Race laws relaxed in South West Africa

Press, 24 February 1978, Page 8

Race laws relaxed in South West Africa

The South African Foreign Minister (Mr Pik Botha) is visiting Windhoek in South West Africa this week for talks on the territory’s future. Mr Botha recently withdrew from talks with five Western countries about the future of the territory, which is administered by South Africa. Mr Botha said the talks were not deadlocked and he was maintaining contact with the Western countries — the United States, Britain. France, West Germany, and Canada. Mr Botha is consulting the territory’s AdministratorGeneral, Judge Marthinus Steyn. In the following article, written just before Mr Botha’s last meeting with the five Western countries, Wilf Nussey, of the Johannesburg “Star” News Service, discusses the changes taking place in South West Africa. In five months Judge Marthinus Steyn, AdministratorGeneral of South West Africa/Namibia, has changed the character of this 826,000 square km territory of 900,000 people beyond recognition. From his tightly guarded two-floor eyrie at the top of Windhoek’s Kalahari Sands Hotel, this Orange Free Stater and his staff of 20 are busily turning the territory into a free state. The Administrator-General has busily hacked at the bonds of over half a century of South African rule and the chains of 30 years of apartheid to achieve his object: to take S.W.A./Namibia into full, democratic independence. Those who viewed cynically his appointment, made with the blessing of the five Western Powers negotiating with Pretoria for independence, are being forced to think again. Some have come over wholly to his side, recognising that the territory can never turn back and independence is inevitable. Many are teetering, some being re-

luctaht only beu—oe it is hard to shed old cautions, or because they fear criticism from friends or followers. Only two groups (strange bed-fellows) still totally reject what Judge Steyn is doing: the extreme Herstigte Nasionale Party-type Whites in the territory, and the external leadership of the South West Africa People’s Organisation under President Sam Nujoma. The former wants apartheid white rale and the latter Black rule so far Left it verges on Marxism. Consider what the judge has already done to “create the climate for free and unfettered elections”: He has scrubbed all laws barring interracial sex and marriage, demolished pass laws, allowed anybody to hold meetings almost anywhere, brought in a uniform school syllabus for all races, opened the civil service to all and started training people for it, lifted the ban on blacks owning land in black urban townships, and taken control of 13 Government departments from Pretoria. These include such pillars of apartheid as Bantu Administration and Development, Bantu Education, and Coloured, Rehoßoth and Naina Relations. He . has also abolished the notorious Proclamation Rl7 of the previous regime and changed the Riotous Assemblies Act. The effect of this is that permission is no longer needed to hold meetings anywhere in the country, but that if a meeting is planned in the northern Ovambo, Caprivi districts, 24 hours notice must be given. This is because S.W.A.P.O. guerrillas are still on the attack there and, as the Judge says, he has to balance the need for free electioneering with security needs. Now, anybody arrested in a security area cannot be held for more than 96 hours

in terms of his Security Districts Proclamation. The only two subjects on which he technically has no say are the issues o< the South African military presence in the territory, and that of the release of political prisoners by South Africa or the external S.W.A.P.O. These are being dealt with at the PretoriaBig Five level. The Judge has said of his more contentious changes that while his brief has not specifically allowed him to do this or that, neither has it specifically prevented him. There is still plenty for him to do in achieving an unfettered democracy and he will cause more anguish among conservative diehards. One thing he is studying is the South African Terrorism Act’s Section Six, which gives the police .draconian powers of detention. The Judge will not yet comment. But informed speculation is that he will probably not scrap the section entirely (because some powers of detention are necessary in any country under terrorist attack). It is more likely that he will adapt it to enable access to detainees by lawyers and relatives, close supervision of their conditions, and regular judicial review of the reasons for detention. Another hot potato he must grasp is the South African Police (and the Security Police). Whatever the outcome of the negotiations on a South African military presence, a continued South African Police presence could still be construed as the long arm of Pretoria by those opposed to the independence plans. Apparently the process is already under way for the Judge to take over direct control of the police and sec u r i t y police within S.W.A./Namibia and he has already said that he has asked the S.A.P. to make up their local complement, as

far as possible, from people born in South West Africa. The police will then effectively become the S.W.A. Police although it will have to lean for some time on South Africans and South African resources. Maybe he will also change the name because nothing South African is quite s> vilified abroad as the S.A.P. Logically, he should also assume full control of all defence forces within the territory to create the nucleus o? command for independence, which is due before the end of this year. Doing so could also largely negate S.W.A.P.O.’s prime reason for refusing to enter the constituted assembly elections — that such elections cannot be valid while there is still a South African military presence. The South African Defence Force is already training S.W.A./Namibians of all colours and creeds as soldiers, but it will take time, per-

haps years, to train enough, especially for the top command level. This defence question, however, remains outside the Administrator’s brief and rests with the negotiators. All the changes being brought about by Judge Steyn might still be scorned as "cosmetic” by a hostile world. To convince the world he first has to convince S.W.A./Namibians, and this is the immediate object of 'all he is doing. By all accounts of observers inside this territory, he is at last beginning to make headway. There is considerable doubt and unease within that part of S.W.A.P.O. inside the country, which is much larger than that outside, about the validity of their leader’s continuing adamant rejection of everything the Administrator-General does or represents. S.W.A.P.O. began as a non-violent, Christian, de-

mocratic movement. What its interna! following is seeing demonstrated is the emergence of a non-violent, Christian democracy. So why, they ask, the guerilla warfare? If Judge Steyn can win over to his method of inducting independence the country’s church leaders — Lutheran, Roman Catholic. Anglican, Methodist and their affiliates — the struggle for peaceful change, instead of violent change, will be more than half won. Together (and they have long acted together in outspoken opposition to apartheid and South Africa! these leaders wield enormous internal influence more than any other bloc. There are small, but still significant signs that this is beginning to happen. The trend is still slight and very delicate, highly susceptible to the innate suspicion among the churchmen of anything South African.