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tration to renege on its com–
mitments. The South Africans were
then compelled to retreat lest they
appear
to
be tighting the West's war
all alone.
The ghost of Vietnam stalking
Capitol Hill administered the
coup
de grace
to a campaign that carne
within an inch of victory!
According to Moss, the "most
damning factor" in the Angolan fi–
asco was the "failure of nerve in
Washington ." Political columnist
"Dawie," writing in
Die Burger
of
Cape Town, adds: "Ironically, the
chain broke at what should have
been its strongest link-Washing–
ton ... when, tbanks to an almost
laughably smaUSouth African mili–
tary presence, an overall military
v.ictory was in sight."
The South African government
only recently revealed the extent of
its involvement in Angola, corrobo–
rating many of Moss's findings. A
South African Defense Ministry
spokesman admitted that "political
reasons" necessitated South Africa's
pullback, adding that "our forces
were obliged to leave the way open
for the Communists."
Moscow had indeed perceived the
American post-Vietnam, no-fight
mood correctly. Summarized Moss:
"The Communist invasion of An–
gola was a step toward the fulfill–
ment of Russia's grand design: the
domination of the whole of southern
Africa.
" By giving up in Angola, the
Western powers threw away a
unique opportunity to hold the line
against Soviet expansion in south–
ern Africa. Why unique? Because in
Angola, the reality of the Soviet
threat was not obscured by racial
sentiment- al any rate, not until
Marxist propagandists set about
trying to turn the South Africans
into the villains of the peace.
"The war in Angola was nota war
of black men versus white men.
lt
was a war between rival black guer–
rilla movements and their foreign
helpers."
The loss of Angola immediately
led to a switch in African policy by
42
Washington, in an attempt to get
back into the ball game before the
Russians won everything hands
down.
Next Stop: Rhodesla
Previous support, however tacit in
nature, for the existing govemments
in Rhodesia and South Africa, was
dropped. In a major speech in Lu–
saka, Zambia, in the summer of
1976, U.S. Secretary of State Kiss–
inger announced that the United
States would do everything in its
power to push for "majority rule" in
Rhodesia. The hope was that in so
The true story of the
1975 Angolan civil war
reveals a shocking
timidlty prevailed in
Washington; America's
nerve collapsed
when victory for
Western-backed forces
was in slght.
doing, power could be peacefully
and orderly transferred to moderate
black leaders; that the majority of
Rhodesia's whites (the backbone of
Rhodesia's economy) would stay
on ; that radical black leaders sup–
ported by Moscow's guns would be
shut out of power; and thus that a
future Zimbabwe (the black nation–
alist name for Rhodesia) could be
kept in the Western camp.
Last Septembe r , th e United
States and Britain put heavy pres–
sure on Rhodesia's Prime Minister
lan Smith to accept a two-year time–
table to institute black majority rule.
Smith accepted the so-called
"Kissinger proposals," having little
other choice. But the plan never got
off the ground. Moscow's bet was
placed not on forces favoring West–
ern-oriented majority rule, but on
two competing " freedom fighter"
movements tenuously united under
the banner ofthe "Patriotic Front."
So too was the wager placed by
the leaders of the " front-line" states
around Rhodesia. They had hedged
their bets at first, but Angola 's col-
lapse was now a crystal-clear signal
to them of Western weakness.
Therefore, even moderate black
leaderships moved slowly but surely
into the militant camp.
Smith, however, has so far deter–
mined not to deal with those whom
he says are "externally based terror–
ist leaders who, without any shadow
of doubt, are the tools of Russian
imperialism
who~ay
quite openly
they intend to take Rhodesia
through the barre! ofthe gun."
In accordance witb his acceptance
of the principie of "majority rule,"
Smith is bopeful of arranging an
interna! sett lement with black lead–
ers truly representative of Rho–
desia's six million blacks, who are
also willing to guarantee in a new
constitution the rights of all Rhode–
sians, including the white minority.
Yet both the British and Ameri–
can governments now say they will
not sopport an interna! settlement;
that Smith must also negotiate with
the two Patriotic Front Jeaders, one
of whom has vowed to bring Smith
and aU others associated with the
Rhodesian government to tria! after
he comes to power.
One of Smith's cabinet ministers
has asked, with no small degree of
consternation: "Are they [the Brit–
ish] seriously suggesting that the
whole of this business is not about
the- will of the majority of the
people? If it is not, what is it all
about? Do Great Britain and
the ... others favour the expression
of the will of the majority, or do
they favour a minority authoritarian
imposition? The question · is as
simple as that."
No Courage, No Wlll
It will be extremely difficult for
black Jeaders inside Rhodesia to as–
sume political power if the Western
world does not support tbem. Which
leads to sorne interesting questions:
Why are the Western powers not
backing up their own majority-rule
policy
in Rhodesia? Why bave they,
in etfect, washed tbeir hands of the
problem and thrown in thcir Jot
with tbe Russian-backed side?
"The reasons are simple," an–
swers the noted political analyst for
London's
Sunday Telegraph,
Per–
egrine Worsthorne. "They dread the
consequences of backing a sett le-
The
PLAIN TRUTH May 1977