The Brandon Sun from Brandon, Manitoba, Canada • Page 5

africaanalysis THE BRANDON SUM, Friday. January 2, 1 976 5 Rhodesia American mercenaries enlist to defend white regime by DAVID AN ABLE The Christian Science Monitor News Service NEW YORK They go to fight communism," for adventure, lor the money, or simply for jobs. They are American "mercenaries" enlisting in Rhodesia's armed forces to fight the guerrillas launched against the breakaway British colony by black African "liberation movements." They are distinct from the mer: cenaries recruited in southern Africa in recent weeks for the fighting between rival African nationalist movements in the former Portuguese territory of Angola. The Rhodesia operation is of much longer standing and reaches across the ocean into the United States. The Rhodesia "mercenaries are still few in number.

Estimates vary from less than 50 up to 400. This reporter obtained unofficial confirmation of about 20. But they are diplomatic dynamite. Their presence in Rhodesia and recruitment here outrage black Africans. They are a source of great embarrassment to the United States government-Washington's official line is that it strongly disapproves but lacks the specific evidence necessary to take legal action.

Yet: Recruitment of mercenaries is visibly spreading in the United States. In 'current or recent issues at least six American sporting, gun, and specialty." magazines have carried advertisements calling for "able-bodied fighting men" or offering to supply information about "mercenaries" or overseas opportunities of that sort. These include: Sports Afield, Shotgun News, Gun Week, Shooting Times, and Gun IS U.S. Code 959, although that rule has hardly ever been applied. One American interviewed by this correspondent said that he returned in August from three years service in the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI).

A blond, freckled U.S. college graduate. Frank A. Sweeney Jr. told about his pay (about $900 a month tax-free as a corporal), his unbounded admiration for the white minority government of Ian D.

Smith, and his RLI experiences. He said that his detachment took many prisoners, most of whom were taken back to base for court martial. Others, alleged to have committed atroeities against the local population, were less fortunate "We shot em right there in the bush when we were told not to take prisoners." On re-entering the United States Frank says he told the immigration officials where he had been, even showing them his RLI discharge papers. Immigration took no action. Enlistment in a foreign army, especially if it includes a foreign oath of allegiance, could amount to "effectively renouncing" American citizenship the Supreme Court's minimum requirement for possible removal of such citizenship.

Frank now is enthusiastically recruiting (unpaid) for Rhodesia's security forces. "They are looking for foreign personnel," he says, referring in particular to a Rhodesian Army recruiter in Salisbury, Maj. Nicholas Lamprecht. "He told me to get in touch with as many white applicants as I could. If I could get one white man over there, I would feel satisfied." According to Frank, it was the Rhodesian Information Office in Washington that told him how to get in touch with Major Lamprecht back in 1972.

A recent visitor to the same office, on inquiring about jobs in Rhodesia, was given along with other brochures a four-page photo- breaking sanctions, they would not hesitate to close it down. Two Americans currently are serving six-month jail terms in Botswana on firearms charges. The Botswana government says they entered the country from Rhodesia "and were carrying out a mission for the Rhodesian special branch." Unlike Rhodesians, U.S. passport holders can enter Botswana freely for up to seven days. Both men, Craig Acheson and Joe Belisario, are among the leaders of Veterans and Volunteers for Vietnam (VVV), a group of 500 or more strongly anti-Communist American former servicemen who originally got together to fight for South Vietnam but were unable to mobilize before Saigon collapsed.

According to VVV founder, former Marine Bart Bonner of Watertown, N.Y., Mr. Belisario, -Mr. Acheson and three or four others left for Rhodesia in June and July this year with hopes of enlisting in Rhodesia's armed services. U.S. officials, however, say they have no evidence that either man actually signed on in Rhodesia.

Mr. Bonner also doubts that they would have had time to join up and get out on such an operation by Sept. 14 when they were arrested in Botswana. Meanwhile, Botswana officials say their government is pursuing its investigation. Another American, John Coey of Ohio, was killed this summer while in action as a medic with the Rhodesian Light Infantry.

He had become a Rhodesian citizen two weeks before his death. His mother, Mrs. George Coey of Ohio says that her son went to Rhodesia in March, 1972, specifically to enlist. "This was his choice instead of Vietnam," she declared in a telephone interview, explaining that John was due for the U.S. draft but vehemently disapproved of American involvement in a "no-win, undeclared war" in Vietnam.

