Basic HTML Version
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, SEPTEMBER 4, 1981
PAGE 10
for the veto, said a State Department spokesman, was that it "didn't take
into account the wider context of the problem"--e.g. the Russians.
However, three other members of the so-called "Western Contact Group"--West
Germany, France and Canada--who along with the U.S. and Britain are supposed
to engineer a Namibian independence plan, approved the resolution. Thus, on
�another� issue, the U.S. is being isolated
f£2!!!
its� allies:- The
transatlantic rift is widening. This schism occurs at the same time that
France, along with Mexico, has decided to all but recognize the leftist in
surgent movement in El Salvador.
The upshot of the worsening situation in Southern Africa is that Pretoria
has no desire to see a Communist flag flying in Windhoek, SWA/Namibia's
capital. A one-party Marxist government right on its borders would have in
calculable consequences for South Africa itself.
An editorial in the WALL STREET JOURNAL on September 2, 1981, tried to put
the assault into Angola into perspective:
Before the world press picks up the Soviet line, it might be good to get
a few things straight. First, the fight in Angola had nothing to do
with race.
The South African raiders consisted of both blacks and
whites and so did the forces that resisted them.
The raiders were
countering a Soviet power play, the deployment of surface-to-air (SAM)
missiles in southern Angola, escalating the continuing Soviet effort to
take effective control of South West Africa (Namibia).
The U.S. Administration was quite right in refusing to condemn South
Africa without equal condemnation of the Soviets. The fact that the
U.S. stood alone in the Security Council, while France and Germany
caved in and Britain abstained, is a mark of honor, not guilt. It was
about time a U.S. administration stood up on the issue of Namibia. Most
Americans have little understanding of the situation and thus become
easy prey for those left-wing racism charges.
First of all, South Africa has made genuine efforts to prepare Namibia
for independence as it is obligated to do under terms of the old inter
national mandate that gave it control of the place. A constitutional
conference consisting of representatives of the territory's 11 distinct
population groups•••was convened in 1975. A national assembly repre
senting all these groups was elected in 1978
by
popular vote...• The
council has been taking over the tasks of government under the super
vision of a South African administrator general. Many discriminatory
laws have been repealed and a multiracial civil service formed.
The UN, however, has not recognized this government, insisting instead
on turning Namibia over to the South West Africa People's Organization
(SWAPO) •••.South Africa has resisted this out of a fully justified fear
that a SWAPO takeover would mean Russians and Russian-backed terrorists
on its border. The Russians would inherit Namibia's mineral riches and
its position closer to the vital Cape sea routes. The world would then
view a perpetual state of war, with thousands more Africans slaughtered
or made homeless like the victims of Soviet conquest in Ethiopia.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau