8/12/2019 1989 Issue 2 - News Briefs - Counsel of Chalcedon
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yRich Jefferson
In
a much ballyhooed agreement
signed Dec.
22 in
New York, South
Mrica
agreed to remove its occupation
force from Namibia by Nov. 1, 1989.
South Africa also has promised to stop
funding Dr. Jonas Savimbi's organiza
tion, the Union for the Total Inde
pendence of Angola (UNITA). The bad
news for UNITA and South Africa is
that the Cubans occupying Angola have
until July
1,
1991,
to
withdraw. Not
surprisingly, this deal was worked out
by the United States State Department.
There are now 60,000 Cuban soldiers
in Angola, and 15,000 of those were
added since negotiations began in
earnest last year. The agreement says
that the United Nations will have a
whopping total
of
70 peace keeping
officers and 20 civilians to monitor the
Cuban withdrawal.
As
J
ardo Muekalia,
the United Nations observer for UNITA
told the
New York Times
It's a big
country for 90 people
to.
verify the with
drawal. Hold the kudos for American
diplomacy until it's clear South Mrica
is secure on its northwestern border.
fortunately South African foreign
Minister Roelof Pik Botha said pub
licly Jan. 9 that the United Nations ob
servers would have to verify a Cuban
withdrawal from Angola with some
thing more believable than Cuban good
will and honesty. A spokesman for the
U.N. team had earlier told the New
York Times
We will trust the informa
tion given by (Cuba and Angola). It
would not be normal for two countries
to sign an agreement and not fulfill it.
Speaking on Namibian independence
and South Africa's own troop with
drawal from southern Angola and N ami
bia, Botl1a was quoted saying, Should
any
of
the parties not fulfill their ob
ligations, the whole series
of
interlock-
ing agreements reached in 1988 would
be endangered.
American conservatives are now say
ing they're pleased with President
George Bush's recent pledges
to
stand
by Savimbi. Cuban troops have sup
ported the communist dictatorship in
Luanda since 1975 when the Portugese
surrendered their colony to native Ango
lans. That year, 1975, was the year the
United States showed Southeast Asians
how America stands by its allies. At
least Savimbi knows South Africa has
a better record of helping its friends and
hurting its enemies than does the
United States, which often gets it back
wards.
Whether conservatives are right to be
pleased with Bush's statements depends
on whether they are hearing the side of
Bush that praises questionable civil
rights policies or hearing Bush
spe k
as
the former head of the CIA. In a letter
dated Jan.
6,
Bush assured Savirnbi that
American diplomacy will continue to
encourage African and other interested
governments to provide maximum sup
port to a process
of
negotiation leading
to national reconciliation in your coun
try. Savimbi has been receiving $15
million a year in aid from the United
States, but thaes hardly sufficient for
UNITA to build for a decisive victory
against Angola's Communist rulers and
all those Cuban soldiers with advanced
Soviet weaponry.
Angola is located north of Namibia
on Africa's Atlantic coast. It's coastline
has been called some of the most criti
cal geostrategic real estate in the world.
Even
if
Cuban troops do withdraw from
Angola, Angola's Communist President
dos Santos has taken measures
to
pro
tect his position by naturalizing thou
sands of Cubans. Castro's cutthoats
now carry Angolan passports.
Remember that the new head
of
the
Republican National Committee, Lee
Atwater, wants
to
move blacks from
the Democratic fold into his party. f
the Bush people perceive that Savimbi,
with his South Mrican connection, is a
political liability in getting blacks to
change allegiances at home, Savimbi
could be left for dead as other American
allies have been in recent years.
Remember, too, how successful com
munists of American birth have been in
forcing legitimate businesses
to
sever
all financial connections with South
Africa. As reported by Steven Powell in
Covert Cadre, a 467 page 1987 publi
cation about the anti-American and anti
Christian Institute fot Policy Studies
(IPS), American direct investment
(two years ago was) 2 ~ 3 billion, and
that was only 1.5 p e ~ c e n t of the foreign
investment in South 'Africa. According
to the comrades at'IPS, this investment
assists the repressive regime. This
means that IPS wants more black unem
ployment to create a revolutionary
at-
mosphere. Powell
says
that multination
al corporations can provide a major
agent
of
liberalization in a country
such
as
South Africa. Unlike politi
ians whose flexibility is limited by the
desire to preserve power and the necessi
ty to balance conflicting interests, prag
matic businessmen understand that the
best guarantee of political stability, the
necessary condition for long-term econo
mic prosperity, is equal political and
economic opportunity and the incen
tives of upward mobility.
Since 1977 nearly one hundred forty
of
the three hundred fifty U.S. com
panies doing business in South Africa
have voluntarily implemented a code of
conduct called the Sullivan Principles;
the code required desegregation, fair
employment practices, equal pay for
equal work, job training for advance
ment, and promotion
of
nonwhites
o
management and supervisory positions.
Today
7
percent of U.S.-employed
South Mrican blacks work under the
Sullivan Principles. Progress has been
made, Powell writes.
