Zambian student leaflet

the masses, and carry forward both qualitatively and quantitively the struggle for socialism. Unless this occurs, no hetrogenous political formation can carry out the tasks facing the working class and poor peasantry, nor indeed can they survive in the conditions of struggle that exist within the neo-colonial state in Nigeria today. The tasks that the revolutionary vanguard will have to face today are immense, not least of all the formation of a clear class programme, but there can be no shortcut, and it must aim at building an implantation in the mass movement. It must strive to raise the political consciousness of the mass of workers through intervening with a clear class programme equipped with transitional Below we print the text of a leaflet that was put out at the time of the mobilisation of students at Lusaka University (Zambia). While we do not agree with all the formulations used in the leaflet, we are glad to reproduce it in our journal to popularise an exemplary struggle by students of the neo-colonies. We fully support the actions taken by these students against the Kaunda regime, and solidarise with all political prisoners of the regime. RELEASE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS NOW! UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA STUDENTS' UNION Statement on Angola issued on the occasion of a demonstration held by students of the University of Zambia in support of MPLA on 15 Jan. 1976. Having recognised that the stand taken by our government on the Angolan situation is extremely reactionary and retrogressive, we the students of University of Zambia, through our union, wish to dissociate ourselves completely from this opportunist, hypocritical, imperialist and impossible stand. At one and the same time we wish to make our stand explicit - that without a speck of reservation we with full force support the anti-imperialist, therefore revolutionary MOVIMENTO POPULAR DE LIBERTAO DE ANGOLA (MPLA). We hereby state some of the reasons for our support of MPLA and our adamant vote of NO CONFIDENCE in UNITA/FLA. 1. MPLA, the movement we support, was founded in 1956 as a mere nationalist movement employing peaceful means to destroy the imperialist Portuguese colonialism whose sins in Africa and indeed the world are too well known to be stated here. MPLA realised the impossibility of effectively combatting imperialism, which manifested itself as classical Portuguese colonialism, through peaceful means. This is why, in February 1961, they took up arms, not for an insatiable thirst for blood but for genuine liberation of Angola. MPLA could not and still can not manufacture its own weapons hence its reliance on sympathetic countries for arms. Because of its international proletarian obligation to aid all anti-imperialist movements as a starting point to the attainment of socialism, the Soviet Union right from 1961 has been aiding the MPLA. The Soviet Union as historical facts show, did not start aiding MPLA after 11th November 1975! 2. FNLA came to the scene much later than MPLA. Because FLA started off as a tribal movement it could not join forces with anti-imperialist, anti-tribalist MPLA. FNLA depended, for its leader's (Holden Roberto) brother-in-law, CIA agent and America's righthand man in Africa, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. Mobutu having got into power through CIA and NATO, obviously got his arms for the "defence" of the now imperialist Zaire against anti-imperialists (eg. Lumumba) from his sponsors viz. CIA and NATO. We must state here that Portuguese colonialism was backed by the US, therefore, CIA and other NATO countries. Portugal which is the poorest European colonising country, weak economically and militarily only managed to maintain a colonial war through this assistance, Noting further that FNLA got its arms from Zaire which in turn got them from the CIA and NATO (where Portugal is a member), it is inconceivable, contrary to the dictates of logical reasoning, to imagine that FNLA could use NATO weapons to destroy NATO interests. This boils down to the fact that FNLA was and is fighting for imperialism, the bulwark of world reaction. 3. Jonas M. Savimbi, the bearded quisling, pseudo-revolutionary, professional traitor, the cunning fox and one-time Roberto's foreign minister, formed UNITA, the latest of the three to appear. He was backed by Portuguese colonialism the same establishment he purports to have been fighting against. Evidence is contained in the letters he wrote to the Portuguese authorities and their replies which we shall make public. Savimbi, an employee of PIDE of Portugal and BOSS of white South Africa, both institutions built on Gestapo standards and fiercely opposed to African development and freedom from imperialism, today masquerades as a liberator of Africa - what nonsense! Savimbi's UNITA is fighting hand in glove with South African regular troops. White South Africa is the most bar- 29 demands: "stemming from todays conditions and from todays consciousness of wide layers of the working class and unalterably leading to one final" conclusion: the conquest of power by the proletariat" (2) Clearly the masses will never achieve revolutionary consciousness if the vanguard does not intervene in the class struggle. KOLA ORUBA (1) On the United Front, from "The First Five Years of the Communist International" by Leon Trotsky. (2) "The Death Agony of Capitalism and the tasks of the Fourth International." ZAMBIAN STUDENT LEAFLET baric, savage, grotesque, brutal racist police state in the entire known history of mankind. This is its nature. It has never been known to champion the cause of freedom hence its presence in Angola under the pretext of fighting for "freedom" is bizarre irony. "Freedom" to white South Africa means the right for international monopoly capital to freely exploit the resources of Angola. Such is white South Africa; the country which Savimbi finds justice to fight alongside with. 4. Hilgard Muller, white South Africa's foreign minister, claimed they were in Angola to protect its borders (NAMIBIA), against communism. What does this mean to ust means that white South Africa is scared stiff of a stretch of socialist countries surrounding it as this could activate the people of South Africa to intensify their struggle against the diabolical system of apartheid. White South Africa knows well that the struggle in Angola is preparing ground for a sure-to-victory socialist struggle in Namibia which will then move to Zimbabwe and more important to white South Africa itself. 