At a banquet in Lusaka, Zambia, on 27 April, Henry Kissinger made what The Times described as probably the most important statement of policy on Africa ever made by an American leader".
At the conclusion of his speech, Kissinger was embraced by Zambia's President, Kenneth Kaunda. 'Some of us were emotionally charged while you were speaking', swooned Kaunda. •We could not believe this was a Secretary of State from Washington Just what is the United States' new "Africa policy"?
Declaring that America was committed to a rapid, just and Atrican solution to the issue of Rhodesia, Kissinger made the following pledges:
• The US would give strong support to proposals made by Callaghan on 22 March for a negotiated settlement in Rhodesia leading to majority rule and independence in two years.
• The Salisbury regime must understand unar it cannot expe United States support either in diplomacy or in material help at any stage in its conflict with African states or African liberation movements. On the contrary, it will face our unrelenting opposition until a negotiated settlement is achieved.
• The US will take steps to uphold United Nations sanctions against Rhodesia. 'We will urge the Congress this year to repeal the Byrd Amendment, which author ises Rhodesian chrome imports to the United States.
• The US is to provide $12.5m in aid to Mozambique to help compensate for the closure of the border with Rhodesia, and the US 'is ready to alleviate economic hardship for any countries neighbouring Rhodesia which decide to enforce sanctions by closing their frontiers. NAMIBIA Turning to South African-occupied Namibia, Kissinger called for a *definite timetable acceptable to the world community for the achievement of self-determination'.
However, when it came to South Africa, Kissinger carefully avoided any reference to majority rule. Nevertheless, Kissinger's speech represented a turn in US policy.
The old policy had been set out in Option 2 (code-named Tar Baby) of National Security Study Memorandum 39, adopted by the Nixon administration in February 1970. 1 Based on the premise that the whites are here to stay and the only way that constructive change can come about is through them, Tar Baby tilted Washington more in favour of the white minority regimes in southern Africa. Tar Baby's policy was to:
maintain public opposition to racial repression but relax political isolation and economic restrictions on the white states....... Without openly taking a position undermining the UK and the UN on Rhodesia, we would be more flexible in our attitude Toware me omit redire, we would take present rorrucuese policies as suggesting further changes in the Portuguese territories.
*At the same time we would take diplomatic steps to convince the black states of the area that their current in une soutn are not attainable Dy violence, and that their only nope toi a peaceful and prosperous future lies in closer relations with white-dominated states.. Kissinger with neo-colonial ally Kenyatta Under the Tar Baby policy, the US stepped up its support for Rhodesia and for Portuguese colonialism under the Caetano dictatorship. In 1971, for example, the US granted Portugal a huge $436m export credit and passed the Byrd Amendment in violation of UN sanctions against Knodesia But the US's assumption that the African masses could be safely ig nored began to crumble in 1974 -along with the Portuguese colonial empire. The collapse of the imperialist military intervention in Angola was decisive in showing the US ruling class that a turn in policy was requIred The calculations behind the new US policy were noted by David Frankel in the 10 May issue of Intercontinental Press: 'In Rhodesia the white racist regime of Prime Minister Ian Smith faces massive opposition from the Zimbabwean masses and a widening guerrilla war. Moreover, the rise of the class struggle in southern Africa, epitomised by the collapse of Portugal's colonial empire, is putting increased pressure on the apartheid regime in Pretoria.? CLOSER TIES speech to avoid any pledges of US action against the apartheid regime in Pretoria.
A transition to neo-colonial forms of rule in Rhodesia, as urged by Kissinger and Callaghan, is now seen as the most effective way of holdings in the bastion of South Africa.
US support for the South African racists remains unchanged. The US will continue to export arms to formula of liberal treatment of equipment which could serve either bargo imposed against South Africa by the UN in 1963).
tunities in the region, including the gold.
ance to the NATO powers is due partly to the fact that much of the world's trade is shipped past the Cape of Good Hope. This includes about 7 million barrels of Middle NATO powers).
