Fight Sell-out

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Not even the imperialist governments have been able to summon up much jubilation over the 'settlement' between lan Smith and the gang of black chiefs and clerics.

"Too little and too late' seems to be the general gloomy response. Nobody could accuse the US or British governments of not trying their hardest to fabricate a suitable compromise between the white settlers and the black leaders.

"Shuttles"

Conferences have been strung together by notorious diplomatic "shuttles" to form an unbroken line of futile attempts to achieve imperialism's necessary but impossible objective.

Smith's agreement to the prospect of black majority rule is not the act of repentant sinner, converted by the Reverend Sithole or Bishop Muzorewa.

The guerrilla armies of the Patriotic Front are contin* ually increasing their control over Zimbabwe, despite the punitive raids inflicted on their bases by the Rhodesian security forces.

For all their heritage of racial supremacy and the traditions of heroic, empirebuilding spirit, the white Rhodesians have been driven to recognise the inevitable.

Boundaries After the victorious liberation struggles in Angola and Mozambique, the South African government has steadfastly refused to become heavily committed to a war that could not be contained within the boundaries of the Rhodesian state.

It is no part of the Vorster government's plans to encourage a conflict raging throughout southern Africa, forces 'interrogate' blacks that would impel revolutionary opposition within the racialist heartland to far greater activity.

Salvage

With their economy in disarray and slow defeat in protracted civil war their only alternative, the Rhodesian racist leaders have elected to salvage some wordly goods from the impending wreckage of this once proud nation of free (white) men.

For theit part, Sithole, Muzorewa and Chief Chirau have avidly seized the only remaining opportunity to establish their authority before the struggles of the liberation armies consign them to humiliating oblivion.

With negligible support amongst black Africans, the strategy of these puppet nationalists has always been to secure a passage to power through the good offices of some sector of imperialism.

Nothing settled

But the "internal settlement' has settled nothing. It has simply altered the conditions of revolutionary ferment within the whole of southern Africa.

The petty bourgeois nationalist leaders of the neighbouring states will be understandably reluctant to give their blessing to an interim regime of such brief life-expectancy.

The Patriotic Front has not given the subtlest hint that it will renounce its battle for power, and its chances of success have now been markedly improved.

Exodus

It is barely conceivable