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advance
news
in the wake of today's WORLD EVENTS
•
Southern Africa- Roce War
Ahead?
Africa. to many people, has almost become a back–
water on the world scene, dominated by big power
politics. In reality, the huge continent is undergoing
major changes which will not leave even the big powers
unaffected. Based on present trends, sorne analysts are
deeply concerned that the world's first full-scale black
versus white race war could erupt in southern Africa
sometime in the middle-to-late 70's. "The situation in
southern Africa is explosive." warns U.N. Secretary–
General Dr. Kurt Waldheim.
"lt
could provoke an
extensive conflagration with possible consequences
spreading far beyond the confines of Africa."
Echoing Waldheim's fears, British foreign secretary
Sir Alee Douglas-Home told the British Parliament:
"My fear since long ago has been that eventually there
would be a front on the Zambezi between the southern
half of Africa and the north."
The Zambezi River has been called the "symbolic
Mason-Dixon Line of Africa." Most of the nations
above that line broke loose from colonial rule in a wave
of black independence movements which swept over the
continent in the 1960's. Now, black nationalist "free–
doro fighter" groups pose a growing challenge to the
last bastions ofwhile minority rule in southem Africa.
The nations and territories targeted by the black
liberation movements are the Portuguese colonies of
Angola and Mozambique, plus Rhodesia and South–
West Africa.
lnsurgent attacks in southern Africa have thus far
been on a relatively small scale. The governments of
South Africa, Rhodesia, and Portugal are stepping up
cooperative countermeasures in an attempt to head off
the problem befare it gets out of hand. Fortunately for
them, the various liberation groups have been plagued
with interna! dissension, which may block their efforts
of "liberating" the south.
The government of the Republic of South Africa,
meanwhile, is caught in a dilemma on how to react to a
growing feeling of "black consciousness" among its ma–
jority black and colored population. How to reform or
PLAIN TRUTH March 1974
relax the nation's strict racial policies without "letting
things get out of hand" is the problem.
•
U. S. Power Key to Peace
in Asia
Nuclear war in Asia within two or three years?
That's what sorne experts are now warning as they size
up the heated dispute between the Soviet Union and
Communist archrival People's Republic of China.
The Kremlin hierarchy is under growing pressure
from its military advisors to "do something now'' about
China, which is steadily growing toward full-fledged
superpower status. That "something" could involve a
preemptive nuclear "surgical strike" to wipe out China's
nuclear installations and nip Peking's nuclear devel–
opment program in the bud before it gets too sophis–
ticated and powerful. That critica! point is considered to
be somewhere between two to tluee years away.
Perhaps what is most shocking is that the Soviets–
in 1969 - actually sounded out the United States to see
if Washington at that time would callously turn its back
on a Russian blitz of Chinese nuclear sites. President
Nixon not only objected strenuously to the naked as–
sault scheme but embarked on a counler policy of sum–
mit talks with both Peking and Moscow in an attempt to
defuse the Asían time bomb.
Since 1969. the Soviets have greatly increased their
military might along the 5,000-mile Russo-Chinese bor–
der. Today there are nearly one million Soviet troops
stationed there, with great quantities of armar and artil–
lery. including tactical nuclear weapons. The Chinese
have responded to the threat by launching a massive
civil and military target defense program.
The power and prestige of the U. S. Presidency, it
appears, is the majar factor keeping the Sino-Soviet
quarrel and much of the other squabbling among na–
tions under control. This is precisely why the Watergate
scandal could be so disastrous not only to the United
States but also to the entire world. As the British news
weekly
Economist
said in August: "When the Presiden!
of the United States loses his grip, half the world finds
itself in pieces on the floor."
- Gene H. Hogberg
7