviet Union, attempted to extend their patronage to rival groups in each of these countries, but since the latter movements were generally the least effective on the scene, Peking by 1970 appears to have tired of this futile gambit and to have opted to give its assistance through the ALC-a shift which predictably won the approval of many African leaders.1o

Those liberation movements that have sought and/or accepted direct assistance from non-African sources (and it should be noted that not all the groups that have wanted such aid have received it") have clearly done so out of a desire to enhance their own local political prospects. The Communist states, on the other hand, have provided assistance, first, because of an understandable wish to take advantage of the opportunity to undermine such Western powers as Portugal and South Africa and, second, because of the ongoing rivalry between Peking and Moscow for recognition as the principal patron of the African liberation struggle.

The intensity of this competition for influence in Africa is suggested by two representative propaganda items. Peking's Hung Ch'i recently accused the USSR of being "a rapacious international exploiter" which had set up its own multinational corporations to buy cheap and sell dear to developing countries, and which placed stiff repayment terms on the aid it gave." Moscow's Sovetskaia Rossiia countered with an article on "What Peking Wants in Africa," which charged the Chinese with trying to foist a kind of development on Africa that-by emphasizing "self-reliance" and the primacy of agriculture ensured continuation of the continent's economic backwardness. Chinese aid to small agricultural projects, the food industry, and light industry was pictured as preventing the flow into Africa of top scientific and technical know-how and

10 These expressions of approval are always made in private since the source of foreign funds is obviously a delicate matter for the ALC. However, the author has on a number of occasions been told in private by African leaders of their efforts to discourage the Russians and the Chinese from bypassing the ALC.

11 Of the active guerrilla groups, the following have failed to attract any substantial aid from non-African sources: the PanAfrican Congress in South Africa; the Front for the National Liberation of Angola (until 1974); the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola; and the three rival

Rhodesian groups-the Zimbabwe African National Union, the Zimbabwe African People's Union, and the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe.

12 Quoted in West Africa (London), Sept. 23, 1974.

Articles of this type have been reproduced and widely distributed among African leaders. Furthermore, African leaders have complained privately that whenever they have visited either the USSR or China, they have invariably found themselves subjected by their hosts to condemnations of the other Communist power. In addition, once a given movement has accepted the aid of, and voiced support for, one of the two antagonists, it has been unable to obtain direct assistance from the other. (Aid received via the ALC, of course, has not entailed such complications.)

The major Western powers have been conspicuously absent from the rolls of benefactors of the African liberation movements. (There was, to be sure, a brief moment during the Kennedy Administration when Holden Roberto's Front for the National Liberation of Angola [Frente Nacional de Libertaçao de Angola FNLA] received some backing from the United States, and the late Eduardo Mondlane's Mozambique Institute in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika, did garner some nonmilitary US aid.") This situation reflects no a priori anti-Western orientation within the African liberation movements; in fact, these groups have never ceased to knock at Western doors for support. Rather, it is the major NATO powers that have held back, for fear of encouraging the violent overthrow of regimes in Rhodesia and South Africa or the weakening of Portugal. The West has preferred to rely on persuasion in trying to influence the the Portuguese and white-minority regimes of Southern Africa to liberalize domestic policies. So far, however, this reliance on persuasion has failed to produce any meaningful change, and black Africans have come to see the major Western countries, as, at best, ambiguous backers of the liberation effort, if not, in fact, direct or indirect upholders of the white regimes.

In sum, the black liberation movements in Southern Africa have looked for external assistance and taken it from wherever they could get it. The fact that aid has tended to come from certain portions of the globe rather than from other areas is more a function of the attitudes of the donors than of any particular leanings on the part of the re

13 Quoted in ibid., Dec. 2, 1974.

14 These facts have emerged at various times in the period 1970-73 in various US Congressional hearings, especially in discussions of CIA conduit organizations.

cipient guerrilla movements. Moreover, while the major aid supplied by the ALC contributed to the success of the struggle against Portuguese colonialism, and while in some cases aid from African and non-African sources has bolstered the fortunes of one or another of contending guerrilla groups, it can be stated in general that the source of foreign aid has not proved to be a major determinant of the orientations of the various movements. Whether this rule will continue to pertain as the liberation movements make the transition from insurgency to positions of power in their lands, only time will tell.

Having described in broad terms the political environment in which Southern Africa's black liberation forces are operating and the various factors that bear on their activities, let us now turn to a more detailed examination of the individual movements. In particular, we shall attempt to define the orientations and the likely policies of these groups as they assume power or wage the struggle for black self-determination. We shall begin our survey with the insurgent groups of Portuguese Africa in the postcolonial setting.

