Word: namibia
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...free world?" Translating that concern into policy, however, has turned out to be a complex and tricky business. Just how much so became clear last week as fragments emerged of the evolving U.S. plan for handling an explosive issue that pits South Africa against black Africa: Who will rule Namibia...
South Africa administers mineral-rich Namibia (pop.: 1 million, including 100,000 whites) under a 1920 League of Nations mandate that the U.N. formally revoked in 1966. Since then, Pretoria has had to fight a low-key guerrilla war against some 8,000 members of the Marxist-dominated and Soviet-armed South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO). South Africa values Namibia as a buffer zone against Marxist Angola, a SWAPO haven. With 20,000 troops in Namibia, the South Africans have launched sharp punitive raids against SWAPO camps in Angola...
Under the Carter Administration, the U.S. actively joined international efforts to make South Africa relinquish Namibia. In 1978, with U.S. approval, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 435, which called for South African military withdrawal from Namibia and elections for a national constituent assembly under the aegis of a U.N. peace-keeping force. Last December it looked as if South Africa would grudgingly go along. A month later, it changed its mind. Among other things, the South Africans apparently feared that SWAPO would win control of Namibia at the polls, in the manner of Marxist Robert Mugabe last year...
...Carter Administrations about ridding Angola of the 12,000 to 20,000 Cuban troops that have remained there since they helped leftist forces win the civil war in 1976. Carter policy implicitly accepted an Angolan claim that the Cubans would leave after the South Africans pulled out of Namibia. The Reagan Administration, on the other hand, is under heavy pressure from Republican hard-liners like Senator Jesse Helms to make Cuban withdrawal a prior condition for the Namibian settlement. Helms also wants the U.S. to force Angola into sharing power with the guerrilla group backed by South Africa known...
...regional problem that the Administration fears could lead to an expansion of Soviet influence is the struggle in black Namibia (SouthWest Africa), which is trying to gain independence from white-ruled South Africa. Elections in Namibia would probably lead to a Marxist government. Reagan and Haig both met last week with South African Foreign Minister Roelof F. ("Pik") Botha and they agreed to support a formula that would guarantee the rights of the white minority before any elections are held...