Southern Africa and the Super-Powers

Abstract

T HF crises over Iran and Afghanistan and their impact on relations between the super-powers have inevitably shifted the focus of world attention away from events in Africa, with the single important exception of Zimbabwe's independence. Against this background the birth of Zimbabwe has provided the world with a rare moment of celebration in which all states apart from South Africa could join. The American journalist, Anthony Lewis, summed up the spirit of the occasion 'a world with little enough good news can be happy with Zimbabwe'.' The gulf between South Africa and the rest of the world has never seemed wider. Yet if the whole world has had cause to celebrate the Zimbabwean miracle, the grounds for celebration have been as varied as they have been numerous. In Britain the emphasis has been on the success of British diplomacy, the resolution of the conflict thanks to a smooth transition, and the success of constitutionalism and of Western political forms over revolution.2 In Africa the stress has fallen on the legitimisation of armed struggle and on the forging of new frontiers of freedom through the victory of African nationalism. In the United States the outcome has been seen as a belated vindication of the African policy of the Carter administration and as a setback for the Soviet Union. Thus the United States Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Richard M. Moose, described the circumstances of Zimbabwe's independence as 'the greatest reverse the Russians have suffered in Africa in years'.3 Yet while the Soviet Union has reason to regret its cultivation of Mr Nkomo's ZAPU at the expense of Mr Mugabe's ZANU it can derive satisfaction from the fact that a strategy of backing national liberation movements has borne fruit in the electoral triumph of the guerrilla leaders and the complete eclipse of Bishop Muzorewa. These differing grounds for celebration underline both the variety of expectations flowing from the settlement of the Rhodesian issue and the difficulty of assessing the strategic implications of Mr Mugabe's triumph. It is worth recalling that in May 1979, less than a year before Zimbabwe's independence, such an outcome seemed most improbable. The United States