Randall Robinson, head of Trans
(Continued
on
page 41
P a g e 3
The CounSel of Chalcedon, February-March, 1989
8/12/2019 1989 Issue 2 - News Briefs - Counsel of Chalcedon
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Frontline Fellowship
Continued from page 29
days because of the risk of capture,
he
assured me that there are indigenous
pastors who are willing to follow
through on the converts and who super
vise the distribution of the precious
Scriptures.
Never have I encountered more de
voted missionaries of the cross than
these courageous young men, who,
after fighting together for their country
in combat, are now taking the Gospel
of
the Prince
of
Peace to places where
most missionaries would be unable to
go and where no missionary could
possibly stay. They deserve our prayers
and our support.
[The
Rev. Robert Slimp is a free
lance writer in the P CA
who
has
travelled extensively. This article is
reprinted rom
the
November-December
1987 issue o Journey magazine. It
is
used by permission.] D
John Knox
Continued from page 36
unconditionally. In this respect his in
fluence on the Reformation is incalcu
lable and finds magnificent expression
in
the Scottish Confession
of
Faith,
Cap XIX:
.. we affirm and avow the authority
of
the same
to
be of God, and neither to
depend on men nor angels. We affirm
therefore that such
as
allege the Scrip
ture to have no (other) authority, but
that which
is
received from the Kirk, to
be blasphemous against God, and injuri
ous to the true
Kirk,
which always hear
eth and obeyeth the voice of her own
Spouse and Pastor, but taketh not upon
her to be mistress over the same.
fThis article contains excerpts from Prof.
V.E. D'Assonville's chapter
11
in
Calvinus
ReformaJor, Potchefstroom University for
Cnristian Higher Education, 1982, Potchef
stroom, Soutli Africa.] 0
JOHNCAU IN
News Briefs
Continued from page 30
Africa, an organization supporting Com
munist dictatorship in the third world is
a leading voice in the uproar over divest
ment in South Africa. He too favors
revolutionary action to overthrow the
South African government. Robinson
does not like Savimbi, and he said this
about the Dec. 22 accord signed by
South Africa, Angola and Cuba: If the
settlement actually comes off, Chester
Crocker will have produced fruit from a
very barren source and will deserve ku
dos for a major effort.
Chester Crocker, an assistant secre
tary of state, who is soft on commun
ism, has been working on
an
agreement
such
as
the one mentioned above for
years. The question asked by Human
Events The National Conservative
Weekly,
is
Can this pact be so sound
i this bosom buddy
of
Red revolution
aries (Robinson) appears so content?
The Soviet Union is very interested
in South Africa because of the country's
geostrategic position. Gorbachev, as
other Communist USSR leaders before
him, wants to run the world. A report
published in a Washington, D.C., news
paper Dec. 26, shows that Moscow
doesn't care
as
much about communist
doctrine as much
as
furthering world
conquest. The Soviets have been im-
pressing some South African officials
and making friends because
of
osten
sible changes in the communist sys
tem.
To summarize what has been hap
pening between South Africa and the
Soviet Union, a spokesman for the
South African Department of Foreign
Affairs said, We have made a com
parison
of
Soviet and American press
reports in recent months, and it makes
interesting reading. While the American
press,
as
a whole, continues
to
high
light apartheid and the grievances of the
black population, the Soviet press
is
running articles
on
South Africa that
are mainly informative. If you had told
me two years ago that we sould be
; getting a more objective press from
Russia than from America, I would
never have believed it.
Three terrorists, members of the Afri
can National Congress, were sentenced
in Cape Town Jan. 16 for planting land
mines on white-owned farms in
Swaziland. The mastermind
of
the
scheme was Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim, a
South African Indian. That
is
an appro
priate middle name for a terrorist (Gen.
16:11, 12). Ebrahim was sentenced to
20 years in prison, but the judge said he
had strong moral qualities. Whatever
these strong moral qualities may be,
they don't apply to marriage. He has a
common-law wife named Julie Wells.
The tragic part
of
this trial was not
that more terrorists will take up cell
space in South Africa. According to one
report, a Deputy Chief State Prose
cutor, Louise van der Walt, showed her
extremist sympathies after the verdict
was handed down. The convicted men
went to their cells, the blacks in the
gallery started to sing, and Mrs. Van der
Walt raised her hand in the salute of the
Afrikaaner Resistance Movement. Ebra-
him and his comrades had aimed to kill
when they planted the mines, and Mrs.
Vander Walt was right to demand the
death penalty for the terrorists.
But she certainly didn't enhance the
credibility
of
her correct commitment to
proper criminal penalties with this
apalling action. Ori the other hand, she
too has a point when she asks her
colleagues in the courtroom, Why do
you have to shut me up while others
are allowed to sing? This event under
scores the need for Christians not to
choose between the two false options
concerning South Africa. When both
sides are wrong, we must not be afraid
to say so D
Join us
in
the
Worship
of
God
