Kissinger’s shuttle stops in South Africa

Press, 15 September 1976, Page 20

Kissinger’s shuttle stops in South Africa

From the “Economist,” London

The prospects of Dr Henry Kissinger being able to conclude a successful round of shuttle diplomacy in southern Africa do not look good. Last week’s meeting of five black presidents in Dar-es-Salaam broke up having discussed little and agreed to less: barely any time wr.s devoted to Dr Kissinger’s initiative and the main purpose of the meeting t- to forge some kind of unity among the Rhodesian nationalists — was not achieved.

Dr Kissinger's rendezvous

in Zurich with the South African Prime Minister (Mr Vorster) produced no dramatic break-through. From Salisbury the Rhodesian Prime Minister, (Mr Smith) has been making some characteristically inflex: a remarks. And throughout black Africa there has been little obvious enthusiasm for the venture, which has been seen variously as meddling, electioneering and interceding not against racialism, but communism. Yet the initiative should not be written off before it

begins. The African nationalists waging guerrilla war in Rhodesia and South West Africa are in no hurry: they believe that time will enable them to resolve their internal divisions and win complete control — as they did in Mozambique and Angola — with no compromises. But the president; of the countries from which they operate are growing impatient.. They despair of the splits in the guerrilla movements and they fear for the stability of their own countris in a protracted and perhaps widened war. For that

reason Tanzania has welcomed Dr Kissi ger’s peacemaking moves, and it is likely that at lease Zambia and Botswana will do so too. At the same time Mr Vorster is showing himself to be more elastic than most of his critics would have believed possible five years ago. He has agreed to give independence to South-West Africa (Namibia) at the end of 1978, and to throw apartheid there to the winds by giving the territory a multiracial government in the interim.

He has even overcome his hostility to the South West Africa People’s Organisation (5.W.A.P.0.) sufficiently for him not to rule out talking to it, or at least to a part of it. If Dr Kissinger can bring S.W.A.P.O. ana Mr Vorster together the chances of quieting one corner of southern Africa would be greatly improved. Rhodesia presents greater problems, chiefly because of the uncertainty of what would fill the void should South Africa agree to get rid of Mr Smith. Mr Vorster will not turn the screws on Rhodesia so long as the divisions among th Rhodesian black nationalists make it impossible to point to an alternative government.

But it now seems clear that Mr Vorster’s hesitations about Rhodesia do not concern his fears for white Rhodesians: he is worried more about the possible effects on South Africa of a hostile government at his northern border. This only underlines the truism that the kev to southern Africa is South Africa, and although Mr Vorster may be ready to tolerate black rule in SouthWest Africa and Rhodesia the pressure on him will not abate until South Africa itself is transformed. He is expected to announce some modest reforms in the next few days. But

the anger in the streets of Soweto and Cape Town, where riots are continuing this week, will not be assuaged for long by paliatives. And independence for Namibia and Zimbabwe — should it come — will heighten, not diminish, the demand for political rights at home.

Dr Kissinger may be tempted when he embarks on his African shuttle to aim at the more easily atainable targets: South-West Africa and Rhodesia. They are worth aiming at, and hitting. But Dr Kissinger should not be shy of repeating to Mr Vorster some of the sharp criticisms of apartheid that he made to a mainly black audience in Philadelphia a fortnight ago. Mr Vorster knows that America is his last line of defence against the communism he so greatly fears. He also knows that riota are bad for business and that nearly all the capital flowing into South Africa now is borrowed by the Government.

With the price of gold little more than half the $2OO an ounce that it was at the end of 1974, South Africa needs foreign investment and sympathetic creditors. Dr Kissinger should give Mr Vorster’s hand an extra little squeeze when he shakes it again.