Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 15, 1963, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press. Thursday. August 15, 1963 Adenauer Accord isolates Degaulle quiet words of courage pastor s revelation on by Walter Lippmann Washington special tons the apparent ease with which Secretary Rusk 1 satisfied or. Adenauer s objections to the test ban treaty is a Good sign. 1 or. Rusk was Able to Suc i need in Bonn because or. Harriman and he were Able to persuade or. Khrushchev i that the test would be jeopardized if any political conditions were attached to it. Or. Khrushchev has had the 1 Good sense to understand this and to realize that since the test ban treaty itself will slow i Down drastically the race for i armaments it is a most Sig i if cant non aggression pact. Had or. Khrushchev insisted on attaching to it a formal non aggression pact the treaty might not have been ratified by the Senate. Moreover the West germans might have abstained not because they i themselves intend to test but 1 in order to show their Solidar 1 Ity with gaullist France. It is moreover a Good sign that the main lines of West German policies Are in fact oriented toward the Atlantic partnership rather than to Ward a Franco German Axis. President Kennedy has been proved to be right in spite of the doubters among them 1 myself about his trip to Ger Many. For Bonn to diverge 1 from Paris on the Issue of i nuclear testing is a Sharp deviation from the treaty with general de Gaulle. It leaves i gaullist France isolated not Only from All the outer world except red China but in the heart of the european Contin ent itself. I Little pressure it is also i think a Good sign that or. Khrushchev is Able to be relaxed about the difficult. Next Steps. It Indi Cates that he is under no ser ious pressure at Home and that he does not regard the Hostil Ity of red China As an Immi nent threat to soviet Security or to world peace. The Mak ing of peace Between the so Viet Union and the West inso far As that is possible Between two such rival social orders is necessarily a Long and slow process. For such peacemaking requires an Advance through the vast minefields of the cold War. There Are perhaps peripheral agreements which can be made in the Field of the reduction of armaments and the in their deploy ment. But everyone knows that the crucial Issue Between the soviet Union and the at lactic Community is the Sta Tus of West Berlin and the re unification of the two Ger Many. If the foundations of genuine peace Are to be Laid in Europe the Cornerstone will be an agreement among the victors of the second world War that the German problem is to be solved by eventual reunification and not by permanent partition. Distaste it will take time which will bring changes in the minds of men and in their rulers to arrive at such an agree ment. For in France and great Britain among the smaller West european coun tries and indeed in most of Chancellor Adenauer s Ger i Many there is to put it mild j by a great distaste for Ger j Man reunification. The inst i Tut ions of postwar Europe j notably is divided. German re 1 unification As a French of j facial once said to me is like j heaven a place we All want to go but not any sooner than 1 be have to. Or. Khrushchev himself is i i believe in favor of partition i assuming As he does that i there is no Prospect in the foreseeable future that the 1 two Germany will unite As one communist state. Yet no durable settlement can be 1 made in Europe if Germany 1 remains divided. And there 1 fore if there is to be Progress i towards peace there will i have to be an important i change of mind in Moscow and in Paris primarily in Bonn and the other Allied Cap 1 Italy As Well. There is Little reason to i think that these changes of 1 mind can happen during the political lifetime of the Genera i Tion that conducted the second 1 world War and its aftermath 1 in the cold War. But the new generation is arriving and if it can be enabled to work without the Nightmare of a no i Clear holocaust hanging Over i it then the older generation 1 will not have done too badly. 1 copyright 1963 i the Washington Post starving children draws re of South african government am a . _ i j1u. My a report in a Johannesburg newspaper about human misery in Northern Transvaal defied a government embargo on such news and sparked a Sharp reaction London special the guard Ian it is not generally i known what the. True state of i affairs is in Vendeland. After i More than two years of serious drought a general food Short age has Arisen in virtually the whole area North of Pieters Burg children Are starving to death. In the past few months nine children under five have died of Kwashiorkor Here and pellagra is these quiet words which mask a vast area of human suffering in the Northern Transvaal Are taken from a report in the Johannesburg Star i of May 7, 1963. Their source was pastor Snyman of the dutch reformed Church in i Louis Richardt and his publication of the facts about the Northern Transvaal famine in face of a government imposed embargo on such news was i an act of courage and of con science. In 1962-3 there had been a similar crop failure in he re Gion and it had been the subject of a spectacular press Campaign by the Rand daily mail which had greatly an gered the authorities. As a re sult the government had warned those missionaries and others who had provided the information that further leak Ages of this kind would have serious consequences and might Lead to their expulsion from the Region. Added weight the fact that these More re cent revelations c ame from a Church which is normally complaisant towards the Bantu policies of the nationalist government gave them added weight. They were made by pastor Snyman because his approaches for assistance made to the local administration had been spurned and he Felt that in face of the human misery involved he could no longer keep silence. He added further detail 301 cases of Kwashiorkor and i 224 of pellagra treated in five hospitals in two districts alone Between september 1962, and february 1963, apart from the Many More cases left untreated in the villages Hund reds of thousands of Pia Ople Al ready reduced to three meals of thin mealie porridge a week the Countryside swept Bare to the wild spin aches normally used to supplement the diet of Relief from a new Harvest before february or March 1964. And once the news was broken pastor Sny Man s statements were rein forced by Mission doctors and others from All Over the Reg Ion. Press embargo the government s reaction was Sharp. It immediately imposed an embargo on entry into these areas by press re porters and photographers and warned missionaries and others that such reports should be discouraged since they were inaccurate and exaggerated and were credited solely1 to discredit South Africa s name abroad. For the same reason it warned them against the acceptance of overt help from welfare organizations however disinterested they might it was not necessary for any african to suffer As a result of food shortages in the drough stricken areas the government spokesmen said since the department of Bantu administration was aware that there was hardship and the Relief measures instituted in the previous year were to be continued. 