Namibian Politics: Day of the Chameleons
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Contents LEADING EDGE . 1 NAMIBIA IS UP FOR GRABS ............... 3 APARTHEID WON'T BUDGE ............ 4 PLUNDER OF A COLONY: WHO GETS THE DIAMONDS . 7 NAMIBIAN POLITICS: DAY OF THE CHAMELEONS . 13 THEY WENT TO WINDHOEK ........... 20 SWAPO PRINTSHOP TRAINING BEGINS 25 THE WINDS OF THE PEOPLE -a poem ...... 26 LEFT PROFILE: LA PENA ................ 27 FAMILY PLANNING IN MOZAMBIQUE ........ 33 UNITED STATES JOINS THE WAR IN EAST TIMOR . 38 "THE WAR IS A TREMENDOUS SCHOOL FOR EVERYONE" - interview with Jose Ramos Horta of FRETILIN .............. 40 LSM NOTES . 49 BOX 2077 ..•...................•..••••. 51 © 197-Z LSM Information Center, P.O. Box 2077, Oakland, CA 94604. All Rights reserved. ISSN 0315-1840. We encourage reprinting and quoting from LSM NEWS but please credit LSM NEWS by name. Please identify reprinted photographs as fol lows: "Liberation Support Movement 11 • LSM NEWS is indexed in the Alternative Press Index, P.O. Box 7299, Baltimore, MD 21218 LSM Annual Meeting LSM News to Suspend Publication At the end of September 1978, sources for a stronger journal members of Liberation Support in the future, and suspend LSM Movement held our Annual Meeting NEWS. This is the decision we to make major decisions charting made. the organization's work over the There are other factors in coming year. At the meeting we the decision. In the coming discussed LSM's strengths and year two of our writers will go weaknesses, evaluated the chang to Africa and tour North America ing conditions in North America afterwards. Others have heavy and the world, and made some im responsibilities completing book portant decisions. manuscripts. LSM's writing For some time we have been capacity will be severely dissatisfied with the small audi strained even without the pres ence reached by LSM NEWS and our sure of mee~ing LSM NEWS dead other publications. We discussed lines. three possible alternatives: As you will see elsewhere in the first is to radically improve this issue, two SWAPO memb~rs the journal. This solution would are now training at our print mean larger and more frequent shop. This is an important re issues, a more popular writing sponsibility; we are completing style, and reconceiving the the last phase of the SWAPO journal as a voice of the larger Printshop Project which many of internationalist solidarity move our readers made possible with ment and not merely of our organ their contributions. ization. But LSM now lacks the The Annual Meeting made other capacity for such a bold venture; important decisions as well. we do not have enough trained One is to step up our partici writers and editors or enough pation in the growing solidarity capital to launch a viable movement with Southern Africa. magazine. We have already begun by working The second alternative is to in the newly-formed Bay Area combine our resources with Southern Africa Coalition which others. We are open to this hopes to build a strong, united possibility but initial inves movement around a series of acti tigations show this solution to vities in the San Francisco area. be more likely in the long term. we hope to link this type of The third alternative is to practice with our writing and cut back on our publishing work, publishing work more than in the aim to build the necessary re- past. ( FINANCES AND LSM NEWS just send out cash refunds for SUBSCRIBERS all unfilled subscriptions. There are three ways we can Though the political consi square our accounts. First, you derations mentioned above were may donate your credit. Second, primary in our decision to sus you may use your credit to pur pend publication of LSM NEWS, chase LSM publications: back there are qlso compelling fi issues of LSM NEWS, the 1979 nancial facts we had to face. Africa Liberation Calendar, or With its circulation of less than other books and pamphlets. Third, 2,000, we found we were subsi those who have no choice but to dizing our journal even though ask for a cash refund, please all labor - writing, production, let us know. You can figure out and distribution - was unpaid. how much you are owed by looking We recognize an undischarged at your subscription label to obligation to LSM NEWS subscri see how many issues are left in bers. But we cannot afford to your subscription. Leading Edge Welcome to the 17th and final readers of the News. issue of LSM NEWS. Liberation Support Movement has learned * * * * much about ourselves and the world we are trying to change This issue begins with a in four years of publishing the series of short articles under News every three months or so. the heading, "Namibia is Up for Both LSM and the world have Grabs." SWAPO's fight to win changed a lot since 1974. freedom for Namibia is at a cru We do not feel our