Namibia. preserving class stability throughout southern Africa and thereby defending white rule and the vast imperialist So Tar Baby's key axis of strong 20-30 years)
South Africa in line with Tar Baby's military or civilian purposes' (a ploy designed to get around the arms emAmerican policy is, in Tar Baby's words, 'to protect economic, scientific and strategic interests and oppororderly marketing of South Africa's South Africa's strategic importAFRICA A three-part series by
Under these conditions. Frankel continued, 'the Ford administration has decided to establish closer ties with black leaders in southern Africa while publicly dissociating itself from the Smith regime in Rhodesia and from the most vicious aspects of the apartheid system in South Africa." Above all, "both the British and the American imperialists badly want want.... a negotiated settlement in Rhodesia. They fear that the stubbornness of the Smith regime may provoke a mass movement that could prove fatal to imperialist domination in all of southern Africa.' For it is in South Africa, rather than Rhodesia, that the imperialists' real interests lie - which is why Kissinger took care in his 27 April AFRICA INSTRUGGLE East oil a day (roughly half of the oil consumption of the European Furthermore, South Africa has some of the largest naval bases bordering on the Indian Ocean. "South African port facilities are of longterm strategic importance', Tar Baby noted. 'Their availability to the Navy would be useful in peace time and essential in time of war.' The imperialist powers are also increasingly reliant on South Africa's mineral wealth. A staggering 26 per cent of the world's reserves of uranium - essential for both nuclear weapons and nuclear power stations - are located in South Africa and A report submitted to the US State Department in 1971 by the African Affairs Advisory Council noted: "Africa contains a major proportion of the world's reserves of a few commodities important to US strategic or economic needs. In the future, the US will probably have to look to Africa for, among other products, its chromite, platinum group metals, tantalite, petalite, gold, and phosphate rock (in most of these key minerals are found in southern INVESTMENT In addition, according to the October 1975 issue of South African Scope, 'three hundred and sixty US enterprises have direct investment of over $1.2 billion in South Africa -an increase of 100 percent over the past ten years'. US investment in South Africa continues to increase by 12.8 per cent a year.
British imperialism's stake is even greater, Five hundred British companies have subsidiaries or associates in South Africa. And British investment in the country totals over £2,000m. (60 per cent of total for eign investment in South Africa). 2 out Revolutionary Marxist Journal on Black Africa.
Issue No. 2 now available from:
182 Pentonville Road, N1.
now Profit rates in South Africa are among the highest in the world -since black unions are severely re pressed, strikes are illegal, wages are at or below a bare subsistence level, and African labour is controlled by a battery of apartheid laws and TCSUNCHOTS The NATO powers also see South Africa — the most powerful economic and military force on the African continent - as a guardian of imperialist interests throughout southern Africa. Pretoria's invasion of Angola was a telling warning in this regara, As ninted by sourn Alca s Defence Minister, Piet Botha, on 3 February, South Africa's invasion was coordinated with the US WHITE RULE Above all, the NATO powers are committed to the defence of white rule in South Africa, since a transitior to a black neo-colonial regime - as elsewhere in Africa - would be a highly risky venture. The rigid apartheid system has prevented the devel opment of a black bourgeoisie; centuries of white domination and land seizure have greatly weakened the peasantry; and South Africa's rapid industrialisation has created the most powertul proletariat on the continent.
A social revolution in South Africa, moreover, would have a tremendous liberating effect on the African masses in the neo-colonial African regimes, spurring forward the struggle for real independence from foreign control.
NEXT WEEK: How the NATO powers arm South Africa in violation of the UN arms embargo.
1. The full text of NSSM 39 is available in The Kissinger Study on Southern Africa (Spokesman Books, 1975).
2. See The South African Connection: Western investment in Apartnela Dy Ruth First, Jonathan Steele and Christabel Gurney (Temple Smith, 1972).
ZAMBIA
humanist rhetoric capitalist reality
LU Kea weekly -i May 19/0