5. In the name of basic sanity USSR and Cuba's presence can not be equated with South Africa's. To exonerate the presence of South Africa on the basis that Cuba and USSR are there, as has been maintained by Kaunda of Zambia, supporter of UNITA, Leopold Senghor the black Frenchman who is more French than the French and all the running dogs of imperialism, stinks of abject mental deficiency. White South Africa's total lack of respect for the Blackman's life is unparalleled. But the Soviet Union, to the contrary, has always been a consistent ally of liberation movements. Egypt, Algeria, Chile, Zaire (during Lumumba's period), Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Albania, Cambodia, Vietnam, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cuba and even Chine have all benefitted from Soviet assistance, like that being given to MPLA but none of these are today puppets of the Soviet Union. Whereas UA assistance to any people in the world has always been motivated by egoistic, self-seeking interests. Cases in point are South Korea, Mobutu's Laire, Caetano's Portugal, white South Africa, Chile to mention 6. Savimbi spends more time in the neo-colonial state of Kaunda's Zambia than in Angola where he doesn't enjoy the luxuries of Mulungushi village. * Zambia has established a sound working relationship with UNITA by way of letting UNITA use the Zambian press, television and radio services for its treacherous propaganda. Though Zambia confesses neutrality it is in essence a supporter of UNITA and hence the presence of BOSS, CIA in "Zaire and Zambia are the main black African backers of FNLA and UNITA respectively. UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi has been given quiet assistance by Zambian President Kaunda including office facilities in Lusaka... Meanwhile, base camps for the American and other mercenary forces have been set up in both Zambia and Zaire stocked with weapons shipped from the United States and elsewhere by the Zaire government according to the CIA mercenary specifications." (Source: THE CHRIST IAN SCIENCE MONITOR, Monday January 5, 1976, p. 13, printed It is indisputable that the Zambian government supports UNITA, a movement whose long standing treachery has been made explicit. This compels us to charge Zambia ruling clique headed by Dr. Kaunda "our beloved President" with CRIMINAL TREACH- ERY. (copy of original duplicated leaflet) * Mulungushi village is a state owned area in Lusaka used for housing foreign visitors to the capital, originally built for the OAU summit in 1969. *** 30 Hill, P. 1962 Ghana. Vol. VI Hill, P. 1968 Hill, P. 1970 Hill, P. 1972 Polly Hill's position as a seeming authority on the socio-economic relations characterising contemporary rural West Africa has been well established in academic circles. No doubt this is partly due to the detailed nature of her studies, which are thrown in sharp relief against the general paucity of literature in this field. But, primarily Hill's pre-eminence can be traced to the allure of her major thesis. Running through her analysis of rural West Africa is a major theme: namely, that whilst economic inequality is in clear evidence, rural stratification is not. Or, using Hill's prosaic terminology, the "Myth of the Amorphous Peasantry", should not be replaced by a 'myth' of structurally differentiated rural populations. This thesis, which debunks a once common idea among bourgeois economists of an undifferentiated peasantry, and yet is not 'tainted' by any undertones of a class analysis, is clearly enough to establish Hill's reputation with liberal academics. The task of revolutionary Marxists must be to overturn Hill's thesis, and recognise not only the extent of economic inequality but also the existence and nature of the class divisions in rural African socia? formations. Even though many of Hill's findings regarding the extent of inequality should be recognised as valid, her conclusions must be repudiated; a task which is readily accomplished due to largely ideosyncratic and unsound analytical stance which forms the cornerstone of her thesis. The whole question of the elucidation of potential or actual class alignments in rural Africa is, of course, a critical one. It demands serious attention from revolutionary Marxists in order that the fallacious analysis of the ideologues of "African Socialism" can be rejected, and so that the theoretical and practical problems which arise when the Fanonist emphasis on the revolutionary potential of the African peasantry is examined can be appreciated. To its credit, Hill's work does highlight many aspects of the inequality which is virtually endemic in rural West African economic activity. A most detailed example centres on Hausa farmers in the Northern Nigerian village of Botagarwa, but other of Hill's studies deal with such phenomena as 'Ghanian capitalist cocoa farmers' and "Cattle ownership on the Accra plains". In addition aspects of her work facilitate a greater appreciation of the nature of economic activity in small agricultural communities. The extensive glossary which forms a part of rural Hausa especially merits scrutiny as important points regarding a whole range of ideological and juridicopolitical supports of the status-quo of manifest class exploitation can be gleaned from it. Despite this Hill's conclusion must be rejected and a fundamentally different analysis built upon her