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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST 2, 1985
PAGE 13
the Soviets to expand their use of forced labor. [Yet, one U.S.
Congressman said· the U.s. must not import Krugerrands because
South African gold, he alleged, is mined by "slave labor." Fur
thermore, the Congress now urges the U.S. government to mint gold
coins to replace the market vacated by Krugerrands. Where will
this gold come from, considering sluggish domestic production?
The Soviet Union? Or maybe, via third parties, South Africa?] •••
The strategic needs of our own people should be the overriding
concern of Congress, but the anti-South Africa forces, including
the Marxists, are arguing that the apartheid problem is not a
political one capable of rational political solutions involving
formulae for opening the South African political power structure
by degrees to all the people. Rather, they say it is a moral is
sue. So they preach that "apartheid" is a sin, and that those
"sinners" should stop sinning at once without respect to any
other consideration such as transferring power in an orderly man
ner and maintaining social order.
Among his own Afrikaner people President Botha could be skating on thin
political ice. His more conservative critics charge that his reforms are
dangerous, that the Soviets perceive them as a sign of weakness, and that he
was foolish to have grasped the American hand of "constructive engagement,"
which Congress is now trying to jerk away, leaving him exposed and
isolated.
The two right�wing parties, the Conservatives and the HNP, will certainly
gain strength in backlash. What if--just what if--there would ever be a
white coup? The Soviets wouldn't mind this initially, since it would re
sult in South Africa's almost total isolation from an outraged lib�ral West
(only coups elsewhere in Africa are permissible).
Meanwhile, the World Council of Churches has announced that it will call
for worldwide prayers for the�overthrow of the South African government.
The vice-moderator of the WCC's "Program to Combat Racism," Paul Boateng,
charged that "the South African government is a gangster regime which preys
on its own people and on its neighbors." (The
wee,
critics charge, has been
considerably infiltrated by communists.)
Correction On page 9 paragraph 3 of last week's report I mentioned that
four members of the ANC were murdered in one incident of township fighting,
presumably by members of AZAPO. Those slain were members of the UDF, not
ANC. AZAPO, arch-rival of both groups, may still have been responsible.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau