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lllaek Alrlca-lo
uam
atibe End
ol lhe
Tunnel
PRESIDENT /DI AMIN of Ugondo odmhs fflCMtly
t~nvet7ed
ststvB o( hlmself in Kempelo.
Afriea - the Dark Continent
- is sbowing few signs of
emerging into the light. Plagued
by poliúeal instability, poverty,
illiteracy, inepl and corrupt
leaders, economic chaos, civil
wars, and tribal rivalrics, the
nations of Blaek Afriea. for the
mosl part , are seemingly
headed for cconomic and polili·
cal oblivion.
Symplomatic of Africa's mo–
rass of problems was 1he 1welftb
annual summit meeting of the·
·Organization of African Unity
- a classic misnomer - held in
early August in Kampala,
Uganda. Hosted by Uganda's
unpredictable Presiden! !di
("Big Daddy")
Amín
Dada, the
OAU eonfab was aueoded by
an underwbelming
19
of a pos–
sible46 OAU heads ofslate.
Thrce nations - Tanzania,
Zambia, and
Botswana -
boy·
eotted tbe gathering complelely
in prolest of Al]lin's chairman·
ship of the meeting. Otber
heads ofstate senl lesser delega·
úons because they feared pos·
sible overtbrow should they
themselves leave their eapi1als.
Sorne who dared to atteod -
like President Mobutu of Zalre
- brougbt aloog
as
many
as
300
people in lheir enlourage, in–
cluding all lhose wbo migbl
have slarted a coup back borne.
For the delegales who did
show, Big Daddy
Amín
offered
a full schedule of eotenain·
ments and exhibilions to occupy
lheir leisure moments
-
in·
cludin.g slaged pro-Amín dem–
onurations. bare · breasled
dancers.
a
special OAU road
rally. and an accordion eonccrt
with Amín ltimself beaúng the
lr.eys. And in Amin's most
elaborate display. Uganda's air
force bombed an island in Lake
Victoria. Tbe island was re–
named "Cape Town View" for
the event
10
symbolically show
bow Amtn - who has assumed
the tille of "Field Marshal" -
would handle the wbile regimes
(Contlnutd on pagt 4,
~o/.
/ )
The
Economy: Danger
Signs
Are
Flying
Storm clouds are building up
once again on Amcriea's eoo..
nomic horizon. A steady stream
of price· increase an.nounce–
ments in basic commodities,
such
as
sleel. plastics, chcrnicals,
and me1als, has raised fears of
reoewed inflalion.
Consumer prices bave aocel–
erated
10
a
14.4
annual inllation
rate, lhe same as wbolesale
pric:es. The latesl figures signa!
a possible retum
10
double-digit
price increases.
Because of the Russian grain
purchascs - which seem
10
grow bigger by the week - the
fourth year in a row will now
pass without any significan!
stockpiJing of food. Govem–
ment sources now admil that
the grain sales will bave
a
much
greater impact on domes* food
priees than originally
expectc:ci
Complicating tbe picture is this
summer's Midwesl drougbt
which, when tbe growing season
is finished. may approach the
severity of last year's d9' spe!L
Perhaps the most dtSturbing
fact of all
ís
the extremely high
tale of inflation thal súll persists
at !he end of the deepest reces–
sino since the
1930s.
Admini$–
tration officials are hoping for.
at best. a
6%
inflation rate
by
the eod of
1975.
Curiously
eoougb,
6%
was eonsidcred so
higb just a few yean ago tbat
wben inflation reacbed that
level, President Nixon dccJ.ared
a national
emergen~
and or–
dered wage and price eontrols.
In fact, sincc the late
1940s,
the
trend has been toward progres–
sively bigher inftat.ion ratcs at
the end
of
each recession : the
cconomy, in effect, reacúng
with money like an addict reacts
with herotn.
For the time being, tbe pros–
pectS for
a
new "higb" are
WEEK ENDINO SEPTEMBER
6.
t97S
Spain After Franco:
ToGotheWayof Portugal?
The age and lhe frail health
of Spanisb leader Francisco
Franco increasingly raise 1he is–
sue of Spain's murky potiúcaJ
fulure.