000, while in the area worst affected a total of 150 jobs on the roads at an All in wage of 15 cents a Day were provided As the much Trump eted famine Relief program. Had it not been for a magnificent voluntary Effort by people of Goodwill in South Africa supplemented by disinterested Aid from aboard the mortal Ity and the misery in the North Ern Transvaal in 1962-63 would have been much greater. In face of the new crisis the Only government help up to the end of May 1963, was a Supply of Basic food sufficient to keep alive some eight thou Sand people for a month. All the authorities Are prepared to admit a massive influx of Wel fare funds or to mount a major operation on their own account a very real human trag Edy will unfold in the months ahead. And there is a special irony in the fact thai in the neigh Boring British territory of Bechuanaland where a similar crop failure has occurred the South african government for the Sake of its International name is Likely to be one of the major sources of Relief. Prompt appeals there of course the territorial government has no false shame about admitting the Impact of a natural calamity which it could have done no thing immediate to Avert the British administration was alerted in Good time by its exclusive from the guardian to those in the know this announcement offered Little Comfort. The areas affected contain though they do not adequately support an african population of Well Over two million people. 150 jobs last year according to Well informed sources the govern ment contributions to Emer gency feeding was Only technical officers to the human needs that would arise and it made prompt appeals to the colonial office and to the Oxford committee for famine to which it received a ready response. But it also appealed to the United nations world food program for a free Alloca Tion of surplus food to meet local shortages and it is Ironi Cal but True that it is Likely to receive without charge 000 Worth of dried milk mealie meal and dried eggs from South Africa As a result. It is of course in the interests of the Republican government that its tarnished International image should been handed by such x gesture. But however much we May criticize the South african government for the Inadequacy of the measures it is taking in the Northern Transvaal the famine there is basically a natural calamity for which it can hardly be blamed. Endemic hunger where it can and should be pilloried is for the permanent countrywide endemic malnutrition from which the majority of its less fortunate citizens continuously suffer. South Africa is a country of embarrassing agricultural sur pluses. Millions of bags of Maize Are exported annually by the Maize Board at a heavy loss to communist China and elsewhere. When prices Are considered too Low bananas Are destroyed in the Fields on official instruction and Citrus left to rot in great Mounds. Meat and meat products Are produced in excess of the capacity of the local Market to absorb them and foreign out lets Are eagerly sought while surplus milk is poured into the sea. Yet All this goes on while hundreds of thousands of people know permanent hunger and. The diseases of Kwashiorkor pellagra and Gas Tro enteritis take heavy toll particularly among the younger age groups causing Many deaths and preventing the sound physical development of thousands. Darkest blot this is one of the darkest blots on the South african re Cord. The government claims that such reports Are exaggerated and that the main cause of such malnutrition As occurs is the refusal of the Bantu to eat the right kind of food. But although there is a widespread ignorance of proper diets among africans particularly since the Extension of cultivation or the Drift to the Urban Arvas have of the wild plants with which traditionally their simple diet was corrected the True causes of Hendrik Verwoerd South Africa prime minister malnutrition among them Are Well known and have been established by More than one in dependent scientific investigation. Areas it results directly from the government policy of confining the africans to native reserves quite inadequate to support them. The con sequent overcrowding and Over cultivation Lead to Ever de creasing crop yields and the meagre pasturage left for such scrub cattle As they own Means that sour milk formerly an important element in their traditional diet is at a Premium. And the steadily increasing hostility of the people to the government and All its works arouses a resistance to the bet Ter farming methods which a limited government agricultural service attempts to inculcate. Simple cause in the Urban areas there is one simple cause. It is the impossibly Low Industrial wage Structure which investigation after investigation has proved to be totally inadequate for the support of Normal family life. And Here we have the Paradox that every time t h e govern ment destroys an old Urban slum and builds a Fine new showpiece location the prob Lem is enhanced. The increased rents and higher bus fares which result Cut heavily and directly into family food Bud gets. To some extent the govern ment has been forced into re cognition of this general Situa Tion. Although one of its first acts when it came into Power was to abolish the school feeding program operated by its predecessors it has recently agreed to provide the More important municipalities with a subsidy for milk for welfare purposes. It has also recently declared Kwashiorkor to be a notifiable disease an act which in itself of course does nothing to re Medy the situation. And the Central and Munici pal authorities provide a limited service of welfare clinics though since in the Urban locations they must be largely financed from the profits of the municipal Beer Halls these Are quite inadequate. Volunteers serious malnutrition then in All its forms remains wide spread and and the main Effort to combat it comes not from government but from private sources. The magnificent contribution made by More than fifty private charitable organizations and welfare schemes spread throughout the country deserves much better recognition than it has received. Financed by voluntary subscriptions staffed mainly by volunteers both drawn largely from people of British Stock and working under the Bare tolerance of the government they provide a network of school feeding schemes pre school creches and Nursery schools food Par cels for the aged and the Citi Zens advice Bureau to Aid africans caught up in the com plex web of government regu lations. Their Effort cannot meet the need but it does much to Miti Gate it. Honor is due to the thou Sands of Public spirited people who make it possible and who Are South Africa s conscience in action. 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