Nafrican Leaders Fear Mass Struggles
Socialist Press1978 1978-02-15Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 2 →
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As conflicts within northern Africa develop and expand, diplomatic missions and dignitaries are scurrying from coast to coast.
All this frantic activity is an understandable reaction to the situation: war in the Sahara, war in Chad, insurrection in Tunisia, mounting unrest in Mauritania and Morocco, and developing liberation struggles in the Canary Islands.
The purpose of this strenuous activity is to secure the good office of the Algerian and Libyan governments for the stabilisation of the region for imperialism.
Dictatorship
Boumedienne's 'socialist' regime and Gaddafi's military dictatorship give verbal and occasional material support to anti-imperialist struggles so as to justify their own revolutionary pretentions.
For them, whether or not to collaborate with the imperialist states is not one of principle, but purely . a problem of tactics.
Exploited
Both leaders exploited the Polisario Front's capture of French technicians to boost their status as mediators between imperialism and its enemies.
There are dangers in this strategy. The escalation of war in the Sahara has thrown the Algerian government into a dilemma.
The Polisario Front has continued its guerrilla attacks despite the direct intervention of French forces alongside the Moroccan and Mauritanian armies of occupation.
At the same time the Mauritanian state is fast approaching total collapse. Its underdeveloped economy is almost entirely dependent on iron ore production, and this has been severely disrupted by the Polisario's activities.
The massive war mobilisation has produced further strains, and now drought has returned to the region.
With 80% of the population employed in herding and agriculture in unfavourable, semi-desert conditions, the inevitable mass migration to the towns poses colossal problems.
Purged
As a result of the 'joint' military campa gn, the Moroccan army nc w co introls the country and the one-party government has been
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CIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 15 February 1978