Sorne of the ume rumblings
that occurred in Ponugal before
the
faU
of the Caetano dietalor–
ship are now being heard in
Spain. Franeo's grip on Spanish
power is slowly waning.
lon•
don
's
Daily Telegraph
reports
that more than
80
percent of
Spain's politieal leaders nol(ol
wanl bim lO leave office.
Signilicantly, tbere have been
severa! reports of plans for
a
military eoup
d'~tat
similar to
the one wlticb occurred in Por–
tugal.
Triumph
magazine,
a
eon–
servative Catholic organ with
clase
ties to Spanish poliúes.
disclosed
sucb
a
plot in May.
Supposedly,
a
promtnent leadcr
in
the Catbolic lay organ.iution
Opus Dei,
Rafael Calvo Serer.
bad planned to lead an uprising
in Madrid sometimc in June.
Communist leader Santiago
Cairiuo was lllso alleged to have
been in on the operation. Thc
coup did not come off. but it
does lend credence to thc re–
ports of similar revolts which
were circulated in January.
Spanish labor unions are now
completely controlled by work–
ers· commisslons. Recent union
eleclions produced sweeping
victories for lefl·wtng clements.
a stunning defeat for Spain's
labor establishment.
hanging in tbe balance. The
main casualties of the recesston
were housing eonsttuction and
automobiJes. 1wo industries par–
ticularly vulnerable
10
high in–
ter'est rates. Yet now at the
beginning of the rccovery, inter–
est rates are poised
10
slcyrocket.
A federal budget deficit of
$80
+
billion foUowing on the
heels of a last year's
$44
billion
deficit threa1ens
10
soak up
mucb of the available lending
money, wltile lenders. fearing a
new round ofinftauoo, wdl hike
rates
in
order
to
compensate (j)r
tbe losl purchasing power of fu–
ture dollars. Meanwhile the
Federal Reserve Board has
beco cbuming out money at a
10%
annual rate this summer -
far in excess of tbe ability of the
economy lo keep
pace.
The impacl of this rising
surge of prices could bé an
eeonomist's nightmare - tbe
double dip reccssion : a shon
peak out in
1975
and baclr. into
recession come
1976.
Rising
prices were the cawe of this las1
recession and thetr retum eould
nip the rccovery
in
the bud.
O
RAREcandid c/osevp of
Sp~ln's
alllng General Francisco Frsnco.
Many observers fear tbal
Spain's long polilical isolation
from tbe rest of democrallc
Westem Europe has lefl tl, Uke
Ponugal, vulnerable to a wide
swing from rigbl-wing to lefl·
wing dictatorsbip. The absence
of demociacy in Spain.
as
in
Portugal, has resulted in the
communist party being the
strongest.. most organized oppo–
sition force - oven tbougb it
is
still officially outlawed.
Franco's designaled succes–
sor, Prince Juan
Carlos,
ls
per·
ceived as too conservative ln the
eyes of many amoog Spain's
large monarcbist bloc. His
fatber, Don Juan, has recently
asserted
ltis
rigbt lo the Spanish
tbrone.
As
a coosequeoce, lhe
slroog monarcbist element "'
Spanisb politics - a potential
bulwark agaiost
a
Marxist
takeover - is badly split.
The danger in Spanuh poli·
tics, fear Brilish·based observ·
ers. is that Juan Carlos will be
too weak to carry out gradua
1
democrat.ic reforrns and instead
will fiod himself engulfed in a
eommunist bid for power or an
extreme rigbt-wing bacldash.
Sucb a development would
open up old wou nds never
really bealed over from lhe
Spanisb Civil War of the
1930s.
That bloody conflict
was
the re·
sult of the abdication of Al·
phooso
XIII ,
the Marxi s t
dominatioo of tbe new republi·
can govemment. and the con·
sequent rightist backlash.
The same forces wltich bat·
lled eacb other in the
1930's
are
still around. The same lack of
democratic slability still charac–
terizes Spanish politics.
Spain - "lhe hammer of
heretics, the sword of Rome, the
light ofTrent"- may sooo find
itself in a tumuhuous rerun of
its famous civil war: an evenl
wbicb could trigger ominow
upheavals througbout weslem
Europe.
o
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