Repression follows
Argentine hunger riots
NAMIBIA • ARGENTINA SWAPO will win hands down. 16
SWAPO is, in fact, the only truly national movement in Namibia. As in all nationalist liberation movements, the politics it embraces are wide-ranging, but importantly it contains left-wing socialist currents. Come independence, SWAPO will be in the unenviable position of leading a country that at present is hea ily dependent on South food and consumer goods imported from South Africa.
In the short term, a SWAPO government may have little room to manoeuvre. SWAPO has already stated in their economic policy döcument that they will opt for a "mixed economy", will not nationalize foreign companies but will enter into new agreements with them, and will only take over land that is owned by absentee landlords. Mindful of the mass exodus and destruction wrought by the white colonialists in Mozambique and Angola, they have tried to allay the fears of the white community over their future in an independent Namibia.
Struggle will continue after independence
The struggle will certainly independence declared. Initially, the key question is not whether SWAPO nationalizes the transnationals or not, but how they develop the democratic participation of the masses in the reconstruction of the country to enable them to take forward the demands of the Black majority defend the newly independent state.
SWAPO has the benefit of hindsight in being able to draw on the lessons learnt in newly independent countries in the rest of Africa. If a SWAPO government is able to rally the people behind them and explain at every stage what options are open to them and why they are taking certain actions, there is the possibility of resisting potential destabilization.
Key to this is SWAPO's support for the continuing autonomy of the trade-union and student movements, and the building of an autonomous women's movement, without this being counterposed to nation-
Ultimately, Namibia's future, together with that of the other front-line states, is tied up with the defeat of capitalism inside South Africa linked to imperialism being challenged in its heartlands. * 16. One aspect to this is their divide-and-rule policy in trying to persuade people (and organizations internationally) that SWAPO is a "tribal" organization based on the Ovambo peoples of the north - an assertion being daily contradicted by the support SWAPO receives from all sections of the Black population. 17. "Namibia's economic prospects brighten up", an economic policy position document of the Political Bureau of SWAPO's Central Committee, Luanda, November 28, 1988. According to SWAPO, an esti12 mated 48% of white-owned farms/ranches are owned I by absentee landowners. International Viewpoint #167 • July 10, 1989
HARDLY TWO WEEKS after the May 14 presidential election - which saw the victory of Peronist candidate! Carlos Menem and the defeat of President Raúl Alfonsín -the country's second largest city, Rosario, was rocked by a mass rebellion against poverty. Dozens of people died in this uprising, which spread rapidly to the suburbs of Buenos Aires.