Britain and Namibia
Sir: Were the other 19 journalists flown to Namibia by RTZ as 'bleary-eyed after a late night in the German Club' as was Geoffrey Wheatcroft when visiting the ROssing uranium mine (13 June)? Did they too miss the whole point of the world-wide condemnation of ROssing, which is not about apartheid, multinational exploitation or even nuclear dangers, but that it operates in blank defiance of Decree No 1 of the UN Council for Namibia, based on the 1971 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice? This contempt for international law is made the more deplorable by the fact that HMG (in the person of Mr Tony Benn) signed the contract making us Rossing's chief customer, after the promulgation of Decree No 1.
It is a source of added shame that HMG supports the outlaw role of RTZ in Namibia on the grounds that we have never accepted the World Court opinion on which the Decree ('for the protection of the natural resources of Namibia') is based, a position we share with South Africa, alone among the nations of the world. Britain's posture in the third world, and our role as would-be negotiators of Namibian independence, are held in the deepest distrust by SWAPO and its friends, against the background of this support for South Africa's illegal occupation of Namibia.
A little more homework by Mr Wheatcroft and a little less Windhoek lager might have produced a better report.
Randolph Vigne 53 Cornwall Gardens, London SW7
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