THE ILLUMINATI - THE RISE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN REICH

Chapter 15

Iron and Blood

Throughout the years of its reign the Nationalist government has provoked ever-increasing hostility with every attempt to implement its policy of apartheid. The rigid, merciless dogmatism, the blindness and brutality of Nationalist doctrine and administration have become anathema to the overwhelming majority of the world's population, as witnessed by the rising tide of resistance at home and the growing pressure for the application of international sanctions, recommended by repeated General Assembly resolutions of the United Nations. On all sides the Nationalists feel themselves threatened, their future endangered, by a multitude of perils ranging from international Communism to Sunday sport. The struggle to maintain their 'traditional way of life' in the face of foreign influences and intervention becomes daily more desperate.

In the 1830's, faced with a similar situation, the Afrikaner could load his family and belongings on to his ox-wagon and trek away into the distance, turning his back on his enemies and seeking security in the vast almost-empty spaces of the interior. Today, he can trek no more. He must turn and face his dangers, answer the challenge of his day, as best he can, relying on the spiritual and material resources that lie to hand.

The tragedy of the South African situation is that the Nationalist government has adopted a position from which it cannot retreat without destroying the very basis of its power. Nationalist rule means Nationalist domination over all other sections of the population, White and non-White alike. Not only the African, the Coloured, and the Asian, but also the White non-Afrikaner must accept the consequences of Afrikaner hegemony. The presence of two English-speaking members in the Nationalist Cabinet does not alter the fact that the character of the government and the administration is overwhelmingly Afrikaans. The very factors which have helped to make Nationalist Afrikanerdom the power that it is automatically exclude participation by non-Afrikaners, who cannot share the emotionalism and mystique on which the Nationalist thrives. The African understandably cannot share the Afrikaner's feelings about the Battle of Blood River. The English-speaking cannot join with the Afrikaner in bitterly condemning the British conquest, and even the Voortrekker Monument outside Pretoria fails to arouse his enthusiasm. Thus the Nationalist can never weld a united nation out of the various peoples of South Africa. Nor does he intend to do so. His perpetual emphasis on race is designed to fragment South Africa into its component parts, for it is through the disunity of the non-Afrikaners alone that the Afrikaner can retain his supremacy. 'Unity is strength' proclaims the official motto on the South African coat of arms. The theory and practice of the Nationalist government pursue precisely the opposite direction.

Premier Vorster was given what the press described as 'a standing, almost frenzied ovation' when he announced at the Transvaal conference of the Nationalist Party in September 1968 that the time had come for South Africa to have a new flag. (There had been strong objection from Nationalists that the existing flag contained in the centre panel a replica of the Union Jack, hated symbol of the imperialist enemy, as well as the flags of the Boer Republics.)

Mr Vorster said that the new flag would be a flag for White South Africa. The Transkei already had its own flag, and other homelands would get their own flags when they reached the appropriate stage of development. He did not indicate what flags would be assigned to the Indian and Coloured communities, who have no existing or potential 'homelands', and who are also not White.

The new flag, which would contain no reference to the countries of origin of any of the White peoples, would be introduced on Republic Day, 31 May 1971, said Mr Vorster.

The racial exclusiveness of the Nationalist is at once his strength and his weakness. According to the 1960 census, the population of South Africa is composed as follows:

African 10,807,809 White 3,067,638 Coloured 1,488,267 Asian 477,414 Total 15,841,128

An analysis of the census figures carried out by the Bureau of Statistics showed that between 1951 and 1960 the number of Afrikaans-speaking South Afrikaans had increased from 1,502,861 to 1,780,988; while the number of English-speaking South Africans had increased from 1.039,270 to 1,150,738. The figures showed that the Afrikaners outnumbered the English speaking section by sixty-five to thirty-five percent, and that the rate of increase among the Afrikaners was about double that among the English (Rand Daily Mail, 9 March 1966).

A statement issued by the Bureau of Statistics on 2 October 1967 gave the estimated size of the population of South Africa in mid-1967 as:

Numbers Percentage Africans 12,750,000 68.1 Whites 3,563,0001 19.0 Coloured 1,859,000 9.9 Asians 561,000 3.0 18,733,000 100.00

Though no later figures are available of the Afrikaans-English ratio of the white population, the proportions are still probably about the same, which means that just over 2,000,000 White South Africans today are Afrikaans-speaking.

It is on the unity of the Afrikaners that the Nationalist government depends for the maintenance of its power. They constitute a majority of the electorate, and for as long as they respond to Nationalist leadership Nationalist power is secure - electorally.

While on the one hand government leaders constantly appeal for White unity in the face of common dangers - claims are even sometimes made that a united White nation has been created - on the other, the leaders of the various Afrikaner institutions, including the Nationalist Party, have shown again and again that they will strive to the utmost to preserve the separate identity of the Afrikaner.

Speaking at a Nationalist Party rally at Upington in July 1968, the Prime Minister, Mr Vorster, said: 'I am prepared to cooperate with anyone on the explicit condition that he accepts me as I am. As an Afrikaner I am not prepared to cooperate with the world if that means I have to sacrifice South Africa's traditional policy. I am not prepared to cooperate with the English-speaking section if that means I have to sacrifice my Afrikaner identity' (Rand Daily Mail, 8 July 1968).

Vorster was defending the new so-called 'outward' policy of the Nationalist government against right-wing criticism inside his party that it amounted to 'liberalism' and would undermine not only the position of the White man, but in particular the hegemony of the Afrikaner. The critics objected that self-governing Bantustans would mean selling out South Africa to the Blacks; that the establishment of diplomatic relations with friendly Black states was opening the gates to a Trojan horse; that over ninety percent of the 200,000 immigrants entering the country between 1960 and 1966, in a drive to strengthen the White population, had been absorbed in the English-speaking section, to the detriment of the Afrikaner; that the new policy of allowing mixed teams of White and non-White athletes to represent South Africa abroad would ultimately lead to the destruction of the colour bar at home.

After the end of the 1968 parliamentary session a series of conferences held by various Afrikaner cultural and religious organizations provided a platform for the so called 'verkramptes' (conservatives) to voice their fears over the policies of the 'verligtes' (liberals) who appeared to control government policy. Among such gatherings at which these issues were debated were the annual congress of the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge (Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Organizations, the public front for the Broederbond); of the Nationalist youth body, the Jeugbond; of the Afrikaans student organization, Die Afrikaanse Studentebond; the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (South African Academy of Science and Art, the Afrikaans counterpart of the English orientated South African Society for the Advancement of Science); and the Voortrekkers (Afrikaner equivalent of the Boy Scouts).

Most outspoken of the 'verkramptes' was Professor Marius Swart, of the University of Port Elizabeth, who somewhat astonished the Voortrekkers by advising them that if they wanted to get new life into their organization they should refuse to follow the 'outdated' policies of the Nationalist Party.

He said that the Voortrekkers were 'becoming too South African, too conscious of being White instead of almost exclusively aware of being Afrikaans and Afrikaans-speaking. We do not dare to follow the Nationalist Party any longer in this regard' (Sunday Times, 7 July 1968).

The pundits of ' suiwe (pure) Afrikanerdom' had been aroused by the 'shock' findings of a Pretoria University survey showing that eighty percent of the Afrikaner and English youth consulted were prepared to forget the divisions of the past and favoured cultural integration between Afrikaners and English.

The survey, conducted over a period of three years, also found that more than a third of those questioned rejected the idea that each group should maintain its own separate cultural and language heritage; and a large proportion favoured dual medium education in contrast to the Nationalist government's mother-tongue education policy (Sunday Express, 30 June 1968). There had also been reports that Afrikaner youth were failing to turn out at mass 'volk' and 'nasie' rallies, at such traditional gala occasions as volksspele (people's or folk games) and remembrance celebrations. The President of the Afrikaanse Studentebond, Mr Ben de Klerk, told delegates at the ASB conference in July 1968 that most Afrikaner students abhorred 'kultuur', which they associated with ox-wagons, paeans of praise for fallen heroes, Voortrekker dress, beards, and kappies (traditional women's headgear). They were strongly attracted by 'outside world' influences, especially English and American literature and films, and the desire for television and the ideas embodied by the activities of the new youth overseas.

