Basic HTML Version
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 26, 1985
PAGE 11
of the four black officials from Lebowa and Gazankulu. They were shut out,
too. These two homelands have refused to negotiate independence from South
Africa, a formula that the Transkei and three other areas have chosen.
Their officials reject separate development and hope for a different form
ula of power sharing in the future. But they don't want one-man one-vote,
either. As Mr. Serobi-Maja, the Chief Protocol Officer of Lebowa told me,
nowhere in Africa has a unitary democratic state worked. Such attempts, he
said, have all ended up as "one man, one vote, one dictatorship." This,
again, was a black man speaking. The history of Africa, he said, is one of
repeated domination, often brutal, of one generally larger group over
others. Don't think that the 3 million North Sothos wouldn't be fearful of
their future in a South Africa perhaps dominated by 6 million Zulus.
These four black officials (one of whom has read many of Mr. Armstrong's
booklets) are all against disinvestment. And for good reason: Thousands of
their own people have jobs in South Africa's mines and industries. These
jobs and the economic well-being of their people are at stake. But Los
Angeles city council members refused to listen to these black leaders.--X
black executive from Los Angeles who had tried to arrange such a meeting
told me how furious he was at this rejection.
But more than the homelands are affected by possible disinvestment. Mr.
Abram also stressed the importance of South African employment to the vari
ous small politically independent--but economically very dependent--states
in southern Africa. In the mountainous highlands of Lesotho, for example,
live less than a million people. There are no resources in Lesotho to speak
of. Over 70% of adult males work in South Africa, mostly in mining, gener
ating over 60% of Lesotho's gross national product. As Mr. Casper Uys, a
Conservative Party member from southeastern Transvaal, told me: "Lesotho
is a mining state--with no mines!" Swaziland, Botswana and Mozambique are
also critically dependent on South Africa for labor markets.
Perhaps now you can see the impact of a U.S. ban on the importation of gold
Krugerrand coins, a policy the U.S. Congress is considering. One of the
leading U.S. congressmen pushing for such a ban claims that by no longer
importing the coins, the U.S. will not be supporting "slave labor" in the
South African gold fields. No statement could be more erroneous. Mine work
might be hard, but the workers get fine wages by African standards, in addi
tion to housing, transportation, health care and recreation facilities. At
any given time, admits THE NEW YORK TIMES, there is a pool of at least
300,000 men waiting for the chance to work in the mines. By South African
law, nearly all (97%) of the workers must come from the homelands and other
independent black states.
The workers are by no stretch of the imagination "slaves." Their earnings
support large families back home. Guess, by the way, which country does
generate some of its gold output by slave labor? It is commonly understood
in intelligence circles that political dissidents (as well as "volunteers"
from former South Vietnam) work or have worked in the gold mines of the
Soviet Union.
It's not popular these days to admit certain facts, but they cannot be
avoided. One fact of life is that certain population groups or ethnic com
munities have taken advantage of the opportunities afforded them while
others have not. For those who have not, for whatever reason (entrenched
traditions, religious superstitions, tribalism) it is a temptation to put