Struggling for a Solution in Southern Africa
HOWE, RUSSELL WARREN
IN THE FACE OF A RACE WAR Struggling for a Solution in Southern Africa BY RUSSELL WARREN HOWE United States policy toward South Africa is comparable to its attitude toward France when that...
...Pressured from the Right, the Prime Minister would not or could not agree...
...This central body, too, is led by a new generation, notably Solomon Mutuswa "Rex" Nhongo and Albert "Nitkita" Mangena, both under 30...
...Nevertheless, nothing dramatic can be expected in the way of racial progress...
...It is not surprising, therefore, that the talks at the end of last month in West Germany between South African Prime Minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster and U.S...
...Nonetheless, "Josh" remains a charismatic figure...
...Tanzania, in June...
...It is safe to guess that he raised the perennial specter of a Soviet naval blockade of the "Cape sea lane...
...He has quietly asked both London and Washington to try to mediate with the African leadership, but both governments see this as a delaying tactic and have declined to get involved until the principle of black self-determination within two years is accepted...
...The latter could be forcefully demonstrated by the threat of an oil boycott against South Africa if it continues to ignore the UN ruling...
...he also has his own "principles...
...Washington favored decolonization at the time, but it did not push the point: When events in Togo in 1958 forced General Charles de Gaulle to call a referendum in the rest of French Africa, and Guinea opted for independence, President Dwight D. Eisenhower bowed to French pressure and did not open an embassy in Conakry until virtually all the Communist nations had done so...
...Through indirect contacts with London, Smith is probably bargaining for amnesty for himself and hundreds of his compatriots...
...In any case, Whitehall believes a panic exodus of settlers will topple the white government by late 1977...
...Factionalism threatens other reserve and trainee camps in Zambia and Mozambique...
...Yet the young revolutionaries are not free from internal conflict either...
...And since Rhodesia executed two African resistance fighters a decade ago in defiance of the Queen's pardon, the Prime Minister and a handful of others might well be prosecuted for murder under common law...
...Although the recent riots in the ghetto of Soweto were sparked by the just rescinded lunatic decision to force African high-school students to learn subjects in Afrikaans—a pidgin Dutch language spoken by 60 per cent of the European minority—they were clearly directed against apartheid in general and the lack of legislative representation for the African-Eurafrican-Asian majority...
...So, too, while Washington today gently urges Pretoria to reform its foreign and domestic policies, it does not press these points and tacitly concedes first place to its Communist rivals in the battle for friendship of the country's eventual black regime...
...Liberals and State Department Africanists may chafe at such a strategy...
...It is known, however, that Vorster did promise some concessions on apartheid, as well as independence for the UN territory of Namibia, now governed illegally by Pretoria...
...But conditions in Rhodesia are such that they are likely to come to a boil soon anyway...
...While we talked recently in his room at the plush Savoy hotel in London, he ate five cream pastries, spooning up the cream with kindergarten frenzy...
...The key questions remain: Who will replace them, and what will the roles of Pretoria and Washington be...
...For his part, Vorster presumably argued once again that his country is of strategic importance to the West...
...In reality, there are 1,700 miles of water between the Cape of Good Hope and the Antarctic icecap...
...Each unit is run by an elected committee, theoretically topped by an 18-member supercommittee composed of nine members of Nkomo's former party and nine from a rival group...
...Britain has similarly refused a request from Joshua Nkomo, the best-known African spokesman, for a takeover of Rhodesia by airborne troops...
...Moscow, London and Washington seem to agree that the established nationalist leadership has become discredited with time, but they include Nkomo...
...He lashed out particularly at all the other famous names of Zimbabwean nationalism...
...Actually, Kissinger's main interest in the Bavarian meeting was not South Africa's domestic tensions but rather persuading Vorster to lean harder on Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith to hand over power to the black majority in Rhodesia...
...Both governments, though, are carefully watching the situation in Rhodesia, the neighbor whom South Africa has kept alive against the wishes of the rest of the world...
...This prospect would recommend present American support for the future leaders of an African-ruled South Africa, but to propose U.S...
...After 12 years in a prison camp, in 1975 Nkomo assumed the leadership of the African National Council, the only "authorized" African party, then under the caretaker management of Bishop Abel Muzorewa, whose clerical collar had sheltered him from arrest...
...Moreover, as minister of justice under Premier Hendryk Verwoerd, he was notorious for repressing the opponents of apartheid...
...But in their relations with others, governments tend to support the status quo if it is not hostile—a reality that has often tied Washington to oppressive regimes whose only redeeming quality has been their friendship...
...Nkomo spoke of his efforts to rally the African continent behind his bid to be the first legitimate leader of Zimbabwe, as an independent, majority-ruled Rhodesia will be called...
...With this failure, Nkomo was judged by U.S...
...and British officials and many of his countrymen to be irrelevant...
...Russell Warren Howe, a past contributor to this magazine, writes frequently on African affairs...
...For Vorster to comply with Washington's wishes, and cut off the landlocked Rhodesia's oil supply, he will need two kinds of proof: that he is under big-power pressure and, perhaps more important, that the action would be in South Africa's own interests...
...Prime Minister James Callaghan, relying on British intelligence, expects substantial guerrilla activity to develop in November, when the rainy season starts...
...He has become a hippopotamic one as well: Over six feet tall, he weighs 400 pounds...
...Organization of African Unity reports speak of fighting between guerrilla groups and claim 150 died in a Chinese training camp at Iringa...
...Secretary of State Henry Kissinger produced no substantive statement...
...Still, this infighting can only give the settlers a temporary reprieve from their inevitable downfall...
...The Secretary probably referred to his Lusaka speech, in which he called for a tightening of UN sanctions against Salisbury...
...Treason, the charge they face, is one of the few offenses that still carries the death penalty in Britain...
...it would probably require the entire Soviet Navy to block it...
...In talks with Smith last March, Nkomo offered to wait two years for representative government, with black/white legislative parity now...
...They are probably right: Command of the resistance has passed to the young Soviet- and Chinese-trained guerrilas...
...Indeed, the truth is that with gold losing its significance, South Africa's only real strategic importance is as a potential location for a Soviet or Chinese naval base...
...Short of the possible oil embargo—unlikely to take place very soon—Washington has little leverage on Pretoria...
...During World War II, Vorster served a two-year imprisonment for engaging in Nazi activities, and spent the rest of the War under house arrest...
...aid to guerrilla and clandestine parties is clearly politically unrealistic...
...IN THE FACE OF A RACE WAR Struggling for a Solution in Southern Africa BY RUSSELL WARREN HOWE United States policy toward South Africa is comparable to its attitude toward France when that country was resisting independence in the Maghreb and black Africa...
...Not only does Vorster face pressure from his all-white electorate not to go too "fast" in this area...
...Should it appear to be succeeding, London has readied contingency plans to evacuate up to 150,000 Britons (out of a total population of 6 million, whites number 265,000...
...Pretoria, in turn, has virtually no leverage on Washington...
...They are thought to be in general agreement that an all-out war there must be prevented, and tentative plans for another Kissinger-Vorstcr meeting toward that end have been made for next month...
...For the present, Smith's legal tangles may be London's best influence on him to surrender the reigns of government...
Vol. 59 • July 1976 • No. 15