Opening the conference, Dr A.P. Treurnicht, editor of the new Pretoria Afrikaans daily Hoofstad, brought the students applauding to their feet when he urged them not to be seduced by talk of merging Afrikaans- and English-speaking people into one nation.

Dr Treurnicht declared that the Afrikaners must remain an exclusive cultural group and ' consciously discriminate in favour of their own'. They must refuse to assimilate elements which might change the identity of their people, and should remember that in order to protect the Afrikaner against what was 'foreign', a certain isolation was necessary (Rand Daily Mail, 3 July 1968).

It was not only avowed 'verkramptes' who held these views. Most prominent of those deploring the idea of cultural unity between English and Afrikaner was the rector of the University of Stellenbosch, Professor H.B. Thom, who told the annual meeting of the Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns at the end of June that the difference between English and Afrikaner was as great as the difference between the Afrikaner and the African. 'The opinion is expressed, generally by well-meaning people, that the Afrikaner and the English-speaking people in South Africa will become one and, in so doing, bring about a united nation. I am afraid, however, that this is nothing but pious, wishful thinking. The Afrikaner, through his history, has become too much an Afrikaner' (Star, 26 June 1968).

 The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Stellenbosch, Dr J.S. Gericke, addressing the F.A.K. congress in Johannesburg, warned the delegates against the new trend to 'open discussion'. Communications had made the world smaller, he said. 'Danny the Red [Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the student leader who took a prominent part in the May 1968 demonstrations in France] is just fourteen hours removed from South Africa.' To protect the youth against morally subversive influences, he too favoured the remedy of isolation. Immigration of foreign elements was also a danger, as most of them were absorbed by the English section and not by the Afrikaners. 'The best immigrant is the child [the White child, he meant, of course, and preferably the Afrikaner] born in this country,' he said (Rand Daily Mail, 4 July 1968).

At the Jeugbond congress in Klerksdorp, Professor B. Duvenage, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Potchefstroom, warned the delegates that unless the Afrikaner separated his culture and politics the South African nation might eventually 'swallow' the Afrikaner nation. The professor said that the English and the Afrikaner could cooperate inside the Nationalist Party for political purposes, but that they could not cooperate culturally because the Afrikaner wanted to maintain his own language and culture (Sunday Times, 7 July 1968).

Yet the most significant feature of these conferences was that the policy outlined, which was accepted by the overwhelming majority of the delegates, was propounded by men claiming to support the Nationalist government and the leadership of Mr Vorster. For on the issue of preserving Afrikaner exclusiveness, the differences between 'verkramptes' and 'verligtes' is more over means than ends. Vorster himself, the initiator of the 'verlig' trend, has stressed the basic need to preserve a separate Afrikaner identity. And his Minister of Education, Senator de Klerk, speaking at a Day of the Covenant celebration in Krugersdorp on 16 December 1967, said that it would conflict with existing Christian principles in South Africa if the different White races in South Africa were unified as one indistinguishable nation.

The Minister said that it was impracticable for the English and Afrikaans-speaking people to form a single nation. 'Although we could become one political nation, we could never become one cultural people' (Dagbreek, 17 December 1967).

Since its advent to power in 1948, the Nationalist Party has striven for the support of the English-speaking electorate. Two prominent English-speaking personalities. Senator A.E. Trollip and Mr F.W. Waring, were included in the cabinet for many years, to give the impression that the Nationalist Party spoke for both sections of the White population. Trollip, having reached the overripe age of seventy-four, was dropped from the cabinet in August 1968, leaving Waring as the sole English-speaking Minister. The number of English-speaking South Africans who have been induced to vote for the Nationalist Party in elections is a matter for speculation, but has never been more than a small percentage of the total. And attempts to embrace English-speaking persons within the fold of the Nationalist Party have been conspicuously unsuccessful.

One of the leading supporters of the Nationalist Party, Mr Ivor Benson, at one time talks organizer for the South African Broadcasting Corporation, wrote a letter to the Provincial Organizer of the Nationalist Party in Natal in 1962: 'In all the present circumstances he could see no possibility of the National Party, with its tight language-bound cohesion, becoming a warm political home for English-speaking people in the foreseeable future, especially for those unlucky enough to be unilingual.' Benson later became chief censor for the Smith regime in Rhodesia before retiring to private life in South Africa (Star 22 July 1968).

Another English-speaking personality who tried for eleven years to serve the Nationalist Party was Mr W.H. Jones, of Natal, at one time a member of the Party's head Provincial Committee. In a letter published in June 1964, he wrote: 'English-speaking members, other than the Ja-Broer [subservient] type, are not wanted in the party. In addition, it becomes daily more apparent that the extremist element is regaining control and that the political power rightly and justly used to obtain equality for the Afrikaner is now being used by this element to promote its own ascendancy' (Star, 22 July 1968).

Another leading English-speaking supporter of the Nationalist Party, Mr Blyth Thomspon, twice selected to represent the Nationalist Party in elections, was also eventually extruded from the Party, though he continued to work actively to support it by sponsoring a movement called the National Rally, established in Johannesburg on 9 March 1968.

Mr Thomspon said that English-speaking members of the Nationalist Party were expected to abandon their own language and culture and become absorbed in the Afrikaans community. In the course of two elections he came across elements who rejected the idea of being represented by an English-speaking person, and who even actively worked against him. 'They wanted the Nationalist Party to remain exclusively Afrikaans or non-English.' Mr Thomspon said that if the growing English-speaking support for the policy of separate development could not find acceptance on a basis of full equality inside the Nationalist Party it would have to find another platform (Sunday Times, 17 March 1968).

Thus the very force of nationalism which binds the Afrikaner people so tightly as a community in support of the Nationalist Party is at the same time the main source of division, not only between White and Black in South Africa but between English and Afrikaans-speaking Whites. Among the Whites, the Nationalists seem now in a position of guaranteed dominance through the ballot box. It is the rise of forces which cannot be controlled through the ballot box that in recent years has provided the greatest challenge to the survival of Nationalist rule.

To meet this challenge, the Nationalist government has resolved to rely mainly on force, to strengthen the army and the police so that they are capable of meeting any attack from inside or outside the country. And meanwhile the government hopes against hope that its Bantustan policy will serve to head off African nationalism and divert it into channels which are harmless to White supremacy. There is no possibility of compromise under Nationalist rule. The alternative to apartheid is integration, and to the Nationalist integration means death.

Nevertheless, the forces working for integration remain tremendously strong. Economically, White and Black in South Africa are interdependent and are becoming more so with every passing year. White supremacy, after all, depends upon the existence of Black labour; and it is Black advancement within the framework of an industrial society, Black acquisition of skills and knowledge, that lie behind the political challenge presented by Black nationalism in its various forms to White overlordship. To hold back Black advancement for as long as possible, the Nationalist government has evolved the policy of apartheid, to keep its subjects separate from one another in sealed compartments, to prohibit Blacks from acquiring skills which threaten White domination, above all to prevent unity between Black and White in any sphere. For such unity - political, social or economic - spells the ruin of White supremacy, and within that supremacy the end of Afrikaner rule. From this fear derives the fantastic apparatus of laws designed to prevent contact between Black and White at any point except in the workshop. From this fear derives in particular the ferocity with which the government has pursued all forms of multi-racial political association. As the challenge has grown, and South Africa's peoples have asserted with mounting strength their common humanity, so the Nationalist reply has become increasingly brutal - culminating in the Sabotage Act of 1962, the Ninety-day Detention Act of 1963, and the Terrorism Act of 1967, which have converted South Africa into a blatant police state. Today the South African opposition listens for the knock on the door at midnight. The security of the individual has gone. The flow of prisoners detained without trial began with a trickle - a bare twenty-seven people taken within three weeks of the gazetting of the Ninety-day Detention Act - but in the course of time became a flood.

