April 26, 1979

A New Focus On Africa

Now that UN Ambassador Andy Young has been muzzled, perhaps recent events in Africa can assume a realistic focus.

An impressive 64 percent of eligible black voters turned out in Rhodesia to approve a compromise government.

Idi Amin, the butcher of Uganda, and his Libyan mercenaries are fleeing Tanzanian troops.

The Peoples' Republic of Congo, Africa's first avowed communist state, has given up on Soviet Russia and appeals to western powers for help.

South Africa, angry over U.S. spying, kicks out three members of the American embassy and calls for a union of neighboring states independent of "outside pressures."

It just may be that the Dark Continent is moving from a period of chaos into an age of enlightenment.

The two white-led nations - Rhodesia and South Africa - have made decisive breaks with the United States.  Both have proceeded to cooperate with moderate black majorities in defiance of American proposals favoring militant minorities.

Ambassador Young's reaction last year to Rhodesia's plebiscite, you will recall, was the old liberal lament: "We have got to accept that this is a war being waged by the Patriotic Front, and what they say goes."

As for South Africa, Young declared its government "illegitimate" and lobbied in the United Nations for "sanctions" that would cripple that country's economy.

Young also was active in UN attempts to block referendum elections which were designed - in the American tradition - to settle differences with ballots instead of bullets.  The communists in Africa, he said, were "a stabilizing influence."

In the end, Rhodesia and South Africa dismissed outside meddling and proceeded to apply their own solutions to their peculiar problems.

Rhodesia gave up white rule to its black majority but kept 28 percent of the seats in parliament.  It is a contrary proportion to the one-man-one-vote dogma.  Nevertheless it is a workable arrangement that retains the vital skills and experience of white Rhodesians.  Without them the Rhodesian economy would collapse as has that of Uganda, Congo and Zaire.

South Africa proceeds with its Namibia referendum which probably will turn over control of that territory to a moderate black majority.  Again, the terrorists are excluded.

Young and his Third World apologists in the UN have been dumbfounded by the Rhodesia election success, and by South Africa's go-it-alone determination.  Predicted terrorist reprisals fizzled like wet firecrackers.

The merciful silence permits reasonable voices to be heard.

Freedom House, the New York-based organization that monitors democracy around the world, describes the Rhodesia voting as freer than those "in most underdeveloped countries."

Bayard Rustin, the black leader who marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., calls the election "a useful and creditable step toward the establishment of a free society."

Observers from the American Conservation Union judged the results "free and fair."

South Africa expects an equally tranquil transition of Namibia to self rule, despite a boycott of UN observers and black guerillas.

The Afrikaners expelled American diplomatic aides on suspicion of photographing defense positions for transmission to Patriotic Front fighters.  It is a wild accusation: but, ominously, the U.S has not denied aerial spying nor explained it.

All in all, the United States has pursued a puzzling African policy - selling out our friends: punishing moderate, democratic forces; encouraging terrorism and tribal animosities.

One has the feeling it was more an extension of back-home racial politics than a concern for African progress.

As a result, some of our former friends have now told us to get lost.  A "constellation" of South, Africa, Rhodesia, Namibia and Botswana would create a federation of blacks and whites both militarily and economically self sufficient.

It is likely that our ambassadorial spying involved a secret nuclear bomb factory which would make the union invulnerable.  The new partnership would enjoy a near monopoly of chrome, gold, diamonds and other minerals.

Confederation is a significant development in Africa.

The old nationalist movements are running out of steam.  Colonialism brought markets and skills to the vast, underdeveloped continent.  Without these vital elements individual nations such as Uganda and Congo gradually reverted to the bush.

The communists - Russian and Chinese - are adept at stirring up uneducated, untrained opposition.  However, they do not have the free markets and technology to develop higher standards of living.  That, still, is the unique achievement of representative government.  It was the great gift of colonialism that was unappreciated and discarded.

Now, the communists are being edged out.  Distressed black Africans are swallowing their pride and begging western nations to come back.

Blacks covet the lands of other blacks.  They war on each other.  Alliances based on common interests are beginning to transcend ideological rhetoric.  A belly full of beans is more important than a head full of propaganda.

The tribal outlook is giving way to the modern work ethnic.  It is hard work, but it is how the real world lifts itself up.

Africans working with other Africans, with the resources at hand, will build Africa.  In the long run, neither Russia nor the United States can determine the outcome.

Author: Lindsey Williams