findings. For example, even though she explicates a high degree of economic inequality in Batagarwa, Hill is still content to declare that "Rural West African society being commonly 'classless" the onus of proof lies on those who would find this village a special case". If this declaration is allowed to pass uncontested the socio-economic divisions which do vitiate rural Africa will be overlooked. The vast majority of the population of Africa is rural and thus any analysis of the actual and potential dynamics of African socila formations must be based on a full appreciation of rural social-economic relations. Hill's social taxonomy of Batagarwa underlines the central fallacy in her general thesis. Her whole schema is impressionistic, subjectively derived, and theoretically unsound. Whilst Hill is prepared to dissect the village into four 'economic groups', based on the ability of individual farming units "to withstand the shock of a late or very poor harvest", she incessantly disclaims the applicability of any class based terminology. Although Hill's "economic groups" are adequate predictors of a large range of social and economic inequality there is no perception of the essential root of the inequality, which is located in the process of the socio-economic reproduction of the specific social formation, In this reproduction not only the relations of production, but also the relations of exploitation involved in the exchange process are central to the delineation of social structure, Hill's classification, which is based simply on observable levels of inequality, is inadequate to the crucial tasks of explaining the causes of the inequality, considering how the inequality is maintained and enhanced, and postulating under what conditions economically differentiated groups will act in defence or pusuance of their social, political, and economic interests that is, take part in class action. "Some Characteristics of Indigenous West African Enterprise" Economic Bulletin of "The Myth of the Amorphous Peasantry; A Northern Nigerian Case Study". Man. "Studies in Rural Capitalism". Cambridge University Press. London. "Rural Hausa". Cambridge University Press. In the case of Batagarwa this essential root of inequality is centred on the production and storage of grain. Rich peasants buy grain at harvest time when prices are lowest from poor peasants, and resell the grain just prior to the next harvest when prices are at their highest. Poor peasants are forced to sell theit produce, due to their lack of storage facilities, and their often chronic state of indebtness. Hill regards this process as essentially usurous, but then merely states that poor peasants "render positive economic assistance" to the richer peasants. There is no realization of the analytical importance of the manifest relations of exploitation that are involved in this production and storage syndrome, or the implications that such relations have for the delineation of social structure. Given that this primary inequality is reinforced by socio-economic districtions based on, saliently, the purchase of sale of labour power, the ownership of capital resources and livestock, and the level of status and renumeration from extra-agricultural occupations, class categories, in terms of rich, middle, and poor peasants, are clearly applicable In the case of the cocoa farmers of Ghana Hill's designation of these farthers as capitalists is valid. Yet she argues that due to the symbiotic relationship that exists between such farmers and the cocoa sharecroppers ("abusa" men) a class analysis is inapplicable. But clearly no matter how close the ties of interdependence may be, the relationship is a stratified one. The sharecropper depends upon the landowner for his means of livelihood, that is, access to the land. This system of sharecropping on Ghanian cocoa farms entajls the exploitation of the labour power of one party by the other due to the unequal power structure that exists between them. Again a class analysis is merited, and not precluded as Hill would Another weakness of Hill's work lies in the various perameters of her studies. There is no recognition that the configuration of social relations at the micro level is affected by the wider national (and international) social formation? Any delineation of rural social structure which fails to give weight to external supports of the social situation is artificially limited. It is the case that the rich peasants and capitalist farmers have advantageous social and familial connections with the national bureaucracy, and these impinge on the rural class structure in the form of further support for the primary economic inequality, by government policies favourable to the interests of the rich peasants and capitalist farmers. Note should also be taken of the incréasing participation of urban bourgeois elements in commercial farming. The existence of urhan part-time commercial farmers has given rise to a rural proletari.. who derive virtually all their livelihood from the sale of their labour power. As such, the poor peasant structure of rural social formations is broadening and solidifying. In place of Hill's untenable classless thesis, it should be recognised that in many parts of rural Africa class groupings exist, which although they tend to lack a coherent class consciousness, have the potential, have potential to partake in class action, be it revolutionary or reactionary. For example, the Agbekoya rebellion of 1968 in Nigeria, illustrated that the economic grievances of the middle peasantry could result in class action directed against both the rich peasants and the urban bureaucracy. The importance of a revolutionary potentail in rural Africa cannot be overstressed. To this point in time it has been harnessed for national liberation purposes only. However, the class forces do exist in Africa, that is middle and poor peasants, and an urban proletariat, for an advance to the waging of true revolutionary struggles. Ben Equiano