Preparations for War

Not even the Nationalists believe that the laws they have placed upon the statute book can pacify the nation. They know that they are provoking violence, and they are preparing to meet the violence, whether from inside or outside the country. Enormous sums are being spent to bring the army and police force up to combat level.

The Nationalist government believes that in any crisis which may overtake it, it cannot rely on support from any except the other White supremacist powers of Southern Africa. The United Nations resolutions calling for the application of sanctions against South Africa may not yet have led to much in the way of practical action. But they have left the Nationalist government with no illusions. Should an attack be launched, South Africa will stand alone. The assistance which can be offered by Portugal and Southern Rhodesia is precarious - they are burdened with their own security problems. South Africa's powerful friends in the West - Britain and the United States, who are responsible for approximately seventy percent and thirteen percent respectively of the £1,500 million invested from abroad in South Africa - would hesitate to antagonize the Afro-Asian powers by coming to South Africa's aid and would prefer to operate behind some sort of United Nations screen as in the Congo. Naturally enough the Nationalists are not prepared to look to such intervention for their security. They prefer to rely on their own strength, and their own strength is considerable.

The South African police force - constantly referred to as 'our first line of defence' - is a para-military force of 31,770 men, of whom 16,755 are White, 600 Indian, 1,371 Coloured and 13,044 African (Deputy Minister of Police, House of Assembly, 23 April 1968). After the disturbances of 1960 a police reserve was created, which by 1967 numbered approximately 20,000, of whom 17,388 were White (Deputy Minister of Police, Assembly, 14 April 1967; and Senate, 5 June 1967).

The Whites in the police force are armed with every variety of modern weapon, backed by armoured cars, troop carriers, aircraft and helicopters. The non-White policemen are for the most part unarmed, and Africans in general carry only sticks and assegais. The lowest grade White policeman is superior in rank to the highest grade non-White policeman.

Since Sharpeville the police budget has been doubled - from R36 million in 1960-1 to R72.1 million in 1968. In September 1965 the Commissioner of Police, General J.M. Keevy, announced that several new mobile police units, specially trained in guerrilla warfare, had been set up in various parts of South Africa, 'ready to go to any part of the country at short notice in time of disturbances to maintain or restore order'. The Commissioner said that the units had their own weapons, equipment, two-way radios, transport and supplies, and had been trained in the use of tear-gas, water hoses and other methods of handling riots with as little loss of life as possible. In peace-time they would be able to quell any disturbance in any part of the country (Cape Times, 13 September 1965). It is no doubt this force which has been operating in Rhodesia ever since the first attacks by guerrilla fighters in August 1967 exposed the military shortcomings of the rebel Smith regime.

Most ominous for the future of South Africa has been the expansion of the Security Branch. Its head, General H. van den Bergh, announced in May 1966 that the strength of the Security Branch had been trebled in the past three years (Sunday Express, 8 May 1966). The total establishment of this special police branch is unknown, but its ramifications are widespread, and it is probably responsible for most of the activity classified under the heading 'secret services', for which R2,342,500 were budgeted in 1968 - R1,012,000 for police secret services, R830,000 for the army secret services, R500,000 for the Department of Foreign Affairs, and R500 for the Department of Bantu Administration.

Members of the Security Branch have been extensively trained in the techniques of psychological warfare, and have applied the most successful of these in their 'interrogation' centres and in the treatment of political prisoners both before and after conviction (see Chapter 10).

The Security Branch also undergo education in the science of politics, but their achievements in this sphere have not been so happy. General van den Bergh once stated, at an international symposium on communism held in Pretoria in September 1966 that he had often been asked why Jews joined communist organizations or were involved in communist-inspired sabotage. It was his personal belief, he said, 'that they became Communists because Communism was the highest form of capitalism' (Die Transvaler, 30 September 1966).

On another occasion, addressing the tenth annual conference of the Voortrekker movement at Oudtshoorn in July 1967, General van den Bergh declared that communism was furthered by self-indulgence, selfish pessimism, and 'sickly sentimentality' as shown by the Liberal Party's irresponsibility towards national problems (Rand Daily Mail, 8 July 1967).

The naivete of his politics failed to inspire even fervid young Nationalists with enthusiasm, and a talk on communism which the General was to have delivered at the University of Pretoria in May 1968 had to be called off because the audience was too small (Star, 31 May 1968).

Criticism of the Security police for their widespread intimidation and interference in legitimate political activity has been voiced not only by the parliamentary opposition, but even within the ranks of the Nationalist Party, where opponents of Prime Minister Vorster in the 'verkrampte-verligte' quarrel have found themselves the subject of Special Branch attentions.

One reason for such blunderings was advanced by Dr E.G. Malherbe, war-time Director of Military Intelligence and later Principal of Natal University, who told a meeting of the Institute of Citizenship in Cape Town in February 1968 that South African policemen, and particularly members of the Special Branch, were politically illiterate.

'As a university principal, I have had many dealings with the police and the Special [Security] Branch,' Dr Malherbe said. 'The ignorant level on which people today administer justice is constantly in evidence.' He added that on at least one occasion he had discussed communism with a Special Branch detective and had been told that communism was synonymous with equal rights for White and non-White.

'I told him that he did not know what he was talking about,' Dr Malherbe said. It was disquieting to know that officers who administered justice were so ignorant of the social and political concepts of the world and their own country (Star, 9 February 1968).

Yet if the police do not enjoy the confidence of their opponents they constantly win plaudits from the government. Perhaps this is not surprising, for General van den Bergh and Mr Vorster were interned together during the Second World War. Mr Vorster was at that time a leading figure in the Ossewa Brandwag. Van den Bergh, a member of the police but not yet commissioned, had also been accused of being a member of the Ossewa Brandwag, a charge which he has constantly denied - though for friendship's sake he gave the O.B. salute at the funeral of its old chief, Dr van Rensburg, in 1966.

On 30 September 1968, Mr Vorster announced the appointment of General van den Bergh as security officer to the Prime Minister, responsible not to the Chief of Police but to the Prime Minister himself. Promoted to full general, Van den Bergh was given complete command over the intelligence services, not only of the police, but also of the army, the air force, and the navy. In the words of the Sunday Times, General van den Bergh 'has become the second most powerful man in State service in South Africa - second only to Mr Vorster himself' (6 October 1968). Total expenditure on security services in the 1969 Budget was more than R5,300,000.

In 1960-1, the year of Sharpeville, the government allocation for defence was only R44 million. The following year it was still only R72 million. But then followed the series of 'great leaps forward' in military expenditure.

Year Defence Budget 1962--3 R129 million 1963--4 R157 million 1964--5 R210 million 1965--6 R229 million 1966--7 R255 million 1967--8 R253 million 1968--9 R272 million

This makes a total of 1,621 million Rand allocated to defence in the last nine years - a staggering amount by any standards. Add to this the doubling of the police allocation in the same period, and one can understand the reliance which the South African government is placing on force in the solution of its internal and external problems. Few countries in the world today can afford, as South Africa does, to allocate more than one fifth of its total budgetary expenditure to national security. But then the object is plain.

As Dr P.G.J. Koornhof, former secretary of the Broederbond and in August 1968 appointed Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration, said in a speech to the House of Assembly in June 1968:

Supremacy and integration are like oil and water; they do not mix and they will never mix.... We have the courage of our convictions and we say that we stand for white supremacy in the white areas and that we shall do so for all time to come and that we shall maintain and defend it by force (Hansard, 6 June 1968, col. 6683).

