Imperialist Conspiracy in Africa By I. B. Tabata Collected and edited, with an introduction by D. Taylor Prometheus Publishing Company Also by I.B. Tabata: The Awakening Of A People The Rehabilitation Scheme - A New Fraud Boycott As Weapon Of Struggle Education For Barbarism (Bantu Education) Published by Prometheus Publishing Company P.O. Box 1850, Lusaka, Zambia, Africa. a Prometheus Publishing Company 1974 Printed by the Russell Press (TU) Nottingham. Tel. 74505 Contents Chapter Introduction 7 1 TheFermentDeepensinSouthAfrica 13 2 Political Trials Begin 21 3 Memorandum to the Organisation of AfricanUnity 25 4 Rhodesia: A New Stage in the Struggle in Southern Africa 40 5 Verwoerd's Assassination 47 6 TheProblemsofAfrica 54 7 Dilemma oftheOAUandthe LiberationMovements 60 8 Imperialism - TheWorldCrisisDeepens 67 9 The Non-AlignedConference 71 10 Conspiracyagainst Southern Africa's Liberation 76 11 The Triangleof Intrigue:TheVariousFacesofCrisisinSouthAfrica 83 12 Address to a Committee of the United Nations by the Unity Movement of South Africa 88 13 Industrial Unrest in South Africa 96 14 APolitical Review - ImperialismandtheLiberationMovementsinAfrica 105 15 WhoaretheWreckersofUnity? 121 Introduction In a selection from a series of articles and speeches by I. B. Tabata, President of the Unity Movement of South Africa and its political wing, the African People's Democratic Union of Southern Africa (A.P.D. U.S.A.), certain key themes dominate his thought because they are based on the recognition of the fundamental nature of the present epoch. While the articles range over a number of political events in South Africa, the African continent and beyond it, - events covering eleven years of exile from 1963 to 1974 - in the sum total they convey the flow of historical movement, a strong sense of political direction, as well as containing a very positive political directive. The motivation is clear. After being engaged for more than twenty years in the early stages of the struggle of the oppressed and exploited Blacks in South Africa, he continues to grapple with the problems of that struggle with all the urgency of one who knows that the time is not far off when it must be renewed. He sees it first of all as part of a global struggle between capitalismimperialism in decay and socialism that in the true sense of the word nowhere yet exists but wherever the liberatory struggle takes place in different parts of the world and in different forms, there the new society is labouring to be born. Revolutionary struggle, betrayal, insidious or bloody, setbacks and renewed struggle - these constitute the essence of our epoch, and the main historical tide is flowing one way. In the chaos of apparently separate and isolated events, the writer calls for an understanding of their inter- relationship; for a failure to make a proper assessment of the present historical developments, and the forces at work, leads to disastrous political action resulting in a betrayal of the people. The triumph of the military junta in Chile is a striking example of such a failure. The strength of imperialism, operating on an international scale, lies in its elaborate network of economic and political control. However, in this era of the escalating crises of capitalism, the big boss, U.S. imperialism has to assume more and more openly the function of policing the world and attempting ruthlessly to crush every liberatory struggle. A crucial factor in a complex international situation is the role of the present Soviet bureaucracy vis-a-vis U.S. imperialism. In an article: From October to the Cultural Revolution (Monthly Review, Nov. 1967) Tabata wrote: 8 IMPERIALIST CONSPIRACY IN AFRICA "Stalin's theory of 'Socialism in one country' was the first departure from Leninism... It dealt a reeling blow to internationalism and proletarian solidarity... As the mortal combats in each country took place between the socialist forces and capitalism-imperialism, the foreign policy of the Soviet bureaucracy revealed itself as based on narrow national considerations." And now, in a Political Review, 1973: "In accordance with the policy of co-existence these two powers (the U.S. and the Soviet Union) divided the world into spheres of influence... This agreement also covered national liberation movements and revolutionary socialist movements... The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) had liberation movements on its soil. This was of interest to the super-powers because it was bound to affect the balance of power. Thus each side has sought to gain control over them directly or through client States in Africa... But the balance of power has been swinging like a pendulum as the world capitalist crisis bursts forth in different parts of the world." Focussing on the African arena, Tabata is impelled to look beyond South Africa to the whole complex of Southern Africa and thence to view the problems of the African States under neo-colonialism. Two