Word: basutoland
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...problem is going to get worse long before it gets better. More new non-nations are waiting impatiently in the wings; Bechuanaland, Basutoland, British Guiana and Mauritius are all due to become independent this year, and Swaziland and South Arabia will follow soon afterward. Britain's Lord Caradon recently reported to the United Nations General Assembly that 50 colonial territories still remained to be freed around the world-31 in the British Empire alone. Since, in general, the weakest and least viable colonies are the last to be turned loose, the prospect is staggering. All of them, of course...
After 97 years under British rule, Basutoland is due to receive its independence next year. Its position is hardly enviable. A bleak highland waste, inhabited almost entirely by blacks, Basutoland (pop. 900,000) has no industry, few raw materials and only the most rudimentary agriculture. It is totally dependent on South Africa, which completely surrounds it: most of its working-age men can find employment only in South African mines and factories, and the money they send home -roughly $2,800,000 a year-is its greatest single source of income...
Last week, as Basutoland counted the returns of its first general election, the results reflected both its predicament and its frustration. Winner of a bare two-seat majority in the new 'National Assembly was the conservative Basutoland National Party, dedicated to close ties with South Africa's apartheid-minded regime. The Nationalists were helped to victory by the South African government, which encouraged them to visit Rand mines for electioneering among the thousands of Basuto laborers who planned to go home to vote. No such campaigning facilities were permitted the Peking-backed Basutoland Congress Party, a bitter enemy...
...sides by white Africa (Rhodesia on the east and apartheid-minded South Africa and its South-West Africa dependency on the south, west and north), Bechuanaland is tied economically to the nations that every true black nationalist hates. With the two other British High Commission territories of Basutoland and Swaziland, Seretse's domain is joined with South Africa in a customs union, uses South African currency, and in the past has cooperated in transportation, trade, health and general development with Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd's regime. Indeed, some 30,000 Bechuanas depend on employment in the South African gold...
Into the Sea. According to Black Nationalist Potlako Leballo, who fled to the British-ruled enclave of Basutoland, Poqo is a terrorist offshoot of Sobukwe's militant Pan-African Congress and is determined to "murder the whites or chase them into the sea." As it turned out, Leballo's big mouth did Poqo more harm than good. Embarrassed British officials ordered his arrest, and he barely escaped into Basutoland's rugged mountains, leaving behind him a list of 10,000 black rebels in South Africa. Thanks either to coincidence or to Basutoland's connivance, South African...