The same point was stressed by the then Minister of Defence, Mr J. Fouche, now State President, who in a speech at Welkom, in September 1965, said that South Africa faced the greatest challenge in its history. The great question was whether in the face of world opinion she could maintain White civilization. He had every respect for the rule of law, but South Africa meant more than the rule of law, and if it were necessary to overstep the rule of law now and again to save South Africa, he was prepared to do it (Star, 18 September 1965).

It is for this that South Africa is spending these enormous sums of money. And the sums are enormous because South Africa believes that, in the event of any military conflict in Africa, she will have to stand her ground alone. She also envisages that the nature of any such conflict will be racial; and for this reason the composition of the defence force, unlike that of the police force, is almost entirely White, with non-Whites in auxiliary services, mostly as unarmed labourers. The Permanent force or standing army increased from 7,721 in 1961 to 17,276 in 1967. According to the estimates of expenditure, by the end of March 1967 the army numbered 7,559; the air force, 4,915; and the navy, 3,193; in addition, there were 2,736 administrative personnel; 592 other personnel; 1,609 in auxiliary services; and 7,293 non-White labourers.

Behind the army stands the Citizen Force, now based on compulsory military training for all White youths on reaching the age of seventeen. According to a statement by the Minister of Defence, in answer to a question in the House of Assembly on 13 February 1969, a total of 40,976 became liable for military service for the first time during 1967, with a further 19,544 liable after deferment. Exemptions for medical and other reasons were granted to 5,731, while the training of 22,267 was deferred. As a result, 32,522 were called up for training in 1967: 17,964 in the army; 3,066 in the air force; 1,430 in the navy; and 10,062 in the commandos. Under the Defence Amendment Act of 1967, the minimum period of training for Citizen Force youths is one year; liability for training in the Citizen Force is for ten years, and in the commandos for twenty years.

The commandos consist not only of recruits but also of volunteers and able-bodied citizens who were not previously members of the Permanent Force or the Citizen Force or the reserves. At a Republic Day Festival in Witbank in June 1968, the Minister of Defence, Mr P. W. Botha, announced that the commando units were to be organized on a new basis, and must be prepared for ' conventional as well as unconventional methods of warfare'. The offensive element in the commandos would consist mostly of those who, having completed their basic training, took an intensive course at a commando school. The more experienced men would defend vulnerable and important areas. The young group would include a specialized company which would assume the role of scouts or guides able to move about their area by day or night. The group would include snipers, dog handlers, engineers and mounted units (Rand Daily Mail, 1 June, 1968). There is also an air commando force comprising units made up of private pilots and planes commissioned in times of emergency or war. The establishment of twelve squadrons was authorized in 1964, and initially the air commando had 249 aircraft.

The head of the South African Defence Force is General R.C. Hiemstra, a man who resigned from the South African forces in 1941 because he refused to take the oath to fight the enemy outside South Africa's borders. He has claimed that South Africa could place in the field at a moment's notice 100,000 trained men, plus up to 100,000 commandos. Judging by South Africa's performance in two world wars, this is by no means an overestimate and represents a powerful, trained and disciplined fighting force.

The army equipment includes Sherman, Comet and Centurion tanks; Ferret and Panhard armoured cars; Bofor and Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns; and Green Archer and Fledermans radar equipment, which provides a screen for the whole country.

The navy has about thirty-five ships, ranging from destroyers to minesweepers and seaward defence motor launches. In 1967 three Daphne class submarines were ordered from France. The main naval base is Simonstown, now operated wholly by South African personnel; a second base at Durban is being rapidly expanded.

The Simonstown Agreement, under which Britain had the right to use the facilities of the base in any war, even if South Africa herself was not involved, was repudiated by the South African Defence Minister in a statement to the House of Assembly on 20 February 1968. In fact, the Agreement itself had been informal, consisting of no more than an exchange of correspondence between the two governments in 1955. Botha's statement made clear that in future Britain could rely on the use of the Simonstown naval base and air facilities not as a matter of right or agreement, but only 'if we deemed it in the interests of South Africa to make them available'.

As a substitute for 'British protection', Mr Botha announced in the Assembly a few months later, South Africa had taken part in an international conference, 'at service level', with friendly nations of the southern hemisphere about the joint protection of sea routes. He was awaiting reaction from the various governments concerned, and 'I do not want to say more about this matter today' (Hansard, 27 May 1968). Speculation about South Africa's new sea defence partners has ranged from Brazil to Australia, but no further official information has been forthcoming.

The air force is equipped with the most modern planes, including Sabre Mk 6 interceptors; Mirage super-sonic jet strike fighter bombers, Mirage intruder fighters and Mirage jet reconnaissance planes; Canberra B-12 light bombers; Shackleton sea reconnaissance aircraft; Buccaneer low-level naval strike bombers; Noord Transvaal troop-carriers; Lockheed Hercules transport aircraft; Cessna Skywagon jet reconnaissance aircraft; Vampires, Viscounts, Skymasters; the Mystere 205 fitted with Hawker Siddeley 125 engines; and a large number of Harvard aircraft, capable of being used as trainers or light bombers. The force also includes Super-Frelon, Alouette, Westland Wasp and Sikorsky helicopters.

When in 1963 the United Nations Security Council called on Tear-gas and rockets of various types, both anti-tank and air-to-air, are also manufactured in these factories. In 1963 a National Institute for Rocket Research was established, with the aim of producing a guided ground-to-air missile and other weapons.

In cooperation with the Afrikaner finance and industrial house Bonuskor, the government in 1965 established the Atlas Aircraft Corporation, to produce under licence the Italian designed Macchi M.B.326, now flying in the South African Air Force under the name Impala. The Atlas Corporation has, since, also produced a light monoplane known as the RSA 200, and hopes eventually to design and produce an entirely South African aircraft.

South Africa is also making a great local effort in the sphere of shipping, for both military and commercial purposes. Speaking in August 196% at a reception in Durban after the launching of the 4,500-ton Tugela, the largest ship built in South Africa, the Minister of Finance, Dr Diederichs, said that the strategic importance of South Africa had vastly increased since the closing of the Suez canal after the Arab-Israeli war of June 1967. If South Africa wanted to defend herself, 'we must build more ships, and we must probably consider building more sophisticated ships which we can use in fighting against aggressors.' The Minister disclosed that R2,600,000 in loans had been given by the government to ship buyers, and a further R800,000 paid out to shipbuilders, to help South Africa towards self-sufficiency.

Finally, to guarantee South Africa's future supplies of armaments in the face of threatened boycotts, the government introduced during the 1968 session of Parliament an Armaments Development and Production Bill, providing for the establishment of a massive State-owned armaments industry with an initial share capital of R100 million. The corporation will take over and expand the undertakings of the Armaments Board, will establish new undertakings, and will be empowered to manufacture arms and ammunition for export and for supply to the general public. It will also have power to assist other armaments firms. Introducing the Bill in the Assembly, the Minister said that South Africa would be able to avoid the costs of initial research by cooperating with overseas and local concerns, from whom it had received numerous approaches to establish joint armament factories in South Africa (Hansard, 8 May 1968).

In addition to conventional methods of warfare, South Africa has been reported at various times to be conducting research into unconventional methods, including atomic weapons, various types of nerve and poison gases, and bacteriological warfare, in conjunction with a number of overseas countries. Defence research, conducted under the auspices of the Defence Research Council established in 1966, is naturally classified, and it is an offence in South Africa to publish any unauthorized information about defence matters, including atomic research and even the production and sale of uranium, so that accurate information is extremely hard to obtain.