important statements (included here) form a natural starting-point to his assessment of the present stage of the liberatory struggle, its potentialities and the imperialist strategy of betrayal and counter-revolution. For over the whole vast area South of the Sahara the problems are seen to be dynamically inter-related. First, then, is the Memorandum to the Liberation Committee of the O.A.U., presented in Nov. 1963, by a delegation of three representing the Unity Movement of South Africa and its co-founder, the All-African Convention. Tabata was leader of the delegation sent from the U.M. at home to appeal for its assistance in the liberatory struggle of the Blacks. Two other South African organisations, the African National Congress and a splinter organisation, the Pan-Africanist Congress, were also represented in force. The appeal took the form of an analysis of the political situation in South Africa-and the nature of the liberatory struggle up to that time. The presentation was a challenging one, a profoundly penetrating one; and its main points, especially on the imperative necessity for a principled unity in the conducting of a protracted struggle, are more than ever valid today as the struggle takes on new dimensions in Southern Africa. It clearly stated the principles, aims and policy of the Movement; what its achievements were; why it laid such stress on unity and the necessity for a complete break with the agents of imperialism in South Africa. And who its inveterate enemies were, and why. Its definition of two separate struggles going on in South Africa was a provocative one. "The first is the national liberation movement of the oppressed peoples, in which the whole of the landless African peasantry is involved... On this the imperialist press maintains a calculated silence... Why? ... This Movement had to be crushed at all costs... It is fighting against both Verwoerd (white nationalist) fascism and imperialism.. ." The second struggle is seen as a conflict between the representatives of imperialism and the Boer or Afrikaner wing, that has been in INTRODUCTION 9 power since 1948. A section of the Blacks had been drawn into this conflict, thus splitting unity asunder and causing a, severe set back to the liberatory struggle. The issue between the Whites had been to throw out the Verwoerd Government. (It has since received wide publicity as the Anti-Apartheid struggle.) And the Memorandum adds: "Its ultimate aim., though unavowed, is neo-colonialism." Briefly summed up, the Memo. analysed two opposing policies amongst the leaders of the Blacks. A long tradition had tied the leaders of the African National Congress to the liberals. The logic of their position was political opportunism, collaboration with a section of the ruling-class. On the other hand, the leadership of the All- African Convention and the Unity Movement, in totally rejecting trusteeship, insisted on being independent of all herrenvolk parties. The battle between the two opposing policies in its first stages had been fully documented by Tabata in The Awakening of a People. Indeed it can be said to have followed a classic pattern, which, with local modifications, has characterised liberatory struggles in every continent. In this instance the agents of imperialism won over the leaders of an incipient petit-bourgeoisie amongst the Blacks. But for the mass of the oppressed workers and peasants, the policy of opportunism had disastrous consequences. By the early sixties, Verwoerd, having outwitted the liberals together with the Communist Party of S.A., was able to turn the full force of fascist attack on all sections of the Blacks. While men like Nelson Mandela were left behind in Robben Island jail, there was an exodus of Congress leaders, with their patrons. It was against this background that the delegation of the Unity Movement of South Africa made its carefully reasoned appeal to the O.A.U., amidst the howls of those same opportunists. The Memo. virtually challenges the Committee: "The struggle in South Africa has reached a critical stage that might decide the fate of our people for a long time to come. .. It is within the power of the independent States of Africa to give such assistance as might be used to land us in the quagmire of neo- colonialism. It is equally within their power to assist in putting the struggle of the oppressed people of South Africa on the road leading to true independence." But the time was not yet historically ripe for a reasoned appeal to be heard. The events and problems that come under review in subsequent articles all belong to the period of neo-colonialism. They explore in some depth the effects of this huge con game perpetrated by the imperialist powers at the expense of the unliberated masses in Africa; its effects on the heads of African States, on the Organisation of African Unity and its relation to the liberatory movements in the white racist regimes, particularly in the South.