Southern Africa Inkathagate Revisited
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SouthernCD Africa Vol.7 No.2 November 1991 (; p ts ?mCMtRaegn ,&fYAgffi Vol. 7 No. 2 REPORT November 1991 Contents Editorial: Blowin' in the Windhoek ..... Namibia: A Class Act? ...... Land in Namibia: . .. 7 Rhetoric, Reform or Revolution, .... Police Story: A Tough Transition...... ........... 10 ........... 14 Southern Africa Inkathagate Revisited ........ Mozambique: REPORT Impasse in the Peace Process is produced 5 times a year by a volunteer collective of the Toronto Healing Apartheid's Work Committee for the Liberation of I. Defining the Problem .... .............. .. 20 Southern Africa (TCLSAC) II. The Challenge of Change ............... ... 23 427 Bloor St. W. Toronto, M5S 1X7 Structural Adjustment for Africa: Tel. (416) 967-5562 Canada Jumps on the Bandwagon .... ......... 26 Submissions, suggestions and help in production are welcome and invited. Fighting Sexual Oppression: ISSN 0820-5582 Two-Way Solidarity .... ................ ... 28 SAR is a member of the Canadian Letters: Magazine Publishers Association. Our Readers Write ...... ................ 31 Subscriptions The Theory Corner ....... ................ 31 Keep on Truckin' . .... ................ ... 32 Annual TCLSAC membership and Southern Africa Report subscription rates are as follows: SUBSCRIPTION: Individual (1 year) . ... $18.00 Individual (2 years) . ... $36.00 SAR Collective Institution ... ........ $40.00 Sue Baldwin, Jonathan Barker, Nancy Barker, MEMBERSHIP: (includes subscription) Lois Browne, Margie Bruun-Meyer, David Cooke, David Galbraith, Regular ... ......... $35.00 Dave Hatman, Lisa Horrocks, Carole Houlihan, Linzi Manicom, Unemployed Judith Marshall, Alberto Mourato, Colleen O'Manique, Student ... ......... $18.00 Richard Pathak, John S. Saul, Lauren Swenarchuk, Senior Joe Vise, Mary Vise, Barbara Willey, Chris Williams Sustainer ..... ... over $100.00 Overseas add $8.00 Cover design by Art Work _________________________________________________________________________________________a Second class mail registration No. 7844 Action Print Printed by Union Labour at Action Print Second class mail registration No. 7844 Blowin' in the Windhoek Expectations have been cruelly lowered in southern Africa, as a cold gust of the new realism contin ues to cut a swath across the region. Nowhere is this more true than in Nami bia, a territory that a year or two ago experienced its own brief flash of head lines in the world's press. But Nami bia has since disap peared into the nether-world of global indifference, its dramatic libera tion from South African over rule now, to many, not much more than a historical footnote. For the anti apartheid movement the reasons for a cer tain lack of interest in a "liberated Nami bia" are rather more complex than merely a short attention span, however. The fact that, in many particulars, the new SWAPO government has provided a pretty conventional "neo colonial" denouement to the long freedom strug gle waged by Namib ians, helps explain this response. Even at a point when dis tinctly lowered and "more realistic" ex pectations are the or der of the day, it is not easy to rational ize the very great gap that exists between Southern Africa REPORT november 1991 the socialist promise of SWAPO's the history of SWAPO's own evo possible tension, a context for "let 1976 Political Programme (cited in lution as a liberation movement is ting off steam," or instead designed of pro Chris Tapscott's lead article in this a checkered one, too often marked to facilitate the development issue) and the present, much greyer by the kind of authoritarian turns gressive policy innovations in this Nonetheless, the conference reality. that produced, most graphically, the sphere. cruel and well-documented atroci seems to have been a particularly There is, of course, much more ties in SWAPO's own Angolan bases impressive moment. to be said about Namibia's present in the 1980s. The swirl of revela Colin Leys focuses on a rather day reality than we attempt to cover tions around South Africa's Inkatha in the three lead articles (by Tap less salient sphere, but one no less gate scandal has recently produced emer scott, Brown and Leys) that provide important to the health of further evidence of the way in which the thematic centre-piece to the cur gent Namibian society than the res South Africa sought surreptitiously rent issue. But Tapscott's analysis olution of the "land question": the to tilt the balance against SWAPO is a sobering one, nonetheless, teas sphere of policing, where the grim in the elections leading up to inde ing out the signs that SWAPO lead legacy of the past combines with the pendence, one more index of the way ers are being drawn, willy-nilly, into contradictions of the present in a in which external forces have sought the small, self-referential world of a way that stretches the imaginations to conspire against the movement. deracialized privileged elite in their of policy-makers in particularly chal Quite probably, this was one way country, at the expense of their pre lenging ways. Moreover, it is on in which very conservative forces sumed vocation to advance the in just such apparently modest fronts within Namibian society have indeed terests of the much larger number of that many of the most important ad been strengthened. Namibian underprivileged. SWAPO vances willhave to be made in south leaders, queried recently on such At the same time, the fact ern Africa in the coming years. The matters by a member of SAR's ed that such machinations may have anti-apartheid movement, with its itorial working group, were quick helped keep SWAPO from gaining eyes turned to the "big picture" and to highlight the broader constraints a two-thirds majority in the pre the overall pattern of development in within which they have been forced independence election (and hence the region, must also take seriously, to define their independence project: a much freer hand in constitution as Leys does here, the complexity of the gale forces that have blown apart making) is not deeply to be re struggle in such spheres. the erstwhile "socialist bloc" and left gretted. For this, in turn, forced Complexity is the key then, in standing ever more firmly a rapa SWAPO to accept a much more Namibia as elsewhere in the region. cious "new world order" under west open political system than it might Certainly, the Inkathagate scandal ern capitalist auspices; the winds otherwise have been prepared to in South Africa was more compli of change in the region that pro consider. True, it is the right cated than most commentators, of duced for SWAPO a transitional (notably entrenched white interests) left and right, suggested when it process and a new constitutional dis that has, up to now, most effec first broke earlier this year; Gerhard pensation very far from that move tively taken advantage of this po Mar6 provides SAR readers with ment's heart's desire. Yet even when litical space for its own purposes. some much needed perspective on appropriate weight has been given Nonetheless, the possibility exists Inkathagate, and some fresh ques to such factors, the central ques that popular forces will begin to tions, in this issue. The peace pro tions posed by Tapscott's analysis emerge on this terrain that can, over cess in Mozambique? Not so very remain: has SWAPO much too read time, challenge Namibia's new elites straightforward a matter either, for ily trimmed its sails to catch the and pressure parties like SWAPO to reasons Rob Davies draws out in an prevailing breezes? have its lead be more honest to their stated left other article in this issue. Indeed it ers much too comfortably made a populist purposes. is precisely with these kinds of arti virtue of the "necessities" that un Not that the picture is entirely cles that SAR is attempting to fill doubtedly do crowd in upon them? bleak, even as it stands. As Su what we take to be our mandate. These are questions that can be san Brown documents in this issue, To work with others in the solidarity asked of other leaderships in the re the SWAPO-sponsored Land Con movement to sustain great expecta gion, of course, as the struggle con ference in June of this year provided tions, but to do so, as the present tinues to redefine "the art of the pos an innovative and scrupulously open challenging context of our work de sible" on the very difficult terrain forum within which the central is mands, on.the basis of the most rig that southern Africa has recently be sue of land was intelligently debated orous and realistic possible assess come. In the Namibian case there and a wide array of voices heard. Of ment of our circumstances, both in may be additional grounds for scep course, only time will tell whether southern Africa and closer to home. ticism about the present leadership's this conference was designed primar To beat against the wind if need be, progressive credentials. After all, ily to be a mere lightning rod for but not without a compass. Africa REPORT november 1991 Southern Africa REPORT Namibia: A Class Act? BY CHRIS TAPSCOTT Chris Tapscott heads the Namibian In stitute of Social and Economic Re search (NISER) at the University in Windhoek, Namibia. The independence of Namibia in March of 1990 brought to an end more than a century of colonial ism. For the majority of Namib ians the history of colonial rule was characterized by dispossession, na tional oppression and poverty. The policies of this era served, more over, to reify racial and ethnic di visions within the society, to the ex tent that different communities were segregated geographically, econom ically and socially. As in South Africa, class and racial categories in Namibia overlapped, and the small white settler population (backed by Pretoria's military might) controlled the economy as well as the political order.