Prominent figures in South African political life have advocated the development of atomic weapons. Dr Andries Visser, a member of the South African Atomic Energy Board, declared some years ago that South Africa should begin manufacturing atom bombs for use against 'loud mouthed Afro-Asian states'. Any intention to do so was denied at the time by the Chairman of the Board, but an unnamed South African scientist was quoted as saying: 'It is within the bounds of our resources to make an atom bomb' (Rand Daily Mail, 12 January 1962).

Two years later Nationalist front-bencher Mr S. F. Froneman declared in the House of Assembly that South Africa should consider arming himself with ballistic missiles and atomic weapons, to deter attempts at armed intervention by organizations like the United Nations (Hansard, 23 July 1964).

Both East Germany and the Soviet Union have alleged that South Africa and West Germany have entered into a secret treaty for the production of nuclear weapons, and have cited the names of West German nuclear and rocket scientists who are working in South Africa. South Africa produces approximately twenty percent of the Western world's uranium and possesses one of the world's largest beds of uranium ores. She has an atomic reactor in operation at Pelindaba and is planning a second. The annual report of the Atomic Energy Board in 1967 disclosed 'exciting' advances on the nuclear front, though the only details specified were in connexion with the development of nuclear power stations and the use of radio-isotopes in medicine.

Some support is lent to the theory that West Germany is working on the production of atomic weapons by her opposition to the proposed U.N. treaty on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Giving the federal government's reasons for its stand, Prime Minister Kiesinger stated in a TV interview on 17 February 1967:

Occasionally I am being asked: what is new about that? We have already given up our claim to atomic weapons?The matter is like this: In the treaty on the West European Union we have waived our claim to produce atomic weapons on our own territory. In this new treaty one would disclaim far more, i.e. the somewhat theoretical contingency of producing atomic weapons on the territory of other countries or producing them in co-operation with these other countries or this other country.

Strauss, West German Minister of Defence and Atomic Science, later Finance Minister, has frequently visited South Africa (Konkret, Hamburg, June 1967).

Both West Germany and South Africa have, however, flatly denied the existence of any such treaty. When the charge was again raised by Ghana and Kenya, at the U.N. General Assembly in May 1968, the South African delegate, Mr Matthys Botha, took the floor to repeat the denial. South Africa had explained at length in the past, he said, that she was not technologically capable of manufacturing nuclear weapons. He was sick and tired of these allegations and would not bother to reply to them in future (Rand Daily Mail, 9 May 1968).

In 1965 top United States nuclear research officials were quoted as saying South Africa had the technical capacity to develop a nuclear weapon (Rand Daily Mail, 18 February 1965).

And again in 1967, a United States nuclear engineer, Mr Edward Pandorf, who was one of the scientists concerned in building the United States nuclear-powered submarine SeaWolf, interviewed in Salisbury, Rhodesia, while on a fact finding tour, said that 'if South Africa had spent the necessary money on equipment and the production of enriched uranium 235 or plutonium, he could see no reason why it could not have produced nuclear weapons' (Star, 27 March 1967).

In fact, the Atomic Energy Board's report of 1967 stated that between 1959 and 1966 South Africa had spent a total of R18,500,000 on nuclear research. Of this sum, more than a quarter was spent in 1966 (Star, June 1967).

The chairman of the South African Atomic Energy Board, Dr A.J.A. Roux, said in Pretoria in April 1968 that 'South Africa enjoyed cooperation in the field of nuclear energy with many Western countries, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom'. He was announcing the visit of a group of four scientists from the Portuguese Atomic Energy Commission to inspect South Africa's nuclear research and development programme.

'The visit of the Portuguese nuclear scientists should be seen as one of the steps toward more intimate co-operation between Portugal and South Africa in the field of nuclear science', said Dr Roux (Rand Daily Mail, 17 April 1968).

One week later the Johannesburg Star reported that 'Europe's top nuclear armament chief', Mr Maurice Belpomme, head of the R150 million French Sodeteg concern, was on a five-day visit to South Africa, 'much of it cloaked in stringent secrecy'. The Star added that Sodeteg 'is closely involved in the design, testing and building of nuclear warheads for France's atomic "Force de Frappe", and [which] has played a major role in the Sahara and Pacific atomic testing sites. The concern has also commissioned the building of missile test ranges and several satellite tracking stations, among them the Paardefontein French tracking station near Pretoria.' Mr Belpomrne said that he was scheduled to have discussions with the South African Atomic Energy Board, the Munitions Production Board, the Provincial Administration and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, but declined to discuss his interest in South African missile development. 'You will understand that is strictly classified,' he said (Star, 24 April 1968) .

South Africa is also conducting experiments in cooperation with the United States, at a huge laboratory 11,000 feet under ground in the old E.R.P.M. mine at Boksburg. The purpose of the experiments is officially described as the investigation of the nature of the neutrino, a particle with no mass or electric charge which travels at the speed of light and has 'astounding' powers of penetration (Star 30 November 1967 and 8 December 1967) Dr A.J.A. Roux announced in a radio broadcast in June 1968 that 'South Africa will soon be able to enjoy the major benefit offered by nuclear energy - cheap and abundant electrical power' (Star, 10 June 1968). Whether she will also soon be in possession of atomic weapons may still be a matter of speculation; but the bomb might well appear to promise South Africa dominance in a continent which she fears, and a standing in international affairs which she does not rate at present. It would be in line with present government policy to make South Africa self-sufficient in every possible sphere, so that she may be invulnerable to outside pressure.

The government's greatest fear has been that it will have to meet an attack on all fronts at once, launched by both internal and external forces. With this in view, police command boundaries have been redefined to coincide with the army commands, and a high degree of cooperation has been built up between the army and the police force. Both military and police units were used in the suppress the Pondo revolt in 1960 and 1961, while army and naval units took part in patrolling the Cape Peninsula during the disturbances of March 1960. Army and air force units have been assisting the police against guerrillas in Rhodesia since August 1967.

The Algerian war has provided, in the government's view, an example of the sort of warfare that South Africa must expect, a combination of internal insurrection and aggression from beyond the borders of the country. 'A re-appreciation of the situation and a careful study of events in Algeria have shown that the possible major task for the South African Defence Force is likely to be one of conventional warfare against lightly armed forces of aggression,' said the Minister of Defence, Mr Erasmus, in November 1959. 'Attacks by subversive elements can best be beaten off by fast, lightly armed security forces.' A military mission was sent to Algeria to study the methods adopted by the French in the course of their campaigns there.

A key role in the Algeria struggle was played by Tunisia, used as a base by the Algerian Army of Liberation and immune from reprisals by the French. To prevent such a situation from developing in southern and central Africa, the government has taken steps to seal off all the frontiers, especially those common to the former protectorates - Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland. Between fifty and a hundred police control posts have been erected to prevent the illegal entry of Africans into the Republic and the flight of refugees into the outside world. A helicopter patrol operates continuously. A considerable section of the border has been fenced. Army camps have been set up in the Transvaal at Zeerust and Middelburg, covering the borders with Botswana, Rhodesia and Swaziland. Military airfields capable of handling the heaviest planes have been opened in the Transvaal and in the Caprivi Strip. During 1968 extensive army exercises were carried out in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, 'to provide training in the tracking down and extermination of terrorist and subversive elements' (Star, 10 September 1968).

Chief of the South African Army and G.O.C. Joint Combat Forces, General C. Alan Fraser, was appointed in 1967 because of his expert knowledge of 'counter-insurgency measures' on which he had written a treatise (Sunday Express, 5 November 1967). In an address to a symposium on defence held at Potchefstroom University in August 1968, he showed that he had carefully considered the nature of the task which confronted him. Military might, he said, was 'quite useless' in a war against revolutionary insurgents if the government did not have the confidence of the people amongst whom it was fighting. A revolutionary war was a political war, involving twenty percent military action and eighty percent political action.

