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Introduction: Southern Africa: Peace at Last?
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15409 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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12 / 1989 |
557 Words |
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Historic changes are taking place in Southern Africa. Cuban troops have withdrawn from Angola; elections in Namibia just took place after years of South African intransigence; negotiations are being held between the Marxist government of Angola and Mozambique and their respective pro-Western guerrilla movements; and in South Africa itself, a new president has shown unprecedented flexibility on racial issues.
Where will these trends lead? To what extent is Soviet "new thinking" influencing events? What Western policies should be pursued to help further these hopeful developments? Is there a realistic prospect of peace in that embattled region? To address these questions, THE WORLD & I asked prominent thinkers in both the United States and South Africa to share their insights.
Robert I. Rotberg, vice president for arts, sciences, and technology at Tufts University and a longtime observer of South Africa, concludes from the results of the September 6 elections that a turning point has been passed and the ruling National Party "is now largely free from substantial pressure from the right." But the government's future course remains unclear. "What makes the notion of bargaining difficult at this stage," Rotberg says, "is that great gap between the amount of power that whites are prepared to concede and that which blacks want."
M. Hough, director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at the University of Pretoria, had the difficult job of trying to project the future of Namibia before the November elections had taken place. Nevertheless, he points out, whichever party wins will have to face certain realities: the country's ethnic diversity, its economic dependence on South Africa, and the international community's expectations that an independent Namibia will adopt democratic principles.
Hough is much less optimistic about the future of Angola. The likelihood of conflict between Angolan forces and UNITA remains great, he says, adding that the MPLA government will probably continue to insist on a settlement that will maintain the present one-party system.
Philip Nel, director of the Institute for Soviet Studies at the University of Stellenbosch, attributes a great deal of the newfound flexibility on the part of Soviet allies in southern Africa to the pragmatism now prevailing in Moscow's foreign policy. "Many of the Soviet actions [in the region] can be seen as an attempt to regain ground that had been lost" to the West, Nel says.
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