Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee:

I want to congratulate you for holding this series of hearings on southern Africa at a time when change is occurring fast and furiously in that part of the world and when it is vital for our government to respond knowledgeably and sympathetically. I also want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about Namibia, which has been of special concern to me for many years now. I speak here in my personal capacity, of course, and my views do not necessarily reflect UN positions.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to express appreciation for the invitation to appear before the Committee. It is Congress that must take the lead to end what is essentially a “cover-up” of U.S. policy on southern Africa. The Congress must insist on

1. (1) a frank statement of the facts on the situation in South Africa,

2. (2) an open analysis of U.S. interests in that area,

3. (3) progress towards a therapeutic confrontation, discussion, debate, and analysis of what U.S. policy should be,

4. (4) change with a view towards developing an honest, sensible and rational U.S. policy—consistent with U.S. interests—towards South Africa.

My statement is not an attempt to convey new information. Indeed, anyone reading simply the record of the Congressional hearings will have all the essential and relevant facts. Why is it that we have been ever searching for but never coming to the truth? Why do we listen but never hear, look but never see, manipulate but never truly feel? Perhaps we express the right facts but the wrong values?

One of the major problems for anyone trying to understand United States-South Africa policy and relationships is the long established tradition of double talking. To find the truth it is necessary to penetrate behind the coded language and to recognize a series of myths which serve to cloak a far more unpleasant reality.

The perspective we are taking today on U.S. policy towards Southern Africa is, I believe, badly needed. It is both wrong and unrealistic to see southern Africa as detached from the rest of Africa. Africans in majority-ruled Africa know that. The British certainly know it. The Russians and the Chinese seem to know it. South Africa’s John Vorster has made clear how well he knows it.

I appreciate the invitation of the Committee to appear during the Subcommittee’s series of hearings on the situation in southern Africa. The situation and problems of that part of the world, indeed of Africa as a whole, deserve more attention than Americans, including members of the Congress, have given it heretofore. It will be clear from my statement that I believe it necessary to correct a number of aspects of policy which the United States has followed in southern Africa, particularly in recent years. An essential prerequisite for the correction of policy is knowledge and understanding of developments there.

My remarks will be relatively brief because I agree with a great deal of what my distinguished academic colleagues have already said. I do, however, take a different position with respect to American policy toward South Africa and have some ideas of my own concerning our overall Africa policy.

The decolonization process set in motion by the spectacular change of government in Lisbon in April 1974 produced a geopolitical earthquake across all of southern Africa. Its repercussions were deeply felt in the Republic of South Africa, where the government was forced to undertake a fundamental reassessment of South African relations with Mozambique, with Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and with Namibia (South West Africa).