Editorial note: this is the second part of on article reprinted from Militant, an Anerican socialist paper, which we are publishing on the occasion of the visit of I.B, Tabata to this country. There are copies of last week's issue left should anyone wish to nake up the pairs "Then despite the great threats by Sir Roy Welensky of what would happen if Northen Rhodesia was granted independence, Britain just went ahead and granted it = and you nust understand that in that whole area the nost inportent part was and remains Northern Rhodesia because it has the copper mines, That's where there are heavy investnentse Southern Rhodesia has nothing. It is veldt (grasslands), underdeveloped. But Britain thought it wise to give Northern Rhodesia independence despite Welensky's fire-and=brinstone threats of all sorts of things that would happen, And in fact afterwards sone of the great investors shifted their headquarters from Southern Rhodesia to Northern Rhodesia, what is today know as Zanbia, under a black govermnent, and nothing is going wrongs So there is no problen about Southern Rhodesia.s "What is 220,000 whites? Britain put into concentration camps nore than thet nunber of freedom fighters in Kmya, when the people were struggling for their liberationes Of course nothing like that would be necessary in Southern Rhodesia, eceolt is Britain's competence to declare their constitution invalid, or to create a new constitution and to give Southern Rhodesia independence within its own rights. If Britain didn't do that for other reasonse..it is bectuse Britein gave (Snith) an understanding thot no harm would be done, The present situation is due entirely to the fact that it is not Rhodesia which is at issue. What is at issue is the whole part of Southern Africa, beginning from West Africa and Central Africa,right down:to South Africa, You have only to follow the investnents of Britain, America, France and West Germany to see the ranifications of these investnuents, and to realise that in their eyes Southern Rhodesia cannot be dealt with by itself, 2s a separate entitye Southern Rhodesia is important only insofar as it is linked up with the reste To put it another way, Southern Rhodesia is both a buffer state between South Africa and the independent African states in the north, and at the sare tine a front line of defence for South Africa, which neans that it is e front line for all those vested interests of Anerican, British, Gernan and French finances When you talk about Southern Rhodesia, you can't talk about it in isolation, You have to renenber that it is part and parcel of a whole plan which embraces the Congo, Angola, eee and South Africas "Take, for instance, the struggle of the freedom fighters in the Portuguese territories of Angola and Mozambiquee You know, Portugal is one of the poorest countries in Europes So poor is it, as a natter of fact, that a few African states, backward as they.are, could invade Portugal. Portugal is not capable of naintaining the present civil war that has been going on by itself. But it is naintaining ite Nowwhy? First because Anerica pumps money into Portugal to nake it possible for the Portuguese to naintain the civil war, Secondly because NATO powers thers 2lves provide arns and ammunition to the Portuguese to enable then to fight against the freedom fighters, And thirdly, South Africa itself supplies soldiery to make up the Portuguese forces, The interesting thing is what ties all these groups togethers It nothing but finence. It's finance interests alone that have brought them together, It is the Anerican and British investnents in South Africa that denand that the Portuguese territoriesuust not be free, This is a question of labour supply. South Africa has not got the required. labour for both the mines and agriculture, the two nost inportunt South African industries. They are the primary South African industries, although not the largest in terms of the anount of national income they provide, because they do not supply the necessary foreign exchange, Sales of nining
Rhodesia and South Africa...continued/
and agricultural products to the outside world make it possible for South |
Africa to inport, and without these sales the South African economy would
collapse. But the mines and agriculture rest squarely on the shoulders ~
of the black landless peasantry, and 60 per cent of the labour in the
mines comes from outside South Africa,
"People are wondering why Verwoerd behaves like a demented man. The truth
of the matter is that. the labour shortage is his Achilles heel. Verwoerd
is frightened that the independence of African countries will lead to a
labour boycott. ‘Withhold that labour and the whole South Africa economy
topples because you cripple the mines, and you not only cripple the mines,
but you cripple the’ whole of the industrial system which needs the mines,
and you also cripple the base on which the army is created, the arms and
manufacture. Verwoerd's army depends in the final analysis on, and is
made possible only because of, the landless peasantry and that mine labour,
Now if the black countries would withhold this labour, Verwoerd would be
finished, and the whole structure of apartheid along with hin.
"But then to destroy that is to destroy the investments of America and
Britain. Therefore Portugal has an agreement, in fact it is not an .
agreement but a contract, for a hundred thousand black labourers to South
African mines per year. Quite often this is increased to 150,000.
Therefore also, . . it becomes important for the Portuguese territories
not to be free, because once they are free that labour is cut off immediat-
ely. Therefore it becomes important for the Anericens to see that the
atriggle for *r~tuguese territories does not suoveed and therefore they
supply th..ucney to Portugal, and they get NATO to supply the eas a
wherewithal to keep the oppressive armies goings
"It is the same thing in the Congo, exactly the same thing. Investors in
the Congo are precisely these same ‘péople:and therefore they--cannot-‘permit
aliberation movement there. It is in this sense that the whole area of
the Congo, the Portuguese colonies and South Africa is tied together, and
is maintained ‘by dnerica, Britain, France and West Germany.
Today, Verwoerd's arny is completelytfained by Hitler's officers, and |
the French terrorists -of the Secret Army Organisation which tried to
prevent the Algerian revolution, It is they who are training
Verwoerd's police in the methods of guerilla warfare. You have the best
trainers from Europe, and Europe knows it, aiding and abetting the Verwoerd
regime, Why? Because of the investments, These investments are ‘responsible
for our position in Angola, Mozambique, the Congo and South Africa,"