work has cial stage. Recent developments, been wasted. Though we have such as South Africa's unilateral reached only a small number of decision to hold its own elec people, we believe some have tions in December and Western been inspired, some have been diplomatic support for this moved to action, and many have South African move, compel the critically reexamined their own solidarity movement to increase ideas as we have tried to do pressure both on the apartheid ourselves. And though we have regime and on the Carter Admin decided to suspend this publi istration. cation, we are confident that LSM's writing and publishing * * * * skills can continue to make an effective contribution to inter When two of us were assigned nationalist solidarity work and to do a profile of La Pena, the fight for socialism. Berkeley's combination restau The coming period is one of rant/cultural center, we imme experimentation for our organi diately knew that one visit zation. We will be testing the would not be enough. Our re waters of the larger solidarity search reguired us to return movement and attempting to reach again and again .to soak up the much broader audiences by chan atmosphere and the beer, to neling our writing through lar sample the wide variety of poli ger publications. But as our tical and cultural programs, and practice changes, we hope to to try a Brazilian, A.rgentinian, maintain contact with the or Peruvian dish. We finally interviewed two La tiny East Timor has refused to Pena workers, Eric .and Niva, the quietly disappear into the ocean day of the center's third anni between Indonesia and Australia. versary. Mu~ic by Pan Fever, a After the Portuguese pulled out steel drum group giving. an after in 1975 Indonesia thought it noon concert, · blared from the could annex the territory with speaker over our heads. We are little fuss. But the Indone publishing this article because sians miscalculated the deter we believe La Pena is a very mination of the young but re important unifying institution sourceful liberation movement, for the left community in the FRETILIN. San Francisco Bay Area; it pro In a cramped office tucked vides a place for political away in the back of our print events, relaxation, and cultural shop, Jose Ramos-Horta, performance free of much of the FRETILIN's representative to sectarianism and isolation which the United Nations, discussed plague the North American left. the East Timorese liberation struggle, the affairs of his * * * * party, and his personal history with refreshing candor. We met Portugal's African colonies him as a comrade but soon came attracted so much attention that to regard him as a personal its Asian possessions have friend. largely been overlooked. But 2 Wheeling and dealing Western foreign ministers fly in and out ■ of South Africa trying to shape a solution to the problem of Namibia IS .Namibia, the mineral-rich colony ruled by South Africa. The South African government recently issued an ultimatum: the apart heid regime will hold elections in December 1978. Then the South Up Grabs Africans say they will "advise" For the winners to permit a UN supervised election later. This plan excludes SWAPO, the inter- nationally recognized liberation movement that has fought for in- dependence for the last twenty years. SWAPO is now fighting a widening guerrilla war. The Big Five, the Western countries with large investments in Namibia, seek a compromise "moderate" regime that will protect their interests and end the war. ~ ~!,~Jt' The following series of •· ,.,.,.,~ articles highlights basic ~ features of the battle for Namibia. "Apartheid Won't Budg gives a nutshell history and an overview of recent diplomatic maneuvers. "Who Gets the Dia monds?" discusses the foreign grip on Namibia's natural wealth and tactical differences between the plans of South African and Western capitalists. "Day of the Chameleons" un ravels the complex scramble for the post-independence spoils. West Germany, for instance, is already seeking a key role in the upcoming phony elections. "They went to Windhoek" is a remarkable account by a visitor into SWAPO-controlled parts of northern Namibia where firmly entrenched SWAPO guerrillas prepare to prove that any South African-directed independence is a sham. ______ 3 Namibia Is Up for Grabs On the southern fringe of the "Ovamboland Expressway," units of the South African army poise for another round in their in creasingly bloody war against Namibian guerrillas. The "expressway" is a cleared strip of land one kilometer wide - a "free fire" zone that marks Namibia's border with Angola. South of the five-strand barbed wire fence marking the border, the tall, lush grass should make ideal pasturage. Yet no life can be seen because the edgy South Africans are likely to blast away at the smallest movement in the grass.