Battle Scars: Angola, South Africa, Mozambique

Southern Africa. Vol. 6No. 5 1 May1991 Battle Scars: Angola, South Africa, Mozambique I A N G 0 1L A SOUTH AFRICA M OZA M B I Q U E What Way Out The High Costs Refugees, of the of Renamo and Quagmire? Stalemate Reconstruction price: $3.50 a10jNC~tR8ZM ctdgmVol. 6 No. 5 REPORT May 1991 Contents Editorial: Battle Scars ........ .................... 1 Angola's Quagmire: What Way Out? ....... .................. 4 The High Costs of Stalemate: Dan O'Meara on South Africa ........... ... 10 Mozambique's Beleaguered Children: Southern Africa Legacy of a War ....... ................. 14 REPORT Mozambican Refugees: The is produced 5 times a year by a Mosaic Dossier ..... ................ .. 17 volunteer collective of the Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Refugees, Renamo & Reconstruction: Southern Africa (TCLSAC) An Oxford Workshop ............ 427 Bloor St. W. Toronto, M5S IX? Stop the Press? Tel. (416) 967-5562 The Media Struggle in Zimbabwe . 23 Submissions, suggestions and help in production are welcome and invited. The U. S. and South Africa: ISSN 0820-5582 What Next? .... .......... .. .. .. .. 27 SAR is a member of the Canadian Magazine Publishers Association. Significant Differences: Debating Gender in South Africa .... Subscriptions Southern African Notebook: Annual TCLSAC membership and Credit Where Credit Is Due? ... .. ... .32 Southern Africa Report subscription rates are as follows: SUBSCRIPTION: Individual (1 year) $18.00 Individual (2 years) $36.00 SAR Collective Institution ........ $40.00 MEMBERSHIP: (includes subscription) Sue Baldwin, Lois Browne, Margie Bruun-Meyer, David Cooke, David Galbraith, Dave Hartman, Regular .......... .. $35.00 Lisa Horrocks, Carole Houlihan, Mary MacNutt, Linzi Manicom, Unemployed Judith Marshall, Alberto Mourato, Colleen O'Manique, Leora Rissin, Student .......... .. $18.00 Senior Otto Roesch, Joel Rosenbloom, John S. Saul, Lauren Swenarchuk, Joe Vise, Barbara Willey Sustainer ..... ... over $100.00 Overseas add $8.00 Cover design by Art Work Cover photo by John Liebenborg/Afrapix Second class mail registration No. 7844 by Union Labour at Action Print Printed by Union Labour at Action Print ,Oew Second class mail registration No. 7844 0 0En ozambican refugees, newly arrived in 5outh African "'homeLana" rejugee camp Battle Scars In southern Africa these days cer southern Africa than more typical their country. Dan O'Meara, re porting on a recent trip to South tainties are difficult to come by: issues of SAR, ones structured self Africa, flags the danger of chaos the transition in South Africa in confidently around one central shap a possible Lebanonization - that creasingly blurred, the promise of ing theme or another. the unresolved legacies of apartheid genuine liberation elsewhere in the Contradictions and confusions? and the uncertainties of transition region severely compromised. We In this issue, Frank Luce probes in South Africa might yet bring. cast about, looking for straws in the the scars left by siege (and self Bill Martin, reporting from Wash wind, auguries in the entrails. Here destructive tendencies) on Angola's ington, suggests ways in which the darkness prevails, there a glimmer of ruling MPLA and, by extension, U. S. anti-apartheid forces may be light can be seen. The present eclec on a badly battered Angola, while suffering from weaknesses of their tic issue, in its very range and di Naomi Richman helps underscore - the very moment when versity, may therefore capture more the psychic scars that are part of own at a new level of subtlety and resolve of the contradictions and confusions the legacy of Mozambican children in their efforts is called for. And that define the present moment in from South Africa's war against Southern Africa REPORT may 1991 0 ill indeed. Yet far too few stood menacingly over all these cost, for example, to the credibility hovering up against this grisly sub-text of the southern African battlefronts is the of the United Nations security sys tem, used like a Kleenex tissue by Gulf War while it was in progress shadow of another war - that in the even the United States and then thrown just as too few are prepared Persian Gulf - and the shadow, too, has away - can even begin to be totted now to state that the Emperor of what we identify, nervously, as Patriot up. no clothes (however many "the post-Gulf syndrome." missiles he may be wearing!) * * * indicated above, However, as Nor is this way of reading the southern African activists will be es For even though it is some dis resonance of the war profane knowl pecially preoccupied with the costs tance from the Gulf, it's hard not to edge. For example, from a quite dif of U. S. victory, broadly, to the feel that southern Africa - and, by ferent perspective and at its most Third World. Not that the global extension, southern Africa support obscene it can be found in the rant reach of capitalism is something workers in