The Birth of a New Non-State

Pretoria carries on its grand plan for apartheid

A squadron of South African Impala jets thundered through the skies over the new Independence Stadium in Thohoyandou, as tribal dancers raised clouds of red dust with their rhythmic exhortations to ancestral spirits. At the stroke of midnight, South Africa's top-hatted President Marais Viljoen strode down a red carpet to announce a "great historic event, the birth of a new state." At his side stood Chief Patrick Mphephu, 54, a small, diffident man with a fifth-grade education, who was soon to become the Executive President of the Republic of Venda, a Delaware-sized region tucked in the northeast corner of South Africa. As Venda's new four-color flag fluttered in the breeze overhead, Mphephu told his fellow citizens, "We must be prepared to preserve and defend this newly won dream."

To most outside observers, that dream seemed more like a mirage. The mango-patch "republic" (pop. 480,000) is unlikely to win recognition from any nation apart from South Africa, Zimbabwe Rhodesia, and its fellow black homeland states of Transkei and BophuthaTswana, which obtained "independence" from Pretoria in 1976 and 1977. The fragility of Venda's new status was even reflected in its stage-prop capital, Thohoyandou ("head of the elephant"). Pretoria had hastily fitted out the town for the occasion with a cluster of government buildings, a hotel, a supermarket and the stadium.

Venda is the third member of that "constellation" of black states envisioned by the late Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd as the keystone to the edifice of apartheid. Enacted into law in 1959, the homelands plan calls for the establishment of ten purportedly independent black states divided along tribal lines and scattered across South Africa. When complete, the scheme would crowd all of the blacks, who make up more than 80% of the South African population, onto a mere 15% of the land. The rest of the country, including most of its mineral wealth and all of its industrial regions, would remain in the hands of 4.5 million whites.

Although the rest of the world has denounced the scheme and refused to recognize these "children of apartheid," Pretoria continues to push its homelands policy as the ultimate "solution to the racial problem in South Africa." Besides the three homelands that are now nominally independent, seven are in transitional stages on the road to autonomy. But that road is fraught with difficulties. Only three of the homelands, Ciskei, Qwaqwa and KaNgwane, are unitary territories; the rest are fragmented enclaves, surrounded by land reserved for whites. Only Transkei possesses a deep-water seaport. Apart from BophuthaTswana and Lebowa, which have rich mineral deposits, the rural homelands lack exploitable resources. Their inhabitants are engaged mainly in subsistence-level farming, while about half of the men are forced to migrate to South Africa in search of employment.

Economic development of the homelands is totally dependent on outside investment, about 60% of which comes from South Africa; overseas investment provides the rest. This year the Pretoria government will contribute $35 million to Venda's modest budget of $43.6 million. Despite attempts by South Africa to promote industry in the black territories, the results have been unimpressive: fewer than 75,000 jobs have been created for black workers in the homelands.

No amount of economic aid can mask the racial basis of the scheme, which strips millions of blacks of their South African nationality as their tribal homelands become independent. The logical result of the plan, in the candid analysis of the former Cabinet Minister in charge of black affairs, Cornelius Mulder, is that "there will not be one black man with South African citizenship."

This systematic disinheritance has been bitterly denounced by Pretoria's critics at home and abroad. Says Zulu Chief Minister Gatsha Buthelezi, who adamantly opposes independence for his native Kwazulu: "We are not prepared to be a participant in this great political confidence trick. We are still South Africans and we will stay that way until we can share in the political decision-making and economic wealth of this great country."

Homeland independence was long opposed by Venda's new President Mphephu, who has headed the tribal territory since 1962. But Mphephu apparently turned an about-face last year after Pretoria helped him outmaneuver some opposition leaders who threatened to overthrow him. Invoking South African emergency laws, Mphephu jailed 50 persons, including eleven members of the parliamentary opposition.

To Mphephu and the other members of Venda's political elite, independence will bring immediate perks in the form of government-provided cars, high salaries and elegant new homes like Mphephu's $750,000 mansion on Thohoyandou's Nob Hill. But it remains to be seen whether "independence" will prove a boon to the people of an impoverished backwater area whose per capita income is only $25 a month.

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