Playing with fire
After 1980, Samora Machel defended the idea of reestablishing a hierarchy in the state sector, as well as financial guarantees for the return of small foreign industrialists, traders, and planters.
In 1980 also, the Southern African Development and Coordination Conference was set up to try to achieve better economic integration and rationalization of economic relations with the countries of the region against a dangerous South African neighbor and dependence on the West. The actual result was that the developed capitalist countries committed about
Will reared she contry. 400 million dollars to about 20 proreinforced the country's dependence.
In April 1983, the Fourth Congress of the Frelimo was to rectify the line of the preceding congress. The central slogan was a three-point one - "Defend the country, overcome underdevelopment, build socialism." But already the big projects that require heavy investments were put in question.
Despite the restatement of a socialist goal, the period after 1983 was marked by a growing opening to the West. In June 1985, Mozambique did sign an accord with the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the East Bloc aid agency, indicating that it was not breaking with the Eastern countries. But it was also to join the IMF and the World Bank. Likewise it was to sign the Lome III convention. In 1985, the United States made available 18 million dollars in aid, on condition that the number of Eastern advisors be reduced.
At present, more than 50% of Mozambique's commercial exchanges are with the developed capitalist coun tries. The East Bloc countries account for only a fourth of imports and purchase only 15% of the country's exports.
Today, this gloomy picture for Frelimo has been darkened still further by the disappearance of the kingpin of its government. The problem of replacing the "Comrade President" could well bring to light persisting divisions.
The Mozambiquan people has not reached the end of its travail, in particular since South Africa is on the lookout for opportunities to counter the blows dealt it by the collapse of the Portuguese colonial empire and the fall of the Rhodesian white government.
THE EXPLOSION on a Soviet atomic submarine on October 5 was a striking reminder of the dangerous times in which we are living and in which the October 11-12 "pre-summit" took place in Reykjavik.
From its position the submarine could have destroyed New York or Washington in 10 to 15 minutes, and, depending on the nuclear arms it carried, effectively another 14 to 30 cities. It was only for the sake of making a political demonstration that the submarine turned around there, the editor of Bruckenbauer wrote in its October 15 issue.
An outdated model, this submarine would have to surface before firing and, in the event of war, would be immediately destroyed. But that is the point. An atomic war will not begin with any declaration.
When the Pershing 2 missiles were deployed in West Germany (as an answer to the Soviet SS-20s), the Soviet government announced that it was taking countermeasures by stationing submarines in the Atlantic that would hit Washington within 10 minutes, as the Pershings can do to Moscow.
In one way or another (either as part of the strike force or as a decoy), the submarine that went down was part of this operation. This incident, thus, demonstrated the destabilizing effect of the dangerous game of mutual "counter-measures."
Still more destabilizing is Reagan's Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), called Star Wars, which is a spur to a new, insane arms race. According to the official version, both sides came to the pre-summit with big disarmament objectives, as well as with certain (by no means all) problem details.
They were supposed to have presented these questions so precipitously that they really undertook a summit. And then, as it were, because of Reagan's refusal to limit SDI, they fell back below the level of a pre-summit.
How things will proceed from here, or whether they will remains unclear. What the Soviet government made clear is that the US cannot simply "bag" Soviet concessions without a quid pro quo, which was the US intention as their security chief Pointdexter inimitably blurted out.
It is also clear that the Soviet Union proposed some important steps (e.g., "solution zero," that is the elimination of the European intermediate-range missiles), from which it can hardly retreat, if the obstacle of SDI is limited.
At the same time, it has become evident that there is a dangerous, limited SDI project (a defence of US missile installations) that can be built relatively quickly and with today's technology. Remove US missiles and end nuclear tests
The pre-summit has shown that the key to more security for the people of the world lies in the capitalist West. The peace movement can fight with a renewed energy for specific arms control measures that will help to maintain the balance rather than undermine it.
Not only are thousands of US scientists turning against SDI and refusing to collaborate with it, but also recently some politicians have argued that they only want to "bargain it away" for Soviet concessions.
These days, the congress of the International Society of Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War, which has 150,000 members in 49 countries and in 1985 got the Nobel peace prize, is calling for a halt to atomic tests by the USA (and a continuation of the moratorium on tests by the Soviet Union).
On October 11 in Hunsruck, West Germany, 150,000 to 200,000 people demonstrated for eliminating US Pershing 2 missiles from Europe. In our opinion these are the slogans for 1987. [Editorial from the October 27 issue of Die Bresche, the Germanlanguage paper of the Swiss section of the Fourth International.]
International Viewpoint 10 November 1986
POLAND