Nuzr 1 9 6 7 0 3
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
V V TH E HU1 The President of Zimbabwe, Joshua Nkomo CONTENTS: SMIT- REINFO CED BY SOUT AFRICA - p.1 BIG BID FOR RECOGNITION - p.2 ZIM BABWE Printed and Published by The Publicity Bureau of The Zimbabwe African Peoples Union, P.O. Box 1657, Lusaka (tPhone 72700) Zambia, OcIEW Official Oragn of The Zimbabwe African Peoples Union Registered at the GPO as a newspaper. ZI11BB.BE PEVIEWT EDITORIAL MARCH 25, 1967 NEW TENDENCIES ON THE AFRICAN SCENE The last few. eeks have witnessed very interesting events on the African scene. These events have a bearing on Africa's course towards total political and economic independence as well as its eventual political unity. The French are known, throughout history,'for thei Ocntnental profession of the ideals of fraternity, equality and liberty. It is under thijsentiment that they devised the sophisticated but subtle method of a referendum in French Somaliland. To Africa in particular, and to the world in general, France wanted to present a facade of a French people towering above the filth of colonialist methods by leaving it to the people to choose their own direction by referendum. But deep down the Fiench were caught in the realities of their contradictory elements. French Somaliland is a springboard for their markets along the z East Coast of Africa and far afield across the Indian ocean. It is only convinient for them to keep French Somaliland under their firm control in the face of competition from other trading powers. This ensures a margin of French economic survival. Hence the blackmail of our African brothers in that color7. They we asked to cheese total independence and face the withdrawal of all French economic installations and benefits or choose continued ties with France and look forward to greater material benefits from France. France confronted President Sekou Toure of Guinea with this form of blackmail and the French lost. They pulled out installations from Guinea, including electric bulbs from houses and office furniture which they threw into the Atlantic. They then waited for Guinea to eollapee-.---Th e uineans did not care because they had the country and independence and thisdll that mattered; The country did not collapse. Povery was met by hard work in the spirit of self- reliance. It is clear from the Ffench Somaliland operation that the French were determined to put on additional methods. They combined blackmail with taickery. They took advantage of the brotherly dispute between Ethiopia and Somalia and used it to drive a tribal wedge among fellow-African inhabitants of French Somaliland. T ey compiled a voters' list on tribal proportions and even this limiting it to a class compromising only 30% of the population tltus leaving 70p of the masses at the mercy of the few. The referenduj was not, therefore, an expression of the will of our African brothers in French Somaliland but rather an expression of the skill of blackmailers who planned the referendum in Paris. Then there are the South African aparthedists who seem to emerging from their crude methods of the past and entering the field of sophisticated methods. In South West Africa, for an example, they would like to venture a referendum which they will device to ptoduce a result which will be intepreted to mean that Africangthere want to have continued connections with the Republic of the Boers. They have their eyes on the majority .tribe, the Ovambos. This sophisticated method which is becoming a feature of South Africa policy is a part of the cloak-and-dagger diplomatic offensive towards independent Africa. On the one hand South Africa is raising volunteer mercenaries to fight to keep the tide of African nationalism away from the borders of South Africa, on the other the Boers are offering the wealth accumtLated over the years through exploitation of cur land and our people as aid to African . govornments that find themselves in economic distress. The recent delegations and the treaties of Dr Hastings Banda to and-viih South Africa and Portugal. The answer to all this attempt to recolonise Africa through blackmail and sophistication is to be uncompromising in all matters of principle whatever the cost. The teaching of Dr Nkrumah is very relevant in Africa's present dilema- 'the slightest concession in a matter of principle is the ver, abandonment of that principle!. There are no two ways 'about this and t._" 4-s are means to further-and not to substitute a principle. ZZIBABV E RPLCIEW RE-INFORCEMEFT (F ARMY BY SOUTH AFRICA A South African force of 525 men entered Southern Rhodesia this week from the lti toi the 23rd of March. The force was in two