Word: vorster
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Neither of these moves demonstrate real changes in the structure of the South African regime, however. There are two kinds of pressure on Vorster to achieve a detente in Southern Africa. He must avert the economic boycott threatened last year by the U.N. Security Council because of South Africa's failure to grant full independence to Namibia, or Southwest Africa, and he must develop a belt of neutral countries which will protect South Africa from militant guerilla movements based in neighboring countries...
...Justice declared South Africa's continued occupation of the U.N. protectorate illegal after World War II, South Africa has continued to impose its policies of separation of the races on the territory, and to exploit Namibia's resources to provide raw materials for South African refineries. Last November, Vorster asked the Security Council for six more months in which to give Namibia full autonomy before a boycott was imposed. Although the U.N. seems to have extended this period of grace indefinitely, the black African nations have increased their agitation for a boycott...
Nearly 80 per cent of South African manufactured goods exported go to African nations, and if an African boycott was imposed the South African internal market could not absorb its own produce. If Vorster can persuade the southern African nations that the South African regime will respect them and that he will work for some kind of political autonomy in Namibia, however, and if he can persuade them that his regime is a friendly one, South Africa will be protected by other southern African nations from guerilla attacks from the outside...
This neutral belt is essential to South African stability, for without such a protective wall it could not avoid the kind of guerilla activity which threatens to topple Ian Smith's Rhodesian government. Now that a black government looks inevitable in Zimbabwe--the black nationalist name for Rhodesia--Vorster must insure that the new government will respect South Africa's boundaries, and that it will refuse to allow guerilla fighters to use Zimbabwe as a base for maneuvers into South Africa. Zambia has already said it will not permit guerilla activity within its borders, but it is not yet clear...
...Vorster's attempts to achieve some kind of Southern African detente do not mean that policies within South Africa itself will change. Shortly after his speech to the United Nations, he told his country, "Multiracialism could never work in South Africa... I never asked to be given six months' chance so that I could turn South Africa upside down." South Africa's domestic policies are still based on apartheid which the government there euphemistically calls "separate development." South African citizens who have been designated "Africans" are restricted to Bantustans, and only those who have found employment outside these areas...