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SW.APO's overall plan is to keep making new demands, pressuring the weak
willed West to agree to them -- and then to force South Africa to finally
put its foot down, hoping that Pretoria will call off the whole deal,
placing itself in the bad boy's corner, and bringing down upon itself
international sanctions, oil boycotts and every other bitter device.
Says Willie le Roux of the Institute for Africa Studies at the University
of Po-tchefstroom {South Afric�.7: "The present crisis in SWA stems from
SWAPO's refusal to take part in the democratic process. It will prevent
elections fo� as long as it possibly can, and for this reason makes
impossible demands on South Africa in order to make South Africa out to
be the culprit...Nujoma is regularly advised from Moscow and this latest
demand is part of the strategy of continually showing up Western inability
to take a firm stand."
The latest SWAPO tactic is so incredible as to be almost ludicrous. It
has insisted that during a ceasefire between its guerrillas and the South
African Defense forces, it be permitted to establish at least two mili
tary bases inside Namibia itself. (If permitted, why not let the DTA
have its own bases and forces?)
This ouc.rageous demand, which the "Big Five" are apparently knuckling
under to, could be the straw that breaks the back of peace. Reports
the editor, John Poorter, in the magazine, To The Point, in its March
1979 issue:
"Within the U.N.'s complex organization, but especially in the Secretariat,
there appears to be a built-in determination to accede to SWAPO's wishes,
and to do everything possible to advance its claims in the territory...
The apparent inability of the Western powers to impose their expressed
convictions on the peace plan is exposed, and their weakness is confirmed
"Whatever their faults -- of which their present internal squabbles are
a ludicrous example /referring to the current scandal wracking the South
African government/=- the South Africans see the issue of SWA's future
more clearly than-others. For them it means the difference between ,having
a peaceable neighbour and a totally hostile one. For if SWA were by some
disaster to fall under the control of SWAPO and its backers, we would have
all the warnings of full-scale war sounding in our ears. None of us must
be so obtuse as to think that the battle over SWA would begin and end
there. A look at the map suggests the probabilities of a spreading con
flict that must have a final objective in mind: the conquest of the
powerful and mineral-rich south, the control of the Cape, sea route, and
the denial of strategic materials to the Western world...•
"Are the Western powers capable of enough anger and conviction to bestir
themselves to action? Or too complacent even to be afraid? I wish I
knew, but this is a gnawing doubt."
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau