Behind Smith's amnesty fraud

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A warning to Zimbabwe freedom fighters want some formula to "inte- the terrorists might allow a grate" the guerrilla armies white opposition to Smith to dent evidence to back up racist Premier Smith's claim that his offer of amnesty to what he calls the "terrorists" of the liberation armies has had some success.

It is clear why Smith now feels the need to make this 'claim.

He is on the point of signing a political agreement with the collaborationist black "leaders" Bishop Muzorewa, Rev. Sithole and Chief Chirau.

This agreement would be to establish a nominally black led government which would protect all the crucial material interests of the whites and of Rhodesian and international capital.

Censorship

There is one snag. The black "leaders" Smith is speaking to do not have the support of the militant sections of the black workers and peasants of Zimbabwe.

Smith's fear, shared by Muzorewa and Sithole, is that the announcement of an obviously pro-white settlement would lead to a new surge of support for the freedom fighters of ZAPU and ZANU who are not party to the present settlement.

In spite of the blanket censorship which the regime has imposed, it has become clear that the war has sharply increased its intensity since the talks began.

White civilians. and members of the racist security forces have been reported killed in increasing numbers.

It is now the future position of the army which is the only outstanding item in the internal settlement talks."

Portugal's political crisis has been "resolved" by a sharp new turn to the right.

Socialist Party Premier Mario Soares has formed a coalition government with the right wing bourgeois party, the Democratic and Social Centre.

This party which is linked to the Christian Democratic Parties in Western Europe is well known for containing fascist elements.

Soares The Democratic and Social Centre is the one major political party in Portugal which was excluded from every one of the six provisional governments which followed the overI00 Muzorewa and Sithole into tha raricto nrecent stand- darolan ing army, (dissolving the most hated units such as the Selous Scouts).

Dissolution

In this way they would hope to divide the freedom fighters from the ZAPU and ZANU leaders.

Smith, on the other hand, wants the formal dissolution of the guerrilla armies. throw of the Caetano in April 1974.

It was then kept out of government because it was the organising centre for sections of the extreme right.

Yet Mario Soares, leader of a workers' party, has made an open coalition with it, though he coyly refers to the coalition as a government "with a socialist base and Christian Democratic personalities"

Collaboration

But no words can disguise what it really is-a regime of naked class collaboration through which Portuguese and international capital hope to impose new economic burdens on the working class.

The programme of the government leaves no doubt about this. It involves a 20% limit on wage increases (when inflation is currently around 30%), reductions in subsidies and increases in taxes along with other austerity measures.

From within the Socialist Party there have been signs of resistance to it his extreme right wing turn b y the already * a Dona Any formal recognition of develop.

Smith's campaign to get the guerrillas to accept an amnesty (and probably a wad of money as extra incențive.) follows directly, therefore, from his urgent need to defuse the strength of the guerrilla armies so that any paper agreement with Muzorewa and Sithole can be "accepted" nationally and internationally Cunhal right wing Soares leadership.

Soares managed to railroad the deal through the National Committee, though certainly at the cost of a deepening gulf between the right wing leaders and the working class rank and file of the party.

Soares is attempting to protect himself against this by making an additional bilateral pact between the Socialist Party and the Communist Party.

The Stalinists of the CP There would be no chance of such a settlement being imposed if clear, principled leadership were given to the struggle of the black masses against racism and imperialism.

But the reaction of Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, the ZAPU and ZANU leaders, to the latest internal developments has been to run back into the arms of the imperialists in the hope of getting their own rival neo-colonial solution-some version of the British American plan.

Less favourable

The plan worked out last year by Owen and the Carter administration, is less favourable to Smith, Muzorewa and Sithole than the internal solution.

The British-American plan also involves the disarmament of the guerrillas, together with the establishment of a "temporary" military dictatorship under Field Marshall Lord Carver.

But, unlike the internal settlement, the Owen plan will give a privileged position to Nkomo and Mugabe in the interim government.

This is not because the British and American imperialists give any support to black liberation.

Sabotage

Quite the contrary, it is aimed to sabotage any real independence struggle by incorporating the present leaders of the guerrilla armies into an ignominious / neocolonial compromise.

This pernicious plan must be resisted throughout the labour movement in the imperialist countries, especially in Britain and by the black workers and peasants of Zimbabwe who are threatened with a historic have not yet decided how to react to this. Naturally they bear no principled ill-will against the new coalition.

Opportunity

The Stalinists have themselves, long been proposing "national government" in which they would participate with the Socialists and Christian Democrats.

But the Stalinist leaders now see an opportunity to seize some of the Socialists' following by appearing • to oppose the new coalition.

They have already made some mild criticisms of it.

Yet at the same time Alvaro Cunhal and the other CP leaders stand ready, as they have done since 1974 to head off and betray any independent struggle of the working class.

Treacherous

The CP, therefore, can be expected to cover up its treacherous support of the coalition both inside and outside the parliament with occasional demagogic outbursts against it.