Word: vorster
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
There is some evidence that one goal of the present crackdown on dissent is to reassure the right-wing verkrampte (narrow-minded) members of Vorster's National Party. To foreigners, the gruff Prime Minister may seem to be nothing more than a formidable reactionary. "He travels in an ox wagon always one length behind the train of history," a ranking British official observed last year. But Vorster is a pragmatist by comparison with many of his Afrikaner colleagues in government and a very shrewd politician as well. Thus, the new constitution could be interpreted as a concession to white moderates...
...Vorster need not be too worried about he U.N.'s mandatory arms embargo. Eventually, the embargo could hurt South Africa by depriving it of sophisticated new weaponry and technology. But as of today, South Africa's 41,000-man army is one of the best trained and best equipped on the continent; 130,000 reserves can be mobilized against invasion?or insurrection?within 48 hours. The only real gaps in the country's arms production at present are helicopter technology and warships. Last week France announced that it was canceling delivery of two submarines and two missile-launching corvettes, even...
...almost completely ignored Africa for seven of his eight years in the Nixon-Ford Administrations. Then, after the Cuban military involvement in Angola, Kissinger went twice to Africa and seemed for a time to be on the verge of securing a settlement in Rhodesia. His strategy was to solicit Vorster's help on Rhodesia and Namibia and defer the question of South Africa's apartheid. Kissinger believed majority rule in Rhodesia and independence for Namibia were attainable through diplomatic pressure; he also believed Vorster would help him achieve it in order to take world pressure off South Africa...
...Carter Administration decided that the problems of Rhodesia, Namibia and South Africa should be taken up simultaneously. In May, Vice President Walter Mondale met Vorster head-on in Vienna and told him that Washington was interested in "a progressive transformation of South African society." When the press asked him later what he meant by "full political participation by all South Africans," Mondale replied, inaccurately, that it was the same as one man, one vote. This was a misstep by Mondale that Washington has been gently attempting to correct ever since. Not even the U.S., with the rights of states built...
...most powerful organization in South Africa is the Afrikaner Broederbond. An elite, secret society whose members include not only Prime Minister John Vorster but Afrikaners from every walk of life, the Broederbond (literally, association of brothers) is a kind of nerve center that keeps Afrikaner nationalism alive through the National Party, South Africa's Dutch Reformed churches and innumerable cultural and educational institutions...