Africa raids on SWAPO
Socialist Press1980 1980-11-12Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 2 →
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At the end of last month, talks on Namibian independence between UN officials and the South African government ended in deadlock in Johannesburg.
On the day that the talks began, South African army generals launched yet another attack into southern Angola, aimed at SWAPO guerrilla forces and Angolan military and economic targets.
The sharp contrast between official bourgeois diplomacy and the underlying imperialistbacked drive for stable capitalist control, was further shown up soon after the talks.
Tribalist elections were held under military control to instal -a move designed to strengthen the system of labour control and the puppet DTA regime which administers it.
In the northern region of Ovamboland (nearly half Namibia's 1¼ million people are Ovambo speaking) where SWAPO guerrillas rest on a militant base of mass resistance and effectively control many areas the army was unable to organise elections.
The UN serves as a "democratic" mask for imperialist world domination. Behind the illusions of UN "impartiality" UN resolutions and UN speeches lies the web of secret diplomacy through which imperialism and its agents organise the real decisions.
The petty bourgeois nationalist leadership of SWAPO sows criminal illusions amongst workers and militants about the ability of the UN to further their struggle against colonial oppression and capitalist exploitation.
This perspective turns the working class away from reliance on its independent mobilisation and class interests.
While workers and militants take up their determined struggle against the state, SWAPO leaders look tor ways of limiting, undermining and blocking that struggle.
As a reformist bureaucracy, the SWAPO leadership fears the independent class strength of the working class-the greatest threat to its interests and ambitions.
In public speeches and statements, SWAPO leader Sam Nujoma attacks the ongoing connivance of the imperialist
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stooge local governments in the bantustan-type labour reserves