and must hope that their efforts will be crowned with success Smith Reuters reported from Johannesburg on 15 August: South Africa has thus come out into the open with its desire for stability in neighbouring Rhodesia, evel black rule, instead of an intensifying guerilla war that could engulf this country too.
But the Smith regime has so far been unwilling to sacrifice the privileges of the Rhodesia settlèrs to protect the wider interests of the imperialist powers in South Africa. Speaking on BBC Radio 4 on 15 August, lan Smith declared that he was willing to negotiate with African - but if they are simply going to repeat the cry of "One Man, One Vote" and Immediate Majority Rule", then there is not much point in going to the conference table.?
Commenting on Smtih's remarks, the Tory shadow Foreign Minister, Reginald Maudling said (reflecting the fears of the big imperialist monopolies): I fear that things are bound to get worse, the war will escalate and the whole of southern Africa may soon be engulfed in it.' He could be The increasing isolation felt by Rhodesian whites nas neen nrouen nome ny development of the armed guerilla struggle over the past nine months, and particularly in the last three. From camps in Mozambique and training bases in Tanzania, the guerillas have mounted a series of raids which have considerably shaken the stabilownie rue. maucme a new sense of vulnerability in every member of the white population.
The pattern of guerilla activity which has emerged in the east and south-east of the country over the past period is of necessity quite different from that found in most of the classic examples of such warfare in ATTICS the northern areas of Mozambique before independence In these latter places the population was enurely Alrican apart rom a tew acministrators, teachers and priests. Here it was possible to construct liberated zones in which the guerilla army created its own separate administration and institutions through a day-to-day relationship with the rural masses.
This was in fact the kind of model initiated in the relatively successful campaigns in 1972-4 led by ZANU [Zimbabwe National Union] in the "Tribal Trust Lands' of the north-east of the country. It led the Rhodesian Governmen to respond in classic fashion by forcibly concentrating the population into a series of "protected villages', similar to the US 'strategic hamlets' in Vietnam.
The latest campaign, however, is operating mainly in the rich agricultural areas of the east and south-east, where the majority of the African population are employees on the farms or in service industries, and where the largest part of the land is white-owned. Here there can be no question of the creation of liberated zones", and military nafure. However there are two points which shoule De noted.
1. For this kind of operation to be successful, a high degree of commitment to the struggle from the local population is necessary. They must be relied upon to provide food shelter, considerable risk to their own employment and safety [a 70-year-old man was recently sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for failing to give information he was supposed to have possessed about the whereabouts of "terrorists']. In Rhodesia the ability of the guerillas to hit targets up to 200 miles from the Mozambican border testifies to the existence of this necessary level of local areas of white settlement, the guerillas are having a powerful demoralising effect on a population which now feels itself to be under constant threat of surprise attack. The effect of this is seen in the emigration figures for the two month period April-May 1976, during which the country had a net loss of 1,450 Europeans. These very figures are likely in themselves to have a 'snowball' effect.
A further powerful reason for emigration, especially by young white males, is the ever more demanding call for militar service for a period every year, which is now alact orme torever wate mae pewweei the ages of 18 and 40.The death rate amongst soldiers has been pushing one a day for the past three months, and an increasing number of young whites are *skipping the border' into South Africa, from whence the Vorster Government retuses to repatriate them The campaign has also had a noticeable effect on a kev source of foreion exchange for Rhodesia —tourism. Since the killing from Salisbury to Beitbridge over the Easter weekend. arrivas trom the sonin nave spectacularly declined. One hotel at the Victoria Falls has closed down, and others around the country are reporting occupancy rates of only 25 percent or so.
It is, of course, absolutely true that the final overthrow of the Smith regime will not be achieved through such hit-and-run ac tions, but only by a full scale mobilisation or une mass or the black popuianon in tn big urban centres such as Salisbury and Bulawayo. But there can be no doubt that the present campaign is acting as a catalyst for this, because it reinforces the belief of the urban population in the vulnerability of the oppressors. It cannot be long before its effects are felt in an upsurge in these area which will sound the deathknell of white rule
8 Letters Ked Weekly 19 August 1976