Real War (6 page)

Zairean copper and cobalt, Rhodesian chrome, South African gold, diamonds, manganese, and platinum metals—these are among the economic stakes the Soviets are playing for in southern Africa. They already control the excellent ports in Angola and Mozambique flanking the Cape of Good Hope. If South Africa were to fall under their control, they would control the sea lanes around the Cape through which 70 percent of the strategic raw materials and 80 percent of the oil needed by European NATO powers flow. South Africa is also the continent's leading economic power. It alone provides 40 percent of the industrial production of all Africa and 25 percent of its agricultural production.

The Soviets want southern Africa. They also try to exploit its racial troubles, particularly those of the Republic of South Africa, in order to incite hostility toward the West; and, if they could, they would like to precipitate a military confrontation and a race war there, which would have incalculably tragic consequences for black and white alike, as well as for the whole continent of Africa and the whole of the Western world. It would leave a lot of shattered pieces for Russia to pick up.

South Africa's particular racial troubles are different, because that nation's history is different; but troubles between racial, ethnic, or tribal groups are not unique to South Africa. In northernmost Africa the Arabs rule. In the countries of the Sahel, the Arabs struggle with blacks for dominance. In Chad, struggles between Moslems in the north and Saharan people in the south have led to civil war for twelve years—an indication of the problems racial divisions can cause. In Africa south of the Sahara, blacks predominate, but this has not prevented violent tribalism, a sin just as bad as racism. Fierce intertribal rivalries and wars—the Katanga rebellion in the Congo; the civil war in Nigeria, which caused the death of probably more than a million Ibos in Biafra; the bloody war between the Hutu and the Tutsi in tiny Burundi in 1973, where 100,000 died; and many other conflicts—have occurred. Nor have black Africans been free of racism. In East Africa, those of Asian origin had their property expropriated and then were driven out, solely on racial grounds. In Equatorial Guinea a dictator supported by Russia, China, Cuba, and North Korea forced an estimated one third of that nation's population to flee into exile and many of those who stayed behind met their death in forced-labor camps or prison. For many Africans the benefits of “majority rule” have been so slight that, according to Amnesty International, eight black African countries are among the fifteen worst human rights violators in the world. Given the experience of the rest of Africa, instant majority rule, even if it were possible, would surely not be the best thing for the Africans of South Africa—black and white alike.

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In the larger world struggle southern Africa is a key battleground—as vital in its way as the Middle East. We must not, out of a misplaced idealism, allow our policies toward southern Africa to become hostage to the parochial passions of African leaders who have no appreciation of or concern for the issues at stake there between East and West. We also must not, out of that same misplaced idealism, conspire in the destruction of societies that are moving forward, both economically and socially, and that do show signs of demonstrating how to succeed where others on the continent—including their most vehement detractors—have conspicuously failed.

Just as our own South changed dramatically after years of saying “never,” South Africa now is changing. Prime Minister Botha has committed the government to a program of “adaptation to avoid revolution.” One moderate member of Parliament recently commented that “more changes have taken place here in the last 18 months than in all the previous 320 years of this country's history.”

Whether in the Republic of South Africa or in Zimbabwe Rhodesia, those who are working for an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary solution to their countries' troubles should be given the world's sympathetic help, not be treated as international pariahs. It happens that the vital strategic interests of the West are bound up with the stability of those countries, and of that part of Africa; we should not be apologetic about defending those interests. Neither should we be apologetic about standing firmly with those who are committed to expanding freedom, even if gradually, as opposed to those who are extinguishing freedom, and doing so rapidly.

The real threat of white domination in Africa during the remainder of this century is not from the old order. The real danger is from the new order—the new slavery that Jonas Savimbi warns of, imposed and maintained by the new Soviet imperialism. In no Soviet-dominated state does
any
majority rule, whatever its color; minority rule is the essence of the Soviet system. Whatever the color of the local puppet, the strings are pulled from Moscow—and there are no black faces in the Politburo. The Soviets are not in Africa to “liberate.” They are there to dominate, control, and exploit, and to replace the old white supremacy with a new white supremacy. White colonial rule is white colonial rule, whether exercised from London or from Moscow.

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Throughout history many of the worst atrocities have been perpetrated in the name of the highest ideals. Passion is a poor guide to policy. The racist obsession of many black African leaders, while understandable in terms of their priorities, ought not to dictate ours. The sort of holy war they preach, to eradicate in southern Africa all vestiges of special privilege or even special protection for the white minorities, would be bloody even beyond the standards of Idi Amin; and it would destroy
the economic and political structures on which both black and white depend for such freedom and prosperity as they have.

A race war against South Africa is not the way to end racism in South Africa, nor will economic warfare against the most economically advanced nation on the continent resolve the issue. Here in the United States we fought a civil war in part over the issue of slavery, and it took another century before even those racial discriminations sanctioned by law were wiped away. With our own history, we are hardly free enough of sin to cast the first stone—or even the second. Without condoning South Africa's racial policies, we should be more understanding of the need to change them peacefully over a period of time, and more sensitive to the other issues besides race that are at stake in the future of that tortured part of the continent.

With our eyes riveted on the successive crises in NATO Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa, we have lost sight of the growing world of power to the south of us in Latin America. Geopolitically it has long been accepted that we are an “island nation,” but if we maintain our past neglect of this area we may well awaken to find that the enemy is ashore on the “island continent” to the south of us. The Soviets already have outposts of influence on the offshore islands—in Cuba and some of the smaller Antilles. By the time this book appears, they may be ashore in Central America.

Latin America usually makes the front pages of our newspapers only when there is a revolution, an earthquake, or a riot at a soccer match. But it deserves attention equal to that we give Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in some ways even more because of its proximity to us.

Latin America is a prime Soviet target for three major reasons: it has enormous natural resources; by the end of the century its population will be substantially greater than that of the United States and Western Europe combined; and it is close to the United States—it is our soft underbelly.

The nations of Latin America won their freedom largely as a result of our example. They were able to keep that freedom during their early years because of the protective mantle the Monroe Doctrine spread over them. By allowing a Soviet client state in the Americas—Cuba—we seemed to them to have abandoned that doctrine. They see little resistance from us to the establishment of Cuban influence in the islands of the Caribbean and now on the mainland of Central America. They see us abandoning many of our friends on the grounds that they are not pure on the matter of human rights. They notice that the Soviets do not abandon their friends over matters of ideology, as long as interests coincide. They have watched as our friends in South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Iran have been defeated and overthrown, in some cases with the help of Cuba. They can hardly help wondering how firmly they can count on us in the future.

Many use the term “Latin America” as if it were an undifferentiated mass. But Latin America embraces an expanse far larger than Europe and contains an immense diversity of peoples. Each country has an old and proud tradition of independence and individuality. They all have a common religion. By the end of the century half of the Roman Catholics in the world will be in Latin America. Some countries, such as Argentina, Uruguay, and Costa Rica, have populations that are almost exclusively European in origin. Others, including Mexico, Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador, have a large Indian component. Many have large numbers of people with German, Italian, and other European backgrounds besides Spanish. In Brazil people of African and Portuguese origin have joined to produce a new civilization. There are wide differences in the degree of development and sophistication in these countries; in size, they range from the giant Brazil to such tiny countries as El Salvador.

Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina are rapidly becoming industrial nations. Brazil has more people than Britain and France combined, well over 100 million, and in some respects is already an industrial giant, with the tenth largest GNP in the world in 1978.

Mexico is taking great strides toward development. Revenues
from its vast newly found oil reserves will enable it to move rapidly toward a better life for its 70 million people, but these riches also make it a tempting target for subversion.

Argentina, with a basically homogeneous and highly educated population, is keenly motivated and is engaged, like Brazil, in building vast new dams to provide electricity and power for its burgeoning industry. It needs only political stability to move forward even faster.

In Chile, the ruling junta has embarked on what has been labeled “a daring gamble . . . to turn the country into a laboratory for free-market economics.” Investment has shot up, taxes have been cut, and tax reform enacted. Critics focus exclusively on political repression in Chile, while ignoring the freedoms that are a product of a free economy. In Cuba there are neither political nor economic rights. In Chile, the latter may well be the precursor of the former. Rather than insisting on instant perfection from Chile, we should encourage the progress it is making.

The Andean countries have shown promising signs of a growing ability to work together. Venezuelan oil wealth, Colombian diversity, Ecuadorian oil, and Peruvian minerals could be used to bring new hope to the underprivileged in the area.

Central America and the Caribbean are critical regions because of their strategic location, and because economically and militarily they are among the weaker areas of the hemisphere. Radical governments are now installed in Grenada and St. Lucia. Cuba has made efforts to ingratiate itself in Jamaica and Panama, and has intervened in Nicaragua. This could be the first step along a road that leads through Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala to the threshold of the great Mexican oilfields in the area of the Tehuantepec Isthmus. The Soviets and their allies may well try to repeat in Latin America the squeeze play they engineered in Afghanistan, South Yemen, and Ethiopia around the oil-producing lands of the Middle East. As Rowland Evans and Robert Novak have put it, the “Central American dominoes are falling.” The primary reason for these reverses is one man on one island: Castro and Cuba.

If Soviet client regimes come to power in Central America, the western hemisphere will have been cut in two at its “slim waist.” From their position in Central America such regimes
would threaten the two largest oil producers in Latin America, Venezuela and Mexico, as well as the Panama Canal. We cannot afford to let this happen.

The Monroe Doctrine must be revitalized and redefined to counter indirect aggression, which was not a threat 150 years ago. The United States should make it clear that we will resist intervention in Latin America not only by foreign governments but also by Latin American governments controlled by a foreign power. Of the total of 10 million Cubans, more than 40,000 are now acting as proxies for Soviet expansion in Africa. This is the equivalent of sending an army of nearly 1 million Americans overseas to fight—almost twice the highest number we had in Vietnam. Tiny Cuba, under Soviet tutelage, has become a major imperialist power. Castro has made Cuba a disaster area. He must not be allowed, with Soviet support, to foist his discredited economic and political systems on other countries in Latin America. Any such effort at subversion should be firmly and unmistakably checked, and both Soviets and Cubans should be told in advance that any interference here will bring far more than a diplomatic protest from us.

At the same time, we must work with the nations of Latin America in building their economies and helping them to help their people escape the poverty that still is the lot of so many. As the dismal failure of the Alliance for Progress to achieve its grandiose goals demonstrated, a “war on poverty” in Latin America will not be won by primary reliance on government aid programs. Government aid is limited by budgets; private investment is limited only by opportunities. To attract the investments they need, Latin American countries will have to provide guarantees against expropriation and ensure that there are sufficient incentives. For their part, American and other private investors must come in as developers and not exploiters. As the Latin American countries industrialize, the markets of the West must be opened to their products. The United States, in view of our special relationship with these countries, should provide preferential tariff treatment for Latin American products.