Nkomo meets Hughes

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The so-called transitional government in Zimbabwe has outlined a new plan for an "internal settlement"

In a change from the previously announced plan, all parties which gain five seats in the elections scheduled for 20 April will be entitled to repres entation in the cabinet.

Previously the whites would have been guaranteed 28 of the 100 parliamentary seats but the cabinet posts were to have gone to the party which won the election.

Now the whites could conceivably emerge as the most important bloc in parliament and therefore also the cabinet.

The announcement was supported by the main black collaborators in the present government-Muzorewa Sithole.

Both stressed that they supported the new proposals in the cause of "stability". The sharing of cabinet power would, they said, "unite the nation"

Sithole said "we do not want independence and then, after a week, a coup and after another week a counter-coup."

These latest developments prove even more clearly the nature of the internal settlement.

The guerrilla war has made the peaceful transition to stable black majority rule impossible.

Meanwhile the efforts of the imperialists to convene an allparty conference, split the Patriotic Front and bring Nkomo into an' alliance with the collaborators continues.

Despite his insistence. and that "the liberation of Zimbabwe can only be achieved by war* Joshua Nkomo was last weekend meeting imperialist envoy Cledwyn Hughes.

As we go to press the outcome of this meeting was unclear.

However, whatever : is announced from the meeting, the fact that Nkomo agreed to meet Hughes at all can only give rise to speculation about what, if anything, was discussed with, as Callaghan outlined when he dispatched Hughes to Africa "as much privacy as possible".

The demands must be pressed for:

*No secret diplomacy!

* Intensify the armed *For a socialist Zimbabwe! *