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"supervise" elections {as opposed to no more than 3,000 in the original
plan). Another new innovation was the introduction of a U.N. "police
force" to more or less shadow the South African police·.
Elections were also to be put back some time into next year, since
SWAPO wasn't ready to fight the battle of the ballot. {Two years ago
South Africa was condemned for waiting "so long" -- until December 31,
1978 -- to hold elections).
Such a heavy U.N. troop commitment would, in Pretoria's eyes, not be
an election-monitoring force but would amount to military presence
obviously tilted toward SWAPO's side. {This massive commitment
would also soak up half of the annual U.N. budget!) Since the U.N.
is already on record as saying that SWAPO represents the sole and
authoritative representative of the Namibian people -- a gross exaggera
tion -- the U.N. troops would hardly be an impartial body.
SWAPO knows it can't win a free election. Over 85% of Namibia's
population {only 900,000 in the whole territory) have already been
registered for a vote to elect a constitutional drafting body -- despite
the fact that SWAPO told its followers to boycott the registration.
However, true to form, South Africa has been cast in the role of the
villain for not meekly turning Namibia over to SWAPO on a silver platter.
The upshot of it all is that the U.N. will not recognize any "internal
settlement" in Namibia brought about by South Africa's own efforts:
SWAPO will turn even more to violence {it has already called for Soviet
aha Cuban help); and there will be calls in the U.N. to punish South
Africa with trade sanctions.
Pretoria has made its decision to draw the line at this point, even
with the realization that there may be sanctions levied against it.
But the South Africans feel they simply can't back away and subject
900,000 people to an uncertain fate at the hands of a gang of thugs.
As the Cape Town newspaper, die Burger, noted: "SWAPO obviously does
not want peace in South West Africa and is doing everything in its
power to make a peaceful settlement impossible. Its leaders want
violence and bloodshed. In this horrible way they want to subject the
people of South West Africa to their tyranny."
The news magazine To The Point, in its September 15 issue editorialized:
"While in Western capitals some men are charmed by the idea of libera
tion and talk continually of including savage "liberators" in civilised
negotiation, in the rugged terrain near the Zambezi the liberators
blast civilian aircraft with missiles and butcher the helpless survivors
-- all in the name of freedom. /Referring to the Air Rhodesia plane
downed by the Patriotic Front�/ -
"Yet, if we are to believe some commentators, these same men, purveyors
of wholesale murder, must be included in the conclaves of civilised
men. Not only must their counsel be weighed, but they must be among
the guardians of law ...Tomorrow, we are to believe, these men will
happily put away their guns and bombs and become humane administrators
and model politicians."