3. It is undeniable that the debacle in Angola has reinforced Vorster's reluctance to commit troops to Rhodesia. The inspiration for South Africa's blacks of a further military setback could be disastrous for the regime. Any renewed intervention would make it quite impossible to envisage further collaboration with the neo-colonialist reg imes to the north, especially that of naunca All this means that there is little chance ma ne sou a rican Government will do anything positive to rescue the Smith regime — except perhaps by sending a helicopter in its final hours! The latter's own prescience concerning its future is amply summarised in Smith's ownership of a substantial farm in South Africa!
Rhodesian whites. then. have never beer more isolated. Even Kissinger now finds it more imporant to discuss where to sett this potentially displaced population than to talk of means for their survival in 2. By striking in this fashion within the The developments described above point to the possibility of a rapid overthrow of white rue. bur an exammanon or ine presen political state of the opposition must lead to more Dessimistic conclusions about in nature of the state which is likely to emerge As C. Gabriel has outlined in Inprecor (Rhodesia, the Contradictions of Nationalism', in issue of 27 May 1976), the leadership of Zimbabwean oppositional movements has been consistently charac enscu ov personal connies. careerisn and bureaucratisation of the external apparatuses, explained by the petty bourgeois social character of the leadership of the nationalist movement and by their training by British liberals, missionaries and Fabians' Thus Nkomo and Muzorewa squabble over questions of recognition of their respective wings of the movement while it becomes increasingly clear that neither of them can lay claim to the leadership of any effective structured or ganisanon.
Meanwhile the centre to which all the most militant elements, determined to see a rapid overthrow of the regime, are being attracted is the armed struggle wing represented in the camps in Tanzania and Mozambique. In the past nine - monis hundreds of secondary school students have acserica across une border to join the camps to the east, obviously seeing this as the only way forward. Unfortunately there are three important factors to be noted here 1. The continuation of rampant sectionalism and tribalism amongst the leadership of the armed struggle wing. The tradition by which all disputes are settled within the movement by the gun appears to have continued into the so-called "Third Force wing with the killing in the last week of June of its treasurer, Saul Badza, Tanzania, and the disappearance of its commander, Rex Solomon Nhango 2. Associated with and contributory to these methods is the total lack of any independent political statements from the guerilla leadership. Despite continued (Rhodesian) reports of military successes, there is a deathly silence from the "Third Force camps and leadership. The latter have not produced even a basic political programme with which to propagandise amongst the uroan poanon.
(see the article of C. Gabriel), but also to the determination of the neo-colonial front line states to keep a tight rein on the Treedom renters. Kaunda, Machel and Nyerere want to keep the latter under their own control so that they can be turned on and off like a tap - not in response to the needs of the Zimbabwean, struggle itself, but to the diplomatic requirements of these stales The aim above all is to ensure that no new leadership emerges which might be inti mately linked into the new elemental and potentially anti-capitalist thrust - a thrust whose effects could extend to the development of new mass movements inside the neo-colonial states themselves. When the fighters have done their job, it is to the old leaders — the Nkomos and the Muzorewas South African collaborators will look to ensure an unhampered transition to neo colonialism in Rhodesia.
The building of an anti-capitalist vanguard organisation which is capable of intervening in this process is the only guarantee against such an evolution. But a prerequisite for any successful intervention by revolutionary Marxists will be a firm commitment worldwide to intensified soli darity action with Zimbabwe's freedom fighters.
----- pull-quotes -----
3. Without doubt this silence is attribu table not only to their own political heritage