Geneva Talks or Armed Struggle?

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This in ter riew with fou a perso nal capacity) tool Socialist Press: How the Geneva conference?

"It is one of the ways in which Kissinger and the imperialist camp are trying to lend support to Smith.

All the indications are that militarily and economically it's a matter of months before he collapses. There's a tremendous desperation to try and ensure that capitalist/imperialist interests in Zimbabwe are protected.

Geneva is the first mechanism they are using to ensure this. The talks are a method of sustaining Smith - giving him financial and personal aid through an interim government, through a UN or other peace-keeping force.

This goes counter to the principies of LANU which was founded for one specitic purpose -to get hold of the instruments of power by force and nowhere by compromise.

A reformist constitutional settlement is intended to weaken the progressive forces and to set up a neo-colonial government which would perpetuate imperialist interests in our country and totally revolution » any possibility of a Why, then has the ZANU leadership not in principle rejected any participation in Geneva?

'Because ZANU is a democratic party that decision cannot be made by the leaders alone without consulting the relevant bodies of the party.

Only after our Congress in Lusaka could one say this is the ZANU statement on this question."

[See Socialist Press comment -Ed.] It seems, however, that the «Patriotic Front" between Mugabe and Nkomo was declared without consultation with the party.

"Not quite true. There was consultation with the guerillas but not with other party organs. The joint statement of Mugabe and Nkomo includes their demands.

In any case the idea of a united front with ZAPU should not be seen as a unity between Mugabe and Nkomo, as the press tries to make out.

The principles of the "Patriotic Front" are not counter to the aims of ZANU.

ZANU has always maintained that it is prepared to enter a united front with anybody who supports the armed struggle.

By offering to join such a front with Nkomo I think what ZANU is saying is that the progressive elements in ZAPU must help the liberation struggle.

It must be a national effort. It is trying to preempt the use by the imperialists of ZAPU as a tool of imperialism by putting the ZAPU faction into some sort of united front for progressive ideas.

INITIATIVE

The mitiative for the then, came from ZANU?

"As far as we can follow what happened at Dar es Salaam, Mugabe singled out ZAPU as the one other faction at least having an army.

The only meaningful united ZAL. Nkomo himself only took front, therefore, would be with up the ZANU initiative for opporturistic reasons after it became dear to him that he might boost Es folowing by doing so.

= Zimbabwe, Nomo is a dis=acted man. People are absolutely IS WE A ilit ants o f the Zimba bwE : African N ice a few days before the opening of Muzorewa The masses of the people totally reject this man as a serious leader prepared to carry out revolutionary change."

Why then, does ZANU agree in a united front with him?

"The front is not an agreement between two personalities. It is a vehicle within which the progressive elements of ZAPU can join the people's war.

We do not believe that the leadership of ZAPU completely reflects the position of its members.

For instance, recently when ZAPU forces were ordered to withdraw from ZIPA (the Zimbabwe People's Army) many of them refused and remained within ZIPA.

One wonders, if their leadership says leave and they do not leave, are they still members of ZAPU?

Unlike ZANU, which is a democratic centralist organisation, the structure of ZAPU does not allow elections, criticism or the removal of a corrupt leadership.

Thus, though we cannot say that ZAPU as a whole is an imperialist tool, we realise that it has the potential to become one because there is no democracy.

Its structure veers it towards dictatorship by one or two people who can become the tools of imperialism and pull the whole movement with them."

How do you assess the present position of Muzorewa, especially after the large demonstration which marked his recent trip to "You have to. realise that, because LANU is not a political organisation, there are ZANU people still using the front of the Muzorewa African National Council so that they can carry out ZANU work; this is a well known fact.

You have people now coming to welcome Bishop Muzorewa but you must understand why. It was a clear demonstration against Nkomo which people misread as support for Muzorewa.

He has been opportunistic enough to say "I'm on the side of ZANU" and the people were thus demonstrating their support for the guerillas.

But they were saying not "We love the Bishop"; but "We love our own interests"

That is clear from their slogans on that demonstration: "Freedom!

Zi Zi (meaning Zipa)i Riving in! Zi What is the present armed struggle?

"We can star: tional Union, ZANU, (spe he Geneva Conference.

Mugabe to Smith: From US and South African intelligence reports, it is quite clear, man, that you are finished."

That illustrates our military potential. One should say that the way the country is structured by the settler regime into black and white areas is to their disadvantage.

It is quite obvious from the trial of Bishop Lamont and the treatment of the guerilla by that Dr. Guidotti who was arrested, as well as from reports by journalists and missionaries who have been there that in the black areas the guerillas are in complete control.

This was confirmed by Garfield Todd when he said that in the south Smith's forces cannot travel by land; they can only use planes and helicopters.

If the truth about the armed struggle were known you wouldn't have a white man living in the country.

They would all flee and the regime, of course, cannot survive under these conditions. So there is a tremendous clamp down on the press.

But we know that they have growing problems getting their supplies because roads and railway lines can only be used during 12 hours or so of daylight.

Tne road between Beitbridge and Fort Victoria in . the south is now closed at 2 o'clock : in the alternoon.

A jourmalist who was in a àóc nà and you drive at 65 mph and you don't stop. If anything happens you just keep going.

Also, large numbers of whites have abandoned their farms and are now arriving in the towns.

The freedom fighters can now move more or less freely in the areas they have left.

The whites' economy has been literally destroyed through this struggle, because the freedom fighters are everywhere."

What assistance has the armed struggle had from other African countries?

"Countries like Tanzanía have accomodated ZANU and facilitated most of its work, including in the early stages, its training.

Zambia also allowed us facilities though as you know our relations with Zambia have since been unfortunate and turbulent.

The OAU supports our struggle and has voted a large budget to it; but some members do not pay their dues and others have been giving money on an individual basis to Nkomo, Sithole and Muzorewa.

But we single out Mozambique which has really shown the spirit of international proletarianism and pan-Africanism to the limit, despite constant attacks, including economic sabotage, from the racialists.

There is one thing you may not be aware of: when the border was closed between Mozambique and Zimbabwe, the Frelimo government issued a decree that every man and woman from the President to the lowest peasant must work one day a month, the money from which would be put in a fund for the liberation Namibia and South Africa.

Because they went through the armed struggle, the people of Mozambique know what it is to fight for one's freedom."

What about assistance from Soviet or Chinese governments?

*We formed very close links at a very early stage with the Republic of China.

They played a major part in the development of our party and in those early stages we had to rely very much on their assistance including the training of our people, though the total of the aid has not been large - no more than a few hundred guns and a dozen or so trained people. slavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania.

There are some people, including in the socialist countries, who misunderstood our beginnings.

There's often a mistaken view that we have declared war on the Soviet Union., hat is not urstandSoviet Union. at all.

Our stand on international proletarianism is very clear: we believe that insofar as we are fighting against imperialist exploitation and to build socialism in our part of the world we are the natural allies of anybody who considers himself socialist.

Smith :

For this reason, we think it is a duty of all socialist countries to support our struggle. It is not a privilege that we get some assistance from them.

We are suspicious of those socialist countries who try to impose conditions on us like if we support you, you must not get aid from the Soviet Union" , or vice versa.

We are the people who are genuinely fighting for change and we hope for this reason that the people of the socialist bloc will support our struggle.

Comment by 'Socialist Press' Because of our unconditional support for the armed struggle against white racist rule. in Limbabwe, we are pleased to give an opportunity to members of ZANU to express their views in Socialist Press.

ZANU, a nationalist party, whose Programme nonetheless contains a commitment to the pursuit of socialism, is the principle organised political force within the present guerilla struggle.

While acknowledging the principled statements of ZANU leaders in recent months, we strongly criticise the decision to enter a "Patriotic Front" with Nkomo's ZAPU whose leaders have so frequently shown their readiness to compromise with the Smith regime and imperialism, and the decision, ( confirmed by a special Congress in Lusaka on October 22, participate in the Geneva Conference.

Regardless of the position taken by the ZANU delegates, such participation can only facilitate the schemes of the imperialists.

We think that in this interview, the LANU militants themselves provide ample reasons why both these decisions were wrong, and why the tatte chould ha hankam aff

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• SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 3rd November 1976 As the British economy lurches still more unsteadily into decline, the impossibility of capitalism making social provision adequate to the needs of the working class becomes more starkly exposed.

But the trade union and Labour leaders attempt still to conceal this harsh reality. Instead they peddle two linked illusions. The first is that, given a healthy capitalist economy, adequate provision of public services could be made. The second is that the economy can be restored to 'health' These are the reasons why they put their backs into restoring prolitability as the prerequisite of period of crisis, becomes the altar on which all other social needs are sacrificed.

But in reauty, even in its thirty years of post-war "prosperity capitalism never dreamed of furnishing these needs - indeed for the mass of the population it can never even realise the elementary rights it claims to uphold.

For example, the figure of state benefits actually taken up averages only about 40% - and they are never fully budgeted for. If the government were suddenly to pay out all the paltry entitlements as means-tested benefits, it would be bankrupted several times over!

But of course many areas of fundamental need have remained untouched by the much-vaunted 'welfare state'.

Services for the elderly. (including pensions), for the mentally and physically hand1capped, for youth and for children have remained at the bottom of the HOUSEWORK To replace the privatised drudgery of housework would likewise require a massive allocation of resources which could only take place when need is considered above profit, and the productive forces of capitalism are set free under a socialist plan.

Meanwhile as Tories and right wingers rant on about growing welfare' expenditure, 20% of local government spending simply goes O11 servicing debt charges, while huge resources are devoted to maintaining the police force - indicating the real priorities of the capitalist class.

Many social services won by the working class as real material gains are administered repressively under capitalism. Housing allocation policies, rent rebates, schools, welfare services and the social security system are all operated to stratify and divide the working class and to harden the shackles of the family.

The encouragement of 'participation' and community organisation is an attempt to replace class struggle for reforms by class collaboration - incorporating workers' 'representatives' into local government procedures and undermining class consciousness by parochial notions of 'community' Now the huge spending axe wielded by Healey is disrupting the very workings of this set-up, creating the conditions to reexamine the whole approach of the workers' movement and its leadership to the operation of the social services.

But of course the established leaders of the working class hold back from such a change. Some agree with Callaghan, Healey, Jones and Scanlon that, "temporarily', cuts must be made in order to divert resources to private industry.

CONSUMPTION

Others, including the "Tribune' Group' claim that the problem is inadequate consumption, and that apitalism needs only full employment and increased public spending through the National Enterprise Board to reflate the economy.

there should be import controls and money controls to protect British industry against 'foreign' competition.

REFORM

in other words all these layers of the labour movement who simply seek to reform capitalism ot, in the case of the Communist Party, claim they want to remove it through parliamentary means, fight the cuts within the limits set by the employers.

Revolutionaries believe that only socialism can solve the problems of fal the working class, and for this reason the struggle against the cuts must be carried through in a way which advances the struggle for socialism. This means the fight must carried through independently of the bourgeoisie, and in opposition to the class collaborating trade union leaders.

EXPANSION

Thus we demand not simply a halt to cuts, but also the expansion of services according to plans drawn up by elected committees of trade unionists, pensioners and tenants independently of the state bureaucracy, and based on need.

We call for an end to bureaucratic secrecy in the social services, for workers to elect committees to open the books of employing and governing bodies, to monitor stafting, and to investigate the profits made by the public service supply industries.

In this way, independent forms of organisation can be established in the course of today's struggles which will eventually run the social services under socialism.

Lobby against cuts at TUC Brighton Conference

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NO REFORMISM

The Tribunites agree with the Communist Party however, that