Word: namibian
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...confrontations, the international conflict over the political status of Namibia has finally reached a time of hard, no-nonsense decisions. Last week, an ailing John Vorster announced his resignation as South African Prime Minister and, as his final act in office, backed out on the tentative agreement Pretoria and Namibian nationalists made in July to allow United Nations military and civilian personnel to supervise the election of an independent Namibian government...
...terms will inevitably severely restrict campaign freedoms and guide Namibia into a sham confederation of tribal groupings whose weakness will guarantee the continued economic and political dominance of the whites who make up 10 per cent of the territory's population. The Southwest Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), the Namibian freedom-fighting group that has led the struggle for independence for 12 years, has justly refused to participate in such an election, and has vowed to intensify its armed struggle against South Africa. And most Western observers believe SWAPO commands the support of at least a majority of Namibians...
...thus becomes imperative for the West, particularly the United States, to learn from past mistakes, the replace its pious words in defense of Namibian independence with substantive steps designed to force South Africa to back down and permit U.N.-supervised elections. It should rush the U.N.-endorsed proposal for internationally supervised elections through the Security Council--preferably before the Nationalist party finishes selecting a new South African prime minister -- and present the South Africans with the demarche accompanied by an ultimatum: either accept U.N.-supervised elections in Namibia, or face across-the-board economic sanctions from the nations...
...MANY YEARS, the West demonstrated a commitment to independence -- a commitment that has never been fulfilled. Even during the early '70s, when the U.S. and its NATO allies were still supporting Portuguese colonialism in Africa, the West gave lip service to Namibian independence. The Namibian question, after all, was definitely one open to international adjudication; the League of Nations granted the South African government the right to administer the territory in 1919, declaring Namibia a "sacred trust of civilization" and requiring South Africa "to promote to the utmost the material and moral well being of and the social progress...
Today, Namibia is the apartheid state's apartheid state. It is administered by an official appointed from Pretoria, with the help of an all-white territorial assembly. Namibia, like South Africa, has its bantustans, its pass laws, its political detainees. If anything, the Namibian racial lines are drawn even more sharply; the living standard of blacks there is about half the poverty level of South African blacks. While a handful of white settlers and foreign nationals soak the territory for hundreds of millions in profits from the country's diamond, uranium and copper-rich land, most Africans continue...