Problems Of South Africa Examined

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31539, 29 November 1967, Page 6

Problems Of South Africa Examined

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L. K. MUNRO)

This is the second in a series of articles by Sir Leslie Munro, National member of Parliament for Waipa, who was a delegate to the recent conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

As a delegate to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association’s Conference, I have recently visited Uganda and Kenya and subsequently South Africa as a guest of the Speaker of the South African House of Representatives. I was privileged to see cities, towns, farms, mountains, great lakes, game reserves, rivers, including the source of the Nile, which are but a part of that huge continent stretching from Cairo to Cape Town and with its shores washed by the Mediterranean and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. For the acquisition of knowledge, there is no substitute for travel and personal observation of men and women. Prominent citizens of South Africa, particularly, say that too often criticisms of their country and its Government come from those who have never been within the borders of the Republic.

I shall first discuss South Africa, because its future is the key to the outcome of the many problems afflicting the continent. The conflict between Israel and the United

Arab Republic has closed the Suez Canal for an indefinite period. The week-end I arrived in Cape Town was to herald the arrival of the thousandth ship diverted to the Cape. Here come vessels to refuel, some of them from countries which purport to boycott South Africa and denounce her in the United Nations. The policy of apartheid, the future of South-West Africa, the vexed question of Rhodesia where South Africa is closely and, indeed, dangerously involved, the prohibition of the sale of armaments to South Africa, rigorously observed by the United Kingdom and the United States but not by France: all these are some of the factors which make South Africa a country apart and have produced bitter feelings, not merely among South Africans, but in many parts of the world. Welter of Problems Impartiality and consistency are not easy to achieve in such a welter of problems. While the British and American Governments denounce apartheid, they maintain diplomatic relations with South Africa and their nationals have intensive investments in the Republic, those of the British amounting to £lOOO million. To lose these investments—and valuable trade with South Africa —at the behest of those members of the British Labour Party who clamour for further sanctions against South Africa, would only result in a further grave weakening of an already sadly weakened British economy. South Africans to whom I spoke emphasised that in two World Wars they had fought beside Britain. Why then, they argued, should Britain now turn against them and deny them arms? The point was somewhat differently made by an admiral at the Simonstown Naval Dockyard. He could understand, without conceding the point, the British prohibition of the sale of land arms. But the South African Navy would be used purely for the purposes of defence. t

As the Republic could not afford an aircraft carrier, the next best thing was the submarine, with its very effective firing power. As the British refused to sell submarines to South Africa, the Republic turned to France, which has agreed to sell three. Britain thus deliberately lost a valuable sale. The odd thing is that in matters of naval training there is still a close liaison between Britain and South Africa. The admiral, who in his bluff and candid way was very much “Royal Navy,” pointed out that all those who would man the new submarines of necessity would learn French, which he clearly regarded as a nuisance. Defence Link Whatever our opinion of South Africa’s domestic policy, she must be an important link in our Chain of defence through the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, more particularly to Australia now that the Suez Canal is closed and even when it is reopened, still at the mercy of Middle Eastern enmities. The South Africans are genuinely fearful of a Communist attack, a term which would embrace the infiltration of terrorists trained in the black republics to the North or in East Europe or Communist China. They emphasise Chinese infiltration into Tanzania. I observed armed guards at airports. Although they deny submarines to the South Africans, the British, as they are entitled to do, still use the Simonstown base. When our group visited the dockyard, British frigates had only just departed. The British reserved this right of user when they otherwise wound up their tenure of the base, with its atmosphere redolent of the Royal Navy. As long as the British have a stake east of Suez they can ill afford to alienate the South Africans so far as to lose their right, which is indefinite in duration, to refit at Simonstown. I found several South Africans blaming American influence for British policy. People in Cape Town took umbrage when a huge American aircraft carrier refuelled at the port and none of the personnel was allowed on shore. A common South African view was that it ill became the Americans to criticise the Republic’s native policy when unrest and racial riots made havoc in the United States. Afrikaners claim that there are no such riots in their country, although they do not refer to the shootings at Sharpville. If this incident is referred to, they blame the police for losing their heads. Apartheid The kernel of the South African problem is apartheid, or, at it is called in English, separate development. An official publication says: “Basic to South African politics and Government is the policy of apartheid. Lt provides for, in particular, the political separate development of all the distinctive peoples that go to make up South Africa's multi-national population. It envisages, inter alia, a number of self-governing Bantu nations alongside and in cooperative association with the White nation—a South African commonwealth, or community of nations.” Apartheid is applied, too, in what was formerly German South-West Africa. It is apartheid which has divided South Africa from most of the rest of the world. In June, 1966, the estimated population figures were: Whites .. 3,481,000 Bantu (Blacks) 12,465,000 Coloureds .. 1,805,000 Asiatics .. 547,000 j 18,298,000 The Bantu are of mixed Hamitic and negroid descent and crossed the northern frontiers of what is today the Republic of South Africa

about the same time as the White settlers started opening up the country from Table Bay. The point is of importance because the whites claim that they certainly have as much right to the territory of the Republic as the Bantu, who are divided into several distinct groups. The Afrikaner will tell you that there is no love lost between the Xhosa (3,490,000) and the Zulu (3,266,000). I observed that they were separately housed in a large housing development of 60,000 Bantu. The Coloureds are in the main descended from whites who in the seventeenth century associated with Malays. The so-called Cape Malays marry among themselves. They speak Afrikaans and adhere largely to the Dutch Reformed Church. Their partly white origin is not

easily discernible. 1 was pointed out their new bousing estates, which are quite attractive, especially when one sees an old shanty still occupied by coloureds. The Government now requires that if a Coloured becomes a doctor he shall practise only among his own people. In concluding this article, I should mention that I was never refused the sight of places I wished to observe. (To be continued)