Basutoland: A Friend for Verwoerd

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After 97 years under British rule, Basutoland is due to receive its independence next year. Its position is hardly enviable. A bleak highland waste, inhabited almost entirely by blacks, Basutoland (pop. 900,000) has no industry, few raw materials and only the most rudimentary agriculture. It is totally dependent on South Africa, which completely surrounds it: most of its working-age men can find employment only in South African mines and factories, and the money they send home —roughly $2,800,000 a year—is its greatest single source of income.

Last week, as Basutoland counted the returns of its first general election, the results reflected both its predicament and its frustration. Winner of a bare two-seat majority in the new 'National Assembly was the conservative Basutoland National Party, dedicated to close ties with South Africa's apartheid-minded regime. The Nationalists were helped to victory by the South African government, which encouraged them to visit Rand mines for electioneering among the thousands of Basuto laborers who planned to go home to vote. No such campaigning facilities were permitted the Peking-backed Basutoland Congress Party, a bitter enemy of the government of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd. Nevertheless, Congress won 25 of the 60 seats in the Assembly and vowed to carry on its campaign to break all relations with South Africa, even if it meant starvation.