Word: pretoria
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...creation of these quasi-independent states is a basic part of the Pretoria government's long-range survival plan for South African whites. The policy of "separate development" calls for dividing the country's 18.6 million blacks and 4.3 million whites into ten states, nine for blacks and one for whites. The whites' state will encompass 87% of South Africa's territory, including all 17 major cities...
...ethnic groups, mostly subtribes of the Tswana, a Bantu-speaking people who have traditionally lived between the Zambezi and the Orange rivers. But more than half these people work in white South Africa and do not even live in the territory. By threatening to reject independence, Chief Mangope persuaded Pretoria to grant Tswanas who do not want homeland citizenship permanent residence in South Africa, where they will at least have access to jobs...
...foreseeable future, the new state will be financially dependent on Pretoria, which will also advise on BophuthaTswana's diplomatic and defense affairs. Nonetheless, the new homeland has a considerable economic potential: at present it accounts for two-thirds of the total platinum production in the Western world. It is also rich in asbestos, granite, vanadium, chromium and manganese. By 1979 the homeland should be receiving direct mining revenues of about $30 million a year. But only 10% of BophuthaTswana's total land area is arable, and much of that is covered with scrub brush...
...result was a personal victory for John Vorster. He had called the election and dominated the campaign, capitalizing on the U.N.'s new mandatory arms embargo against South Africa and other recent signs that both Britain and the U.S. had decided to take a firmer line with Pretoria from now on. South Africans joked that Vorster and his party had run against President Jimmy Carter-and had won big. As they had always done before, the Afrikaners united in a time of crisis. And this time, they brought record numbers of English-speaking whites along with them...
Meanwhile, the inquest into the unexplained death of Black Consciousness Leader Stephen Biko ended in Pretoria. At first the government maintained that Biko died in prison three months ago from the effects of a hunger strike. Later, security police claimed he had hit his head against a wall while scuffling angrily with interrogators. Summarizing his case last week, the eloquent attorney for Biko's family, Sydney Kentridge, asserted that the security police had inexcusably disregarded Stephen Biko's rights while he was in their custody. "There is indisputable evidence," Kentridge said, "that on the morning of Sept...