Word: bothas
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Every time a paroxysm of black unrest grips South Africa, followed by a crackdown by the white government of State President P.W. Botha, statesmen and politicians in Western capitals begin asking, Is there a way, any way short of military action for the world to force Pretoria to change its racial policies? Last week, as South Africa's current state of emergency entered its third week, the debate flared once more. Its focus: whether recent events require a major step-up in economic sanctions against South Africa, and whether such pressure would really contribute to banishing apartheid...
...West European leaders might have felt more urgency had South Africa been sputtering out of control. But the country appeared to be relatively quiet--at least insofar as could be determined by the press, which under the de facto censorship was more or less obliged to take the Botha government's word for it. A series of minor terrorist explosions took place in Durban, Johannesburg and the Eastern Cape, and at week's end police killed four black guerrillas near the Botswana border. Wildcat strikes and worker "stayaways" continued in about 100 supermarkets and other retail stores, underscoring reports that...
...inconsistency which will harm future diplomatic efforts. South Africa must not be allowed to remain in the drivers seat, closing off its society without international recourse when trouble arises and reopening its doors to the West when commericial demands arise and political dissent is under control. Let Pik Botha eat his words: treat this nation like the closed society it emulates...
...striking thing about Botha's position and the future of the country is not that communists are threatening the stability of a U.S. ally which has claimed to maintain Western values, but rather that his government is evolving rapidly into an Eastern Block nation itself. The limits to which South Africa is willing to go to avoid recognizing the humanity of its majority population is equal only to the repression prevelent in the world's notoriously closed societies. If Pik Botha truly fears the totalitarianism that characterizes many communist governments, he should properly fear the direction of his own regime...
Just as the Eastern European Block regimes attract little steady attention from the American population, South Africa is relying on a closed-door policy just short of an iron curtain. If, as Pik Botha stated, the primary purpose of white South Africans is to survive, then perhaps a sacrifice of some of their public ties to Western nations would not be too high a price...