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WINDHOEK, South West Africa:
A
soutil ern Africa has suddenly
been thrust into the head–
lines. The overthrow of An–
gola's cen turies-old Portugucse rule
in the early months of this year has
marked a turning point in the
struggle between Communism and
the Free World. The battle ground
is no longer centered in Southeast
Asia.
"Liberation" of Africa Next
Over sixty years ago, Lenin wrote
that the struggle would shi ft to
bLack Africa once mainland Asia
s uccumbed to communism. In
southern Africa. communis t in–
tentions have been understood for
decades. But it took Cuban troops in
Angola lo make it clear lo the West–
ern nations that the Soviet Union
means what it says about this part
of the world.
lt has now been ten years since
communist infiltrators first resorted
to bullets in their protracted
struggle to capture t he minds of the
peoples of South West Africa . its
mineral wealth and its strategic po–
sition.
It
is not by bullets a lone, how–
ever, that communists wage revolu–
tionary struggles. The Soviet success
in Portuguese Angola would never
have been possible if communists
had not first succeeded in under–
mining the government and public
will in Portugal. Similarly. commu–
nist infiltrators know they will never
succeed here in South West Africa
unless they first confound the politi–
cal judgment of the F ree World.
parti cularly that of the United
States. toward southern Africa .
Diverse and Complex Land
Soviet policy calls for clouding the
real issues in South West Africa. It
is an easy matter because the out–
sid e world knows li ttle about this
remarkable la nd. South West Africa
is actually 50% larger than France
in land area. Yet it is inha bited by
only abou t 950,000 people.
So a rid is most of the coun tryside
that one book written about it is
entitled
The Land God Made in
A nger.
So di verse are its people th a t
it never historically had a unifying
name. It simply was given a geo-
The
PLAIN TRUTH September 1976
"
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...w..
~.-a.~~~
CAMOUFLAGED
South African soldier on exercise at base near Windhoek.
South Africa rules South
West
Africa under old League of Nations mandate.
graphic description: South West Af–
rica (origi nally German South West
Africa when it became a German
colony in the latter part of the nine–
teenth cen tury).
It was not until the 1960s that the
Soviet-backed South West Africa
People' s Organization (SWAPO) hit
upon the idea of a new political
name for the country :
Namibia,
de–
ri ved from the Namib or coas tal
desert of South West Africa. To use
the word
Namibia
for South West
Africa often signifies support for the
proponents of revolu tionary vio–
lence. which is why we use the offi–
cial name: South West Africa.
The Constitutional Conference
The visit of my wife Isabel! and me
here to South West Africa coincides
with a very critica! period in the
political development of the region.
Meeting in the historie Turnhalle in
Windhoek are delegations repre–
senting equally South West Africa's
e leven black, brown. and white pop–
ulation groups. Tbeir purpose is to
discuss the constitutional future of
South West Africa. The delegates
have convened with a sense of ur–
gency. Either they arrive a t a for–
mula for independence satisfactory
to a ll sides - o r a solution satis–
factory to none may be imposed
upon them.
By way of background, it must be
remembered that the various tribal
groups living here were first incor–
porated into a single territory by the
Germans in 1892. In a side action of
World War
1,
South African and
English forces conq uered and occu–
pi ed the territory in 1915.
The government of the Union of
South Africa received a Class C
Manda te over South West. Africa in
1920 and began administering the
area on January 1, 1921 , on behalf
of the League of Nations. The Class
C Mandate explicitly authorized the
Union of South Africa to exercise
full powers over the territory as an
integral part of the union. subject to
the international supervisory au–
thority of the council of the League
ofNations.
Upon the dissolution of the
League of Na tions in
1946,
South
Africa· refused lo place it under the
United Nations trusteeship system.
The U.N., in turn. denied South Af–
ri ca's request for incorporation of
the territory. Since that time the
status and future of the territory has
been in dispute. The present Consti–
tutional Confe rence is devoted to
th e peaceful so,lution o f this prob–
lem.
Presently unrepresented at the
Constitu tional Conference is the
South West Africa People's Organi–
zation (SWAPO). With communist
a nd Third World suppo rt. it has
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