Trained position on southern African res, in their abstentions on the UN Oral Assembley resolution detering that South Africa's mandate South West Africa has ated, on which we voted in favour, the UK's somewhat more perpolicy on the arms embargo st South Africa, which is virtually id letter in the case of France. -Soul Alica because: There Is & report also noted that the South Africa because: "There is a mous question whether pro-Western dets of the black states could contheir ulations the officially lared its opposition current ration efforts. •Radical and comwould be neficiaries. ' The report concluded: 'our interests hot Justify consideration of us intervention athe milarly economic South Africa are excluded because could lead to a orcement the vement in their enforcement. mited. States excluded any action to elp end apartheid.
-Overthrow It is true th at the original Kissinger sport made a drastic miscalculation on • likely course of events in southern rica, It foresaw the continuation of ortugese rule in Angola and Mozamwe, Smith regime ¡nodesia', BIOr the indefinite future. at there is no evidence to suggest that ne US changed its policies after the colse of the Portugese empire in Africa mad the establishment of an indepenent black Zimbawe. On the contrary e United States began to increase its olvement Africa following the cyclutions™ of the 1970s the overbrow of Portugese rule in Guinea ssau, Mozambique, and Angola, the verthrow of Haile Sellassie in Ethiopia ad the downfall of the Smith regime.
The US first increased its covert support for South African against its neignbours South African backed UNITA invasion of Angola in 1975-76, blocking any international pressure on South support to the right wing UNITA in Angola and the MNR in Mozambique.
with tervention in Africa the United States stepped up its attempt to pressurise the ter- Soviet Union to end its support to left wing governments movements in Africa. Kissinger plained in 1975 that: 'our task is to find ways to restrain Soviet power over an historical period...
Soviet power around the world through a combination of political, military and economic means. reorganisation of US foreign policy, during 'detente', Was LO United States air and naval bases in Kenya and Somalia. Between 1969 and | 1980 US investment in South Africa increased neariv tentor -the million to $2,500 million.
State Since then the United States and Britain have done everything possible in practice, to maintain the apartheid state - within the necessity to prevent public embaressment to 'pro-Western leaders of the black, states.' They are providing aid to the frontline states primarily with the aim of increasing the Wests image and leverage. But this aid is absolutely tiny compared to the damage done to its neighbours by the South African incursions and the cost of the havec created by apartheid backed 'rebel movements' in Mozambique and Angola.
The United States and Britain are perfectly aware that if African regime — the regional superpower' as its foreign minister put it this week • were to fall the entire situation Africa would change. drastically reinforce the black population of Africa against imperialist interests and powerfully reinforce left. That is why Britain and the US will take no action to overthrow apartheid. That is why we had the farce at the Commonwealtn prime ministers conference last. week.
already nationalist perspective Guardian. action aiding Cune La modern world.' Africa direct inrebel exby balancing off destruction of portant in this context. • Part of Carter's establish ment with multilateral growth of the Not only bringing about nuclear South tne would the THE DECISION to spend the next two years reviewing party policy dominated Labour's recent annual conference. That review will be part of the leadership's continuing drive to cleanse the party of every last vestige of radicalism. Foreign policy will be a key area for the microscope, in preparation for which attacks on unilateral nuclear disarmament have been stepped up. NICK BENNETT explains why defending •unilateralism — the crucial radical policy the right want to eliminate — is still central to the fight for an inter- and replies to an article by Joan Ruddock in the 'AS the disarmament process gathers momentum, the pro-nuclear fanaticism of Mrs Thatcher will become increasingly out of step with the realities of the world and people's perception of them, concludes Joan Ruddock writing in the Guardian on Friday 16 October. 'Labour has a chance to ofter the electorate a defence policy which carries the convicdon born or an allernative vision or lternational relations and which really does fit the needs of a modern Britain in In her article Disarming needs of a defence policy review', the Labour MP most publicly associated with the campaign in this country against nuclear weapons argues that the intermediate range nuclear force (INF) treaty, on the verge of being signed by the United States and because and the Soviet Union, will be 'the cornerstone of that new reality'. Arguing that 'the significance of this agreement lies not in its mode of negotiation but in its objectives - the actual removal and operational nuclear weapons', Ruddock however goes on to claim that unilateralism becomes less imHowever, changed -Unilateralism was never an exclusive road to nuclear disarmament, she explains. 'Unilateralists have always argued that independent steps, as well as being valuable in themselves, act as a spur to negotiations. Nevertheless the appeal of the unilateralist position (leaving aside its fundamental morality) proceeded partly from a general and profound disillusion- That is the negotiations.
Thus the background to the dramatic "realities of the European peace movéments in the 1980s was nothing less than a cynical mockery of multilateralism, with Western offers to the Soviet Union deliberately designed to invite refusal.' ment will this view that uni- disarmament. lateralism will play a decreasing role in disarmament profoundly wrong, it is also profoundly There is going to be just as much cynical mockery of multilateralism' in 1987 as there was in the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s. And that is because the self-styled, 'multilateralists' in fact want David Owen to keep nuclear weapons. The government of the USA is no more sincere in its claim to want to gel na or nucical BeCA weapons than Britain, France or West Germany, the political leaders of which countries openly argue for maintaining nuclear weapons. That is not to say, of course, that the United States is unwilling to lose any nuclear weapons. The INF treaty is certain to be signed — especial ly at a time when Reagan could use the domestic political kudos it will attract concessions on foreign policy he hopes to extract from the Soviet Union through it.
Reagan's fundamental dynamic is no different than Thatcher's, Mitterrand's and Kohl's. He is every bit as committed waters. to maintaining nuclear weapons - as the USA's response to the Reykjavik summit and its refusal to reconsider the Star Wars programme demonstrates the relationship between the United States and West Europe has and not just because of the US-USSR INF treaty.There is less support in West Europe for the foreign policies of the USA than there has been at any time since World War II.
fundamental reality underlying what Joan Rudock calls the world and peoples perception of them'. The INF treaty is an effect of that reality, not its cause. Unless that relationship is understood, the antiget it wrong on nuclear the For example, recognising the tensions between Western Europe and the United States, sections of the anti-missiles and labour movements are flirting with the cept idea of Europe as a 'third force. But it is false to assume that greater cooperation US in Europe is a radical or 'leit' alternative. Essentially it is the view espoused by and others. In fact the Guardian of Monday 19 October carried • a long article from Owen on the very subWhat has to be made clear is that both these forces represent interests that are alien to real nuclear disarmament whatever rhetoric either side might indulge in from time to time to suit its particular immediate and sectional interests In this context, and especially in the light of a clear and concerted campaign by the right wing of the party to get rid of. Labour's unilateralist policy, it is quite wrong or joan kuadock to remal suck on the issue of US nuclear bases.
We have already seen a number of retreats on the clear statement of the 1983 which would remove all nuclear weapons from British soil and Moves The 'Modern campaign launched last Decembe to fight the general election was one. Nuclear disarMalcul was firmly placed within the •framework of remaining in NATO. Nei Kinnock personally made clear the meaning of the campaign's pro-NAIl framework when, on the eve of his ill fated visit to the White House, he announced on the eve of his ill-fated visit to the White House, delay the removal of cruise pending the outcome of any INF talks.
Again, at party conference, there was no mention of the US nuclear bases by the leadership. They attempted to con fine the debate to Trident. Furthermore instruction composite establish a working party was specifically to review timetable and strategy There is now a clear strategy by sec the abandoning of Trident doubtless bargained away as part of a deal with the USSR - but to accept the 'nuclear," umbrella' as part of the NATO alliance, That is why composite 30 at Labour Party conference, so strongly nuclear bases. It is also why Joan Ruddock is totally wrong to ignore this issue in her Guardian article.
The position must be clear. Labour all nuclear weapons from British soil and waters including the Us nuclear baser Anything else is an abandonment of Labour's non-nuclear poliçy.
Socialist Action: | 23 Oct 1987
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over its occupation of Namibia, then, at a minimum, up South African