Rhodesta and South Africa - the Role of U.s. & British Imperialism

On the occasion of the visit of I.B, Tabata to Britain, we are reproducing extracts from an interview he gave to the American socialist journal, Militant, whilst on a speaking tour of the United States, "I.,B, Tabata has been active in the struggle for the liberation of South Africa's oppressed black majority for over three decades, In 1956, the Nationalist Government placed him under 4 five-yeur ban and confined him to the city ef Cape Tom. On the midnight that ban ended, in 1961, he resumed his organisational work throughout South Africa under the conditions of heightened government repression both in the towns and the "Native Reserves." In May, 1963, however, it was clear that Tabata's arrest was imminensé. With the police-van outside his door, he escaped through Natal to Swaziland..sand now he resides in Lusaka, Zambia, With such an impressive career of struggle for freedom as his background, Tabata is far from the kind of person. who would dwell on past accomplishments....In that spirit, he began by talking about the case of Dr, Neville Alexander..'Dr, Alexander,' Tabata began, 'was a young student in Cape Towne He was a member of the students! organisation affiliated with the Unity Movement, and he got a scholarship te Germany where he obtained his doctorate of philosophy. In Germany, he spread the ideas of the Unity Movement, and when he came back, he organised a study group which tried to study all the literature there is on guerilla warfare, and all the possibilities of meeting the situation in South Africa. Scon Alexander was arrested and tried, with ten other young people in the groupe They were all members of the Society of Young Africa, an affiliate of the Unity Movement, and also of the African People's Democratic Union af South Africa (APDUSA), the national political organisation of the Unity Movement.seee.! Tabata then went into greater detail about the Alexander case and related it to the general political struggle in South Africa. He was then asked what role the United States played in South African politics, ‘For us,! Tabata answered, 'the role of the United States is so obvious that I don't know whether it requires explaining. Perhaps I could best put it this ways Many people - there has even been a clamour for this at the United Nations ~ feel that all states should institute an economic boycott of South Africa. This sounds plausible theoretically, but when you examine the concrete facts you.will find that Verwoerd himself owns nothing in South Africa. What there is is the property of the British financiers, it is the property cf the American financiers. So when you call upon the United Nations, which means in fact that you are calling upon the United States and Great Britain who control the United Nations, to boycott and blockade South Africa, you are in effect asking the tr boycott and blockade their own property. It doesn't make sense to meg Verwoerd on his own could not manage to defy the world, were it not for the fact that both Britain and the United States have under-= written the Verwoerd regime. Without them, it's impossible for Verwoerd to exist. To me, that seems so clear that it requires no further information, but may I add one thing. I think one of your big financiers put the point simply. He ssid: I hate the Verwoerdian regime..s.ebut I must confess, without it, I wouldn't invest a dollar in South Africa. That makes it clear, especially in view of the fact that American financiers can get such high rates. In fact they make as much as 25% annual return on their investment in South Africa. "That is far higher than the average of about 12% that they make in the rest of the world, With this, what else would you expect? The situation in Southern Rhodesia is at first glance similar in several ways to South Africa, The minority of 220,000 whites, led by prime minister Ian Smith, dominates a much larger population of over four million blacks.! When asked why the declaration of U.D.I. had become such a big issue, Tabata replieds 'For me this moaning and groaning by Britain about Rhodesia is a farce, It's like a man who builds a card house and then finds it difficult to blow it down, There is no problem in Southern Rhodesia itself. You have only to ask yourself one question. You used to have the federation of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Malawi under Britain. When the people there demanded independence, and opposed the federation, Britain went straight ahead to dismantle the federation. And here, you must remember that in dismantling the federation the army and air force was handed over to Southern Rhodesia! to be continued in next week's issve.