Africa: new 'liberation’ strategy

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33230, 21 May 1973, Page 13

Africa: new 'liberation’ strategy

in.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright/ ADDIS ABABA, May 20. A new “strategy for the liberation of Africa” was approved in Addis Ababa yesterday by the Organisation of African Unity’s Council of Ministers.

Drawn up by a special committee in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, the strategy is that armed struggle in southern Africa must be considered as a whole, and that the activities of the various liberation movements there should be co-ordinated. The O.A.U. Council of Ministers has also approved the sending of missions to non-African countries, to obtain increased material and financial aid to African liberation movements. Informed sources in Addis Ababa say that the special committee has also recommended the renewal for 197374 of the O.A.U. liberation fund budget at the equivalent of SNZ2.4SOm, the same figure as last year. The newly-approved strategy emphasises the need for armed struggle, and recalls the Mogadishu declaration of 1971 that this is the only way to liberate southern Africa.

Noting that no liberation war had so far been solely waged and won from abroad,

or by “elements in exile,” the document says that it is necessary to unify liberation movements within each ter-

ritory, and proposes “united fronts” for this purpose. It also proposes continued aid to liberation movements recognised by the O.A.U. for a determined period, at the end of which if unity has not been achieved by liberation movements within any one territory, recognition will be given to the movement that has shown itself to be the most powerful, and aid will be cut off from rival movements. If, at the end of the determined period, no unified front has been formed and no single liberation movement has established its supremacy, O.A.U. recognition will be withdrawn from all liberation movements within a territory, and all aid cut off. Fund allocations The special committee that drew up the strategy has proposed the following allocations so far to existing liberation movements in the immediate future:

African Party for the Independence of (Portuguese) Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands,

25 per cent. Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), 25 per cent. Angolan Unified Military Command, combining the Angolan People’s Liberation Movement and the Angolan National Liberation Front, 20 per cent. Namibia’s South-West African Peoples’ Organisation, 10

per cent. The African National Congress and Pan-African Congress in South Africa, 5 per cent. Other liberation movements, 5 per cent.

The committee has yet to discuss a report on military

co-operation by a group of 15 military experts, the activities of the Africa group at the United Nations, and the question of African candidates on United Nations bodies.

Proposing missions to seek increased aid from non-Afri-can States, the new strategy says that they should visit three groups of countries:

Socialist countries now already helping African liberation movements, like the Soviet Union and China.

Non-aligned countries—after the decisions taken at

the conference iii Georgetown, Guyana, last August, under which such countries promised aid to liberation movements. Other sympathetic countries, and particularly Scandin avian States. The Council of Ministers is also expected to call for u referendum in Spanish Sa hara, under O.A.U. anc United Nations auspices with a view to the decolon isation of the territory. Dele gates from Morocco, Mauri tania and Algeria have addressed the Council ol Ministers on this issue.