Word: viljoen
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Embarrassment piled on embarrassment for the South African government last week after the ambush of a nine-man commando unit by Angolan troops. Reason: South Africa was supposed to have withdrawn the last of its soldiers from Angola in April under a U.S.-mediated accord. General Constand Viljoen, head of South Africa's Defense Forces, admitted that the country still had military units in Angola on "reconnaissance and information-gathering" missions against rebel groups like the African National Congress (ANC), which is known to have bases there. But the captured leader of the commando squad, Captain Wynand Petrus du Toit...
...sand dunes outside Cape Town, resulted in the deaths of 18 blacks and injuries to 250 others. It also brought calls from many in South Africa's shocked tricameral Parliament for a plan to allow the shantytown's 60,000 inhabitants to stay on permanently. Last week Gerrit Viljoen, South Africa's Minister of Cooperation and Development, conceded. He was prepared, he said, to allow "upgrading and development" of the area to provide adequate housing for those qualifying, based on the length of their residence and permanent employment. Speaking during a parliamentary debate on Crossroads' future, Viljoen said...
...people who live in the slum's 10,000 squalid shanties have not emerged entirely victorious. According to Viljoen, only 3,000 dwellings in Crossroads can be approved. Most of the squatters will still have to move, presumably to Khayelitsha, a new township eight miles away that many blacks reject as being too costly and too remote. Admitted Viljoen: "I can give no assurance that people will not be resettled under compulsion...
...township called Khayelitsha, some eight miles from Crossroads. Many blacks complained that the program was a scheme to confine them to remote quarters they could not afford and, worse still, to pit legal black workers against illegal squatters. Two days later, Minister of Cooperation and Development Gerrit Viljoen spoke of "speeding up preparations" for the relocation of all Crossroads settlers to Khayelitsha...
After last week's riots erupted, a chastened Viljoen hurriedly agreed to talk to representatives of the squatters. By then, however, the damage had been done. "People here live in fear of today, tomorrow and the next day," said Crossroads Resident Jacob Mkhuzi. "There are so many scares and rumors here that no one can trust anyone anymore...