VICTORY IN ZIMBABWE: A LUTA CONTINUA

Leaflet advertising a forum at Columbia University Teacher's College on October 10, 1980. The leaflet says speakers include Dr. Elleck Mashingaidze, Zimbabwe's Ambassador too the UN; Theo-Ben Gurirab, Representative to the UN-South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO); Serge Mukendi, Representative to the U.S.-Congolese National Liberation Front (FLNC); Ahmed Ohafemi, Eastern Regional Vice President-Republic of New Africa; and Silvia Baraldini, May 19th Communist Organization. The leaflet says the establishment of the Republic of Zimbabwe marks the first major defeat of white settler colonialism in Southern Africa. Zimbabwe, where 16 years of people's war led by ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union) has brought about peace and independence, is consolidating revolutionary African power through the process of national reconstruction; the institutions of white supremacist rule are being dismantled, and a truly non-racialist society is being built; land is being distributed to the African farmer, progressive economic reforms are being made, health care and education are available for the first time to the people. The leaflet says key to the liberation of Zimbabwe and to the current efforts to transform the society. is the struggle of the women of Zimbabwe for their full liberation; during Chimurenga-revolutionary people's war-women were full participants in the national liberation struggle; having identified colonialism and imperialism as their primary enemy, they fought against both colonial and traditional oppression lo claim their right to play a full role in the liberation of their country and of themselves; now women are leading in the building of Zimbabwe as a democratic and socialist country, a society in which the full liberation of women can be achieved; the leadership of the women of Zimbabwe was acknowledged at the United Nations conference for the Decade of Women in Copenhagen where Mrs. Sally Mugabe was elected Vice President of the Conference. The leaflet says the victory of the Zimbabwean people has been internationally recognized; the government, led by Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, has taken its rightful place in the Organization of African Unity and at the United Nations, where Zimbabwe has been elected Vice President of the General Assembly representing Southern Africa. The leaflet says the people of Zimbabwe won and imperialism and white supremacy lost; in 1965, when the Rhodesian Front made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain, Ian Smith stated that his white supremacist regime would last a thousand years. The leaflet says the struggle of African people continues; it continues in Africa, the Caribbean, and in the New African nation in the US; in Namibia, under the leadership of the South West African People's Organization, African people are intensifying their mobilization; faced with the intransigent denial of independence by the racist regime of South Africa, SWAPO is heightening the armed struggle in Namibia. As South Africa is moving swiftly to implement an internal settlement with the recognition of the Turnhall Alliance, the need for international solidarity with the liberation movements intensifies. Zimbabwe, Mozambique; Angola and other front line states in Southern Africa are leading an international campaign in support of the people of Namibia and to effectively isolate South Africa. The leaflet says throughout much of Africa and the Third World, US imperialism rules through neocolonialism; in neocolonialist countries, there is political independence but continued economic and military domination by the imperialist countries; the Congo (Zaire) is key to the United States' neocolonial strategy in Africa; centrally situated, bordering seven countries and rich in natural resources, it has been controlled through the corrupt and brutal Mobuto regime; now, the people of the Congo under the leadership of the Congolese National Liberation Front (known by its French initials FLNC) are building a people's war to overthrow Mobuto and the entire system of neocolonial rule and build a free and socialist Congo. The leaflet says the National Campaign in Solidarity with the ZANU Women's League is sponsoring this event as both the conclusion of the campaign and to intensify the solidarity work with all of Southern Africa and African liberation struggles; the ongoing need for aid to reconstruction in Zimbabwe is great; the National Campaign recognizes that to build political and material solidarity with the on-going revolution in Zimbabwe is key in broadening and consolidating the revolutionary rearguard for the liberation of Namibia. The leaflet discusses the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), and Azania.