The failure to recognise this is bound to lead ultimately to failure in countering and defeating the insurgent whose primary task is to gain the support of the people. ... Victory can be obtained by a government only by retaining and, if temporarily lost, by recapturing the support of the masses -and by the complete destruction of the insurgent organisation and the eradication of its influence upon the people.

Basic to the exercise of political power was the tenet that there was always an active minority for a cause, an active minority against it, and an uncommitted majority. 'For ultimate victory it is necessary to obtain the support of the neutral or uncommitted majority. The objective for both sides in a revolutionary war is, thus, the population itself' (Star, 31 August 1968).

 General Fraser's attitude is a remarkable example of the new expertise applied by the South African authorities to political and military problems. Basic Nationalist attitudes and policies may not have changed over the years, but the form of their expression certainly has. It is only five years since, in his 1963 New Year message, Dr Verwoerd referred contemptuously to the 'ducktail' nations of Africa who dared to criticize apartheid and, while unable to maintain stability in their own countries, worked for the downfall of the only stable power in Africa. Similarly, the former Foreign Minister Eric Louw, after the summit meeting of independent African states at Addis Ababa in May 1963, referred to the participants as 'burn and beggar' nations whose resolutions he dismissed with contempt.

The Nationalist laager is still intact. But its equipment has been modernized. And at the same time, developments in the outside world, in Africa and in South Africa itself have slowly over the years encouraged the development of a strong outward drive. The transfer of political power from the metropolitan countries to the colonies in the post-war period is denounced as a betrayal of the White man and an encouragement to the forces of barbarism. In their more megalomaniac moments, the Nationalists see themselves as the saviours of Western (i.e. White) civilization from the menace represented by the advance of the Afro-Asian peoples to independence and nationhood. Appeals are constantly made to White South Africans to remember their destiny, not only in relation to the affairs of their own country, but in the world at large.

Prime Minister Vorster, opening South Africa's largest power station at Camden near Ermelo in October 1967, said that South Africa was destined to be the leader in Africa; she had the skill, the ability and the initiative for it. 'Time is irrevocably on our side, and the further time progresses the more will South Africa's value be realized and appreciated.' Tremendous injustice had been done to Africa by giving underdeveloped countries world status in politics when they had only reached the crawling stage (Star, 12 October 1967).

In an interview with the American journal U.S. News and World Report, Vorster stressed that South Africa wanted good relations with all the states of Southern Africa, White as well as Black.

We do not at all fear these developments - the establishment of African governments in those states. It is a natural development as far as we are concerned. ... We want to work with them as independent black states, to their advantage and to our advantage. ... We wish to avoid the dangers of neo-colonialism in any pattern of assistance which may be agreed upon. ...

In many respects we have, with respect to much of Africa south of the Sahara, a responsibility which the United States has undertaken on a much larger scale with respect to the underdeveloped areas of the world as a whole. Although we do not publicise it, we are already doing quite a lot in this field (14 November 1966).

Vorster has in recent times returned to this theme again and again, making clear that the main preoccupation of the South African Government is with its so-called 'outward' policy towards the rest of Africa. Addressing his constituents in the Nigel Town Hall on 2 November 1968, Vorster struck what the Press reported as 'a note of clear defiance': 'We are of Africa, we understand Africa ... and nothing is going to prevent us from becoming the leaders of Africa in every field.' Referring to the growing interest trade missions from overseas were taking in South Africa, Vorster said this was because they realized that they were dealing with a state that was going to become the leader of Africa. They realized that development must come to Africa and that this development would be led by South Africa.

As for the Black states of Africa, Vorster said: 'They, ladies and gentlemen, will accept that position. They will accept it for this very simple reason ... that we are prepared to play our part as part of Africa, that we are prepared to play our part to develop Africa because, like them, we are part of Africa' (Star 4 November 1968).

Such remarks, directed towards a United States audience, might be greeted with understanding, if not sympathy, by the journal's readers. But in relation to Africa they disclose an imperialist appetite which can only be compared with the vision which drove a Cecil Rhodes to attempt the consolidation of British power from the Cape to Cairo. Nor is it only Vorster who possesses this 'vision'. In a Day of the Covenant gathering at Bloemfontein in 1967, the Minister of Finance, Dr Diederichs, warned the world that if the country's Whites were defeated, it would be the end of Western influence in South Africa. Further, the West would not be just poorer; it would lose its access to Africa.

Dr Diederichs declared: 'We are the bearers of the values that made the West great. We are Europe in Africa.' (Sunday Express, 17 December 1967).

In the eyes of the two leading members of the Nationalist cabinet, South Africa is both Europe and America in Africa. Is this merely a delusion of grandeur - or a threat of racial conflict on a continental scale which might ultimately involve the great powers themselves and thus lead towards the outbreak of a third world war?

South Africa is today in a position of economic dominance on the African continent which gives her the power to achieve what were only dreams at the turn of the century. She is the only developed country in Africa, by United Nations economic criteria, generating within her own borders almost thirty percent of the continent's total income. She produces forty-three percent of the mineral production of all Africa; twice as much electricity and six times as much steel as the rest of the continent combined.

The enormous increase in the Republic's national income since the end of the First World War has been due largely to the development of secondary industry, which today constitutes just under thirty percent of the total, or more than mining and agriculture combined. Whereas in 1924-5 the gross output of manufacturing industry was only R122 million Rand, by 1963 it had risen to R3,519 million (The South African Economy, Houghton, p. 253). The Bureau of Statistics reported in May 1968 that South Africa's manufacturing industry was continuing to expand at the rate of eight percent a year, and reported that the total value of manufactured goods sold in 1967 was R5,753 million - an increase of R428 million over 1966.

Side by side with this increase in production has gone an increase in exports. 'We can certainly claim that at no other time in its history has South Africa experienced quite such a remarkable growth and diversification of its export trade as in the past five years,' said the Minister of Economic Affairs, Mr J.F.W. Haak, in an address to a banquet of the South African Foreign Trade organization in August 1968. The Minister said that the growth between 1963 and 1967 had been nearly thirty-six percent from R996 million to the record figure of R1,353 million (Star weekly, 31 August 1968).

South Africa's main trading partner is still Britain, which in 1967 took 32 4 percent of South Africa's exports and provided 26 percent of her imports. At the same time, the 1967 figures show that the Nationalist government's policy of diversifying its trade outlets is beginning to take effect. Exports to Asia almost doubled between 1966 and 1967 - rising from R106.8 million to R204.1 million. South African exports to Africa in 1967 totalled R225.4 million, an increase of 14.8 percent on the figure for 1966 and double the figure for 1964 of R113.8 million.

The need for new export markets outside the country arises from the basic instability of the South African economy. The Republic may not be able to depend much longer on its natural resources, especially gold and diamonds, to balance its trade deficit. Mr Harry Oppenheimer, Chairman of De Beers, has estimated that diamond mining in South Africa may come to an end in another twenty years (Sunday Times, 10 April 1966). The President of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Mr V.H. Simmons, warned the annual meeting of the Exchange on 18 May 1967 that South Africa's gold mines might close within thirty years if the gold price remained fixed. On the same day, the President of the Chamber of Mines, Mr R.S. Cooke, endorsed the warning. Both men made it clear that the future of the country lay with the expansion of manufacturing industry.

However, the more goods that South African industry produces, the more it has to sell. The home market is too narrow for the purpose, since the African share of the national income is so low (between twenty and twenty-three percent of the total); and its purchasing power even lower (between seventeen and eighteen percent of the total). With government policy restricting both productivity and any increase in the purchasing power of the African people, the need for foreign markets becomes all the greater.

