SOUTH AFRICA: The Birth of a New Non-State

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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.