Path: utzoo!ncc!alberta!myrias!sjl
From: sjl@myrias.UUCP (Stuart Lomas)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Clark's speech to CIC; frontline states
Message-ID: <573@myrias.UUCP>
Date: 17 Mar 88 01:22:33 GMT
References: <560@auvax.UUCP> <2367@unicus.UUCP>
Organization: Myrias Research, Edmonton
Lines: 91

In article <2367@unicus.UUCP> craig@unicus.UUCP (Craig D. Hubley) writes:
(Craig is referring to Joe Clark at the beginning)
>Agreed.  Now if only we could get him to convince Brian Mulroney to 
>stop standing so close to the dictators-for-life of the little rathole
>`frontline states' north of South Africa whose human rights records are
>all consistently worse than the R.S.A..  There's a word for those who
>disapprove of whites oppressing blacks, but don't mind blacks oppressing
>blacks:  racist.  Dismissing these `tribal squabbles' as normal events, 
>rather than as the genocidal wholesale slaughters they often are, shows
>up the self-righteous of all races who are not interested in human rights
>at all:  The white ones who care only about the `bad behaviour' of fellow
>whites.  The black ones who don't object to blacks killing blacks, but only
>to whites killing blacks.  Both of these types, and you can find lots around,
>including Mulroney, make Mr. Botha seem almost honest.

Last June and July, I spent some time in Zambia and Zimbabwe, which are among
the "frontline" states Craig refers to. In 23 days, I travelled through much
of Zambia, and spent 4 days in Zimbabwe. Our guide was a white Zimbabwean.
Based on my experience in those two countries, I would say that Craig's
description is much too harsh.

"dictators-for-life": this is basically correct. Although the leaders of both
Zambia and Zimbabwe were fairly elected to their positions, President Kaunda
of Zambia immediately outlawed all other political parties (that was around
1964), and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has just reached an agreement with his
opposition that also appears to guarantee a one party state (last year:
formation of ZANU-PF from ruling ZANU and opposition ZAPU parties).

bad human rights records: I would not be surprised to hear of some human
rights violations in either country, but certainly these are nothing like the
official racism of South Africa. Both Zambia and Zimbabwe are very careful to
appear fair and non-racist.

"blacks oppressing blacks": no large scale evidence of this in either country.
It is true that Lusaka, Zambia is the headquarters of the ANC, and that the
ANC has been linked to incidents of violence between blacks in South Africa.

"tribal squabbles": In Zimbabwe, the political parties at independance were
ZANU, connected with the Shona tribe, and ZAPU, connected with the Matabele
tribe. There have been violent incidents by an outlaw minority of Matabeles
against whites, blacks, tourists, etc. The problem is that there are still a
few soldiers from the 1980 civil war that just won't give up. In Zambia,
the government is not strongly connected with any one tribe (there are about
70+ tribes in the country), and there is no recent evidence of inter-tribal
problems.

"genocidal wholesale slaughters": the only such events I know of in any of
the frontline states have been in Mozambique and Angola, both of which are
fighting wars against South African backed troops.

All in all, the situation in southern Africa is much more complex than you
would tend to assume from reading the papers in Canada. Some points:

- Many of the black governments Africa are run by a "benevolent dictator"
  associated with only one of the many tribes in the country. Ie. Kenya is
  mostly run by the Kikuyu (sp?) tribe. They are often "democratic" in
  name only.

- Many of the governments in Africa are hopelessly inefficient.
  For example, Zambia is probably something like 50% arable land, and has
  very predictable rains, and yet the country must import even staple foods.

- South Africa controls southern Africa economically. For example, almost
  all packaged food (ie tins) in Zambia come from South Africa. Incidentally,
  Zimbabwe is much closer to self-sufficiency, probably because they have a
  much higher population of whites, who run most of the industries.

- Most of the blacks in southern Africa have little formal education, and
  their traditional cultures do not prepare them for any of the jobs we would
  assume are necessary in a modern country, ie bank teller. This is slowly
  changing, and we saw many indications of basic schooling in Zambia even in
  remote villages. Countries like Zimbabwe are very dependant on their white
  populations simply to keep the country running. Zambia, which has
  discouraged its white population, barely functions at all.

- Many of the governments in southern Africa have enough of a Marxist outlook
  that they "scare off" western aid. Apparently the experience of Tanzania
  under a (very) Marxist government has been sufficiently bad that its
  neighbours are not in a hurry to embrace Marxism fully, though. However,
  their traditional tribal organizations are very compatible with Marxist
  theory.

So what are my conclusions? We should continue to support the frontline states
to a high level, while at the same time realizing that South Africa is only
one of their problems, and that South Africa is often used as an excuse by
these countries for their own ineptitude. Our support should attempt to reduce
the effects of South Africa's pressure against them, and we should encourage
these countries to develop their own economies.

Stuart Lomas
{ihnp4,rutgers,ubc-vision}!alberta!myrias!sjl