0 Co uy counter as we march down for the liberation of #) -' Tespective countries.” : as comrades-in-arms, we are facing a com- on enemy, fighting a common purpose, facing a | Eomon fate. Hence, a combined force for a com- ' ©" Onslaught against the enemy at every point | | | —Joint statement of the African National | Congress and the Zimbabwe African 8 People’s Union, August 19, 1967. 7 Hl ' ik Wat of the people for tg O8tation of South Af- Wh .'s ginning.” On Aug- Wy yeevance units of Um- An ne Sizwe, combat force B to ftica’s National Con- hs either with their com- Rian ae of the Zimbabwe Hy .“Ples’ Union, ZAPU, J Msi, new a Of ¢ chapter in the Oppressed people ut tern Africa, in bloody > With th ; han teSsors, ne worial which will ap- Attic Orthcoming edition Unigt ‘Sy Communist, the ‘eal, TtY Of South Af- fhe to all friends of ive 5 paces liberation to A the st Crucial new chap- Tuggle, and to mobil- iN Material Political, mo- ‘ Atria Support for it. et, SS Of 4 teat battles that were #I the ..8 Place, and partic- sualties suffered by The a. : Wn — is the only play Nido 4 Ces. Every effort 0 a present the opening . ha Purely localized oper- Ht beg, SCale, which had apecessfully con- 4° Oper, 2PS some ‘mo | Perationg to be din: " 8 fj, N | te wentihg has continued ifs leaks’ aS more and Rog 28 of Nean allies, this Paganda is being op curity blanket’ te o il win out, More emer ‘ruth about the ide 08 and reaching the oVOrld. (i Buen mining town of Ate ‘ Trilla f D Orces launch- attack, inflicting € racist forces and driving off Of arms and am- Atte hit their . to conceal the * tog °Sses, the Smith , IR inthe hurses and ‘er € military forces = See ground for colored children. Sta large num-_ ber of recently-admitted wound- ed Africans were ‘terroists’ (by which they meant guerrilla forces). But soon the news leak- ed out that the wounded men were, in fact, all members of the ‘Rhodesian. African Rifles’ Smith’s puppet force, who met their fate in battles against the liberation forces, “Of course this is not the first armed clash between the unholy Vorster - Smith - Salazar alliance and its millions of African vic- tims. “For a long time now, the Af- rican liberation forces of Mozam- bique, Angola and further north, in Guinea Bissau, have been pin- ning down many thousands of NATO-armed Portuguese, liber- ating and administering a con- stantly growing army of devoted freedom fighters. In South West Africa too, the Republic’s illegal- ly-seized colony, resistance fight- ers have challenged and fought the enemy. “Nor is the concept of an alli- ance of the liberation forces of unliberated Africa a new one. The oppressors are closely and obviously associated in an anti- —_— African conspiracy, and it is plainly the duty of the people’s leaders to co-operate, exchange information and experiences and co-ordinate their efforts. To- wards this end, steadily improv- ing relations of friendship and mutual confidence develops between the ANC, ZAPU, PRE- LIMO of Mozambique, MPLA of , Angola, and other organizations of genuine and militant patriots. “What gives the ANC-ZAPU alliance now its special signifi- _cance, one whose potentialities it would be hard to overestimate, is not only that it is sealed in a bond of brotherhood on the bat- tlefield, but above all that it is boldly directed against the main bastion of white supremacy and colonialism in Africa. “That is exactly why these first clashes have caused a state bordering on panic in Salisbury and Pretoria, among their imperialist backers abroad. “This war was never sought by the oppressed non-white peo- ple of our country. For all the fifty years of its legal existence the African National Congréss, _Netherlands, and _ trepidation | like the other partners in our liberation movement, sought to win democratic changes and to change the rigid racial structure of the country by peaceful means, in the words of the late, great Lutuli ‘knocking in vain, patiently, moderately and mod- estly at a closed and barred door.’ Instead of progress, Africans were faced with a succession of ‘increasingly tyrannical govern- ments, their rights even to legal protest whittled away to noth- ing, until as the Manifesto of Umkhonto We Sizwe (Decem- ber 16, 1961) pointed out there remained only two choices: ‘sub- mit or fight . . . We shall not submit.’ “It is the white fascist rulers of South Africa, swollen with greed and racial arrogance, who have deliberately chosen the path of violence, who have re- acted with unbridled terrorism to the legitimate protests and demands of the people, in one massacre after another from the early aggressive wars of the Britain and the voortrekkers, to Bulhoek in the twenties, to the murder of Jo- hannes Nkosi in the thirties, the killing of African miners in 1946, the May Day murders of 1950, the massacre at Sharpeville in 1960, and scores of similar inci- dents. “For the rulers of South Af- rica, whether outright fascists like Vorster, Hertzog and com- pany, or those like the Villers Graaf and the U.P., whose pre- tended opposition on minor ques- tions does not conceal their un- qualified support for white baas- skap and apartheid, this is a wholly unjust war; a war for continued race oppression, land robbery and unbridled exploita- tion of the masses. “But for our freedom army, comprising as it must, not only the heroic pioneer Congress fighters who have already enter- ed armed combat, but all the mil- lions of working people in town and country whose militant sup- port and action will be called for and needed before victory can be won, this is a just, sacred and noble war. It is on a par with the fight of the resistance patriots in Hitler’s Europe, of the heroic Vienamese, Algerians and others Campaign by Coloreds against apartheid on South African trains. ° who rose to repel the invaders, of all who have ever striven, struggled and died for ‘human emancipation. “Our people are not fighting for a racialist cause but for a South Africa dedicated to the lofty principles of the Freedom Charter, a true motherland to all its peoples, offering freedom, security, human dignity and equality to all. It is because their cause is just, that it is supported by the overwhelming majority of our people, and of the whole of mankind, that the banner raised by the African National Congress must in the end tri- Jaan umph, no matter how long the war may last, or how costly it may be in lives, suffering and sacrifice. “The history of previous strug- gles of this kind in many parts of the world has shown that, often, there is a long, slow and unspectacular, process of consolidation during which the guerrillas establish themselves, acquire battle-experience, rec- ruits and arms. Under conditions in which the enemy still domi- nates lines of communication and information services we cannot hope for regular front-line dis- patches giving accurate accounts of the fighting. The enemy will seek to demoralize the friends of Southern African freedom by Mozambican freedom fighters on the march. publicizing highly - exaggerated accounts of ‘defeat’ for our men and suppressing all news of their advances. For all these things we must be prepared, sustained by confidence in inexhaustible re- sources of our devoted patriots and the overwhelming justice of our cause. : “We know that the staunch friends and well-wishers of South African freedom are legion, in every country of the world. Out- standing spokesmen of our peo- ple have travelled far and wide, telling of the inhuman crimes of the racialists, the anguish and heroism of our people. We be- lieve that in the hard days ahead the peoples and governments of Africa, Asia and the socialist countries, the mass movements against apartheid that have grown up in so many countries, will respond generously to the calls for such aid as the African National Congress will need and ask for. A particular duty rests, at this time, on the progressives in such countries as Britain, ‘the United States and France, whose governments and capitalists ac- tively support the Vorster re- gime, and scab on the world boycott against it. “But inevitably the brunt of the struggle will fall on the South African people them- selves, in whose hands now, as never before, rests the future and the freedom of our country. The decisive factor is the active support for our fighting men by the masses of workers and pea- sants of South Africa, the Afri- can people in town and country, the oppressed Colored and In- dian communities, the democra- * tic core among the whites. With the rising tide of guerrilla battle - they are called on to sustain-our guerrillas in every possible way, to fight the oppressor with every weapon in the farms and reserv- es, in the towns and dorps. “Through all the tribulations ‘ahead their example will inspire us all as we’go on to new fights and new victories. We shall overcome. The banner they have onfurled, the black-green-gold of Congress and Freedom shall be forne victorious from the Lim- popo to Cape Town.” : Octabbr -20-1 P87 SPACING TRBUNEsdct3