'Write off Angola, Namibia, and Rhodesia to Marxists’

Press, 19 October 1976, Page 8

'Write off Angola, Namibia, and Rhodesia to Marxists’

NZPA New York Senior officials of South Africa’s Bureau of State Security are said to have told the American magazine, “Newsweek,” that in their opinion their Government should “write off Angola, Namibia, and Rhodesia to the Marxists, and end apartheid at home.” In interviews in Pretoria with the magazine’s chief foreign correspondent, Amaub de Borchgrave, the key bureau officials are also quoted as saying that the Prime Minister (Mr Vorster) should make political overtures to the Soviet Union or face political collapse within two years. “Newsweek” says that the South African Intelligence Organisation believes that in place of apartheid, the Pretoria Government should establish a Swiss-style cantonal system in which various ethnic groups would share common citizenship. Under apartheid, or separate racial development, South Africa plans to establish independent homelands for blacks, who would lose their

South African citizenship when their homeland gained independence. According to “Newsweek,” the bureau officials fear that the plan of the American Secretary of State (Dr Henry Kissinger) for bringing ma jority rule to Rhodesia will fail. “Ideological differences among black groups, personality clashes, and tribalism will lead to another Angola with the same result — a Marxist victory for the guerrillas of the Soviet-led Zimbabwe Peoples’ Army,” the magazine quotes the officials as saying.

“In an emergency, South Africa should mount a rescue operation to save whites trapped in Rhodesia, but that should be the extent of Pretoria’s involvement.”

“Newsweek” also quotes the unidentified officials as saying that a Marxist victory in Rhodesia would not jeopardise South Africa’s security, and that detente should be established with a Marxist Zimbabwe. According to the magazine, the intelligence chiefs also suggest that South Africa should facilitate an eventual

Marxist take.-over of Namibia (South-west Africa) to preserve its mineral interests there.

They are also said to have told “Newsweek” that Zaire and various Right-wing groups in Europe should stop supporting anti-Government guerrillas in Angola, which, the bureau believes, have only nuisance value.

The bureau disputes the recent N.A.T.O. report that the Angolan Government now controls only about one-third of the country and the .two pro-Western guerrilla groups hold the rest.

According to “Newsweek,” the officials also believe that South Africa must make drastic internal changes if it is to survive.

“Vorster’s position, the bureau thinks, is comparable to the one Charles de Gaulle found himself in when he returned to power in 1958 and inherited the Algerian war,” the magazine says. “Like De Gaulle, Vorster must ignore the wishes of his own Rightwing or face political collapse within two years.”

“Newsweek” concludes that such a move by Mr Vorster

is unlikely: “Such a display of leadership and imagination, the observers suspect, is beyond him and they fear that the Prime Minister will drift into authoritarian rule and. perhaps, to outright Fascism, with its attendant danger of provoking a race war.”