groups, one 225 men and the other 300 !en. Although it is not yet quite known how the rest of the force entered Rhodesia it is however stablished that some of the .en came to Bulawayo by train, dressed in civilian clothes. Nevertheless the entire contingent grouped in the Bulawayo bayra-; cks where it was issued with the Rhodesian regime's arm.y uniform and all other equipment. The men were then taken in military trucks and I driven to the Zambezi Valley where I the regime's army constantly expects an attack from the people's liberation forces. Some of the South African men made their way to tho South African Boers. The troops that entered Rhodesia on 19th March arc a detachment of the South African regular asnw. South African reinforcements have added significance in that they came about when the regime's leader, Ian Smith, was on a so-called holiday in the Boer Republic. ___0 Chirundu. CAFRO4ASIAN WRITERS CONFERENCE It is the leakage of the news 1 TodaV,Saturdayqthe 25th of March in of the movement of these South Beirut, Lebanon, opens a conference African re-inforcements to the of Afro-Asain writers. Delegates to Rhodesian regime that led to the this conference are drawn from announcement by the regime's countries that have freed themselves minister of Information, Jack HowMan, from one form of oppression or on stricter ceonsorship of the press another. Liberation movements by and a campaign against rumour. It the very nature of their anti-colowill be recalled that Howman made I Inialist and anti-imperialist struggle his announcement whilst in Bulawayo do take part in these conferences. The at about the time of the arrival ; people of Zimbabwe have been associated of these South African reinforcentrs. T with this movement for some time now. The first group of 225 Eon led!i by Colonel Dries Kotzenberg as sent At this conference' the peoples movebment ZAPU is represented by the Editor to Chirundu. The group comes from ! the Rand, Johannesburg. The second who left for Beirut Friday the 24th of group of 300 men led by Daan Pretorius March. was sent to the Zambezi Valley and Sc rThe whole purpose of this conference tis coes from Cape Town. i concrt efforts of Afro-Asian These reinforcements must not be writers to expunge from reading confused with reports of Neville materials bourgeosie ideas and substbtut-e Warrington's recruitment of- a them with ideas ofthat are in true accord mercenary force of 500 men. This i with genuine peoples liberty. It is is a separate voluntary effort of therefore, revolution being relentlessly pursued into the field of literature. MARCH _?j,1967 PAGE ONE COMISSION B YCOTTEDby Our Oiwn Correspondent, Ian Smith's "Constitution,:l Commission" now gathering material from the "Rhodoian public" has been severely boycotted by thc African masses of Zimbabwe just as was the 1961 1Whitehead-Sandys Constitution, Smith's monthly-paid stooges,the ,Gi' .,(so- called African chiefs,have tried to call meetings of the Africans but, without the slightest success m a~nb 2a-,tic biec f~nthroughout the entire country. of his3c iie. 'Ti ec rc Chief Kaiser Ndiweni of Ntabazifrom 5 1 -.-,:ry. Tile -i-eeimc' ";'-|nduna near Bulawayo sent circulars .ct cat"-. rocog,ition .:t ta t o Zimbabweans in his area calling cy fiY- ( .:brics is Yeibru , ..2. them to a meeting two weeks ago but T. .e n enot a single one turned up at his '.,eat Ge:,"' ant' ; leai. Trr home which was built for him by the re iraee ci to 1',,vc beez: Rhodesian fascist regime. cncour x . to belicve that i. He waited Iith his 12 armed guards t, en 4. c.vntrie5 .:ve not u for about six hours before he gave up suMit' tcir 3Pot6 in "IL and went to report his disappointment w;ith t:'u resolution on .c"; ,, h eto the Heary Junction Police Station. tiat 1-o-ae . --ics tat t H e asked the police to help him by going into the area and ordering rcco,,n-, :.a of tbe ~the people to respond favourably to It'is also reported his calls for meetings. that the regime seeks to make Smith's Gestapo told him that it overtures to Lesotho for recogni- was impossible for them to leave tion. The regime is now firmly their area these days as the situsconvinced that should should it get tien was very unpredictable in the a few countries to make a break- urban areas. through diplomatic recognition Ndiweni is also a member of the Britain would have sufficient ineffective Southern Rhodesia Consexcuse internationally to accord titutional Council and gets U67. it ligal independence. 10/- per month as a chief and ConsHowever, the regime titutional Councillor. is said to be caught up in the Other chiefs who have reported tangles of international diplomatic their failures to Smith's Gestapo cross currents.