16 AUGUST 1986, Page 17

Overgilt homeland

Sir: Woodrow Wyatt's Paean to Bophuthatswana (Diary 19, July) provides a glimmer of an alternative (confederacy?) to the world's demand for majority rule in a unitary South African. Yet he overgilds that lily.

To take but one example: `13ophuthats- wana has 80 per cent of the world's platinum.' World reserves are unkown and Bophuthatswana accounts for approx- imately 40 per cent (1.38m troy ounces) of world production.

M R Meadmore

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