Word: diplomatic
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...eyes of most blacks, the statutory council is flawed because it is purely advisory and blacks played no role in its formulation. "The government's basic mistake," says a Western diplomat, "is that it thinks it can, and must, remain in control of the process of change. It is trying to reform by directive, and blacks will not accept that." Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, former leader of the white opposition Progressive Federal Party, says that the government is inviting blacks to negotiate about apartheid, while the blacks are saying that if apartheid is abolished first, then they will negotiate about...
...Stalin in Addis Ababa to the controversial policies that are creating peasant cooperatives across the countryside. A new constitution, to be adopted later this year, will enshrine the Soviet-oriented ruling Workers' Party of Ethiopia as the "guiding force of the state and the entire society." Says a Western diplomat: "Under the new constitution, Mengistu will have more power than the late Emperor." Meanwhile, more than 5,000 Soviet, East European and Cuban advisers are stationed throughout the Ethiopian armed forces and government ministries. In all, Moscow has provided Ethiopia with some $3 billion in military...
...Reagan Administration may back rebel forces against Addis Ababa, just as it supports contra efforts to oust the Marxist-Leninist Nicaraguan regime. Yet officials in Washington, which provided $282 million in emergency aid to Ethiopia last year, say they have no wish to topple Mengistu. Notes a senior diplomat: "We've told the Ethiopians that we would like to engage in a serious dialogue with them. Every time we propose a place and a time, we are rebuffed...
...Third World's turn to socialism arose in large part as a reaction to colonial rule. Even today capitalism is considered part of a hated past. "Capitalism is regarded as an ideological word and is not acceptable," says a Western diplomat stationed in Africa. When newly independent countries adopted socialism in the 1960s, they were in effect rebelling against what they saw as the economic system of departing colonial masters...
...thinks that Peking's bid to join GATT will end Chinese protectionism. Says a Western diplomat in Peking: "We all know the Chinese are not interested in facilitating trade. They are interested in facilitating exports." Trade experts think that several years of delicate negotiations lie ahead before GATT members admit China to the club. The Chinese, for instance, may request special treatment as a developing nation. Nevertheless, the fact that China has asked to sit down at the bargaining table with its trading partners is a promising omen...