But if South African industry is to find outlets for its products, the pattern of trade must change. The bulk of South Africa's exports to her traditional trading partners in Europe and America consists of raw materials and the products of primary industries; only between six and ten percent consists of manufactured goods. On the other hand, three quarters of South Africa's trade with underdeveloped countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America involves the products of manufacturing industry. With manufactured goods and machinery in 1967 constituting thirty percent of South Africa's export total, an increase of fifty percent over 1966, industrialists are more and more looking to Africa as the natural outlet for their products.

The concept of a southern African common market dominated by South Africa is not new. It was repeatedly invoked by Dr Verwoerd while he was premier; but it has come into yet greater prominence as part of the so-called 'outward policy' pursued by Mr Vorster since his advent to office. Early in the 1967 session of the South African Parliament, the House of Assembly passed a private Member's motion that 'this House approves the policy pursued by the government for friendly coexistence and fruitful cooperation with countries in Africa, with special emphasis on the Republic's ability to contribute to economic and technical development and the raising of the standard of living in Africa '. During the debate, the South African Foreign Minister, Dr Hilgard Muller, stated, as he has done regularly ever since, that he believed the hostile attitude of certain African states towards South Africa would gradually disappear, with more and more of them eventually accepting South Africa's hand of friendship.

Addressing a students' symposium in Stellenbosch on 17 May, Mr Vorster said that 'separate development was not only a policy which would ensure a place in the sun for the different nations of different colours living together in South Africa, but it would make it possible for the Republic to take the lead in Africa.... As the rest of Africa became disillusioned, as they would to an increasing degree, they would turn their eyes towards South Africa' (Rand Daily Mail, 8 May 1967).

The countries which are regarded by the Nationalist government as naturally falling within the southern African commonwealth are South-West Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland, Angola, Mocambique, Rhodesia, Malawi and Zambia (the latter being included because, despite President Kaunda's hostility to apartheid, its economy is dominated by South African finance).

The total external trade for the whole region totalled R4,755 million in 1964. South Africa enjoys the lion's share of this trade - R2,804 million, or almost two thirds of the total. The intra-regional trade of the various countries in southern Africa, however, amounts to only about one third of the total; the bulk of the remaining trade is done with the metropolitan countries overseas. The total of intra-regional trade in 1964 was R1,102; exports to the rest of the world totalled R1,697 million, and imports R1,956 million. South Africa exported goods worth R275 million to other members of the region, and R863 million to the rest of the world; her imports were R146 million and R1,519 million respectively. (The apparent discrepancy between the figures for South African exports quoted here and on page 428 is due to the fact that, in the latter case, South African trade with South-West Africa and the former Protectorates of Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland is excluded from the figure for trade with Africa as a whole.)

It is thus clear that South Africa, with a national income totalling eighty percent of the total for the whole area, is in a powerful position to extend her economic penetration of the entire region. (Statistics compiled by an African Institute economist, E. van der Merwe, and quoted in the Johannesburg Star of 7 April 1967; Professor J.A. Lombard in an article 'Economic Co-operation in Southern Africa', published in the journal Tegnikon, S.A. Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, March 1967; and Anthony Davenport in Tempo, journal of the South African Foundation, April 1967.)South Africa's power in relation to the other countries of southern Africa has also been greatly strengthened by the withdrawal of Britain from the former High Commission Territories of Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland; by the economic breach between Britain and Rhodesia; and by the outbreaks of guerrilla warfare in the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mocambique. As the ties between southern Africa and Europe are weakened, South Africa prepares to take over the political and economic burdens shouldered by the metropolitan countries.

ZAMBIA AND RHODESIA

The bulk of South African trade with the southern African bloc is with Rhodesia and Zambia; the volume of her trade with what is called 'Black Africa' constitutes only ten percent of the total. And it is one of the consequences of Smith's unilateral declaration of independence that Rhodesia and Zambia have had to turn to South Africa for goods formerly obtained from Britain and Rhodesia respectively. According to Zambian trade figures, South Africa's exports to Zambia more than doubled over the previous four years and in 1967 reached the record total of R72 million, compared with R27.5 million in 1964. South Africa's gain was at the expense of Rhodesia, whose trading relationship with Zambia showed the opposite pattern. Rhodesia, once Zambia's leading supplier, exported to Zambia in 1967 goods worth R27.5 million, as against R56,5 million in 1964. Zambia's imports from Britain in 1967 were worth R54,4 million, which meant that South Africa replaced first Rhodesia and then Britain as Zambia's chief supplier (Star, 4 April and 10 August 1968). The extent of trade between Rhodesia and South Africa since U.D.I. is largely a matter of speculation, as neither side has been willing to publish detailed statistics. South Africa, Malawi, and Moçambique have not replied to United Nations requests for data on the extent to which sanctions have been applied to Rhodesia. The Smith regime claimed that exports in 1967 earned R201 million compared with R329 million in 1965, but again gave no details. A key to the situation may be obtained, however, from a news item that, since the Rhodesia-South Africa trade agreement was signed in Salisbury on 1 December 1964, and particularly since Rhodesia assumed independence, exports of clothing to South Africa have rocketed from a paltry R7 million to more than R60 million (Sunday Express, 31 March 1968). The flood of imports from Rhodesia, in fact, forced the South African government to modify the 'free entry' of Rhodesian-made clothing into the Republic.

South African exports and re-exports to Rhodesia naturally remain a close secret; but there is little doubt that it is South African support on the financial, trade, and military fronts that has enabled the Smith regime to survive the effect of sanctions and guerrilla warfare. This was acknowledged by the Rhodesian Minister of Justice, Law and Order, Mr Lardner-Burke, at a meeting in Umtali in September 1967: 'As Rhodesians we will let South Africa know that we will never let them down. We can never say thank you enough for what South Africa has done since U.D.I.' (Sunday Times, 10 September 1967).

But the effect of South African 'aid' has been to convert Rhodesia from a British colony to a South African dependency. South Africa has more capital invested in Rhodesia - estimated variously at between £150 million and £200 million - than Britain herself. And we have it on the authority of the President of the Salisbury Chamber of Commerce, Mr Cecil Wright, that 'South Africa will become Rhodesia's principal future source of development capital, and she is capable of exploiting the investment opportunities which we can provide even if only on a small scale to begin with.' Mr Wright, who was addressing the 1967 annual meeting of the Chamber, backed the idea of a Southern African Common Market. 'I personally believe our future lies as a member of a strong southern African economic unit under the umbrella of South Africa' (Star, 19 September 1967).

Mr N. Cambitzis, Chairman of the Rhodesian Industrial Development Corporation, has stressed that the industrial economies of the two countries are at the moment in competition - a competition which Rhodesia must inevitably lose because of the greater strength of the South African economy, whose gross domestic product is ten times that of Rhodesia's. His vision of future economic relations between the two countries sees Rhodesia in a position of total subservience to South Africa.

Mr Cambitzis has said that the broad economic result of a gradual approach to some southern African common market would see Rhodesia as a growing supplier of agricultural produce and minerals, raw and processed, to South Africa. With exceptions in both directions, South Africa in turn would supply more sophisticated manufactures to Rhodesia (Financial Gazette, 28 April 1967).

Significantly, the first sizeable investment of private capital in Rhodesia since U.D.I. took place in October 1967, when the Anglo-American Corporation's Rhodesian subsidiary proposed spending £10 million on the development of nickel deposits. Eight months later South Africa's General Mining and Finance Corporation and the Mining Promotion Corporation of Rhodesia announced the investment of £I million on a mining development project in the Perrhalonga Valley. The investment pattern was already beginning to follow the lines forecast by the experts.

An earlier report by a team of Financial Gazette investigators indicated that Rhodesian businessmen as a group were seeking means of closer cooperation with South Africa. They envisaged an interconnected banking system, with the two central banks working in cooperation. Indeed, the paper reported, Rhodesia was preparing a change-over to a decimal system of currency linked with the South African Rand, and coins had already been pressed. The Rhodesian equivalent of the Rand would be called a Rhode.

