Herbert W Armstrong

NEW DELHI — Amid mounting pressure in Parliament for India to resume its nuclear weapons program to counter developments in neighboring Pakistan, the government announced Thursday that a new research reactor near Bombay has gone critical, enabling it to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

The Indian Atomic Energy Department announced that the 100-mega­watt Dhruva reactor at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center began a sustained chain reaction Thursday morning. "This is a landmark in the country's atomic energy program," said Chairman Raja Ramanna of India's Atomic Energy Commission. Ramanna said that the new reactor is the largest research reactor in the world and will have medical and industrial applications for India's large and advanced nuclear industry.

In Washington...an expert on nuclear proliferation said the disclosure signals to Pakistan that India no longer need rely on other nations for enriched uranium and other materials needed for nuclear explosives. Those suppliers, including the United States and Canada, have barred India from using their nuclear materials in weapons, according to Leonard S. Spector, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace....

"It's definitely signal, and not very benign," Spector said. "They're saying that if Pakistan continues its pursuit of the bomb, we now can respond without any legal restrictions,... and we don't have to use any imported technology. There's an, and the yachts circling before crossing the starting line. They're getting ready."

The announcement here comes as the government of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi faces mounting pressure to reactivate a nuclear weapons program dormant since India tested a nuclear device in the Rajasthan desert in 1974....

Neither India nor Pakistan has signed the 1968 Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and both have charged recently that the other is engaged in developing nuclear weapons. India's so-called bomb lobby made up of defense experts, military officers and intellectuals, stepped up its activity after a recent broadcast ABC, the U.S. television network, reporting Pakistan had successfully tested nuclear triggering device, using non-nuclear explosives. This followed reports that Pakistan, at its secret nuclear research facility near Islamabad, is capable of producing weapons-grade enriched uranium....

The 1974 explosion employed plutonium made with U.S. and Canadian materials, but India sidestepped the two nations' bans on weapons-related use of the materials by saying that the explosion was for peaceful purposes. The much larger reactor that went into operation Thursday gives India the potential to produce a much greater volume of plutonium, Indian officials said.

Africa's Apocalypse — a Liberal-assisted Bloodbath Looms

A few days ago, Bishop Desmond Tutu, after President Botha's speech in Natal, claimed he was fearful that only a miracle would prevent a bloodbath in South Africa. The Nobel Peace Prize winner went on to attack President Reagan's South African policies as "an unmitigated disaster for our people," adding that "when we become free, we will remember who helped us."

Speaking from his Johannesburg home, Tutu stressed that he should not be mistaken as a "pacifist" just because he advocates nonviolence. "I am sufficiently realistic to know that a time could come when you have to say here are two evils — injustice, oppression, exploitation — and the other evil — overthrowing this by an armed insurrection," Tutu said. "Which is the lesser of two evils?" Then, he added, "The church has a tradition which enables Christians to say there is a time when it is justifiable for Christians to overthrow an unjust government, but I hope we haven't gone to there yet."

The Bishop continually harps on how "evil" and "vicious" apartheid and the South African government are and says that President Reagan's constructive engagement policy is "as evil" and "as vicious." The news media, of course, reports Tutu's charges virtually without any "Hey-wait-a-minute" comment. After all, he is a "man of the cloth” and a Nobel laureate. On the other hand, the media-reacted wildly to Baptist minister Jerry Falwell's contention, after a five-day visit to South Africa, that Bishop Tutu is a "phony...as far as representing the black people of South Africa. "This admittedly blunt remark also brought on torrents of rage from U.S. civil rights leaders. One said Falwell was a "racist demagogue" and that his remark was "tantamount to treason." (Against which country?) Jesse Jackson came through with one of his classic hyperboles: "Anyone who would choose Botha over Tutu would choose...Hitler over the Jews; would choose Herod over Jesus; and would choose Pharoah over Moses."

American liberals and civil rights activists are almost unanimous in demanding that the African National Congress — backed by South Africa's banned Communist Party — be brought into the "negotiating process" and that its long-imprisoned figurehead, Nelson Mandela, be released unconditionally. (South African President P.W. Botha has said he would be prepared to consider releasing Mandela if the black leader pledged he would not plan or instigate any violent acts for political purposes.)