The latest spate of "mercenary" advertisements in U.S. magazines follows, and in some cases appears tc imitate, a series of such ads placed earlier mis year by Robert K. Brown of Arvada, Colo. Mr. Brown is a tough former U.S.

Special Forces major who reportedly has been deeply involved with both pro- and (later) anti-Castro guerrilla forces. He says that after visiting Rhodesia last year he marketed some 200 to 300 packages of information about Rhodesia's armed forces before discontinuing sales in July under U.S. government pressure. He has since launched a glossy quarterly magazine of his own, "Soldier of Fortune the Journal of Professional Adventurers." The first issue sold 8,500 copies according to Major Brown, with a reprint now adding a further 5,000. It contained a variety of gun.

knife, mercenary, and adventure features including a piece by Major Brown himself answering the question: "How does an American become a mercenary in Africa?" The article detailed Rhodesian Army and police enlistment requirements and gave addresses in Rhodesia (including that of Major Lamprecht) for further information. The next issue a printing of 15,000 will include an analysis of the relevant U.S. legislation. According to Major Brown, the Rhodesians he met' last year were "very, very, down" on the popular concept of mercenaries as illustrated in the chaos of the Belgian Congo in the 1960s. On the other hand, sources familiar with the Rhodesian scene point cut that the Rhodesians need all the foreign enlistment they can get.

"It doesn't do our credibility any good to have idiot American citizens joining up to fight on the white Rhodesian side," says one state department source. If the American recruitment continues, such officials admit, it could do more damage to U.S.-African relations than America's sanctions-busting chrome imports from Rhodesia, long a source of bitter irritation. IAN SMITH army bolstered with This reporter has discovered copied "careers on the Rhodesian Army put out by Rhodesia's department of labor. He was informed about Major Lamprecht, whose address and telephone number were pointed out on the sheets. The visitor was given a half-hour talk on Americans already fighting in Rhodesia and the conditions of service there.

He was also told that the Rhodesian government would reimburse his airfare if he joined up a possible infringement of U.S. sanctions legislation. (Frank Sweeney said that his airfare was reimbursed after he had served six months: "They're very honest about that; they do that with The Rhodesian Information Office operates in the U.S. under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. But officials say that if they found any evidence that it was breaking American laws by recruiting or several hundred Americans have responded to the various advertisers and been given details among other things, on how to join Rhodesia's police and armed forces.

Recruiting others for service in foreign forces is illegal under Title economics Students studying in Russia allege racial discrimination Black and white nations had bad year Appeals to correct the situation have been unavailing, the students indicated. Ukrainians will not accept any responsibility. They say the Russians invited the African students, so. it is the Russians who should take care of them, the memorandum noted. Other discrimination alleged by the ASU includes not letting two Africans together, even though white foreign students are allowed to do so.

The Lvov ASU therefore made five requests of the African ambassadors; (1) "To please let the Russians know that if they want our respect, they should respect our countries and peoples; (2) To keep in contact with African students themselves; (3) To get unnecessary expulsions stopped; (4) To have any new rules channeled through the embassies; and (5) To see that conditions in Lvov are improved, so that students can The Lvov protest followed close on the heels of a victory by African students in Kiev in the case of an interracial marriage. The students went on strike to get a scholarship reinstated for a Czechoslovak woman student who married a Nigerian student. The Czechoslovak consulate in Kiev withdrew her scholarship and ordered the Czech woman to leave Kiev after the marriage last April. Following the student strike, the woman was permitted to stay on with her husband. Soviet officials were not directly involved in the Kiev incident.

But both the Kiev and Lvov protests reflect the widespread resentment by Africans studying here of overt anti-black feeling they say they frequently encounter in the Soviet Union. For their part, Russian students express resentment about the money Afriean students have to spend, and they get especially upset by African dating of Slav women. by LARRY HEINZERLIN JOHANNESBURG (AP) Most of Africa's impoverished countries south of the Sahara suffered serious economic setbacks in 1975 with faint hope of relief in the coming year. Development programs were slashed, imports were cut and export earnings fell as soaring fuel costs and unabated inflation crippled growth. Many countries imposed foreign-exchange restrictions, currency devaluations and commodity rationing in belt-tightening efforts across the continent from Senegal to Kenya.

