Zimbabwe

Tivivafi Kangai, a representative of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), told a Science Center audience last night the struggle in Zimbabwe is not one against racism, but against a system of exploitation.

Kangai said his organization, part of the Patriotic Front coalition fighting the white-minority regime in Zimbabwe, opposes any kind of U.S. involvement in Rhodesia, as the whites call Zimbabwe.

Kangai told his generally responsive audience of about 50 that ZANU believes any black government that comes out of negotiations with Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith and the U.S. will be a "puppet government," and will not resolve the basic issue of the Zimbabwean conflict.

Since the mid-'60s, Kangai said, the oppressed black majority in Zimbabwe has believed it can only "meet the reactionary violence of the colonialist regime with revolutionary violence," because efforts to deal with the white government diplomatically made no headway.

The leaders of the Patriotic Front have said they "will agree to negotiate, but seriously--from the bushes of Zimbabwe," Kangai said.

He added that the Patriotic Front will fight on its own, without help from foreign troops--apparently an indirect comment about the Cuban troops who aided the MPLA in Angola.

The Group of Concerned South Asians, Indians in North America, the Community Party Marxist-Leninist and several other groups jointly sponsored Kangai's speech.