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.cb TOWARDS MEDIATION IN SOUTH AFRICA


	There will probably be a war in South Africa between the
South African whites and the South African blacks and the black
ruled countries bordering South Africa.  In this war, the white
South Africans will be on their own, but their opponents will have
considerable outside help.  How soon such a war might begin is
problematic, because the countries determined to attack aren't
strong enough yet.

	Let us consider the imaginable outcomes of such a war:

1. The white South Africans are conquered, accept majority rule,
are moderately well treated, and the area becomes normal.  Objectively,
this seems unlikely, and it is seen and will be seen as extremely
unlikely by the white South Africans.

2. The white South Africans are conquered and are treated badly -
almost all the survivors becoming refugees.  The white South Africans
see this as more likely than outcome 1 and so, apparently, do
most black Africans.

3. The white South Africans win a decisive victory, and the present
situation continues indefinitely.  Probably no-one regards this as
likely, because a decisive victory could only be obtained by the
white South Africans conquering black Africa.  They might succeed
in this if Africa were isolated, but no-one believes it likely that
the rest of the world would permit this outcome.

4. An unsuccessful attack by South Africa's neighbors leads to Russian
intervention on the part of the black Africans.  The war becomes nuclear.
White South Africa is completely destroyed and black South Africa is
mostly destroyed also.  Russia and other outside intervenors lose some
major cities to submarine launched missiles and to smuggled bombs.  The
rest of Africa loses most of its cities, and large areas of Africa
become uninhabitably radioactive.  Fallout causes casualties
in a much larger part of the world.
This outcome is improbable but not impossible.  It would seem that
even the most militant Russian would not risk losing even a few
cities in a war with South Africa while the U.S. and China remain
totally unaffected.  However, wars have been fought
in the past when the probable outcome appeared just as unfavorable to
the participants.

5. An extremely bloody but localized battle in which hundreds of thousands
of whites and maybe millions of blacks are killed leads to an eventual
stalemate from which neither party can make progress.  An armistice and a
more or less uneasy peace occurs.  This has two subcases:

	a. The white controlled territories still contain a majority
of blacks, and they still do most of the manual work.

	b. In the course of the fighting, the blacks flee or are
driven to black controlled territory or engage in sabotage to
such an extent that the whites can no longer use them as a source
of labor.

	In my opinion, 5b is the most likely outcome.  I don't think
the whites can benefit long from black labor after a war starts.  The
whites will be squeezed to some area, large or small, that they can
control and work without black labor.  I don't think the whites can
be conquered at an acceptable cost to the blacks, because they will
regard 2 as the most likely outcome in that case, and they will resort
to nuclear weapons if pressed hard enough.  %2No determined
people with nuclear weapons can be conquered in the forseeable future
without their enemies being devastated also%1.

	If an eventual partition is likely, then men of good will
should ask themselves whether it is possible to reach this outcome without
killing all those people or with as few people killed as possible.
It seems to me that it is unlikely that war can be avoided completely,
but there is some chance.  Even if war can't be avoided, the number
killed can be minimized by reaching a settlement as quickly as possible
as soon as there is enough agreement on what outcome is likely.

	The best technique for avoiding or ending a war is mediation
by a third party.  At present there seems to be no-one in the world
qualified to serve as a mediator of this dispute.  The reason is that
every government and the U.N. all have commitments to a "just" outcome.
These opinions are determined by the politics within
the countries and the U.N. and cannot now be put to one side
merely to avoid war.  Nor is arbitration possible.
An arbitrator is someone both sides trust to propose a fair or just
settlement, and no plausible arbitrator exists now or is likely to
exist in the forseeable future.

	An effective mediator (as distinct from an arbitrator)
cannot be primarily concerned with justice, because
the parties don't care what he thinks is a just outcome.  His
effectiveness depends on his ability to find an agreement that both
parties prefer to continuing or starting the fighting.  At present, the
dominant world opinion is that the blacks ought to rule South Africa.
Some are concerned with the fate of the whites, but would rely on hopes
that the blacks would make and keep an agreement to treat them acceptably.
Maybe the South African whites could come to believe that, but it seems
unlikely.  More likely, they would have to be conquered and they would
resort to nuclear weapons to deter that outcome.

	Although no-one can mediate now, eventually it will become
clear that mediation is necessary and some government will undertake
to do it.  Maybe the U.S. will do it.

	Even if a good mediator were available, it is unlikely that
he could have much effect at present for the following reasons:

1. At present, the whites are too comfortable.  While many of them
fear the future, this fear has existed for some time, and older
whites can hope that the crisis won't come in their lifetimes.
It is indeed plausible that the level of fighting won't become
unacceptable to the whites for many years.

2. The dynamics of politics among the blacks is such that nothing
short of total black power could be agreed upon today.

3. A solution without war is not in the interest of the leaders of the
Soviet Union or of revolutionary movements.  A war in Africa, like the war
in Vietnam, will permit them to make political gains all over the world,
because anything less than their total enthusiasm, for the war or any
attempt at mitigating the fate of the whites, will meet a successful
propaganda attack.

	It seems to me that any peace movement must be based on
the following principles:

1. There cannot be a black majority in a territory ruled by whites.
Any settlement based on this would be temporary.

2. If there are blacks in a territory ruled by whites, their presence
must be voluntary.  They must have full civil rights if they are
permanent residents, and they must have rights equivalent to those of
foreign workers in Europe if their presence is temporary.
In either case, they must be a minority.

3. The whites must have some territory ruled by them.

	In principle, there is no more objection to a secure and
prosperous white presence in territory ruled by blacks than the converse
situation in America, but I don't believe there is any way of getting
there from where the situation is now.

	Mediation says nothing about the relative
sizes of the black and white territories.  The sole requirement is
that the outcome be preferable to war to both sides.  If there is
any outcome both sides prefer to war, there will be a range of such
outcomes, and the actual outcome will be determined by bargaining.
In the bargaining, roles can be played by threats (both sincere
threats and bluffs), arguments about justice, the opinions of
outsiders, and efforts by outsiders to sweeten the pot aimed at
making one or both sides prefer a certain outcome to war.
or continuing a war.  It seems unlikely that the thirteen percent
that the present South African government allocates to blacks will
be preferred by the blacks to war.
I believe that the whites would fight a nuclear war before accepting
thirteen percent for themselves.
	
	What can be done now to reduce the chances of war or mitigate
its effects?  Merely to advance partition as a solution will advance
the movement among whites to prefer agreeing to a reduced standard of
living in reduced territory to letting the tension increase and war
become inevitable.  If they are offered no way out, intransigence
is probably the most rational alternative for them,
because there are several eventualities they can hope for.  First, they
can hope that their enemies will find something to fight about among
themselves, so that fighting South Africa will become less important.
Secondly, they can hope that the communist countries and the third
world left will overreach themselves and put the West into a difficult
enough position so that they will require white South Africa as an
ally.

	Probably the blacks would accept the idea of a genuine partition
more readily than the whites will.  They have a long wait and much
suffering to undergo, before they can even begin a war.  If they can be
convinced that partition is the likely outcome of a war anyway, they will
probably settle for it, but maybe not until they have flexed a few more
muscles.

	Unfortunately for its instant acceptability, partition looks
qualitatively like the Afrikaaner nationalist proposal of %2apartheid%1.
The difference is that the relative amounts of territory will be
settled by negotiation (not by a unilateral white decision), it won't
be granted that the whites are a superior race, there may be substantial
settlements of cash and division of industry, and outsiders (e.g. the
U.S., Japan and Germany) might be persuaded to sweeten the pot.

	In America, another unfortunate fact is that
it would take great political courage for
the American peace movement to support mediation in Africa.  It will be
much easier to take a vicarious "victory or death" attitude on behalf of
the African blacks.  The quantity of death may be very large.
The peace movement is based on the idea that the Russians cannot be
conquered; it will also have to accept the idea that South Africa
cannot be conquered either.

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John McCarthy
Stanford, California
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