[But Smith cannot make this concession. It was…]

Scan page 3

But Smith cannot make this concession. It was precisely to avoid it that the regime made its famous unilateral declaration of independence from British colonial status in the first place. The whole basis of the settler regime rests on the denial of democratic rights to Africans and the control of the land by the settler bourgeoisie. A democratically elected African majority would be under heavy pressure trom the masses to resolve the land question and so destroy the basis of settler power.

But Smith has to talk. He is now frightened that the FRELIMO regime in Mozambique will cut off his links with the coast. Couple with this the guerilla movement is gaining support especially in the north cast of Zimbabwe.

Thus, earlier in the year, Kaunda together with Nyere of Tanzania, the FRELIMO leadership and Seretse Khama the president of Botswana, persuaded Smith to rolease Zimbabwe nationalist leaders from jail and fly them to Lusaka for talks. During the talks, Smith pressured by Vorster, conceded the release of 300 political prisoners (which he has not yet carried out) and promised swift moves towards a constitutional conference. Vorster obligingly withdrew his police to barracks.

But in return for this Kaunda has forced the Zimbabwe nationalists to castrate themselves. As Trotsky argued in the theory of permanent revolution, the national bourgeoisie in underdeveloped countries is incapable of carrying through the elementary bourgeois democratic tasks of national independence, the agrarian reforms and democratic rights. This is because it is too tied