Word: vorster
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...there is a great deal of evidence that Kissinger is not really interested in majority rule, or in ending violence. In fact, he openly stated his main concern before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last May, just before the first of his meetings with Vorster: "We have a stake....in not having the whole continent become radical and move in a direction that is incompatible with Western interests. That is the issue...
Given the rising anger among South Africa's black population, the long-term outlook for the Vorster regime's strategy for survival is uncertain, to say the least. An American official, after talking last month with the Chief Ministers of some of the homelands, whom he had presumed to be moderates, exclaimed: "If these are the moderates, I hope I never meet the radicals; there was blood in their eyes...
...black unrest continues to mount, as seems likely, the Vorster regime could face problems within its own constituency. White business, deep in recession, depends heavily on black labor (90% of total employment in both agriculture and mining, 68% in service industries). But because of the slump, black unemployment is approaching 2 million. Even the Afrikaans press is calling for reform, attacking the tough pass laws (requiring every black over 16 to carry a passbook at all times) as "unjust humiliation." In the meantime, however, South Africans have taken out more than 200,000 new firearms licenses in the past year...
...soil: in a Western democracy the rights of a minority are protected, and a minority usually has a chance of becoming a majority; in an African setting, where parties and governments and dynasties are determined by race (or even tribe), a decision taken today by a Smith or a Vorster is irrevocable. Obviously, the Rhodesian white minority had no right to think that it could rule indefinitely. Yet, as the whites well knew, there are precious few black-ruled states in Africa where the whites who stayed behind have been able to retain their full rights of citizenship...
Kaunda, 52, is the most peace-minded of the front-line five. He met with South Africa's Vorster and Rhodesia's Smith in a failed effort to get Rhodesian negotiations under way last year, but has since reluctantly endorsed the armed struggle. His country now harbors 2,500 Rhodesian and 6,000 Namibian guerrillas...