The Liberators of Guinea-Bissau

Portugal's three major African colonies have progressed toward independence at a pace directly proportionate to the effectiveness of their respective liberation movements. Thus, the first colony to achieve independence (in September 1974) has been Guinea-Bissau. There, the PAIGC had waged a successful guerrilla insurrection and has now assumed control of the fledgling government. At the moment, the PAIGC has no obvious political rivals; however, its future depends on its being able to maintain the unity forged by its former charismatic leader, the revolutionary Marxist Amilcar Cabral, who was assassinated in 1972. One decisive element within the movement is the rivalry between some of the black leaders from the mainland and the mestico (persons of mixed ancestry) intelligentsia originating from the capital, Bissau, or the Cape Verde Islands. In fact, the tensions growing out of this rivalry may have led to Cabral's murder. The recent announcement of Portugal's intention to grant the Cape Verdes independence on July 5, 1975, did not indicate whether they would be

15

united with Guinea-Bissau, but the proposal for a referendum to decide their future gives the PAIGC a major role in the undertaking as the only local party authorized to assist in the preparations for the voting.

The present PAIGC government is a coalition of pragmatic African nationalists and Marxists. The latter group includes individuals who insist-as does the Republic of Guinea's President Sékou Touré (the PAIGC's principal ally during the years of guerrilla struggle and hence a strong influence on his small neighbor)-on giving their Marxism an idiosyncratic African style, and those who leanas does Cuba's Fidel Castro (another strong supporter of the PAIGC struggle)-toward international

15 The Washington Post, Dec. 19, 1974.

-Camerapix via Keystone.

alliance with Moscow. Luiz Cabral, the new Republic's President, is strongly influenced by the distinctive Marxist ideas of his late brother, Amilcar, and by his own personal friendship with Fidel Castro, but like his brother, he has remained well-disposed toward the Portuguese and is capable of pursuing a pragmatic course.

What the final shape of the PAIGC government's policies will be remains unclear as yet, and there are bound to be political conflicts among the ruling élite as have occurred in all liberation movements on the morrow of independence. But the nature of the relationship that Guinea-Bissau and Portugal work out with each other will have an important bearing on these policies. This, in turn, will depend on the character of the regime that ultimately emerges inside Portugal itself. The present government in Lisbon has gone far toward undoing the bitterness of the liberation struggle by the speed with which it transferred power to the PAIGC and by its agreement to concede a major role to the party in Cape Verde as well.

Another factor that may affect the PAIGC's future direction significantly is where Guinea-Bissau obtains its foreign aid. Portugal itself cannot afford to offer much assistance to this pitifully poor little country. The Soviet Union and China have already offered substantial aid, but without mentioning any figures; it remains to be seen whether other sources -e.g., the European Economic Community-will match the amounts that the Communist powers are prepared to give. The OAU has voted $1 million for the new republic, to come out of the ALC's 1975 budget.

FRELIMO and Mozambique

In Mozambique, it is FRELIMO that will assume control of the country at independence in July 1975. FRELIMO leaders, like those of the PAIGC, have been influenced by the experiences of a hard guerrilla influenced by the experiences of a hard guerrilla struggle; moreover, they, too, are a mixture of African nationalists and Marxists. But in FRELIMO's case, both nationalists and Marxists have been strongly attracted by Peking's example of building self-reliance by rural revolution and by its agrarian policies. This is true of FRELIMO's chief (and the likely first president of the new republic), Samora Moises Machel, and his deputy, Joaquim Chissano. Both men, however, are less rigorously ideological in their approach than the probable new Foreign

Minister, Marcellino dos Santos, a poet and intellectual who has been influenced more by Moscow than by Peking.

Although the Marxist intellectuals managed to acquire a strong position in the exile movement during the period of armed struggle, their political strength is likely to decline when FRELIMO confronts the realities of independent Mozambique. One may predict that, once FRELIMO has assumed power, it will draw more upon the perspectives of Tanzania's President, Julius Nyerere, than upon any non-African political influences. Nyerere served as the patron of the Mozambique struggle, and his marked aversion to foreign ideologies and his championing of a non-Marxist African socialism have strongly influenced Samora Machel. (Machel's pragmatic leadership has already been demonstrated by his readiness to cooperate with the new regime in Lisbon and by his expressed willingness to discuss economic links with his powerful neighbor, South Africa.)

FRELIMO's policies toward Rhodesia and South Africa are likely to be crucial in determining the course of events as the African strategy moves into its second phase, and they will probably differ considerably. There is no reason to suppose that FRELIMO will act with anything but hostility toward Rhodesia. Controlling the landlocked, breakaway colony's most direct and cheapest route to the seavia the port of Beira-FRELIMO will have the power to cut off Mr. Smith's former channel for evading international economic sanctions. However, Mozambique will have to pay a price for stopping the Rhodesian trade traffic. Beira for a number of years depended largely on trade traffic from Rhodesia and Zambia for its economic health. Because of the closing of the border between Rhodesia and Zambia in 1972, the latter state now routes much of its trade to the north through Tanzania (a channel whose attractiveness will likely increase with completion of the Chinese-built Tanzam-now renamed TANZARA-railway in late 1975), or to the west through Angola. Even should Rhodesia be liberated, attracting the Zambian traffic back to Beira will not be easy.

TA

In the past, FRELIMO actively helped the Zimbabwe liberation movement infiltrate Rhodesia via the crucial Tête province of western Mozambique, and currently FRELIMO is beginning to make some of its old military camps available to Zimbabwean guerrillas. This cooperation could open up Rhodesia's eastern flank to guerrilla insurgency.