underestimate such advances either. They serve to further expose the Portuguese
and to keep them off balance. They also provide an opportunity for such friends
to make themselves known to us, to exemplify their commitment to our cause,
and to lay the basis for increasingly concrete links of solidarity. From this we
certainly gain increased strength and confidence, while our enemies learn something more of the long odds against their desperate gamble on a diseased and
tottering colonial policy.
There is an additional result. Not only are our friends encouraged by such confrontations to step forward and present themselves in greater numbers than ever
before. Similarly our enemies are much more clearly revealed. As the issue of
Portuguese colonialism comes sharply into focus it is increasingly difficult for
countries, particularly in the west, to try to be on both sides of the war for freedom in Portugal's African colonies.
Needless to say, it comes as no surprise to find countries like South Africa, the
United States and Britain voting against both of the above resolutions, or to find
West Germany demonstrating its opposition to our cause by abstaining in a most calculated manner. But what are we to make of the additional revelation that both
the Netherlands and Canada rejected a resolution stating so clearly and simply
that Portugal cannot, at the United Nations, pretend to represent the people of
Mozambique, Angola and Guine. Surely this is the most basic and elementary of
premises from which support for our cause must spring!
After such actions have been taken by Holland and Canada, can any meaning be
given to pious pronouncements by these governments — to the effect that "the
Dutch Government is going to give support to the liberation movements because
it wants to speed up the process of decolonisation in the territories occupied by
Portugal", for example, or that the Canadian delegation "deplores the fact that
the principle of self-determination as conceived by the United Nations is still
being denied to the peoples of the territories under Portuguese administration"?
And finally, what of "moderate" delegations like those from Denmark and New
Zealand, among others, which abstain from such a clear-cut invitation to confront the Portuguese? What sort of friends are these?
Thus, the escalation of our struggle is having the effect of sorting our friends from
our enemies and clarifying the lines of battle. Obviously, this is not because we
choose our friends and enemies on any a priori grounds. We welcome the support
of any government which is prepared to link itself honestly and straightforwardly
to our cause. Rather it is the actions of various countries which enable us to learn
their true positions. In this way, the events at the United Nations have been instructive.