Tories prepare to back Muzorewa

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The fake elections in Zimbabwe are beginning to produce the poisoned fruit expected of them.

Relying on the oppression and intimidation of the masses and on the political bankruptcy of the Patriotic Front (PF) bureaucracy, these elections were stage-managed to provide imperialism with an excuse to make a deal over the heads of the masses with a Muzorewa-Smith government, and to increase pressure on the guerrilla leadership to come to terms with Smith and his stooges.

Now the US Senate has voted overwhelmingly in favour of dropping economic sanctions against Zimbabwe and, with Cyrus Vance due to meet the British Tories this week to discuss their next move, it is probable that some form of recognition to the reactionary regime in Salisbury will be considered.

Noises

The new British government is making noises which show their willingness to build on and extend the effort of their Labour predecessors to achieve a solution favourable to international capitalism. It has been announced that "discussion" with the SmithMuzorewa set-up will be greatly increased. Lord Boyd (former Colonial Secretary) who led a group of Tory peers to observe the April elections has concluded, in the face of reality, that the elections were fair and democratic.

What is certain is that the option of recognition will be kept open by imperialism who will use it as a weapon in their attempts to force the Patriotic Front (or sections of it) to cooperate in a new "fair" settlementi.e. one which will betray the mass struggle• and attempt to stabilize bourgeois rule in Zimbabwe.

Weak response The Patriotic Front's first response to the shift towards a direct deal between imperialism and the 'internal government' has been predictably weak and quite in line with its entanglement with imperialinterests. In Addis Abbaba it was recently announced-yet again-that there would be close political and military cooperation between Nkomo's ZAPU and Mugabe's ZANU. While this 'unity pact' is no doubt partly in response to pressure from below for increased struggle against the Salisbury government, it has been bureaucratically achieved, without consultation with the rank and file.

The motive behind the declaration of unity is clear. After its dismal failure to fulfil its threat to disrupt the. April elections, the Patriotic Front has announced this renewed commitment to develop the armed struggle in order to strengthen, hopefully, its position in the sordid secret diplomacy it makes with imperialism.

Joshua Nkomo's arrival in the USA last week was no doubt in order to further this process of secret manoeuvring and to present his case to Carter.

So, while imperialism shifts into a higher gear in its drive for a capitalist solution in Zimbabwe through a deal with the 'internal government' and the petty bourgeois Patriotic Front leadership, Zimbabweans continue to suffer the consequences of the political betrayals of the leadership-betrayals inevitably following on the Front's commitment to the politically bankrupt strategy of pure guerrillaism.

Recognition In the face of this probable new shift-the likelihood of imperialism recognising Muzorewa's and Smith's stooge government and abandoning the 'economic sanctions' which have proved so futile in helping to produce a stable capitalist regime in Zimbabwethe tasks of revolutionaries remain the same: Trotskyists must fight to expose the political betrayals of the guerrillaist leadership that is itself engaged in secret diplomacy with a view to reaching! an accord with imperialism; the struggle must be taken up to build a Trotskyist party to provide the programmatic demands and develop the organizational forms through which to extend the struggle of the Zimbabwean people to a victory in line with their independent class intereststhe socialist revolution.