Canada and elsewhere ings of British right-wing columnist new. Moreover, it was apparent will be suffering the fall-out from Peregrine Worsthorne (who also had well before the Gulf events that in the recent war for years to come. In his innings on the CBC's Commen the post-Cold War epoch the impe this regard, the specificities of the tary!): "It is beginning to look as if rial centres of the international econ war are a lot less important than Saddam Hussein has given the West omy were becoming more, not less, its broader implications for the tex a chance once again to establish greedy and assertive; witness the ture of future relationships between its unchallengeable pre-eminence in sidelining of the positive possibili "the West" and the "Third World," a manner impregnable at once to ties inherent in discussion of a "New southern Africa included. It is this obloquy and military resis International Economic Order," the moral fact that seems to demand from us tance. Not only will our arms have overbearing impositions of the IMF some further reflection on the war in in a most spectacular fash and the World Bank, the western prevailed the present editorial. ion. So will our ideals [sic]. Noth sponsored distortions of the GATT ing is forever. Sooner or later the True, the Gulf action was not negotiations, and the like. This is a Third World will throw up other an absolutely typical western inter pattern we know well from recent de challenges. But if the Gulf War ends vention in the Third World. Sad velopments in southern Africa, and as it has begun, there can be no dam is a villain (although, truth one that holds virtually no promise doubt who are the masters now be told, not much worse than any of long-term socio-economic trans at any rate for another generation. number of U. S.-sponsored satraps formation for countries there or else We have the laser beams and they around the world, including most of where. Nor is the tendency to mil have not. And the 'we' who matter our "democratic allies" in the Gulf itarize this kind of western con are not the Germans or the Japanese itself). And his invasion of Kuwait trol over the Third World a new or the Russians, but the Americans. was, indeed, unacceptable (although phenomenon (as a reading of, say, Happy days are here again. Bliss is no more so than such "acceptable" Gabriel Kolko's, magisterial Con it in this dawn to be alive; but to be interventions, in southern Africa and fronting the Third World: United reactionary is very heaven." elsewhere, as the U. S. destruction States Foreign Policy, 1945-1980 an old Even Worsthorne could not have got of Nicaragua and Angola, the South should remind anyone who cares to of African reduction of Mozambique to know). away with using quite this kind chaos, the Indonesian invasion of language a few short months ago. East Timor). Yet the escalation of No, the new reality here is the unfortunately, is Wors war, pre-empting the testing of any added charge the war has given, Nor, ar thorne's mindset a million miles legitimate time-frame for the effi quite self-evidently, to American away from that of George Bush and cacy of sanctions to be felt, remains rogance and assertiveness in carry colleagues. Thus the Toronto an obscenity by any standard: com ing out its global activities. The his Star's Richard Gwyn - no left looney pare how reluctantly even the most greatest casualty of the Gulf War the underlying logic of modest of sanctions were imposed - and in saying this we do not he - writes of war (beneath the headline "War upon a country like South Africa, mean to trivialize the passing of all the a stern lesson to Third World," for example, and how patiently we those, Kuwaitis and Iraqis in par is 1991) in the following were expected to wait for them to ticular, who died needlessly in the February 24, syn "... the object lesson taught have effect! The extraordinary, and war - is the "post-Vietnam terms: to the Third World will, most prob continuing, costs to the people of drome." There can be little doubt ably, be well learned. In essence, the Iraq - themselves prisoners of Sad that the new "post-Gulf syndrome" of United States is sending out a mes dam's dictatorship - of using "max - increasingly the ideological glue sage: 'There will be no more Viet imum force" are only just begin George Bush's "New World Order" nams.' Any Third World countries to become apparent. It will be and of the world-wide recolonization ning that challenges it can anticipate be- some years before other costs - the process that is upon us - bodes very REPORT may 19911991 Southern Africa REPORT ing dealt with in the same way gola, Luce's piece also identifies on ence in South Africa that she reports first by being softened up by a pre going popular initiatives that sug upon - on the front of gender-related cise, high-tech aerial blitz, then by gest both the resilience of the An assertions in that country.

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