Africa. We’ll have more details on what that could mean for the average consumer in Dollars and Sense, later in this half hour.
“In domestic news, police in San Francisco refused to speculate on whether a bomb found near the Federal Building there this morning had any connection with a recent series of attacks blamed on radical environmental groups .. ….
NOVEMBER I -JOHANNESBURG
Ian, Emily, and Matthew Sibena sat uncomfortably close together on a small sofa facing a black-and-white television set. Even with all the drapes drawn, the lateafternoon sun turned the tiny, one-bedroom apartment into a sweltering hotbox.
Ian wiped the sweat off his forehead and resisted the temptation to complain about the heat and the lack of working air-conditioning. He suspected that the same adage that applied to gift-horse dentures applied to borrowed apartments-especially for those on the run from the police.
They’d been lucky enough that Emily’s reporter friend and reluctant Army reservist, Brian Pakenham, had agreed to lend her a key to his flat without asking too many inconvenient questions.
Lucky indeed. Ian didn’t doubt that police guard posts now ringed his apartment, the network studios, and probably the American embassy in
Pretoria. And he was quite sure that his picture had been distributed to every roadblock and checkpoint on the roads leading out of Johannesburg. No
South African police commander was going to let the foreigner who’d so insulted his president escape his dragnet.
But after being cooped up for nearly ninety-six hours straight, Ian was almost ready to take his chances out on
Johannesburg’s crowded streets and empty highways. Almost anything seemed better than staying here in sticky, fearful ignorance. He shook his head wryly at the suicidal thought and tried to concentrate instead on the halting English translation of Karl Vorster’s harsh, grating Afrikaans phrases. Maybe he could piece together some idea of what was going on in the world outside South Africa.
“.. . I know that my words will reach not only my fellow South Africans, but many others throughout the world as well. I welcome this opportunity to speak to those outsiders, those foreigners, who have had so much to do with the crisis we face. “
The camera pulled back from its close-up of Vorster’s strong, square-jawed face-backing away until it showed him standing proudly in front of a huge blue-, white-, and orange striped South African flag.
“Many of these small-minded outsiders have opposed our struggle to build a South Africa on our own terms. They have opposed our fight against the
Marxists and terrorists bent on pulling us down into shame and degradation. They do not understand the conditions we face here in South
Africa. Most have never even visited our land-our beautiful fatherland!
They ignore the chaos and corruption afflicting socalled Black Africa!
Instead they yammer and whine at us. At us! They preach at the people of the Covenant! At men and women who have fought and bled and died to hold this land for God and for civilization!” The camera zoomed in again, focusing on Vorster’s red, angry face and pounding fist.
Ian shivered. My God, the man was hypnotic! Even though he didn’t understand the language, he could feel the raw power of Vorster’s voice and rhetoric. He glanced at Emily sitting pale and tense by his side. Did she feel it, too? His eyes slid down to where her hands were clenched so tightly that all the blood seemed to have drained out of them. Yes, she fell it—the appeal to a common heritage of sacrifice and of suffering.
The instinctive response to form a laager-to circle the wagons-in the face of overwhelming and alien forces.
He looked back toward the television. Vorster was still
speaking. He spoke more softly now, picking and choosing his words in a calm, dispassionate tone that seemed strangely at odds with his violent and bloody message.
“Well, we have words of our own for them-for these small-minded foreigners.
No fight is ever desirable. And no fight is ever pretty. But this struggle of ours is necessary. We are fighting for the very survival of our society, of our people. And we will not submit. We will not give up. We will not surrender our sovereign power while a single enemy, a single communist, or a single rebellious black is alive to menace our wives and our children.”
Vorster paused and stared grimly straight into the camera for a moment.
“Many of you may have heard the foreign charges that my government came to power illegally.” He snorted contemptuously.
“Illegally! What does that mean? What could it possibly mean in the circumstances our beloved country faced when I took office?”
Ian sat up straight in shock, scarcely able to believe that he’d heard
Vorster right. But the other man’s next words hammered the point home.
“Very well. I admit that extraordinary measures were used to resolve a dangerous political situation. The previous administration had embarked on a course that could only bring about South Africa’s ruin.”
Vorster lifted his massive, calloused hand toward the ceiling-as though he were seeking heaven’s approval for his actions. My fellows and I acted as patriots to restore a stable, right-thinking government. Outside the normal constitution, yes. But within the bounds of national need.
“Our efforts are not ended, and will not be ended, until we can guarantee a safe and prosperous society for every right-thinking citizen of South
Africa. We will spare no effort to reach that goal.” Vorster glowered into the camera.
“And if you are not with us, you are against us.”
He lowered his voice.
“And finally, to the United States and the other know-nothings who try to tell us what to do and what to think, you can get out of our affairs and stay out-until you accept us on our own terms. If we uttered a mere tenth of the lies and falsehoods about your countries that you’ve uttered about ours, your diplomats would scream in protest. Well, we do not scream, we act. Your ambassadors can all stay home until you are willing to speak reasonably and let us run our own affairs our own way.”
Vorster’s smile grew smug, unpleasantly near a sneer.
“Remember, you need us more than we need you. You need our gold, our diamonds, and all the precious metals that keep your industries alive. More than that, you need us to show you what no black has ever achieved-a stable and prosperous bulwark of civilization on the African continent.”
The camera zeroed in on his stern, implacable face and held the image for what seemed an eternity. Then the picture faded to black before cutting back to the South African Broadcasting Company’s main studio. Even the government’s handpicked anchormen looked shaken by what they’d just heard.
Ian reached out and snapped the set off. He needed peace and relative quiet to think this thing through. Vorster hadn’t even bothered to try denying his involvement in the Blue Train massacre. Instead, he’d practically thrown down a gauntlet-challenging anyone who dared to pick it up.
The question was, would anyone dare?
NOVEMBER 2-DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA
From the air, Durban was now a city of strange contrasts natural beauty, bustling commerce, and bloody, merciless violence.
To the northeast, the sun sparkled off the bright blue waters of the Indian
Ocean stretching unimpeded toward the far horizon. To the northeast and southwest, long foam-flecked waves rolling in from the ocean broke on spires of jagged gray rock just offshore or raced hissing up wide sandy beaches. Closer to the city center, dozens of ships crowded Durban’s deepwater port, South Africa’s largest. Oil tankers, container ships, bulk ore carriers, and rusting tramp steamers-all waiting a turn alongside the harbor’s crane lined marine terminal.