Word: botha
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...failed to show up at his job at the Ford Motor Co. plant near South Africa's industrial capital of Port Elizabeth. He had asked for two hours off to answer a summons from the police, but failed to return to work. When a white foreman cautioned Thozamile Botha, 30, an intense former schoolteacher turned black activist who had worked for Ford for less than twelve months, to improve his attendance, Botha snapped, "Why don't you fire me?" He then stalked angrily out of the plant...
...Ford was among the first firms to recognize black unions. Black anti-apartheid organizers have warned that the strike is the first shot in a new offensive against the white-ruled state. The target: multinational firms that do business in the country. The aim: to undermine Prime Minister P.W. Botha's strategy for winning the allegiance of the "black elite" of relatively highly paid skilled workers by giving them a greater share of South Africa's prosperity...
...Botha has also run into heated opposition from the verkrampte (rigid) wing of South Africa's ruling Nationalist Party. The solemn, humorless Prime Minister has been heckled as a "Judas" by Afrikaner audiences. In four parliamentary by-elections last month, more than half the eligible voters boycotted the balloting as a sign of displeasure with the new policies. Former Cabinet Minister Connie Mulder has founded a new pro-apartheid Action Front for National Priorities that could attract the support of disillusioned Afrikaners during the next election...
Despite his proposed reform of petty apartheid, Botha has no intention of altering the long-range goal of Nationalist policy: maintaining white sovereignty in South Africa as head of a "constellation of states," that might include ten quasi-autonomous tribal homelands, as well as Zambia and Zimbabwe Rhodesia, as a bulwark against Communist expansion. If these measures fail to gain South Africa's security, some Afrikaners are contemplating more drastic steps. Predicted an influential Afrikaner last week: "In ten years' time, the army will appoint the civilians, and no one, black or white, will have to vote...
...first interview with an American publication since becoming Prime Minister a little over a year ago, Botha last week outlined his reforms to TIME Johannesburg Bureau Chief William McWhirter. Seated behind a desk decorated with a statue of an early pioneer, the unsmiling Nationalist leader made clear that South Africa's reforms will in no way affect the principle of white sovereignty in a white state. Excerpts from the 90-min. talk...