South African problem defies resolution

Press, 20 January 1982, Page 23

South African problem defies resolution

From the "Economist." London The 1974-75 revolution in Portugal brought about the collapse of Europe's last empire in Africa and an advance in Russian influence on the continent. Tiny Guinea-Bissau became to all intents and purposes a Russian colony. Marxist-Leninist movements took power in Mozambique and Angola, forming a nutcracker round white-ruled Rhodesia. After a fierce guerrilla war. Britain's Lord Carrington in 1979 negotiated a Rhodesian settlement which paved the way for the internationally recognised independence’ of that countryunder black rule in April. 1980. South Africa thus found itself ringed by black states, except in its challenged appendage of Namibia; and even there it has a stiff guerrilla war on its hands. Two of these northern neighbours are Marxist. The South Africans have thus tried to appeal to the anti-Marxist sensibilities of the Reagan Administration by pointing out that their countrv is vital to the West.

In spite of all the loathing most of the world feels for apartheid, this is undoubtedly true. South Africa has 84 per cent of the West's chrome ore. 93 per cent of its manganese. 90 per cent of its vanadium and 89 per cent of its platinum.

South African economic strength underpins the stability, such as it is, of its black neighbours. South Africa's navy and air force watch over the shipping route round the Cape, although this has become less important since the reopening of the Suez Canal.

The South African problem seems to defy resolution. The last century has seen the ideal of racial equality take deep root in the consciousness of most of the world’s population. So change must come eventually to a countrygoverned by a racial minority. Should the West try to hurry it along, in the hope that’ South Africa's present generation of relatively moderate black leaders will take over? Or should the west merely let events take their course? The present course is one step forward, one step back. The early hint of a gradual loosening’ of apartheid by the National Party Government of Mr P. W. Botha set off an angry growl among his party's hardliners. who showed their teeth in last April's election. The Government has since retreated. The frustrated and disappointed blacks have begun to show their emerging strength by strikes, by riots and. lately, by the first bombs in a guerrilla campaign. It is not impossible that this will continue until the regime has to employ such force to keep the lid on that outsiders will feel obliged to back the guerrillas. The West might then have to compete with Russia and China for influence with the black nationalist movement.

The West wants peaceful change while it is still possible. but has little power to bring it about. Conveniently, since white South Africa can probably hold out well past the turn of the century, a holding action is all the West now believes to be necessary. The United States and. less enthusiastically, Western Europe have been defusing

attempts to impose United Nations sanctions on South Africa while keeping up. for the benefit of black Africa, a crescendo of moral indignation over apartheid in sport. The South Africans have responded by allowing some sports integration, but to their puzzlement have got no credit for it. The pressure on South Africa is for the moment largely focused on the question of Namibia. Negotiations for the independence of this territory, put under South Africa's’ guardianship by the League of Nations, removed from it by the United Nations, but not yet surrendered by South Africa, teetered on the brink of apparent solution through the second half of 1981. The South Africans want to ensure that their proteges in the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance will win the election there which will be held, if the plan comes off. by early 1983. But Swapo, the territory's unsquashed guerrilla movement, reckons, plausibly. that it can emerge from any fairly supervised election as the biggest party.

The South Africans seem to have secured a guarantee that the country’s post-inde-pendence constitution will be drawn up by a two-thirds majority of an elected assembly. South Africa’s friends in Namibia should thus be able to block the installation of a one-party State. If Swapo disregards the clause, the South Africans will no doubt come stomping back in. In October this plan, drawn up by five Western nations, seemed to win the acceptance of next-door Angola, out of whose territory Swapo chiefly works. South

Africa's punitive strike at Swapo bases in Angola in August, in which at least 1000 people were killed, mayhave helped to make up Angolan minds. The West is hoping to extract a further gain from the delicate negotiations over Namibia. Angola is host to some 20.000 Cuban troops and maybe 5000 East German advisers, supposedly there to protect the country from Unita. an anti-Marxist guerrilla movement. The West wants the Angolan Government to agree to show the Cubans the door when South Africa relinquishes Namibia (and its physical ability to support Unita thereby vanishes). There are signs that the Angolans, who need Western oil companies to drill for their oil, may be prepared to agree to this if the decision is left to them. The question is whether it will be. The Cubans have their own interest in keeping a base of operations in Angola, in order to preserve CubanRussian pressure on developments in southern Africa; and the shaky Angolan Government might not have lasted until 1981 without Cuban support. Will the Cubans let Angola invite them to depart?

On South Africa's northeastern flank, relations have deteriorated with Mozambique's Frelimo and Zimbabwe's Mugabe governments. At first Mozambique's President Machel appeared to be trying to balance Soviet and Chinese interests in a bid to avoid domination by either.

Mozambique's considerable economic dependence on South Africa seemed to dictate pragmatism. Now things have taken a turn for the worse.

President Machel has been inching towards membership of Comecon. the Soviet economic bloc to which, outside eastern Europe and Mongolia, only trusties like Cuba and Vietnam belong.

Perhaps in the hope of stopping this, the South Africans have started to put an economic squeeze on Mozambique. More starkly, hav-

ing long refused to support anti-Marxist black resistance in Mozambique, they now seem to be giving aid to the Mozambique National Resistance Movement, which has started disrupting the key rail links between Zimbabwe and the sea. Zimbabwe, having won black rule in the shape of Mr Mugabe's Government, has been the only near-success-story in the area. Mr Mugabe has run a more or less open society; he has occasionallymuttered about the desirability of a one-party State but not. or not yet, tried to create one; and he has kept his distance from Russia, looking for money to the West. But some equivocation remains. Having eased the extremist Mr Edgar Tekere out of the Government. Mr Mugabe launched an angry attack in November on “white bloodsuckers.” The merger of the two rival guerrilla armies which fought the Smith regime with the old white-run army is now virtually complete; but a team of North Korean advisers has been called in to train a special force which, Mr Mugabe’s rivals say, will act as the enforcers of a one-party State.

Most of the country’s whites stayed on after Mr Mugabe came to power; but a steady leakage of the nervous and the disillusioned continues.

The central question is whether Zimbabwe and South Africa can reach a modus vivendi which will help to stabilise the whole area. Zimbabwe is being alternately squeezed and helped by South Africa: a bitter dispute over the railways between the two countries was amicably resolved in November. South Africa’s economic w-eapon. and the threat of military action, are powerful weapons in persuading its northern neighbour to keep on good terms with it.

But can black Zimbabwe be a comfortable neighbour to white South Africa for ever? To judge by their actions, the South Africans seemed to conclude early on that it cannot.