of Communism JAN-FEB 1975 VOL XXIV Problems of Communism is a bimonthly publication. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Within the United States, COPYRIGHT: Reproduction or republication of INDEXING: Articles in Problems of Communism EDITOR: Paul A. Smith, Jr. MANAGING EDITOR: Marie T. House ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Clarke H. Kawakami, NOTE: The Editors regretfully announce a new rise in the rates to be charged by the US Government 1 useful to consider the broader political context in which these movements operate. Toward Black-White Deténte The most salient feature of the new situation in Southern African liberation politics is the increased emphasis being placed on détente and negotiation, as opposed to the policies of armed insurgency that have dominated the struggle for more than a decade. he struggle of the black liberation movements | country-by-country analysis, however, it would be challenging the status quo in Southern Africa and its white defenders took a major turn as a result of the April 1974 army coup in Lisbon and the ensuing decision by Portugal to abandon five centuries of colonialism. The overthrow of Marcello Caetano's regime knocked away one of the three props on which white supremacy in the region had rested, and led to the establishment of an independent government under the control of a former armed liberation movement in Guinea-Bissau, to the installation in power of a triumphant armed liberation movement in Mozambique, and to negotiations to determine the role that the three liberation movements in Angola will play in that land's transition to independence. These developments, in turn, left more exposed the remaining two props of the white status quo-Rhodesia and South Africa. Elimination of Portugal as a military factor in Africa has clearly introduced a fluid new political situation, one that affects not only those liberation movements which have formed or are about to form postcolonial governments but also those which will continue to carry on the liberation struggle south of the Cunene, Zambesi, and Limpopo rivers (that is, in Namibia, Rhodesia, and South Africa). The purpose of the present study is to examine the orientations of the various groups and the factors that bear on their policies. Before we proceed to a Mr. Legum is Associate Editor of The Observer (London) and Co-editor of Africa Contemporary Record, an annual survey published in London. His works include: Pan-Africanism-A Brief Guide, 1965; Africa Handbook, 1966; South Africa: Crisis for the West (with Margaret Legum), 1964; and The Bitter Choice (with Margaret Legum), 1968. The alternatives of violence or negotiation have, of course, always been present in African minds. They were perhaps most explicitly laid out in the Lusaka Manifesto of April 1969. This statement, adopted by 13 of the 14 member-states of the East and Central Region of the Organization of African Unity, expressed a clear preference for peaceful liberation of Southern Africa. It pledged that guerrilla activities would be curbed once the white colonial and local regimes accepted the principle of democratic rule by all peoples of the respective states, adding that black Africa would be flexible about the timetables for ultimate majority rule once the white governments undertook to negotiate with their own representative black leaders about means of achieving this goal. Barring such commitments, however, the signatories vowed to continue to support violent struggle.' 1 For the text of the Lusaka Manifesto, see Colin Legum, Ed., African Contemporary Record, 1969-70, London, Rex Collings, 1970, pp. C41-C45. Malawi abstained from signing this Manifesto, holding out for a strategy of negotiation and no violence. The Manifesto was subsequently unanimously endorsed by the Organization of African Unity and then submitted to the United Nations General Assembly, where it was approved. Inasmuch as nothing came of this proposal for peaceful negotiations aimed at constitutional change, black Africa saw no alternative to pursuing armed insurgency with renewed vigor, concentrating on the overthrow of Portuguese rule in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau (the last located, of course, not in Southern Africa but in Western Africa-see map on p. 6). With the change in regimes in Portugal in 1974, however, the leaders of black Africa concluded that a significant new opportunity for progress via negotiation had presented itself. They were encouraged in this belief by a more conciliatory tone in the speeches of South Africa's Prime Minister Balthazar J. Vorster in October 1974, at a time when the Republic was facing expulsion from the United Nations, which it only narrowly escaped through vetoes cast by the United States, Great Britain, and France. (At the time they employed their veto rights, the Western nations had privately warned the South Africans that such support in the future would depend on some positive indication that the Republic was willing to meet the more realistic demands of the General Assemblynotably, to grant independence to Namibia and to make positive changes in its own racial policies.") Mr. Vorster's promise that his government would move in a new direction evoked immediate and positive African response. Zambia's President Kenneth Kaunda-after consultations with his closest allies (Julius Nyerere, the President of Tanzania; Sir Seretse Khama, the President of Botswana; General Mobuto Sese Seko, the President of Zaire; and Samora Moises Machel, the President designate of Mozambique)-announced that black Africa was ready to begin talks with Pretoria to promote détente." Behind these public statements, there had been 2 It should be noted that South Africa did attempt to initiate a "dialogue" with certain African countries of its own choosing, including the Ivory Coast, Malawi, Lesotho, Gabon, and Madagascar. However, these efforts were repudiated by an overwhelming majority of the OAU and came to naught. See Colin Legum, "Dialogue: The Great Debate," in Colin Legum, Ed., Africa Contemporary Record, 1971-72, London, Rex Collings, 1972. 3 Vorster addressed the South African Senate on October 24, 1974, and the Republic's UN Ambassador made a conciliatory speech before the General Assembly the following day. On November 10, Mr. Vorster spoke in Nigel, Transvaal, where he asked to be given a "six months' chance," during which he promised "surprising changes" in South Africa (see Rand Daily MailJohannesburg-Nov. 11, 1974). • For details of the Western position, see "Britain's Year in Africa," in Colin Legum, Ed., Africa Contemporary Record, 1974-75, London, Rex Collings, 1975. 5 The Times (London), Oct. 28, 1974. a number of highly secret moves. In September, Mr. Vorster had visited the Ivory Coast for talks with President Félix Houphouët-Boigny and his neighbor, President Léopold Senghor of Senegal. The South African Prime Minister had likewise been to Malawi, where he had consulted with President Kamuzu Banda, and to Botswana. South African intermediaries, including Harry Oppenheimer, Chairman of the Anglo-American Corporation, were also involved in paving the way for diplomatic talks between Zambian and South African envoys. These developments culminated in a series of meetings in Lusaka in late November and early December 1974. In these talks black Africa privately offered Pretoria détente (i.e., cessation of guerrilla action) on three conditions: that an agreement be reached on negotiations for a new constitution in Rhodesia, that constitutional talks aimed at the establishment of an establishment of an independent Namibia be launched, and that meaningful discussions between the Vorster government and representative black leaders of the Republic (including those political prisoners held on Robben Island and elsewhere) be initiated for the purpose of negotiating a new constitution acceptable to the entire population of the country. Progress toward fulfillment of the first condition took place in early December, when representatives of the lan Smith government met in Lusaka with the newly-united leadership of the three major Rhodesian liberation movements to work out an agreement for détente and negotiation in the breakaway British colony. The Lusaka Agreement provided that the Smith regime would immediately release all political prisoners and open talks with representative black leaders to find an acceptable new constitution for Rhodesia's legal independence, that the liberation forces would end guerrilla attacks during the period of negotiations, and that South Africa would withdraw its 2,000 paramilitary police from Rhodesia once all "terrorism" had ceased." While Vorster's apparent commitment to pull South African forces out of Rhodesia clearly weakens the position of lan Smith, it is by no means certain that the talks between the Rhodesian leader and his black challengers, which began early in February 1975, will be successful. Mr. Smith's obvious reluctance to make any move toward permitting majority rule has led to an increasingly tough response from Mr. Vorster, as reflected in the critical com "Ibid., Dec. 12, 1974. Signs of the debilitating colonial struggle: a Portuguese soldier wearing a peace symbol pauses in April 1973 maneuvers against guerrillas of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO); to the right, FRELIMO forces on the march with a foreign anti-tank weapon. ments published in the pro-government Afrikaans press.' The likelihood of progress in the promised negotiations on Namibia's independence must be rated as reasonably high, although there probably will not be any quick agreements. Far more problematical is Mr. Vorster's willingness to move toward the kind of changes inside his own Republic that would be acceptable to its black majority. It is much easier for him to be flexible about modifying conditions in territories on South Africa's periphery Rhodesia and Namibia-than in his own heartland. Once started, nevertheless, the process of détente is bound to produce a number of vital changes which will further alter the balance of power in Southern Africa. At the same time, should the advance toward the achievement of full democratic rights for all peoples of the region encounter bottlenecks or proceed too slowly, black Africans retain 7 A number of critical editorials were published in Afrikaaner Nationalist papers like Die Transvaler (Johannesburg), Rapport (Johannesburg), and Die Burger (Capetown). For a summary, see The Guardian (Manchester), Jan. 13, 1975. -London Daily Express and Gerard Klijn via Pictorial Parade. the option of reverting to violent guerrilla actionan option rendered all the more viable by the dismantling of Portugal's colonial empire and the rapid movement toward black majority rule in Lisbon's former African colonies. In this general connection, it is essential to note that the collapse of Portuguese colonialism carries several important lessons which may not have been lost on the white regimes in Salisbury and Pretoria. In fact, the decision of the black African presidents to turn to a policy of détente and negotiation seems predicated on a serious reading by the white governments of the writing scribed on the wall by the Portuguese experience. The first lesson is that an armed insurrectionary movement need not achieve military superiority as an absolute condition for its success, that the political repercussions of a prolonged struggle may be of greater importance than military victory. Except in Guinea-Bissau, the anti-Portuguese guerrilla forces did not win their wars. While they were getting progressively stronger on the ground in Angola and Mozambique and might, over a long period, tions was almost certain to fail. (This is perhaps one of the most crucial lessons inherent not only in the Portuguese colonial wars but in all the recent armed conflicts in the Third World.) Besides shedding new light on the significance of the political dimension of armed guerrilla struggle, the demise of Portuguese colonialism also served to confirm the workability of the broad strategic approach to the liberation of Southern Africa proposed by the former Algerian leader, Ahmed Ben Bella, in discussions with black South African leaders in 1963. Ben Bella argued at that time that the newly-formed Organization of African Unity (OAU) a grouping of independent African statesshould concentrate its efforts on winning majority rule in the weakest of the white-minority redoubts in the region. In short, it should seek first to knock out Portuguese colonial power, then to topple the the South African government. Mapping a strategy for African national liberation-white regime in Rhodesia, and finally to confront Holden Roberto, left, then President of the Revolutionary Government of Angola in Exile, confers with Algerian Premier Ben Bella in Dakar on August 24, 1963. In Dakar the newly-formed Organization of African Unity pledged aid to the war of liberation in Angola. -Paris-Match via Pictorial Parade. have defeated an attenuated Portuguese army, that stage had not yet been reached in April 1974. However, the Lisbon military coup that enabled the black majorities of Portugal's African colonies to gain their liberation was in an important sense precipitated by the long, drawn-out struggles in these colonies. As the demands that the wars made on Lisbon's national budget and on Portuguese manpower mounted, serious doubts arose in Portugal about the value of the conflicts in terms of Portu The OAU did operate according to these priorities and, having achieved its initial objective, is now clearly drawing aim on the next target Rhodesia. In fact, the OAU's special organ, the African Liberation Committee (ALC), has already decided to allocate to the groups opposing the Smith regime the share of arms and the bulk of the funds that previously went to the anti-Portuguese liberation movements. One can therefore anticipate a considerable strengthening of the Zimbabwe liberation forces ("Zimbabwe" being the African nationalist name for Rhodesia). The ALC also intends to increase support for the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) in Namibia. For the present the ALC will devote lesser attention and aid to the liberation forces arrayed against South Africa.' guese national interests, and public confidence in Sources of External Aid As suggested by the preceding discussion, external aid has been important to the liberation movements. They have drawn the major portion of such assistance from the states of black Africa, See Colin and Margaret Legum, South Africa: Crisis for the West, This is reflected in the ALC budget allocation for 1974-75. |