UNREALPOLITIK
THE advice of the Foreign Office that there should be no official contact with Dr Jonas Savimbi while on his recent visit to Britain, combined with its view that the Government should continue military aid to Mozambique, might lead one to suspect that something deeply Machiavellian is afoot: until, that is, one remembers that the same august organisation still main- tains — for fear of offending Stalin — that Katyn was the work of the Nazis.
If British policy in southern Africa is so devious that it is impossible to understand, it is for the worst of all possible reasons: pusillanimity. For years we have allowed Dr Kaunda's threat to lead Zambia out of the Commonwealth to affect our African policy, as though he, the Commonwealth or the country he has beggared beyond description by his corrupt incompetence counted for anything. Britain's position in the world is much reduced, of course, but surely it still has little to fear from dictators of countries whose total economic output is less than that of the catering department of the National Health Service.
It is not as though this policy of retreat before verbal onslaught has earned re- spect, popularity or trading advantages in Africa. Rather it has led to further such onslaughts. By refusing to receive Dr Savimbi, the Foreign Office has not en- sured that fewer effigies of Mrs Thatcher will be publicly burnt, but more. Because we train the forces of Frelimo no one reviles us the less for our failure to impose sanctions on South Africa. As usual, the mandarins of the Foreign Office have devised a course of action that is neither highly moral nor effective realpolitik.
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