Word: pretoria
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...effort is most likely to founder over the future of Walvis Bay, Namibia's principal port (see box). Pretoria wants to trade the harbor for a cooperative attitude from the new Namibian regime after it takes power. SWAPO insists that Walvis Bay, through which 90% of the territory's international trade passes, must become part of Namibia...
...roadblocks. By the end of August he is supposed to submit to U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim a plan for a truce between the guerrillas and South African troops, as well as a blueprint for the election of a constituent assembly that will draft a constitution for independent Namibia. Pretoria has warned that it may reject any recommendation Ahtisaari comes up with. Meanwhile both sides have adopted a "you first" attitude that will make a cease-fire difficult to achieve. As guerrillas under his command blew up a vital water line in northern Namibia, SWAPO Leader Sam Nujoma declared that...
Envisioning its enclave as a potential Hong Kong of Africa, Walvis Bay's town council has repeatedly petitioned the South African government to make the territory a free port. But Pretoria is more concerned with the area's strategic importance. Walvis Bay is the only deep-water port on the 1,000-mile Namibian coast. As a consequence, the worst South African fear is that a SWAPO-dominated government in Windhoek might allow the Soviets to set up a naval base there...
...realized that in underscoring its opposition to Soviet-Cuban adventurism in Africa, the U.S. must not appear to be embracing the policies of South Africa and Rhodesia, whose governments have quietly hoped that the recent troubles in Zaïre would have the effect of reducing Western pressure on Pretoria and Salisbury for racial reform...
Indeed, South African Foreign Minister Roelof Botha welcomed Carter's criticism of Soviet activities in Africa. It was now up to Pretoria to convince the U.S. Administration of "the realities facing Africa," he said. Significantly, Carter made little mention of Zaïre in his Annapolis speech; he may well have been responding to U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young's argument that the U.S. must not lose sight of the far greater importance of the black-white struggle in southern Africa. At the Paris meeting, the U.S., as well as Britain and Belgium, argued for an African military force...