Rhodesian dependence on South Africa is so great, comments Eschel Rhoodie in his book The Third Africa, that 'whether a Black, mixed or White government is in power would really be immaterial, for in the long run close cooperation with its southern neighbour (and Mozambique) is the only certain formula for sustained economic growth and political stability in Rhodesia' . This may very well be the reason for South Africa's ambivalent attitude towards U.D.I. Both Verwoerd and Vorster have been luke-warm about Rhodesian independence; both have advised Smith to seek agreement with Britain. Both have probably believed that White Rhodesia is too weak to survive indefinitely against the pressures building up against it, and while prepared to keep Smith going as long as possible, envisage without undue dismay the possibility of a Black majority government which they would be able to keep in its place just as they have done with Black governments in the former British Protectorates and in Malawi.

LESOTHO, BOTSWANA, SWAZILAND AND SOUTH-WEST AFRICA

These four territories are already in customs union with South Africa, and no official trade figures are available as goods pass freely across the frontiers. Figures calculated by the Africa Institute economist Dr G. Leistner, and published in Tegnikon in March 1967, however, give the following trade pattern for 1964:

Exports to Imports from South Africa Rest of the World South Africa Rest of the World Botswana R4,069,000 R6,104,000 R4,665,000 R4,664,000 Lesotho R4,940,000 R260,000 R15,210,000 R1,690,000 Swaziland R9,759,000 R12,896,000 R15,770,000 R3,230,000 South-West Africa R75,483,000 R87,390,000 R126,000,000 R14,000,000

South-West Africa is now practically a fifth province of South Africa, with its White citizens enjoying representation in the South African Parliament. During the 1968 session of the South African Parliament, indeed, the Vorster government announced measures for bringing about even greater central political control of South-West Africa by South Africa, and for greater coordination of the economies of the two territories. Despite the United Nations General Assembly's 1966 resolution, transferring legal responsibility for the mandate from South Africa to itself, the U.N. has so far shown itself powerless to prevent this process of amalgamation.

The South African government is already in customs union with the three former British Protectorates, and pays a fixed percentage of the revenue to each. In all three territories before independence, the general law of South Africa prevailed; South African buses, rail services and currency were used; and South African citizens occupied leading positions in administration. In Basutoland and Swaziland, South Africa also controlled the postal services. ' The net effect was to make the Territories total captives of the South African economy . . .' (Richard P. Stevens, Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland, Pall Mall Press, p. 4). With minor modifications, these words still apply to South Africa's relationships with independent Swaziland, Botswana and Lesotho. If anything, the withdrawal of Britain has placed these territories even more at South Africa's mercy than they were before.

The combined national income of the three territories has been estimated at approximately one percent of South Africa's, and South Africa is for each of them the most important trade market. Lesotho is an enclave totally enclosed by South Africa; Swaziland is wedged between South Africa and Mocambique; and Botswana has a common border of approximately one mile with Zambia, with the rest of her territory enclosed by Rhodesia, South Africa and South-West Africa.

As a result, all three territories have been not merely influenced but strongly pressurized by the South African government, and forced into various attitudes of cooperation. Addressing the South African-German Chamber of Trade and Industry in May 1967, Dr G.S.J. Kuschke, Managing Director of the South African Industrial Development Corporation, stated bluntly: 'Without South Africa's willingness to collaborate, no foundations whatsoever for economic development can be laid by certain countries in southern Africa. Our willingness to collaborate to the full must be gauged from what we are already doing towards the development of the Bantu states within our borders' (Star, 4 May 1967).

Other civil servants seconded from South Africa are today functioning as Lesotho's chief electoral officer, in charge of arrangements for the next general election; the 'adviser' to the Information Department; the principal Assistant Secretary for Health; and the chief accountant in the Post Office Savings Bank.

The Managing Director of the Lesotho National Development Corporation has been drafted from the Rembrandt organization in South Africa, while the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut has supplied the Lesotho Commissioner for Commerce, Industry and Tourism. Medical teams fly in for week-end duties under the auspices of the Rupert Group.

The South African government has provided a wool inspector and a husbandry officer, as well as a R50,000 loan for improvements to the Lesotho police force; the South African Railways are to spend R50,000 on improvements at Maseru railway station; ESCOM is supplying electric power (at a price); and discussions are taking place on the financing of the Oxbow Dam scheme, for so long the dream of Lesotho's planned economic development.

In the hope of attracting further private investment, Chief Leabua has advocated abandoning the traditional system of land tenure, which forbids the alienation of land; and in July 1968 two Lesotho cabinet ministers who were visiting Pretoria were reported to have asked for Lesotho's inclusion in the South African border industries scheme. One of them, Lesotho's Health Minister, Chief Mota, said: 'The South African government's border industries policy is very important to Lesotho, and we hope it will soon be extended to our borders with South Africa.' The Lesotho Minister of Works, Chief Letsie, said: ' We want South Africa to encourage industrialists to build close to our borders, so that family ties need not be broken through workers having to travel hundreds of miles to seek jobs' (Sunday Express, 21 July 1968).

Could a country go further in asking openly to be converted to the status of a South African Bantustan?

Nor has the contribution come only from the South African side. In return for favours granted or to come, Leabua has used strong-arm methods to smash the opposition and dominate the King; he has cracked down on political refugees and generally purged his country to comply with South Africa's demand that it should never be used as a springboard for guerrilla attacks on the Republic. His improved police force has launched regular raids on the South African-Lesotho border, to stop cattle rustling - a step hailed by the South African Deputy Minister of Police, Mr S.L. Muller, as a great contribution to improving relations between the people of the two countries (Star, 10 May 1967). It is to be doubted, however, whether the hundreds of Lesotho citizens who have been arrested in such raids share these sentiments. At the time of writing, Leabua was reported to be drafting a Suppression of Communism Act on the South African pattern to draw the teeth of the opposition (Star, 29 October 1968).

Yet Lesotho is so poor that it is doubtful to what extent any of the opposition parties could greatly alter the situation. Out of the nearly one million people in the country, ninety percent or more of the labour force is engaged in subsistence agriculture. At any given time, over 100,000 of the able-bodied men are engaged outside the country in unskilled jobs, mainly in the mines and farms of South Africa. The cash wages of these migrant workers, far higher in the mines than on the farms, reach a maximum of 6d. an hour.

The incomes earned by migrant workers do little other than contribute to the maintenance of subsistence standards of living in Lesotho and depress the wages of African workers in South Africa. A nutrition survey conducted by the World Health Organization found that 85 percent of Basuto families consume unbalanced diets, and that more than 75 percent suffer from diseases due to malnutrition. (Dr H. George Henry, in a chapter on the Lesotho economy, in Stevens' book Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland, p. 106)

It seems clear that real freedom and independence for Lesotho cannot be won separately from that of South Africa itself.

If Lesotho is the poorest of the three former Protectorates, none is at the moment in a position to extricate itself from the South African stranglehold. Botswana is the only one with an outlet to the north, but the President, Sir Seretse Khama, has constantly advocated a policy of peaceful coexistence with South Africa, though at the same time emphasizing his disagreement with apartheid. During the state visit of President Kaunda to Botswana in May 1968, President Khama, reading from a prepared speech at a state banquet, said that the existence of his country was inseparably bound up with South Africa and Rhodesia, and he could not accept the unrealistic resolutions which had been framed at the United Nations 'regardless of the consequences to us' (Star, 22 May 1968).

The leader of the Botswana delegation to the O.A.U. conference at Algiers in September 1968, Minister of State Mr M.P.K. Nwako, said that Botswana hoped to act as a bridge to foster mutual understanding between South Africa and the African states to the north. Mr Nwako declared that Botswana 'cherished very dearly' her relationship with South Africa. At the same time she wanted to strengthen her links with African states to the north (Star weekly, 31 August 1968).

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