Word: pretoria
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...state of South Africa is the economic and military superpower south of the Sahara. This galling reality is the backdrop against which State President P.W. Botha is staging a new diplomatic offensive. In three weeks he has met publicly with three African heads of state and secretly, officials in Pretoria claim, with two others. Flying home from Zaire last week, Botha announced jubilantly, "We are going to other African countries as well, where we will be busy this year and next year." Replacing his usual glower with a grin, he said, "Africa is talking to South Africa...
Those levers furnish Pretoria with plenty of coercive power when it chooses to exercise it. But the catalyst for this current burst of public summitry is the prospective agreement for the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola and finally the granting of independence to Namibia, now near consummation in Brazzaville. Many states in the area are just as eager as South Africa to speed the departure of 50,000 Cuban troops from Angola as a prelude to ending the 13-year Angolan civil war between the Marxist government and South African-backed UNITA rebels. The attraction of sharing credit...
...this fall's diplomatic momentum. He has skillfully orchestrated his parade into those African countries that are particularly vulnerable to South African pressure and blandishments. But he has yet to persuade the leaders of the key front-line states that his journeys offer more than cosmetic change. If anything, Pretoria's state of emergency is more repressive to antiapartheid forces now than it was two years ago. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, a voluble foe of "the Boers," said stiffly, "I don't know who else Botha will meet. I have no appointment with Botha." Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia...
...region: State President P.W. Botha's first official visit to neighboring black African states. Even as the Pope was in nearby Zimbabwe, Botha journeyed to Mozambique and Malawi with peace proposals of his own last week. After meeting with Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, Botha gave assurances that Pretoria would no longer aid rebels of the Mozambique National Resistance, also known as Renamo. The right-wing guerrillas have been trying for 13 years to topple the Marxist government, cutting rail lines, sacking villages and driving farmers off their land. The bitter civil war has destroyed much of the country's food...
...whose transmission lines have been repeatedly sabotaged by the Renamo insurgents since the facility was built in 1975. That promise showed both neighborliness and self-interest, since the dam's chief customer will be South Africa. Altogether, the encounter may have reflected a new willingness on the part of Pretoria to pursue conciliatory policies toward its black neighbors abroad while continuing to crack down on opponents of apartheid at home...