Word: namibia
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...with police in central Cape Town. Over the long term, the U.S. hopes to persuade South Africa to abandon-or at least drastically modify-its system of apartheid, or racial separation. But for the moment, Kissinger and Vorster will concentrate on two problems on which some progress is possible: Namibia (or South West Africa) and Rhodesia...
There is deadline pressure in Namibia, the onetime League of Nations-mandated territory that South Africa has ruled since 1920 (TIME, Aug. 30). Last January the U.N. ordered South Africa to prepare an independence timetable for Namibia by Aug. 31, 1976, or face U.N. economic sanctions. Accordingly, South Africa assembled a constitutional conference in Windhoek, the Namibian capital, and last month the conference agreed on a multiracial interim government to prepare for independence on Dec. 31, 1978. Kissinger rightly called the decision "a major breakthrough" because "the principle of independence has now been accepted." Black African states were still...
Last year, however, the United Nations gave South Africa an ultimatum: devise an independence timetable for Namibia by Aug. 31, 1976, or face U.N. sanctions. Reluctantly agreeing to call a constitutional conference, South Africa still hoped to preserve white power by turning Namibia into a federation that would be dominated by its 90,000 whites (who compose 10.6% of the territory's 850,000 inhabitants). But the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO), representing much of the powerful Ovambo tribe that makes up 46% of Namibia's population, was determined to form the new government...
Eventually Namibia's white moderates convinced South Africa's Prime Minister John Vorster that the only way to reduce the U.N. heat on South Africa itself was to give Namibia genuine independence. Last week, after Vorster called in the leader of Namibia's white conservatives for some heavy persuasion, the constitutional conference reached a measured compromise. After almost a year of discussion, the twelve different ethnic groups in the territory -eight black, one white and three of mixed race-settled on Dec. 31, 1978, as the date for Namibian independence. A multiracial interim government-probably...
South Africa remains in a strong position to influence Namibia's future policies. For one thing, Namibia is critically short of water and electricity, and will have to acquire them from its powerful neighbor. Besides, South Africa provides practically all of Namibia's imports. And it will still control Walvis Bay, the only good port on Namibia's Atlantic coastline, which South Africa has held as a separate entity since 1910. Small wonder, then, that the new Namibian government is expected to sign a security agreement allowing South African troops to be based on Namibian soil...