South African trade union federation promotes illusions in Castroism Part Two By Thabo Seseane Jr. 12 September 2014 This is the conclusion of a two-part article on the promotion of Castroism by South Africa’s trade unions. The first part, published here @ wsws.org/en/articles/2014/09/11/cosa-s11.html, reviewed Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi’s speech hailing Castroism. The article examined the historical origins of Castroism and its relationship to South Africa and the civil war in Angola in the 1980s. The implications of a stronger Soviet desire for detente with the West were not lost on the American ruling class. A tottering, less confrontational Soviet Union meant the removal of the brake that for decades had been placed on American imperialism. Jonas Savimbi of the US-backed National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), - when he was fêted in Washington towards the end of the second Reagan administration, made a point of thanking his hosts, the conservative Heritage Institute, for their role in the repeal of the Clark Amendment, which had curtailed aid to UNITA. During negotiations in 1988, US assistant secretary of state for African affairs Chester Crocker repeatedly asked Cuba for assurances that the Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola/Cuban force would not march into South-West Africa (now Namibia), cabling his senior, - Secretary of State George Schultz: “The Cuban build-up in southwest Angola has created an unpredictable military dynamic.” Cuban chief negotiator Jorge Risquet refused to give an undertaking that his country would not invade South-West Africa. The Cubans replaced him with the more conciliatory Carlos Aldana Escalante. In the event, Cuba did not overrun South-West Africa and agreed to withdraw from Angola within 30 months, following implementation of UN Resolution 435. The “Geneva Protocol,” signed by the parties on August 5, stipulated a South African withdrawal from Angola from August 1 that was completed by September 1. On August 8 a cease-fire came into effect. When, on December 22, 1988, Angola, Cuba and South Africa signed the final Three Powers Accord in New York, Cuba calculated that the MPLA was capable of defeating UNITA, once Resolution 435 was in force, since it would no longer have support from South Africa. Furthermore, while Pretoria tried to influence the outcome of the South-West African election, Cuban ally SWAPO garnered 57 percent of the vote. Namibia duly gained independence in March 1990. In consequence, as Vavi’s comments show, Cuban prestige among the bourgeois “left” is undiminished right down to the present. No less a bourgeois figure than Nelson Mandela, in a speech delivered in Havana in 1991, enthused: “The defeat of the racist army at Cuito Cuanavale has made it possible for me to be here today! Cuito Cuanavale was a milestone in the history of the struggle for southern African liberation!” Certainly, Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 may be cited with subsequent events as an outcome of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. With the final withdrawal of Cuba from Angola, the Afrikaner elite were relieved of a significant stumbling block to a negotiated internal settlement. They no longer had to worry about the possible humiliation of a foreign military intervention in South Africa... @ wsws.org/en/articles/2014/09/12/vav2-s12.html
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 06:52:40 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015