again its attitude to the war in Angola. Since its last discussions, nineteen of the 46 OAU members have recognised the MPLA Government in Luanda. But in The present civil war in Angola is proving to be a litmus test of the real nature of Africa's neo-colonialist regimes. For the past two months at least the intervention of imperialism on the side of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) has been public knowledge. Yet many 'independent states in Africa have either tried to put off recognising and confronting the reality ot this development. or in some cases have actually collaborated in its execution.
On the one hand there has been little attempt by the US Government to disguise the fact that the main purpose of its recent 11-fold increase in aid to the Mobutu regime in Zaire was to strengthen the FNLA's drive towards Luanda. This movement's power base has always lain almost exclusively amongst the Bakongo peoples, who straddle the Zairean border in the north of the country. Its leader Holden Roberto is brother-in-law to President Mobutu and the owner of a good deal of property in the Zairean capital, Kinshasa. FNLA has historically been quite explicitly. pro-imperialist in its political statements, and there is no doubt at all that the US has been its main backer.
MERCENARIES
Evidence of the composition of FLA's fighting force came from two mercenaries captured by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) on 10 November. These men had been recruited in Johannesburg and Salisbury respectively with promises of rich rewards for their work of butchery. After being transported via Kinshasa, where they were stripped of all their personal documentaton, tney were sent to Amont to joun an army which consisted of about 2,500 Portuguese, 2,200 Zaireans (presumably members of Mobutu's own regular forces), South African and Brazilian experts, and only 100 indigenous Angolans. Disillusioned with their pay and conditions, and obviously fearful of the result of impending battles, they deserted individually to surrender to the MPLA As for UNITA - which in July was proclaiming that, unlike its two rivals, it was totally without outside financial or logistical backing this movement has solved its problems by becoming the tool of the apartheid regime in Pretoria. Numerous western reporters have testified to the presence of regular South African soldiers in the UNITA •capital of Huambo (formerly Nova Lisboa) and in the port towns of Lobito and Benguela In the face of these co-ordinated attempts of imperialism and its South African client to secure the defeat of MPLA. it is worth looking at the position of Zambia's 'humanist' regime as a crystal clear demonstration of the Kaunda Government's real position on the liberation struggle in southern Alrica During the ten year liberation war, Zambia gave logistic and diplomatic support to MPLA. But this has rapidly changed in the past eightceen months in lune with Lambia s simultaneous changes of line on the question of This weekend the Organisation of African Unity meets in Addis Ababa to discuss UNITA 500 mile Zimbabwe (Rhodesia). The overwhelming obsession of Zambia's pathetically weak state capitalist bourgeoisie has become that of securing peaceful change which can bring succour to the country's ailing economy.
In the past 18 months the price of copper, which accounts for 97 per cent of exports and 40 per cent of Gross Domestic Product, has slumped to a level at which production in most mines is at the moment actually unprofitable. Simultaneously the country's capacity to feed itself has, due to insufficient investment in the rural sector, been constantly declining. It is these economic factors which provide the essential background to the Zambian Government's current moves in the field of foreign policy.
It is no exaggeration to say that the restoration of full economic relations with the white south is key to the survival prospects of the ruling Kaunda clique. Moreover, Zambia's rulers are also very conscious of the contagious effect which the opening of mass struggles in other parts of southern Africa could have upon their own population. Because of South Africa's intimate links with imperialism, there is no doubt that struggles in the apartheid stronghold will involve from the very beginning a challenge to the capitalist system as a whole. Such an example on their very borders is the last thing likely to ensure stability for Zambia's rulers!
OBSESSION
On the question of Angola these needs which in the circumstances of continued world recession now amount to a veritable obsession - have ed to a de tacto state of coll aboration with the South African intervention. Zambia's totally Government-controlled news media have provided a clear example of this. Despite all the clear reports worldwide of South Africa's direct involvement in support of UNITA, by early December not a single word had appeared in Zambia's press, radio or TV affirming this fact.
The political education' which is daily administered to the Zambian population places the entire responsibility for the Angolan civil war upon the 'misleadership' of the various movements. For instance, Kaunda stated at the opening of the fifth participatory democracy seminar' of the armed forces in Lusaka on 4. December: "The fundamental cause of the civil war in Angola and what has brought the presence of foreign forces lies in the leadership of Zambia's Kaunda Masterminding 'detente: President Kaunda of Zambia and Premier Vorster of South Africa the liberation movements'. These leaders, it is said, have managed to enlist the support of the two super powers in a selfish attempt to pursue their own goals of political power. But no details have been given of the actual sources of the growing support for FNLA and UNITA.
The reasons for all this are crystal clear. The Zambian and South African regimes are now de facto allies in the attempt to destroy MPLA INVALUABLE UNITA remains the only Angolan liberation movement allocated time on Lusaka radio. Journalists travelling into UNITA-held areas of Angola have testified to the presence of crates of arms with Zambian army labels on the Lonrho-supplied jet, which flies regularly in and out of Lusaka. While UNITA with its new more powerful backers now has much less need of such material support, it is crucial for UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi to maintain links with black Africa by which he can counter the allegation that he is simply a white man's stooge. For this purpose the Zambian connec tion is invaluable In the past month the press internationally has carried several reports of supposed deals being cooked up between Zambia and South Africa. These have involved trading off the liberation struggle in Zimbawe in return for relief for Zambia's economy It has been suggested that Zambia has agreed to back whatever deal the Nkomo faction of ANC can cook up with Smith, and as a result to withdraw any form of diplomatic or logistic support from the armed struggle wing of ANC. Such an agreement will be follow followed by the re-opening of Zambia's quickest rail connection to the sea via the Victoria Falls Bridge, Salisbury and Beira -which will further enmesh Zambia in the search for 'security' in Rhodesia against the guerillas. This will be followed up with a generous loan from South Africa to tide Zambia over its present economic difficulties.
CENSORSHIP
Like the information about the South African presence in southern Angola, these allegations have been suppressed inside Zambia, although they have been denied by Zambian representatives abroad. But one allegation which has not been denied anywhere appeared in Rhodesia's Sunday Mail on 16 November. It spoke of a secret agreement South African soldiers captured by MPLA involving the clearing of the massive stockpile of more than 90,000 tons of copper in Zambia (largely caused by the closure of the Benguela railway through Angola). This work apparently involved South African railway and harbour experts working in Mozambique in collaboration with the Frelimo Government to exped ite transit via Rhodesia and Beira.
Suspicions about the extent of these links are strengthened daily as Zambia's position on Angola becomes ever more out of step with that of other African regimes with whom she has hitherto collaborated. At independence on 11 November the MPLA Government was recognised by only a handful of states. But the mounting evidence of South African involvement has brought a rapid change. Nineteen African states now recognise and give at least verbal solidarity to the MPLA Government. Most have cited South Africa's support for the other movements as the central reason for their decision.
"ABSTENTIONIST'
At the time of writing three strange bedfellows still defend the continuation of the OAU line, which recognises all three movements but no single government and calls for continued attempts to effect a reconciliation between them. The three are Kaunda of Zambia Mobutu of Zaire and Amin of Uganda. They are being encouraged from the sidelines by South Africa, whose press has been waxing ecstatic about the apparent unanimity between Vorster and the OAU in condemning the supposed Russian "invasion' of Angola It has become absolutely clear that this 'abstentionist' position, couched in seemingly laudable sentiments about the Angolan people's own right to choose, the need to eliminate outside influences which cut across the right to self-determination etc., objectively gives support to the intervention of imperialist interests and South Africa in Angola. Far from being an assertion of democracy, any kind of recognition of movements. whose essentially "puppet nature becomes daily clearer simply gives full support to those forces attempting to reintegrate Angola safely into the imperialist camp The task of recomposing an international movement of solidarity with the struggle led by MPLA is thus of great importance. The extent to which the solidarity moment can be developed now within the imperialist countries will be of crucial significance for its outcome.
In its review of 1975 the Irish Times summed up the present situation in the Six Counties in this way: "British long term policy....is a movement towards some form of administration in the North which will involve a lessening in British involvement and which will not involve a united Ireland - in simple terms a form of independence.' The Irish Times is not alone in making such prophecies. The British Government's decision to close down Rolls Royce in the Six Counmes, rogerner ww us decision to exclude both the Belfast shipyards and the aircraft industry from current nationalisation plans, have been seized on by the Loyalists as providing evidence of a policy of gradual withdrawal by Britain from Northern Ireland.
The Provisional IRA draws similar conclusions from government policy in its new year message: Britain's days in Ireland are numbered, the Irish people recognise it, the world a large recognise it, and ine insa Republican Army recognise it Even the vast majority of the English people, who have in the past given a blank cheque to their government to colonise Ireland, are now vociferous in their demands for a British withdrawal Such prophecies are not based on lantasies. rnere is no doubt unal British imperialism in Ireland is in as great a crisis as at any time in the past seven years. The probability that Northern Ireland Secretary Merlyn Rees will reject the demands of the Loyalists contained in the Convention Report, to be followed by an inevitable period of direct rule, will do nothing to stabilise the British presence in Ireland:
On the other hand, a complete surrender to the Loyalists would equally perpetuate an unstable situation in the Six Counties, resulting in a protracted war by the nationalist population and the possible dragging in of sections of the Irish people in the 26 Counties.
IMPASSE
In short the impasse remains. The imperialist hopes that rose with the advocation by Craig of some form of tactical power-sharing are now more or less dashed - as a recent Loyalist colleague of Craig put it: "Craig is in the wilderness and he is getting shorter of water every day.' It is an indication of the depth of the crisis that Rees is now giving serious consideration to holding a referendum in the Six Counties on the issue of power-sharing. The fact is that such a referendum would solve nothing. The probability is that it would be boycotted by large sections of both the Loyalist and Republican populations, so that even an outcome favourable to the British Government would be largely meaningless. And a vote against the Government would deepen the crisis still TUTECT.
But despite such problems the prophecies of a coming British withdra wal are at best simplistic and at worst downright dangerous. Britain will not willingly give Ireland back to the Irish people.
Any 'withdrawal' will be tactical and superficial. foreign owned factories will continue to play their imperialist role in all use the Southern government as its representatives in Ireland. Equally ive movements there the Republican and socialist moveRed Weekly 8 January 1976 of Ireland. Britain will continue to ments.
Many possible British withdrawal from the Six Counties will only take place after the British army has made every possible attempt to smash all progress- eration in Ireland. which means now.
So if 1976 promises to be a critical year for British imperialism in Ireland, it will also be a critical one for Republicans and socialists involved in the struggle for national libThe recent 'feud' between the Provisionals and Officials has left a good deal of de moralisation in the Catholic ghettoes of Belfast; and the continuing strength of the Loyalist extremists has had the same effect. The assassinations of Catholics by Loyalists have produced a feeling in many areas of hopelessness and pessimism.
UNDERSTAND The need for a widespread and united response to such developments becomes daily more urgent. In this respect the apparent decision of the Provisionals to resume full-scale military activity against British imperialism is understandable, especially in view of the British army violations of the cease-fire (numbering over 1,500) and British army involvement in the Loyalist murder gangs (a British soldier has recently been charged with membership of the UVF).
However, while Red Weekly will not join the chorus of righteous indignation moralising about the Provisionals, it is necessary to point out that widespread bombings, whether in the Six Counties or in Britain, will in no way provide an adequate defence against the Loyalist murder gangs. . Nor will they mobilise the nationalist population in the Six Counties to kick out all the manifestations of British imperialism in Ireland once and for all.
The move to resume full-scale military activity has its roots in a healthy wariness by the Provisional rank and file in Belfast of the policy of 'negotiated withdrawal' in which the leadership of the Provisionals have placed such trust. In this respect the decision of the Provisionals to resume military activity is not a last desperate throw, but is a consequence of a growing awareness that any "secret deals with British imperialism are not worth the paper they are waLLen on TROOPS OUT And it is because of this that it is important to say that the combativity of large sections of the Catholic population in the Six Counties remains - but it is a combativity that would find its most sucessful manifestation in a united mass movement against British imperialism rather than in bombing actions.
The primary role of British socialists is still the same. It is not to tell the Irish how to wage their struggle but to build a mass solidarity movement demanding "Troops Out Now"
This movement must be unequivocal in its demands on the British There must be no ques tion of secret diplomacy, no question of 'negotiated independence for the Six Counties. Nothing less than self-determination for the Irish people as a whole will do -which for a start means troops out A mass troops out movement in this country could be a crucial factor in taking the situation in Ireland forward over the next twelve months, turning the crisis of British imperialism into a road to victory for the Irish national movement. TOM MARLOWE
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spite of the South African intervention, many of the African states still refuse to commit themselves -among them 'humanist' Zambia. In a special report for Red Weekly, JOHN BLAIR looks more closely at the reasons for this situation.