youth of Doctor Owen.
La wink trom opinion, all the Marxist' presidents bewitching HIOYCS YUU. been playing it candidate preLAST WEEK imperialism once the oppressed more sent its 'flying doctor' to the southern African hot-spot.
But this time the hard-bitten features of Dr. Kissinger were replaced by the well-scrubbed ConsuuTOna The Owen mission got a nod and La wide range policy. from the Way Mozambique and Angola to the white racist bosses Smith and Vorster.
DInILE But this success was not due, as intransigence. the British press would have us believe, to the Foreign Secretary's bedside manner. SrCaLCE Rather it was the timing of his struggle, which come at a point when the rise of anti-imperialist sentiment is worrying all those who have a stake in keeping the status -imperialism is worree aoour une their threat raised by a defeat of the smitn regime in a popular noerd tion struggle involving a greater mobilisation and radicalisation of Wounded Zimbabwean liberation fighter in a Mozambique hospital.
African masses.
Thus the Americans are prepared to play a central part in Owen's scheme to the degree of Jointly underwriting the plan for a future COnIC CuCE and ism. making Vice-President Mondale directiv responsible for working out the administration's African Similarly the 'front-line' states are concerned about their inability to work out a way of making the back on This is forcing the Zimbabwean nationalists to insist on a tougher policy and place emphasis on the armed which jeopardises ability of the front-line regimes to keep control of the guerilla forces.
The growing pressure on the front-line states will either expose unwillingness to take anti-imperialist struggle forward seriously or draw them into the conflict. This would drain off the limited resources of their crisis- ridden economies and give birth to a radical mass movement on the fringes of, and even within, their own borders. This would challenge inelr accomodaton to umpenal white racisi Stalcs dr becoming more and more aware that they are stuck in a dead-end They are eager to find room for manoeuvre. This explains the wil lingness not just of Vorster and of the latter's right wing Rhodesian Front Party to give a cautious preliminary nod to Owen's proposals.
The proposals aim to skip the controversial preliminaries for the TranSI CI of white racist to black majority rule and instead to solve the problem of the future constitution. nenced i that it will be easier to reach agreement on -snesa Jong-LerT plans which will make it possible to isolate the 'extremists on both sides and secure a 'moderate majority ready to compromise on the immediate measures needed to get the plan off the ground.
Any such scheme must involve concessions to preserve the mat erial privileges of the white minority. As Owen put it in Parliament, to '... encourage the minorly wnite population to stay anc contribute to the country's future'!
GUARANTEES But this will mean some political guarantees: possibly a postponement of a fully equal franchise (which Owen has conspicuously stopped referring to), white ministers in the post-independence irrespective of the vote iney get, and even presence of British troops. Ower hinted at this in Parliament: nere s no mmenon or-ug British Government to commit troons in any maior sense' The future of the Owen proposals is unclear. It will depend ir part on whether the Smith regime's seemingly positive attitude simply a manoeuvre to gain time o whether it represents a serious bid to work out a deal with imperial ism to maintain the essentials of white privilege against the black Hlasse.
At the same time it is unclear how the nationalists will respond to the proposals. The attitude of the front-line states, who appear to look at them as a useful way out of their dilemma, may be crucial.