Herbert W Armstrong

The scene, said one reporter, was as if the Indian city of Bhopal had been struck by a neutron bomb. Buildings were undamaged, but humans — 2,500 at last estimate — and animals littered the ground. The accidental leak of deadly methyl isocyanate (MIC) from a Union Carbide chemical plant was the worst industrial accident in history. It followed shortly on the wake of another tragedy, the explosion of a series of gas tanks in a section of Mexico City, resulting in the deaths of 452 people.

In both cases, curiously enough, the urban "implosion" in the developing countries made the disasters worse. Both plants had originally been built on the outskirts of each affected city, but shanty-town slums quickly sprouted up around the plants. The roots of the Bhopal disaster are also traceable back to the 1960s, when Indian officials, faced with chronic food shortages, opted for the "Green Revolution" techniques of the West. The new high-yield grains, however, demanded increased use of pesticides and fertilizers. The Union Carbide plant produces pesticides, a major component of which is the highly toxic MIC.

The Bhopal tragedy also shows the danger of transplanting highly sophisticated technology to Third World countries where, for the most part, there is insufficient appreciation of maintenance and safety procedures. At Bhopal, the plant was operating even though parts of the safety backup systems (such as the scrubber, which could have neutralized the escaping gas) were down for repair. Here are excerpts from an article published in the December 8 LOS ANGELES TIMES:

Ellen K. Silbergeld, a nationally known expert on toxic industrial chemicals, said ...Union Carbide and many other large U.S. chemical makers have a reputation among American environmentalists for responsible behavior. But she said it is "a matter of some concern when very hazardous technologies are exported" to developing nations.... "Even if a company such as Union Carbide, with the best good will in the world, establishes a plant with the most modern safety precautions, I think it's difficult to ensure that it can be run to the same standards as in the United States."

A number of experts ...charge that multinationals use developing nations as "havens" for dirty or unsafe industrial processes that would be too costly to operate in countries with strict pollution or safety rules .... Most corporate leaders sharply disagree with the double-standard argument. Union Carbide, for example, has stated that its Bhopal plant was built and run according to U.S. safety standards.

A new study of eight multinationals by the Swiss-based International Labor 0ffice concluded that "nearly all" of the firms' foreign plants follow higher safety standards than are required in their host nations.... But it also noted that safety rules set by companies' headquarters are not always enforced in distant plants.

In most of the Third World the concern for the public good is severely lacking. Reported the December 17 issue of NEWSWEEK:

An arguable litmus test of any society's concern with such matters is the attention paid to last week's disaster in Bhopal, and by that standard Mexico [scene of the recent gas tank explosions] ranks low. While front pages from Rome to Hong Kong featured the story prominently, Mexican newspapers of all ideological persuasions generally buried wire service accounts of the incidents.... Some experts complain of poor safety standards at Mexico's petrochemical facilities — most of them government-owned since nationalization of the energy industry in 1938. Nine workers died in one of two major pipeline explosions this year.

Perhaps the most unconscionable outcome of the Bhopal case has been the rush of American lawyers to India, hoping to profit from the tragedy. The leading "international ambulance chaser" is San Francisco lawyer Melvin Belli. He's filed a 15 billion dollar negligence suit against Union Carbide, not in India's courts (noted for their integrity) but in the U.S., in West Virginia. He may not be successful (there are precedents against such actions) but it's obviously worth the gamble to Belli. (He would stand to gain 40% of any award.) Connecticut's attorney general Joseph Liberman was appalled at such opportunism, saying, "Disaster relief does not come in pin-striped suits." If, perchance, Belli were successful, the role of multinational corporations in the Third World could be seriously inhibited, sending these nations even further down the road of economic decline.

China's New Leap Forward

Last week a remarkable editorial appeared in the PEOPLE'S DAILY, the Chinese Communist Party newspaper. It all but said that the teachings of both Marx and Lenin had little validity in today's world. The "Marx is obsolete" dismissal follows by a couple of months China's plans to extend the principles of decentralized planning and the profit motive, so successful in agriculture, into the urban parts of the country, into the factory work place. Roger Fontaine, writing in the December 10 WASHINGTON TIMES, provides some details in the latest chapter of China's great change:

The startling editorial...appears to be a turning point in the history of the international communist movement.... The editorial does not reject the communist movement's patron saints — Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin (the "four beards," as the Chinese call them). But it does challenge for the first time that marxist theory can be counted upon to solve the problems of today. The People's Daily scored traditional Marxism-Leninism for being incomplete and out-of-date. To orthodox communists, Marx and Lenin propounded a scientific law of history and society, which could never be obsolete.

"There are many things that Marx, Engels and Lenin never experienced or had any contact with," the editorial charged. "We can­not depend on the works of Marx and Lenin to solve our modern-day questions."...

What is clear is that, under the leadership of pragmatic Deng Xiaoping, the People's Republic of China has taken one large step away from treating Marxism-Leninism as sacrosanct. This is even more startling since it was the Chinese two decades ago who scorned the mildest of reforms outlined by then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev as being "revisionist."...

The radical pronouncement from Peking followed a series of moves begun in December 1978, when Mr. Deng began to move the party away from the highly collectivized Mao-style communism with "practical" measures designed to reform the economy after a decade of destruction brought on by the Cultural Revolution. Under the theme of the "four modernizations, " peasants were first given greater freedom to grow and sell their products at personal profit to themselves. Two months ago, under the relatively innocent-sounding title of "urban reforms," the regime announced a landmark economic plan to guide China's industrial sector, within certain limits, along free market principles....

Observers on the mainland and on the periphery are making cautious estimates regarding the future of communist China. One analyst stated recently that, while the editorial is significant and the economic reforms real, the Peking regime maintains "tight political control."... He also warns that there is "very serious internal debate inside communist China. Within the existing system there are powerful people who question the new policies.... We don't know the real story yet," the analyst concedes.

NEW YORK TIMES columnist William Safire, in his December 12 column, also took note of the monumental changes in China — and the bitter infighting that must be underway in Chinese leadership. After all, many bureaucrats stand to lose their power. Henceforth individuals will be appointed to run factories who have the technical and organizational skills to do so, not just ideological purity and loyalty. Safire also notes the impact that China's reforms will be having on the Soviet Union:

Less than a decade ago, the extreme-left Maoists who became known as the "Gang of Four" accused Deng Xiaoping of plotting to take China down "the capitalist road." While denying it all the way, that's what he did. Now even the denials have stopped. Last week, Peking's People's Daily front-paged words that go beyond deviationism, beyond revisionism, into what Soviet Communist theoreticians can only call counter revolution....

Although we are not permitted to see it, Deng is waging...ideological war inside his country. Of the 40 million Party members — the bureaucrats and soldiers who run the nation — nobody knows how many million are still Maoists, furious at the present turn of events ....

By the year 2000, say Dengists, the absorption of Hong Kong and the anticipated voluntary merger with Taiwan will bring new know­ how and impetus to China's no-longer-Communist economy. This will lead to an "industrious revolution" and the emergence of a third superpower.

Soviet leaders must be viewing this snowballing trend with horror. If China succeeds in just feeding itself with a market economy, the neighboring Soviet system will be shown to be a failure; the entire Russian leadership — millions of party members — will be threatened internally, by the same sort of counterrevolution that threw out the doctrinaire Marxists in China. If the Soviet Union cannot stop the Chinese turnaround politically, the threatened men of the Politburo may think they are forced to do it militarily. That way lies World War III.

One day earlier (December 11), NEW YORK TIMES political affairs analyst Flora Lewis speculated on the impact of China's decision on the Soviet Union:

China's official attack on Marxist orthodoxy as outdated and a hindrance to needed reform was such surprise to the Soviet-bloc Communists that it left them speechless. It is a historic watershed that can have-far-reaching, dramatic consequences .... It flies straight in the face of the assertion that Marxist precepts are proven knowledge, "scientific materialism," and that Marxist forecasts of universal triumph are as reliable as predicting an eclipse — "historical inevitability. " This myth is the only base for the claim of Communist hierarchies to legitimacy, to ideological superiority, to pie in the sky.

Certainly, the sanctity of the texts is a handicap when it comes to adjusting to a changing world. It is a major reason why the Russians find it so hard to reform. But they cling to their dogma because they need it to justify their power. They are frightened of losing control without the ideological security blanket that covers their brute security forces.

In the December 12 WASHINGTON TIMES, Hoover Institution scholar Arnold Beichman also pondered the Soviet response:

Deng Xiaoping's rediscovery of Adam Smith and the principles of the free market, however short-lived that exercise may be, is sure to hasten top-level changes in the present Soviet leadership, with Mikhail Gorbachev, youngest Politburo member, likely successor to the ailing Konstantin Chernenko....

Stalin dropped Marxism-Leninism like a flash during World War II, and instead raised high the banner of Rossiya Mat, Mother Russia. He knew that nobody would die for Marxism-Leninism but some would die for their country, and Stalin anticipated Mr. Deng by 43 years in repudiating Marxism-Leninism. [It would be better to say that Stalin temporarily deemphasized Marxism-Leninism] So there is precedent in Soviet history for such action. It will not occur under Mr. Chernenko. It could, however, be introduced by Mr. Gorbachev as the first step away from continued economic disaster.

A December 13 WALL STREET JOURNAL editorial, entitled "Burying Marx" pointed out the questions surrounding Eastern Europe too:

Chinas critique of Marx should be especially troubling for the legitimacy of governments in Eastern Europe, where most citizens already take Marx about as seriously as the tooth fairy. The Soviets won't like it much, especially if China's open-market reforms lead to faster economic progress, again showing up the Soviet model as a failure.

South Africa — The Pressure Builds (Part I)

Virtually the entire continent of Africa is slipping into a post-colonial dark age. Famine — much of it politically induced afflicts millions of suffering Africans. Political corruption is almost incomprehensible. Zaire's President Mobutu is widely reported to have lined his pockets with the equivalent of four billion dollars while in office. Much of the wealth is said to be squirrelled away in Switzerland and elsewhere. Throughout the continent government turmoil is endemic; the president of drought-ravaged Mauritania (which grows only five percent of its food requirements) is the latest to be overthrown, just this week.

Against this sordid background — no one seems to make the connection — the pressure is building, rapidly and strongly, for the final "liberation" on the continent, in South Africa. No country in the world, not even the much-maligned state of Israel, has so many foes arrayed against it. At least five formidable opponents stand out: 1) Black power activists within South Africa itself who covet political power; 2) the civil rights community in the United States, staging demonstrations at South African government offices, anxious to revive their faltering movement with a new, unifying cause; 3) the white liberal establishments throughout the Western world; 4) the whole Communist bloc; and lastly 5) the entire United Nations system. Certainly, these people can't all be wrong, can they?

Given the scope and intensity of the opposition, responsible South Africans have next to no chance of successfully explaining their unique problems and proposed solutions to a hostile world. One has about as much chance of explaining the facts about the complexities of South Africa to an individual emotionally set against the country as trying to make a believer in the conspiracy theory of history see the light.

The recent furor over South Africa came in the aftermath of a governmental crack-down on black labor union leaders (a relatively new class) who had called for work stoppages in the major urban complexes. They admitted that their goal was to turn their newly won economic leverage to political advantage. For days, black workers were intimidated into staying off their jobs. At the same time, ever more radical activists have been committing political murders inside the urban black townships. Black mayors, councilmen, police officers, now even leading businessmen have been assassinated, all in the cause of the anticipated revolution. Naturally, with local authority breaking down, the government had no choice but to send in the army. This is exactly what the radicals wanted — TV pictures of South African soldiers "oppressing" the people.

At the same time, South Africa's Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu was granted the Nobel Peace Prize — in what the Nobel committee (composed largely of far-away Scandinavian liberals) openly admitted was a political statement intended to influence developments of a certain kind in South Africa. While Bishop Tutu portrays himself as a man of peace and a leader of moderation, his words and actions betray him. Not long ago Tutu warned South Africa's Indians and Colored people that if they supported the government's plan for the new parliaments for them, then the black majority would deal with them later. Eight months ago Tutu was castigated in Parliament for supporting the banned, Communist-backed African National Congress revolution movement which launches periodic terrorist attacks in the country. He is said to have commented that while he supports the aims of the ANC, he does not support their violent means. That is similar to saying one supports the PLO but not its violent techniques — a distinction difficult to make.

On one particular occasion the Anglican bishop told an interviewer: "I will never tell someone to pick up a gun. But I will pray for the man who picks up a gun, pray that he will be less cruel than he might otherwise have been." Perhaps Bishop Tutu should have been aboard the recently hijacked Kuwaiti air liner. He might have been able to convince the vicious hijackers to be "less cruel."

Tutu's main argument is riveted on the government's "separate development" policy of creating independent states for the various black tribal nations within South Africa. Four homelands have been elevated to independence-­Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei. Africans in these areas become citizens of these new states. This — not minor irritations over discrimination, much of it in the past — is what separate development, or apartheid, is all about.

Black leaders with political ambitions, such as Tutu, are furious over this process. It decreases their future chances of using the black majority as a power base from which to elevate their own chances at political power. Thus Tutu continually denounces apartheid — which practically no one understands outside South Africa, and which is equated only with racial discrimination — in the most outlandish terms. In delivering his Nobel lecture, Tutu said that "blacks are systematically being stripped of their South African citizenship.... This is apartheid's final solution, just as Nazism had its final solution for the Jews in Hitler's Aryan madness. " Tutu makes it sound as if hundreds of thousands of Zulus, Xhosas, Sothos and others are being shipped off to concentration camps.

"The bishop," as he is often called, wants power, and he sees his chances slipping away. Of course, no one in the news media would suggest that a "man of the cloth" harbors such ambitions. While in the United States recently, Tutu said that South African blacks who oppose communism would nonetheless welcome a Soviet takeover if it dismantled white rule. "Anything would be better than apartheid," he said. "It is such a vicious system. ... It is totally evil, immoral and unchristian." He specifically denounced the Reagan administration's policy of quiet diplomacy with South Africa — called "constructive engagement" — as being "equally immoral, evil, and totally unchristian."

While in New York and in Washington (before the House Foreign Relations committee and in a visit to President Reagan) Tutu applauded the mounting pressure for "disinvestment. "Under this process, activists have forced a growing number of state, municipal, and collegiate pension fund managers to sell off stocks of those U.S. companies that do business in South Africa. The ultimate goal is to force U.S. business entirely out of the country. Tutu said that "those who are involved in South Africa economically are buttressing one of the most evil systems."

Yet a recent, highly respected survey of black workers in South Africa revealed that fully 75% of them are against disinvestment. Their jobs — increasingly more lucrative — are at stake. Asked which foreign firms promoted their welfare best, the workers overwhelmingly selected American companies. Zulu Paramount Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, no ally of Prime Minister P.W. Botha by any means, has firmly denounced this disinvestment drive.

Tutu's "Christianity" was seriously questioned in South Africa by one of that country's leading white liberals, Alan Paton, author of CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY. "Bishop Tutu, I want to ask you a question," wrote Paton. "I do not understand how your Christian conscience allows you to advocate disinvestment. I do not understand how you can put a man out of work for a high moral principle...especially a black man...."

The "moral principle" — not very high indeed — of those advocating disinvestment and economic dislocation is basically this: "Trust us! You may have to lose your job for now, for the sake of your liberation. But after the revolution, all will be well. You'll have your jobs back — and political power too!" (Of course, as everywhere else in Africa, the people would not wield any power at all, only the leaders who covet it.) This extremely dangerous policy was recently denounced by Chief Buthelezi, whose words have gone largely unheeded by the U.S. press. Nevertheless, the editors of the WASHINGTON POST did reprint his warning in their October 30 issue:

Outsiders need to be aware of the danger of supporting only protest politics, which arouse anger but do not direct it toward achievable goals.... If change is ever achieved in South Africa through violence, we will find that the foundations of the future will have been destroyed in the course of liberating the country. We have the choice whether or not to employ that degree of violence. There are, in fact, many who have made this choice and who believe that the country must be reduced to ashes so that a new start can one day be made. I understand the anger that leads to this kind of desperation, but I reject it, and the vast majority of South Africans reject it. I do not believe we have to destroy the foundations of the future to bring about radical change. I believe ways and means can be found to build up black bargaining power to force whites to negotiate.

There is something strange about the intensification of the pressure against South Africa. There are not a few who believe that the orchestration of the anti-apartheid drive is traceable to Moscow. And for good reason. The Kremlin has taken two severe prestige beatings in African affairs. Most recently, it was embarrassed about how little it could aid its own client state, Ethiopia, in its famine situation. The hated capitalist western world came to the rescue instead.

Even more than this, Moscow was red-faced when Marxist Mozambique, wracked by famine, civil war and a shattered economy, was forced by reality to make peace with South Africa last March 16. The two states signed the Nkomati accord. (Note too that South Africa's President P.W. Botha and Mozambique President Samora Machel did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts!) Other states in the region are also aligning themselves more with Pretoria, turning away from Moscow's siren calls. Marxist Angola just might send its 30,000 troops home in a three-way deal with South Africa and the United States to engineer independence with Southwest Africa or Namibia. Everywhere in the region Moscow is on the run. The U.S. policy of "constructive engagement," so villified by Bishop Tutu, has been working. But now, because of political heat inside the U.S, President Reagan has felt pressured to go public with strong criticisms of South Africa's policies.

In short, until very recently, Moscow has been losing and the West has been winning. This is how the May 17 issue of the British newsletter, SPECIAL OFFICE BRIEF, put it:

It should not be forgotten that the Soviet Union has never deviated from its stated objective of world domination. To achieve this it will have to gain control of mineral-rich Southern Africa, and its strategy in gaining this control is to aggravate tensions and hamper the search for peaceful solutions. This is underlined by the Kremlin's deafening silence on the current peace initiatives and rapproachement between governments in Southern Africa. It is the last thing Moscow wishes to see.

More on this rapidly building and incredibly misunderstood issue in the future.

— Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau