Black traitors near deal with Smith

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The clique of clerics and tin-pot potentates who call themselves the leaders of black Zimbabweans, are getting on rapidly in their effort to sell out every interest of the Zimbabwean people to the racists.

Last week Bishop Muzorewa, Reverend Sithole and Chief Chirau reached agreement with racist premier Ian Smith on the right of the white racists to control 28% of the seats in parliament after "independence"

This would give them the constitutional power to block any legislation against white property and privileges.

No agreement There is still no agreement on how long these powers would last.

Smith wants 15 years; Muzorewa and his fellow ¡ traitors have so far gone up to eight.

No doubt they will compromise. on somewhere around ten.

The last issue remaining before the complete rotten sell-out is signed is the future structure of the repressive state apparatus.

Smith wants the present racist-controlled army and police to carry on virtually unchanged.

Muzorewa basically accepts this but wants the guerrilla armies to be integrated with them.

•Muzorewar This formula is no more than • a cover for what is agreed between Muzorewa and Smith-that the guerrilla armies must be crushed as an independent force.

It begins to look as "internal settlement" these lines is imminent.

Outflank

Muzorewa and Sithole probably won't sign this racist charter unless they are sure that by doing so, they will be able to outflank the rival external leaders, Nkomo and Mugabe.

That would be impossible -no sordid deal could be made to hold for a momentif Nkomo and Mugabe were fighting from politically principled positions independent of imperialism.

But of course they are not. They are themselves compromised with the alternative plan of British Foreign Secretary : Owen andy the US imperialists (and to some extent South Africa).

In spite of their recent apparent hostility to Owen, Nkomo and Mugabe, faced with the possibility that the imperialists will support a Smith-Muzarewa agreement KER HORLINE HE PRIDERS still look to Britain and the USA to help them into power.

This now almost certainly consists in finding a way to enable Nkomo and Mugabe tor lo a deal with Smith andi Muzorewa and so produce a grand agreement in which everyone would be happyeveryone that is apart from the 6½ million black workers and peasants of Zimbabwe against whose interests any pact will be directed.

Urgency

While it is necessary to fight for labour movement support to the guerrilla armies fighting racism and imperialism, - the petty bourgeois leaders of these movements are not capable of consistently defending the independent' interests of black workers and peasants.

The imminence of "settlement' of the Zimbabwe questions points to the urgency and importance of building an alternative revolutionary leadership.

DEATH MERS KONIAS.

The Birmingham to London march in solidarity with 40,000 Turkish metal workers who have been on strike for more than seven months ended last Sunday with a lobby of the Turkish Embassy in London.

The march started in Birmingham 1 . with 50-60 supporters and ended with nearly 200 in London.

The Stalinists of the Communist Party of Great Britain and the New Communist Party sponsored the march.

The AUEW, some Labour MPs, Trades Councils and various union branches were among the supporters of the march:

One. of the great weaknesses of the march was that it had no political content. There were no meetings throughout the march to explain the metal workers strike to the British trade unions.

Although the WSL did not agree with the politics of the Turkish Communist Party dominated march, we participated with sizable contingents in Oxford and London in order to demonstrate our solidarity with the strikers though other political tendencies were conspicuously absent.

Restrictions were put on the WSL delegation selling papers and literature by the march organisers. In London various Socialist Press sellers were threatened that they would be thrown off the march if they did not stop selling papers.

We condemn • such practices. Only through a political fight can real international solidarity between Turkish and British workers be established.

Despite the leadership of the metal workers strike we will continue to fight in the British . trade unions for support for the Turkish metal workers, whose strike in defence of plant level pay negotiations has now cost the employers an estimated £400 million in lost production.

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STEAL MANTONE