Where does Mandela stand? He made his position abundantly clear on August 21 during an interview conducted in prison by WASHINGTON TIMES columnist John Lofton and syndicated columnist Cal Thomas. Mandela repeated his refusal to renounce violence in order to win his freedom. "I can't fold my arms. I want to live like a free human being," Mandela was quoted as saying. "There is no alternative to taking up arms. There is room for peaceful struggle."

The two columnists quoted the nationalist leader as saying that communism is preferable to apartheid because communism has no color bar and, under communism, "everybody would be living better."

On the question of divestiture and economic sanctions against South Africa, Lofton and Thomas said Mandela is "definitely" for this strategy. Asked about whether blacks and other nonwhites would be hurt by divestiture, he is reported to have said: "We have to tighten our belts. There must be sacrifice for liberation."

At the same time Mandela issued his uncompromising remarks, his wife, Winnie, was equally defiant. She told other reporters, in the bluntest of terms: "The only aspect that can be discussed by the black people of this country and the ruling Afrikaner is the handing over of power."

Interestingly enough, on one of his many U.S. TV appearances, I heard Bishop Tutu, in denying he had any political ambitions of his own (being a cleric), refer to Nelson Mandela as "my leader." It may or may not mean anything, but both men are of the Xhosa tribal nation.

In the United States, the ANC's pure-blood Marxist credentials mean little to leftist activists. For example, former UN Ambassador (now Atlanta mayor) Andrew Young recently referred to the ANC as the "legitimate leaders of South Africa's majority."

Revolution and civil war are bad enough in Uganda, El Salvador or Lebanon, (where communal fighting this past week has escalated greatly). War in South Africa, however, could result in almost indescribable consequences, according to one of the most perceptive news analysts today, Peregrine Worsthorne. The following are excerpts of his article in the July 28 SUNDAY TELEGRAPH titled "A Worse Evil than Apartheid":

The proclaimed purpose of the black revolutionaries in South Africa is to render that country ungovernable. If they were to succeed in that aim, the result would be murderous civil war, mass starvation, as in Ethiopia, and, depending on who won the war, either an eventual black dictatorship or a white military dictatorship far more tyrannical than anything so far experienced. No good, and much dreadful evil, would come from rendering South Africa ungovernable.

Recognition of this truth — ie, the appalling consequences for all concerned of anarchy in South Africa — should be the point of departure for all responsible reactions to what is happening in that unhappy country.... First things first, and the first thing for the West to be clear about is the absolute, overriding necessity of discouraging violent revolution in South Africa from which only evil can come, not just in the short run but for the foreseeable future. All races would suffer monstrously. Bad as the present situation is, that arising from violent revolution would be incomparably worse.

That being the case, one might have expected the Western world to use such influence as it has to discourage the black revolutionary organisations from their tragically misguided policies, and to warn them most urgently of the dangers that they are courting. As it is...as far as I can see there has not been any official or unofficial condemnation of revolutionary violence; only official and unofficial condemnation of President Botha's emergency measures designed to contain revolutionary violence, and demands on him to release Nelson Mandela unconditionally; ie, without waiting for Nelson Mandela to renounce revolutionary violence.

The Western assumption seems to be that its most important contribution is to try to pressurise President Botha into concessions to the principle of majority rule. In Western eyes the source of the problem lies with the whites; with apartheid. Thus it follows that the best way to stop violent revolution is to force President Botha into sharing power with the blacks. Up to a point this is true. But not beyond that point, and the point to avoid going beyond is where pressure on Mr. Botha begins to topple over into encouragement of black revolution.

My fear is that much opinion in the West is indeed beginning to topple over into this chasm, as a result of too many people being brainwashed into thinking anything would be better than the present system of apartheid. Seen from this angle the blacks would be better off dead than under white rule. I do not believe that this is at all the view most blacks in South Africa, among whom there is much more realism about the benefits of white rule than there is among-western liberals; or — perhaps greater realism about what the fate of many hundreds of thousands of blacks would be if the whites were provoked into all-out repression. Over here, many thousands of miles away from South Africa, the prospect of black revolution may lift up white liberal hearts; but among most blacks on the spot the prospect is much more frightening than the continuation of apartheid....

A more equitable system is on the way. It won't be "one man, one vote" in a unitary system, or majority rule; nor should it be, given the special circumstances of South Africa.... Nobody doubts this in South Africa. At issue is the extent of black power to be conceded, or rather the extent of white power to be retained....

That is the non-revolutionary prospect — very far from Utopian, very far short of the ideal of racial equality. But also very far from intolerable from the point of view of ordinary blacks. My own view is that this — some form of modified white minority rule — is the best that the blacks can reasonably hope to get for quite a long time to come, and that the West should be telling them this in no uncertain terms. For the alternative, black revolution would be an infinitely worse evil.... Yet the West seems strangely blind to where the true danger lies, and is carrying on as if black revolution were the lesser of the two evils.

Most Western statesmen in private are more than aware of the absurdity of this pretence, which they feel they have to keep up so as to avoid outraging the Third World in general and black Africa in particular, not to mention the anti-racist lobbies among their domestic electorates. Thus one does not hear a word in the West about the need to cut off supplies of money and arms to the African National Congress, which is organizing the murder of blacks in townships, but one hears millions of words about sanctions against South Africa. Yet the last thing that should be done now is to weaken Mr. Botha, or to strengthen the ANC....

The cult of anti-racism, by elevating racial equality into a new kind of sacred cause, is in danger of encouraging Western governments into all sorts of irrationalities, the worst of which, by far, would be to try to stop President Botha from stamping out black revolution. What black revolutionaries doing to other blacks in the townships is absolutely damnable, and only fanatics can possibly believe that the cause of racial equality excuses such actions.

South Africa could be on the edge of a race war which would be disastrous for all races and might well land the super-powers in a confrontation even more bitter and dangerous than was Vietnam. At present it seems that the West feels it can do nothing more constructive than try to pressurise Mr. Botha into giving way.... Down this path disaster lies.... Anti-racism today threatens to become the fanaticism which causes people take leave of their senses in great matters as well as small; in local, national and now even international affairs.

Referring to the meddling in South Africa's affairs by American liberals, syndicated writer Cal Thomas wrote in the August 22 LOS ANGELES TIMES:

The American track record for helping other nations is not a good one. We "helped" get rid of Batista in Cuba, and got Castro. We "helped" topple the Shah in Iran, and saw him replaced with the Ayatollah Khomeini. We "helped" rid Nicaragua of Somoza, and the price is the communist Sandinistas.

Call for Sanctions — and a Bailout

One manifestation of the liberal blindspot is the avoidance of the economic realities of the whole of southern Africa. Nine other countries in the region — six of them landlocked — are heavily dependent upon South Africa for employment, as well as transportation links to the outside world. For example, 85% of Zimbabwe's imports and exports go through South Africa, plus at least 50% of those of Malawi, Zambia and Zaire. The economies of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland are so closely interwoven with South Africa that the four of them are linked in a customs union.

International sanctions would cripple all of these economies before they would harm South Africa's. Common sense should indicate the foolishness of applying sanctions. But emotion and hostility now take precedence over reality. Several of these countries have formed the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC). These countries have tried, unsuccessfully, to wean themselves away from dependence on South Africa. Officially, they support sanctions, but the SADCC Executive Secretary said this past week that sanctions must be coupled with "equally important measures" to support their economies. Tanzania's President Julius Nyrere went so far as to say that a "Berlin-style airlift" might be necessary to rescue the SADCC states. Nyrere, who has been so successful in getting enormous amounts of guilt-ridden Western aid for his country, would certainly try to hit up "Uncle Sam," the Scandinavians and others for such emergency aid.

One thing is definitely certain: Mr. Mandela is in error to state that under communism "everybody would be living better." Under such a totalitarian system the material birthright blessings that have been available not only to the children of Israel, but to all the other peoples of southern Africa, would cease.

— Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau