]]]]]]]]]]            LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA         [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
                                                           (2/23/1989)

     ... South African politics is going through a most interesting 
period. Since economic sanctions have been applied, South African 
trade with black Africa, especially those African countries 
championing sanctions, has boomed. A good rule of thumb is that the 
louder the Africans call for sanctions, the more enthusiastically they 
increase trade with South Africa.
     South West Africa (Namibia) has long been a drain on the South 
African economy and a political liability (as the Empire was on 
Britain, Vietnam on the USA, and Afghanistan on the USSR) and, 
although they will never admit it in public, the South African 
government will be delighted to be rid of it. Voting in Africa is 
entirely tribal and, as SWAPO [Marxist-terrorist organization, P.B.] 
is an Ovambo organization and the Ovambos are the largest tribe, SWAPO 
will win. It's as simple as that. 
     If SWAPO becomes a hard-line Marxist government, faithful to 
Moscow, then South African mining companies will continue to dominate 
the Namibian economy, since the Russians and the South Africans are as 
thick as thieves on the marketing of diamonds and precious metals.
     It is more likely that Namibia will become another Zimbabwe, full 
of socialist rhetoric, but pleading to the West for aid and 
investment, loud with calls for sanctions, but happily trading with 
South Africa.
     Of course the country could do a black African collapse (like 
Zambia, Zaire, Uganda, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Burundi, Ghana, etc.), 
but that would have little effect on South Africa, except to give them 
new white immigrants from Namibia.

     K.A., (AtE subscriber)
     Johannesburg, S. Africa

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