The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; 3205; Namibia

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. After the First World War, when everyone was out to punish Germany, the League of Nations took away her huge African colony, South-West Africa. They gave the territory to South Africa to administer. But after the Second World War, black nationalism was on the rise and South Africa was building its policy of apartheid. Feelings changed. In 1966 the United Nations said the mandate was ended, and ordered South Africa to get out. South Africa didn`t. She kept her troops there and has defied the United Nations.

Now the situation is moving rapidly. South Africa has accepted Namibian independence, but Western countries in the U.N. are trying to ensure it will not become a puppet of South Africa. Tonight, a film report inside Namibia, and a conversation with Donald McHenry, the principal American diplomat in the Western efforts to solve the problem. The documentary report was filmed by an Israeli unit and is narrated by John Fielding of Thames Television in London.

JOHN FIELDING: Morning prayer for a contingent of the South African Army, somewhere on the frontier between Angola and South-West Africa, hundreds of miles from their own borders, but guarding what they see as their front line. In a daily routine that`s lasted for eleven years, these soldiers prepare to search for the black guerrillas of SWAPO, the South-West Africa People`s Organization, filtering across the border from camps in the safe havens of Zambia and Angola. That border is a thousand miles long.

For sixty years South Africa has ruled this sparsely populated but mineral- rich territory. Now, under United Nations pressure, South Africa has conceded that the country now known as Namibia shall become independent by December. But South African control remains. SWAPO is fighting to get South Africa out.

For a decade and more, South Africa has watched its once white-ruled neighbors come under the control of black governments. Botswana gained independence in 1965; Angola and Mozambique became free with the collapse of Portugal`s African empire after 1974; Rhodesia`s transfer to black rule has now been conceded; genuine independence for Namibia would remove South Africa`s last remaining buffer against black Africa.

Across the Angolan border is a constant and disturbing reminder for South Africa of what the future might hold for an independent Namibia: a Communist-back regime with no love for Pretoria. Here the SWAPO guerrillas are protected by the MPLA, whose flag has flown over Angola since the departure of the Portuguese.

Gen. IAN GLEESON, Cmdr., So. African Army`s 101 Task Force in S.W. Africa: Obviously, militarily-strategically speaking, it is important for us in South Africa to ensure that this country develops stably to its independence and not in the form of the chaos that we have on the northern borders of South-West Africa and in some other areas in Africa.

FIELDING: This is not all-out war. In South Africa`s favor is the resistance still being mounted on the Angolan side against the MPLA government by the pro-Western forces of UNITA, who are South Africa`s allies.

Lt.-Col. J.J. KRITSINGER: On the other side of the river is Kalai, which used to be the border post between Runtu and the Angolan people on the other side. At this stage, there is nothing happening in Kalai; it was taken over about two months ago by UNITA. UNITA has got control of the whole Cuando Cubango district. That`s the area that stretches from here about 150 miles inland and about 200 miles from the Cuando River towards the west.

FIELDING: 600 miles to the east, where Namibia`s Caprivi Strip touches Zambia, Angola, Rhodesia and Botswana, it`s a different story. Hot pursuit frequently takes the South African Army over the Namibian border, and air raid shelters are needed to protect against retaliatory rocket attacks from SWAPO bases in Zambia. Constant bush patrols are necessary along the Caprivi Strip, which extends almost 400 miles into hostile territory, where clashes average two a week. There`s no shortage of indirect Western support for the South African Army; these Panard armored cars are made in South Africa under French license, and the gunships, troop-carrying and reconnaissance helicopters are provided directly by the French. South Africa also has hundreds of trucks on chassis made by Mercedes and British Leyland.

The evidence that South Africa intends to keep its army in Namibia long after its supposed independence causes General Gleeson no embarrassment.

GLEESON: Well, the only answer I can give to that is there are so many countries in the world that have other armies by means of treaties in their areas and they are considered independent. Angola, for example, is considered independent with a Cuban representation of many thousands.

FIELDING: For 500 miles along the border with Angola, the South Africans have declared a .free-fire zone half a mile wide. The middle of this zone is cleared of all obstacles and sanded to show up tracks. Although helicopters constantly check for evidence of crossings from the north, thousands of soldiers must also be deployed on ground patrol. SWAPO claims to have tied up 50,000 South African troops. The South Africans concede 12- 20,000. Many of SWAPO`s men come from the area south of the border called Ovamboland.

Lt. PHILIP SPIES: There are terrorists all over this part of the world, especially Ovamboland, and they come through, they are part of the people; so we don`t fight specifically on the border itself, it`s on all of Ovamboland.

(To soldiers): All right, gentlemen, we`ve received information from the local population. There is another four checks; they are moving from the south...

FIELDING: The soldiers in this battalion briefing are unusual. They`re coloreds from South Africa`s Cape Province, as foreign to the Namibians as the white conscripts forming the bulk of the South African Army. But it was this battalion that was selected for an Israeli unit to film on an approved visit.

The display of force is impressive, but rarely reaps results.

SPIES: From the enemy side it is a hit and-run war. They don`t want to make contact with us, as we have experienced in the past. They want to make contact with the local population and indoctrinate them politically.

GLEESON: One of our main problems in this war is the question of enemy propaganda. As you are probably aware, they are masters, especially the communistic world, in propaganda. So we also try to put the picture in the right way towards the local population, so we do distribute newspapers, not drawn up by ourselves necessarily, not published by ourselves, to try and give the population a balanced picture of what is actually happening.

FIELDING: So at regular intervals the South Africans shoulder their guns and set off armed with Bibles.

Lt. J. BOTHA, Civic Affairs Patrol: There are a number of patrols, civic affairs patrols, and the aim is to bring, firstly, the Bible to the local population, and secondly, to try and find out what the problems are that are facing the local population to see whether we can help them in the form of possibly medical aid, et cetera. We usually give to the senior person present, we give him tobacco and a pipe, because the local population appreciates this very much; and also we tell them what the war`s about. We tell them that we hear invitation from their own cabinet, that we hear not to harm them but to protect them, and at the same time to try and keep SWAPO terrorists from injuring them.

Usually when we first arrive at a complex they are a bit suspicious, but friendship is quickly built up.

FIELDING: Bible class then begins. Meantime, a few miles away, a different class is in progress. This training of local recruits apparently sympathetic to the South African cause, is a critical part of General Gleeson`s responsibilities in Ovamboland. In an independent Namibia, an army trained by and dependent upon South Africa would present obvious advantages of which Gleeson is fully aware.

GLEESON: Obviously, the local armies are still in an infant stage; they`re only being created at this particular moment of time, and they will always require the assistance of the South African defense force for the immediate future. But the idea is to build them up to the extent that they are able to cope with the situation on their own.

FIELDING: Out on the practice range, a South African officer assesses the performance of the new recruits.

OFFICER: Yes, Godfrey`s got the best one. Charlie, come here, I want to show you where the best shots are. Look at that. And your target?

CHARLES LISWANISO, Recruit: I`ve got four.

OFFICER: You got four.

LISWANISO: Yes, sir, I...

OFFICER: How many bullets did you fire?

LISWANISO: I fired ten.

OFFICER: Ten. Well, where are the other six?

LISWANISO: I don`t know, in the air?

FIELDING: Charlie is as confused about his new role as defender against the guerrillas as he was in target practice.

LISWANISO: Well, I joined the army for the purpose of protecting the country, as it is my country.

INTERVIEWER: Against whom would you like to protect your country?

LISWANISO: I would like to protect all my people from any enemies.

INTERVIEWER: Who are your enemies at the moment?

LISWANISO: The enemies, we don`t expect an enemy from the other country, they can come at any time. Therefore, I joined the army to know how to protect or to guide, to guide my country from the enemies who can come in the ... in the country.

FIELDING: Here, 400 miles south of the border in the black township of Katatura, outside the Namibian capital of Windhoek, the futility of attempting to train a local army to counter SWAPO guerrillas becomes apparent. Most of these people are SWAPO members. For inside Namibia, SWAPO is not an illegal organization. While the outlawed military command harasses the South African Army, the political movement draws support from an estimated fifty percent of the population.

Over the last two years, with independence approaching, much of the South African-style apparatus of apartheid has been dismantled. Black and white may now mix, and even intermarry. But apartheid has long ceased to be a major issue. The critical question is, who will control the economy, the armed forces, the country after independence?

On the only occasion on which the Israeli unit managed to slip their official escort, at a house displaying a poster of exiled SWAPO president Nujoma, they found an activist who made clear the unity between military and political wings of SWAPO.

SWAPO Organizer: We are under one leadership. We are only separated by the illegal occupation of our country. But we have no different views, we have only different ways of fighting.

INTERVIEWER: SWAPO seems to have very strong ties with Marxist governments and Communist governments.

SWAPO Organizer: We have nothing to do with Marxism and Communism. What we are doing with them is to get help from them, which has been refused to us by the imperialists in the Western world. They can see this treatment because they have been helping Mozambique and Angola, but they are going to see these people in Namibia as friends but not as dictating anything to us.

FIELDING: It is the prospect of these Marxist friends arriving in Namibia from Mozambique and Angola that brings sleepless nights to the prosperous white community, who make up ten percent of the population of what they still call South-West Africa. White anxiety has been reflected in falling support for the ruling Nationalist Party and a search for alternatives.

Two years ago, in an effort to counter pressures from the United Nations to recognize SWAPO as Namibia`s rightful representatives, South Africa set up a constitutional conference at the Turnhalle, a sports center in Windhoek. Delegates representing eleven tribal groupings, including whites, were invited. Throughout, SWAPO has boycotted the talks as a sham and called for genuinely free elections under U.N. supervision. Out of the Turnhalle emerged a black majority rule constitution embodying safeguards for the whites, but world opinion and SWAPO were equally unimpressed.

SWAPO Organizer: The Turnhalle people are not representative or leaders of the people here; they are just only tribalists who are being led or being used as tools by the government. The only peaceful solution is between SWAPO and the South African racist government.

FIELDING: And from his Windhoek head office, SWAPO`s Deputy Chairman, Daniel Tjongerero, made it clear why SWAPO would boycott this summer`s proposed elections unless the South African Army pulled out of Namibia.

DANIEL TJONGERERO, Deputy Chairman, SWAPO: We have indicated several times that we are prepared to face any opposition in the election in Namibia, provided that certain conditions are fulfilled, whereby the atmosphere would be created in which people can take part in elections uninhibited. Our attitude at the moment and our feelings at the moment is through conviction that South Africa is in fact going to influence the elections through its military occupation and that until such time that the army has been removed from this country we would not participate in elections and that in fact if an internal settlement was sought, which we think is what is fact on the cards, that we are willing to shoot our way open into Namibia. Until such time that an agreement has been reached for a peaceful solution, we will continue shooting, just as they are continuing shooting.

And once they withdraw from Namibia we will cease our activities.

FIELDING: The fear that SWAPO will undermine any Turnhalle constitution has led many Windhoek whites to look to the Western powers for help.

OLGA LEVINSON, Former Mayor, Windhoek: There should be some sort of definite and forthright plan to save South West Africa from Soviet expansionism. With Angola and Mozambique lost, it looks very much as though the Western world is perfectly prepared to hand South-West out on a platter to the Soviet Union as well. We whites of South-West have faced the realities and welcome a multiracial government, but we want a government based on Western democracy and we want a government of free enterprise, and we would like some sort of security for the minorities -- not just the white minority but the other minorities. And I think that this is all possible now. But the time is running out for us, and something has to be done from outside.

FIELDING: In fact, five Western powers -- Britain, America, France, Germany and Canada -- are already pressing South Africa to settle with SWAPO. But their interests lie as much in profits as in people, for Namibia by 1980 will be the third largest uranium producer in the world. Half of Britain`s future uranium supplies will come from one Namibian mine at Rossing. The five powers control sixty percent of the country`s total mining capacity, which includes lead, copper and diamonds as well as uranium, and their customers are scattered worldwide.

BRIAN WOOLFE, Gen. Manager, Tsumeb Corp., Ltd.: We don`t have one main client, we ship to about four or five different refineries -- that`s our Vista copper; and our lead goes everywhere, from Finland to Germany to Italy, Poland and also to South Africa and out East, sometimes to Taiwan and Bangkok.

FIELDING: Because of the uncertain future, a Japanese contract for 8,000 tons of uranium to fuel nuclear power stations, due to begin delivery this year, has been put on ice. But for the multinational corporations owning the smelters and the mineral rights, which in one case include everything worth recovering from twenty-five percent of the country`s land mass, the problems lie neither with SWAPO nor with South Africa. Deals could be done with either government. It is the political stalemate and the fear of an extended conflict which threatens white confidence and Western interests.

WOOLFE: Well, our biggest problem will be keeping people here -- working here. Because we cannot operate this complex without white artisans, supervisors and staff. And although we are trying to train up the Africans, this is obviously something which is going to take many years. So if there is political uncertainty and we lose most of our whites, then of course we`re going to suffer.

FIELDING: As the five powers` mineral interests grow and diplomatic pressure on South Africa increases, the SWAPO leadership is content to play a waiting game.

TJONGERERO: Well, I think it must be stated very clearly that the five Western powers, who are in fact involved in these negotiations, are countries which have very close cooperation with South Africa -- militarily, economically, and even morally. So that in fact what we feel is that they are trying to save what they can save out of this situation for themselves. And in fact they have indicated in the very first meeting when they came up to Windhoek that they were coming here in the interests of their own countries, not necessarily in the interests of the Namibian people. On the other hand, we are prepared to support any initiative which is geared towards getting genuine independence for Namibia.

MacNEIL: Later this month the U.N. General Assembly will hold a special session on Namibia. In the meantime, those five Western countries mentioned -- the U.S., Germany, Britain, France and Canada -- have drawn up a plan to ensure free elections and real independence. The American member of that group is Ambassador Donald McHenry, U.S. Deputy Representative to the U.N. in the Security Council. Mr. Ambassador, that`s obviously a complicated situation. First of all, South Africa, as we`ve heard, has promised independence by the end of the year. What is wrong with their plan? Why not let them get on with it?

