Word: bothas
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...Washington, the Reagan Administration appeared to be trapped in a delicate position, by turns applauding Botha's reformist promises and deploring the savage realities of apartheid. Mounting a counteroffensive against the 20 separate pieces of antiapartheid legislation introduced in Congress already this year, Secretary of State George Shultz tried to tiptoe along the high wire of the Administration's policy. Apartheid, he conceded, was "morally indefensible." At the same time, he warned, "we must not throw American matches on the emotional tinder of the region...
...South Africa, the dilemma has become even more vexing as the Botha government, swaying between reform and repression, finds itself accused by non- whites of being too intransigent and by Afrikaner hard-liners of being too soft. The provision of new housing and the imminent repeal of the sex laws were moves in the right direction. But both seemed small steps along a path that promises to be long and painful. --By Pico Iyer. Reported by Peter Hawthorne/Cape Town
...other shoe dropped with a loud thud last week in South Africa. After eleven months of mounting black violence, Executive President P.W. Botha declared a state of emergency in 36 riot-torn cities and towns, most of them in the Eastern Cape or near Johannesburg. It was South Africa's first declared emergency in 25 years and gave police expanded powers to make arrests, detain suspects indefinitely, impose curfews and restrict press reporting. The announcement last Saturday upstaged a dramatic funeral in the Eastern Cape. Some 25,000 black mourners converged on the town of Cradock from hundreds of miles...
...Botha's announcement hardly came as a surprise. The violence in recent weeks has bred more violence. Almost every day has seen reports of townships in upheaval, and bloody confrontations between blacks and armed police have become chillingly routine. Last week, as the total number of black deaths since September passed 450, the political brush fires spread to a place with an ominously familiar name: Soweto...
...Botha's crackdown, however, suggests that those demands will not be met anytime soon. Indeed, if history is an accurate guide, South Africa's blacks may be in for tough tunes. In 1960 and 1977, in the wake of the Sharpeville and Soweto uprisings, the government halted the orgy of violence by arresting antiapartheid leaders and outlawing most opposition organizations. In both instances, the silencing of black leaders ended the crisis. Whether the new crackdown will have a similar effect remains to be seen. Last week the Financial Mail, a Johannesburg newsweekly, ran a cover story titled "The Townships...