Even South Africa the industrial giant of the sub-continent which produces 70 per cent of the gold in the estern world fell on hard times. The price of gold fell sharply in world markets, leading to a balance-of-payments crisis that sparked a 17.9-per-cent devaluation of the rand. The devaluation promised to spur inflation, running at 14 per cent in December, while depressed industries saw little hope of an early upward trend. The South Africans, meanwhile, continued to search for greater markets in black Africa. White-ruled Rhodesia also faced hard times with continuing United Nations sanctions and the independence of neighboring Mozambique, formerly a major trading partner, under a militantly Marxist government.

A major civil war in of black Africa's potentially richest countries with reserves of oil and diamonds, crippled the former Portuguese colony's economy. The conflict has also posed problems for neighboring Zaire and Zambia, which had used Angola's railways to export their copper. Most black African countries were severely hit by the recession in the industrial world as demand for traditional exports plunged. A number of governments, squeezed by a balance-of-payments crisis, were forced to introduce austerity measures to prevent economic collapse. Even oil-rich Nigeria was not immune, facing an economic crisis partly brought on by the government's inability to handle its new-found prosperity, which has brought few benefits for the average Nigerian.

Nigeria's earnings from crude oil were expected to drop by some $2 billion in 1975 from the record $8 billion earned in 1974. Production dropped because of declining world demand and a deliberate policy of conservation. Many West African countries were still recovering from the impact of the crippling drought of 1974 that ravaged crops and livestock and killed thousands of nomads and peasants. West Africa saw the formation in 1975 of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) linking 124 million people of 15 countries. ECOWAS, whose members are Dahomey, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal.

Sierre Leone, Zaire and Zambia to concentrate on cooperation in all fields of development including transport, industry, agriculture, financial and cultural matters. Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda devalued their shillings by about 14 per cent against major world currencies to boost exportsand tourism while curbing imports by making them costlier. Kenya ran up a record $91.8 million balance-of-payments deficit in 1974-75, and another big deficit is expected. Zambia, once among the wealthiest of African countries, enjoyed a narrow balance-of-payments surplus in 1974 when the price of copper the country's chief export was at a record high. Now, however, with copper prices on the world market below production costs, Zambia expects payment deficits of some $375 million in 1975 and S413 million in 1976.

Ethiopia was torn by armed uprisings, the costly civil war in Eritrea, turmoil over land nationalization and often counterproductive economic experiments by the new socialist military government in 1975. Tanzania, among the poorest countries in Africa, had to ration local consumption of sugar in" 1975 to export 60,000 tons worth $24 million. In Uganda, basic foods are scaree and long lines form outside shops for salt, sugar, matches and other Production and transport disruptions under President Idi Amin have cut foreign exchange earnings and inflated prices of locally produced foods. 3 by ELIZABETH POND The Christian Science Monitor News Service MOSCOW African students here are alleging and protesting discrimination against them in the Soviet Union. The African Student Union (ASU) in Lvov has asked African ambassadors in Moscow to help stop racial assaults on and arbitrary expulsions of black students in that Ukrainian city.

More broadly, ASU spokesmen called student experiences here "torture" and requested "respect" from the Russians. In a written memorandum, the students asked their own ambassadors to "keep in contact with us so as not to give the Russians the idea that' we are" out-easts." The memorandum's five demands were submitted to the vice-dean of the African diplomatic corps, the Ambassador of Senegal, and nine other African embassies in Moscow. In explanation, the ASU delegation cited four assaults on black students by Ukrainians or Russians in the students' own dormitory rooms, two other assaults inside, two near the student hostel, and one assault on a pregnant Nigerian student. The students wrote that the most serious incident occurred last April, when "a Nigerian, Mr. Adeogba, was attacked by a drunken Soviet citizen with a chisel while sleeping in his room." He shouted for help, and two friends rescued him only to have all three Nigerians expelled for "attacking and beating up a Soviet citizen in Mr, Adeogba's own room," the students said.

The memorandum said that expulsions for no reason happen every year, "especially in (the) final year of study." Such expulsion, it said, makes students "useless to our countries" and is a "brain drain in the real sense," The ASU complained about insults by Soviet hosts, lack of recourse to correct grievances, disregard of permission from African embassies in Moscow to travel to Moscow or abroad, forced participation in politics, and harassment in the form of constant new regulations. Black editor trecls softly in South Africa 10 4 3 YEAR lorthguant Acceptance Icerpmtten Limited HEAD OFFICE WINNIPEG Branches at Calgary Brandon Vancouver by STEWART DILL McBRIDE The Christian Science Monitor News Service CAMBRIDGE, Mass. "Editing a newspaper in South Africa," says Percy Qoboza, "is like walking blindfolded through a minefield." As editor of South Africa's two largest black newspapers, The World and Weekend World (with circulations of 120,000 and 197,000 respectively), he daily tiptoes through tight government restrictions on the reporting of prison conditions and military matters, on interviewing government opponents, and on coverage of incidents "which might strain relations between blacks and whites." Percy Qoboza is the first black South African man who, awarded Harvard's prestigious Nieman fellowship for journalists, was granted a passport by the South African Government to leave the country to accept it. (In 1960 and 1964, the South African Govern ment granted exit visas to black journalists Lewis Mkosi and Nathaniel Nakasa on the grounds that if they accepted the Nieman fellowship they would not be permitted to return. Both men chose to study at Harvard.

Mr. Mkosi now is living in exile in London. Mr. Nakasa, despondent over exclusion from his homeland, committed suicide.) At present Mr. Qoboza is studying Asian and African history and sociology and occasionally playing tennis.

At the end of the acedemic year he and his wife will return to South Africa, where they left their five children. A soft-spoken, quick-witted man, Mr. Qoboza says his perspective on the future of his white-ruled homeland has changed in the few months he has been in the United States. Time is running out for a peaceful resolution of the mounting tensions between the country's 18 million blacks and 4 million whites, he said in an interview in his Cambridge apartment. "The real tragedy of it all may be that when the white man is ready to talk to the black, we may have reached the point where the blacks don't want to talk.

That would be the saddest day. for South Africa. "We've got to find a way to live together. Like Martin Luther King once said: 'Either we learn to live together as brothers or we perish as fools'." Mr. Qoboza remains patient and confident.

"We will win inevitably. It is not a negotiable matter. We are fighting against an unjust system, which cannot stand the test of time." He is intermittently taut and relaxed as he unveils his feeling toward his homeland. "I must, be careful with what I say," he whispers. He confesses that he still "feels funny" speaking to predominantly black groups of Harvard students; gatherings of blacks can be outlawed in his own country, he says.

"Nothing has changed in South Africa, The government is trying to perpetuate the image abroad that we are a changing society. This is wrong. Things are not changing. Apartheid is just becoming more subtle," he says. He describes token integration of spots and more passport privileges for biack South Africans as mere window dressing on the continued oppression of Africans by the white minority.

Most Americans are disinterested, if not ignorant, of, living conditions under South Africa, they are given red-carpet treatment, and "black Americans are treated as honorary whites during their stay." "They would even have to get a permit to come and visit someone like me," he adds. Mr. Qoboza was raised in a strict Roman Catholic family in Sophiatown, six miies outside Johannesburg. His father worked in the gold mines some 400 miles away. After deciding not to go into the priesthood, he turned to journalism.

"I love people and their problems and an thriiled by their fight to overcome all. Newspapers were an opportunity to preach to a wide he says. "The black journalist in South Africa must ask 'What comes first, my personal comfort or my part and parcel of the broad black consciousness movement?" I have decided I am part of the struggle." Mr. Qoboza newspapers cater to blacks emphasizing news from other black African nations and "taking only an academic interest" in news from Europe and all-white South African Parliament. "A few people feel that we are not as outspoken as we should be.

But they don't understand the problems we face. It is all very easy to say why don't you stick your neck out," he says. He adds that blacks who work lawfully to change South African society are labeled "Uncle Toms" by outsiders. "To be a newspaper in South Africa you have to be cautious," Mr. Qoboza says.

"But you have to continue to make the right noises or none a all." 1 1 0Vi 3 year Negotiable Promissory Notes 1014 2 year Negotiable Promissory. Notes 10W 1 year Negotiable Promissory Notes.