What The Papers Say
Facilis Descensus Averno
The Times, London
The military ruler of Liberia, General Samuel Doe (Master Sergeant Doe when he seized power in April, 1980), has gone far towards destroying the credibility of his announced plan to restore the country to civilian rule. A ban on party politics was lifted in July; elections are scheduled for next year leading to the handover to an elected president in 1986.Doubts about whether the soldiers would really be willing to surrender the sweet fruits of power were made stronger when he announced that he was himself going to be a candidate for the presidency; rules that aspiring politicians must immediately resign their present offices did not, apparently, apply to him. Much more seriously, he has in the past days claimed that a plot against him has been uncovered and has arrested several prominent political personalities.
The most notable is Dr Amos Sawyer, a leading academic, chairman of the commission that spent months drawing up a constitution for civilian rule, and chairman of the new Liberian People's Party, which is a descendant of the old Movement for Justice in Africa, which courageously opposed President Tolbert's pre-Doe government. It seems to many inconceivable that a man who had such a stake in the successful transfer of power away from the military would at this stage become involved in any coup adventure. Students at the University of Liberia protested and troops stormed the campus, shooting five dead and assaulting many more. General Doe has now dismissed the entire academic staff, accusing them of being "opposition stooges" and has closed the university down.
Also arrested are Mr Isaac Nyeplu, a former Minister of Justice and a member of the commission that was to supervise the elections, and Major-General Nicholas Podier, formerly deputy head of state under General Doe. The former master sergeant has been beset by coup plots and alleged coup plots at regular intervals since he seized power. Towards the end of last year one such caused General Thomas Quiwonkpa, former head of the army, to flee into exile; he remains a man held in high respect by the military (and by many observers) and a possible force in the future.
In coming to power, the master sergeant's main motivation was to end what was seen as a hundred years' oppre sion of the local inhabitants by the "settlers", or descendants of freed slaves from America. In power he proved pragmatic rather than revolutionary, accepting a large amount of aid from the United States (who were relieved that he turned his back on Libya) and running his economy in a way that allowed the IMF to pump in funds. He managed to impose some degree of discipline on his soldiers and proved skilful enough in manipulating political forces to survive.
The danger has always been that with the military leaders lacking both ideology and ideas (the educational level of the Liberian army has always been far below that of Nigeria or Ghana, for instance) it was going to prove difficult to produce arguments sufficiently persuasive to take them back to uncomfortable and boring barracks. The United States has exerted considerable pressure and it is largely because of its influence that a constitution has been drawn up and election plans laid. But the road from Avernus is steep and difficult, as Virgil pointed out.
South Africa's Phoney Elections
The Times, London
At the last count, more than two hundred people had been arrested and one hundred clamped under preventive deten tion by apartheid South African authorities for campaigning against the mixed-race (coloured) and Indian elections which took place during the past one week.The elections, the latest ploy by the racist regime to wis legitimacy and international respectability for its universally condemned pigmentocracy, were sequel to a new constitution which allows for a tri-cameral parliament made up of separate chambers of 178 seats for the four million whites, 80 seats for the 800,000 coloureds, 40 seats for 135,000 Asians and zero seats for 22 million blacks.
The country's black majority which constitutes 73 per cent of the population was completely excluded from this already bizarre arrangement on the grounds that they are taken care of by the notorious Bantustan policy which has sequestered them away in self-ruled concentration camps misnamed "homelands".
The homelands, of course, have their own phoney parliaments which are comparable in legislative inconsequence to the coloured and Indian chambers. None of them has any meaningful legislative powers outside the innocuous subjects allowed by the racists.
The heartening aspect to the electoral charade, and a major boost to the morale of all those who are committed to freedom in Africa's Deep South, is the fact that the majority of the Indians and coloureds for whom the elections were contrived as a means of distancing them from the 12 million black population, denounced the segregated polls and campaigned vigorously against the elections.
In this regard, it is a testimony to the undaunted spirit with which apartheid is being resisted that in spite of the un paralleled harassment for which white apartheid police is notorious, the multi-racial party, the United Democratic Front, consisting of 700 anti-apartheid organizations, launched and carried out a boycott of the elections. In the end, while apartheid radio is glibly describing the dismal turnout as a sign of the unpreparedness of the non-white racial groups for democracy, the whole world is aware that one further attempt to legitimize racism has hit the rocks. Whereas a general and equal franchise for all the races would have intimated the possibility of a peaceful solution to the South African problem, the recent "elections" once again have exposed the unviability of the apartheid system.
In the wake of the Nkomati Accord by which Mozambique has been forced to reduce its support for South African guerrillas, and especially in the face of several African countries allegedly entering economic fraternities with the racists, it is of special significance for the option of armed struggle to continue to be posed and kept alive. The onus is on African countries that have consistently supported the liberation struggle to formulate appropriate diplomatic counter-measures to the attempt by the South African Reich to deflect the energy of the liberation movements from battlefields into arguments in phoney, segregated parliaments.
The news, at last, that a date in November has been fixed for a meeting of the OAU, should open the door for diplomatic efforts to ensure that no African country will break ranks under pressure from the racists.