DONALD McHENRY: Well, it`s not a question of independence alone, it`s independence under what conditions. The issue in Namibia has always been whether the people have the right to participate in elections freely and under fair conditions. And I think if the elections were held freely and under fair conditions, no one would object to independence, but the problem has been, has always been, a concern that the independence will not come about through those procedures and that significant elements of the Namibian society, such as SWAPO, will be excluded from the decision making.

MacNEIL: I see. Now, your five-nation plan calls for South Africans to get all but 1,500 of their troops out and nut those 1,500 in their bases, the SWAPO troops to stay in their bases while these elections are held. Who has agreed to your plan so far? The South Africans haven`t agreed, have they?

McHENRY: No, we haven`t had any response from either South Africa or SWAPO. They may be playing what I call the cat and mouse game, waiting for the other to respond. But we`ve had negotiations now over most of a year. We have a pretty good idea of the concerns of each of the parties, and I must say that SWAPO isn`t simply the only party there, there are other factions in...

MacNEIL: Like the party, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance that came out of that conference.

McHENRY: That`s right. But I think we`ll hear very shortly from both of the sides, both of the principal parties involved, what their decisions are.

MacNEIL: Is the real sticking point at the moment the unwillingness of the South Africans to take all those troops out?

McHENRY: That`s the South African concern; they`ve expressed concern that the security situation would deteriorate if they took the forces out. They`ve indicated that they`re willing to go down to roughly 3,000 men stationed in ways which we have found so far to be unacceptable.

MacNEIL: Because they could improperly influence an election...

McHENRY: Because they could influence the election. No one wants the security situation to deteriorate; and we are not talking about leaving a vacuum there, we are talking about a phased withdrawal of South Africa`s forces and the insertion of a significant number of United Nations forces.

MacNEIL: Now, do we share the concern of that white woman, the former mayor of Windhoek, that in such a vacuum the Soviet-backed, Communist-backed forces to the north in Angola and Zambia and so on could move into that vacuum?

McHENRY: Well, as I said in the first place, we`re not creating a vacuum, we`re talking about putting United Nations forces in there in the interim to take care of security.

MacNEIL: Is that our concern, that these forces would move in there, or would want to?

McHENRY: No, I don`t think so. I think we must always hold in mind that the Soviets like to fish in troubled waters, and one of the reasons that the Soviets have had such a marvelous time in southern Africa, and may in the future, has been that we have not solved the problem of self determination in those areas. My own feeling is that if we can get a process of elections in that territory we will remove the basis for SWAPO dissidence and remove the basis for Soviet penetration.

MacNEIL: Despite what that SWAPO organizer said in the film, many people believe that SWAPO is a Marxist-oriented organization. Is this the kind of government we would like to see set up in that territory?

McHENRY: I don`t know that SWAPO is a Marxist-oriented organization, and I don`t know what the...

MacNEIL: One of its leaders has called for what he called a government of "scientific socialism."

McHENRY: I think it is very clear that they don`t like the system which exists there and that they would make very drastic changes. To them the current system is one of oppression, and I think you would see changes with a SWAPO government. But I have a feeling that in Namibia...

MacNEIL: Whereas, should I just say, the other party that came out of that Turnhalle conference wants a system of sort of clear capitalism, based on their tribal confederation.

McHENRY: I`m not sure that they want capitalism, either. I think what we`ll see emerging is a system of African nationalism; that tends to be what happens in these situations.

MacNEIL: Speaking of capitalism, what do you say, as one of the nations involved, to the charge that was made a couple of times there, that what you`re basically interested in -- America, Canada, West Germany and so on - - is preserving the economic interest we have there?

McHENRY: It`s a frequently made charge...

MacNEIL: Is there no truth to it?

McHENRY: We do have... there are substantial American investments there -- substantial for Namibia, but they aren`t very large in broad terms. But I have never in my own concerns paid much attention to the capital invested there. It seems to me that our interest is ensuring a peaceful transition in that part of the world and allowing the people of that territory to get on with their own business of developing themselves.

MacNEIL: And what`s your prediction now on what`s going to happen?

McHENRY: We`ll know, I think, in a very short period of time. I think we can take one of three courses. We can go down the current path, which I think is going to result in continued violence, much larger scale fighting than we see there; the South Africans can go on an internal settlement route such as Ian Smith did in Rhodesia -- I think that is also going to result in violence; probably...

MacNEIL: Because SWAPO would keep on fighting them.

McHENRY: SWAPO would keep on fighting, and it would result in bringing in the very forces that the lady in the film was very concerned about, coming in, as it were, on the side of motherhood. But they can take the risk of the plan which has been proposed. Difficulties involved in it? Yes. But it has the chance of bringing a peaceful settlement.

MacNEIL: Mr. Ambassador, we have to end it there. Thank you very much for joining us. That`s all for tonight. Jim Lehrer and I will be back on Monday night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.