The South West Time Bomb

By ARNOLD BEICHMAN LAST spring. when I had finally obtained a visa for South Africa, I inquired of one of the Consulate officials whether I could visit South West Africa from Johannesburg. The official stared at me for a long moment to judge whether mine was an innocent newspaperman's question or whether I really knew what I was asking. Finally he replied in a lofty tone of mock for- giveness. 'We'll pretend you didn't ask that question.'

Now that I've been to South Africa, I begin to understand why my question so perturbed the Consulate official. South West Africa has been curtained off from the rest of the continent and even from South Africa itself, so that no one really knows, except in fragmentary detail, what is going on in this huge territory, in size larger than Great Britain and France combined.

This desolate area, where live barely half a million people (about one in . seven are ,Euro- peans), is controlled by South Africa thanks to a League of. Nations mandate. Two African nations which were League members, Ethiopia

and Liberia, brought suit against South Africa in 1960 before the International Court of Justice charging that the mandatory power has been violating the terms of the mandate—'to promote to the utmost the material and moral well-being and the social progress of the inhabitants of the territory.'

There is little doubt that South Africa has promoted the material well-being and progress of part of the population—the 74,000 whites. Ai for the 450,000 non-whites and their well-being, that is the question which the fifteen-man Inter- national Court will adjudicate upon. The United Nations has already voted for South Africa to surrender its mandate and turn South West Africa into a UN trusteeship.

Whether South Africa will obey a court man- date to surrender the territory to the UN, if that is the court's decision, is doubtful. Prime Minister Verwoerd in July told a National party meeting that South West Africa is too close to South Africa to be allowed to fall into 'Russian hands.' Dr. D. F. Malan, the former Prime Minister, has said that South Africa would not allow 'foreign interference' in South West Africa.

So important is the legal controversy to South Africa that it has been estimated that the govern- ment has spent about £6 million in legal fees and maintenance of staff in The Hague, where the case has been argued. Costs to Ethiopia and Liberia, who are suing on behalf of the Organ- isation of African Unity, are about £14,000.

While the territory's future hangs in the balance, South African industrialists with the right government contacts are making profits as high as 40 per cent on capital invested in South West enterprises. Concessions have been granted to only, seven companies for fish process- ing factories in South West Africa. The conces- sions are no more than a licence to make money.

For example, the 1948 South West fish catch was a mere 13,000 tons. Last year, it skyrocketed to 740,000 tons, mostly rock lobster and pil- chards, valued at £17 million. Feeling the hot breath of the United Nations on their backs, the fishing companies are ignoring all rules of conservation so that within a few years the rock lobster, a highly profitable product, will prob ably become extinct.

Meanwhile there are profits like these: Sea Products Ltd. of South West Africa, on a capital investment of £2.5 million four years ago, had net profits after taxes (which are quite low) of £1 million or 40 per cent. Sea Products stock prices in these four years have soared nine times over the original price. Other companies show similar profits on fish and fish meal.

The second major source of wealth is diamonds and base metals such as copper, lead, zinc and manganese. In 1961, this scrub, semi- desert territory produced £18 million worth of diamonds and £7 million in base-metal exports. Diamonds are mined along coastal beaches. It would be a foolhardy tourist who would dare swim along the Sperregebiet, a diamond beach area patrolled by the tough squads of the Diamond Branch of South Africa's police trained to combat '1DB,' illicit diamond buying.

Floating rig barges stand offshore sucking up vast quantities of sand, gravel and alluvial soil at the bottom of the sea. By screening processes, this mass of tonnage produces diamonds. Along the beach huge earth-movers crawl, displacing tons of diamondiferous soil which are sifted and sifted until the crude gems are found.

The underwater diamond operation of the Marine Diamond Corporation, owned by a Texas millionaire, Sam Collins, boasts a big investment by the Anglo-American Corporation, the Oppen- heimer pinnacle company. It has 'been mining about 1,000 carats a day and it is hoped to reach 2,500 carats a day later this year. Another diamond concessionaire is the Terra Marine Co., whose- officers are closely allied with the Nationalists.

Oil exploration began some time. ago in the hope that South Africa could overcome her vul- nerability to possible UN sanctions. By be- coming independent or less dependent upon over- seas petroleum imports, South Africa could endure any naval blockade, about which it is, for no visible reason, apprehensive.

The third sector of the area's wealth is agri- culture, which means, largely, ranching of caracul sheep imported years ago from Russia. The animals thrive in the arid climate and so South Africa has another splendidly profitable asset much in demand.

Thus while the legal debate winds up, the exploitation of South West Africa goes on— 'You ought to call it pillaging,• not exploitation,' said a. sttident of the territory's economy, 'be- cause that's what it is.' And .the exploitation or pillaging is entirely for the one-seventh of the population which owns two-thirds of South West Africa's land.

While there is some knowledge of what is going on in part of the territory around Wind- hoek, one-half of South West Africa is closed to prying eyes. It is in areas like Kaokveld, Ovamboland and Okavango and the Hottentot reserves that Pretoria has undertaken to create Bantustan homelands and, in the words of Dr. Verwoerd, 'projects directed at the economic benefit and service of all the inhabitants of the territory.'

In practical terms, the government is imple- menting the 1962 recommendations of the Odendaal Commission, which called for slicing South West Africa into eleven ethnic states. To keep the white settlers content, the government has been purchasing white-owned farms—the average white farm is twenty-eight square miles— at prices far above their assessed value. This land will be incorporated into the future 'Bantu- stans,' like the Transkei. Thus far it is esti- mated the government has spent about £6 mil- lion in purchasing white farmland.

The end result of this slicing-up of South West Africa, moving forward rapidly with almost no publicity, is that when the govern- ment feels the time is ripe, all it will need do is make a few proclamations, organise Transkei- style elections, and presto! There will be ten little non-Whitestans and a new White province for South Africa.' So wrote the South African journalist Wilf Nussey.

It may be that when the International Court announces its decision, predictably adverse to South Africa, the decision will die of irrelevance. Never underestimate Pretoria.

'Nobody knows what the government will do.' said an informed South African, 'if the court finds against South Africa, so in the meantime the sm;11 group of monopolists are making the kind of money which nobody anywhere is making and to hell with the future. In the mean- time, of course, there's the Odendaal Plan marching along. So when there is a decision, the government will stall and stall, submit endless arguments, witnesses, new briefs, all in the hope that if they wait long enough, the UN will collapse.'

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