LESOTHO: ‘“NotA Good Place To Go If You Want To Boycott South African Wine” — R. Hazleton

For those unfortunate few who missed Ralph Hazleton’s seminar last Tuesday,...toobad, he’s gone. Dr. Hazleton is an extremely interesting, former U.P.E.I. economics professor (1974-1985). He spoke to a capacity crowd in the Faculty Lounge in Main Building last Tuesday, Sept. 9th. The seminar was co-sponsored by the WUSC-UPEI local committee and the U.P.E.I. Faculty of Arts.

Since leaving our university, Dr. Hazleton has been the project director for WUSC in the King- dom of Lesotho. Lesotho is com- pletely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa, and yet, tech- nically, it is it’s own “‘indepen- dent” country.

The speaker jokingly said upon introduction to the crowded room that he is glad that he left, since he had never drawn such a large crowd at one of his seminars in all his years at U.P.E.I. He was sup- posed to be here on vacation, but it turned out to be more like a business trip for WUSC.

Dr. Hazleton will spend at least one more year in Lesotho in his role as the WUSC field director, and he is responsible for all of the programs that WUSC offers in the country.

Lesotho has been an indepen- dent country since 1966. It is one of the two remaining Kingdom’s that are left in Africa, and it has an extremely popular king. The country is about the size of Van-

couver Island, and has a popula- tion of between 1.2 — 1.3 million people. It is a barren,

and cold country, whose lowest elevation is about 1500m. Lesotho also contains Southern Africa’s highest mountain. The country has virtually no industry of it’s own, and it imports over 90% of it’s requirements from the Republic of South Africa. Lesotho has little agricultural land, as only 13% of it’s land is arable.

Thus, Lesotho comes under the economic thumb of South Africa. About 350,000 natives of Lesotho work in South Africa, and most of them worked in the coal and gold mines, or in agriculture.

Dr. Hazleton went on further to say that the government of Lesotho gets about 50% of it’s revenue from remittences from the miners who work in South Africa, and the other 50% comes from customs duties.

The country has been under- going a large amount of internal unrest, and it’s former Prime Minister, L. Jonathan, has been

recently overthrown in a coup. Dr. Hazleton arrived shortly before this occured.

“EVERYTHING HAS GONE CRAZY SINCE 1 ARRIVED!”’

Jonathan has been getting in- creasingly more unpopular over the years, and his unpopularity peaked this year to the point of a military coup last January. Dr. Hazleton added that Prime Minister Jonathan’s invitation to North Korea, The People’s Republic of China, and the U.S.S.R. to set up embassies in Lesotho did not endear him to his all encom- passing neighbour, South Africa, either. Jonathan built up his own private army, (The B.M.P. Youth) which was equipped with Soviet Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles. The B.M.P. Youth created many

problems throughout the country, and at the National University, where students were allegedly shot, stabbed and thrown out of third story windows. On Dec. 19th, there was an attack by another group which killed nine people, whom they said were A.N.C. (African National Con- gress) guerillas. Dr. Hazleton admitted that some of the victims were of the A.N.C., but others were Lesotho high school girls.

In fact, he was typing a report to Ottawa in January on the topic of ‘The Security Situation in Lesotho,”? when the coup over- threw Jonathan. A major part of the coup took place outside his office window, which overlooks the cabinet buildings in the capital city. He said that it was both a peaceful coup, and a popular coup. The former prime minister, who alienated his people, is now under house arrest along with most of his cabinet ministers.

As a result of the coup, the popular King now has more power in his country. Jonathan and the King never did get along well, and thus the King was exiled by the Prime Minister, which enabled the King to obtain a degree in Economics. The King feels that he is “vastly under-employed,”’ as he told Dr. Hazleton two days before the coup.

The situation between the Republic of South Africa and Canada is now affecting Dr. Hazleton and his colleagues. Their latest travel visa has now been cut from a six month, multiple re- entry visa, to a three month, single-entry visa. This means that they cannot even travel through South Africa and re-enter the country after having visited another African country. He sus- pects that in the near future, Canadians will not be issued any visas at all.

In conclusion, Dr. Hazleton said that the situation in South Africa is deteriorating rapidly, and he feels that a major blood- bath is inevitable. The only question is ‘‘when will it happen?” He is not worried about his safety in Lesotho, as he feels that where he is staying is safe, ‘‘.... how- ever isolated.”’ He is very enthu- siastic about staying in Lesotho, as he finds it very stimulating to be in southern Africa at this time. There is no place where he would rather be. Besides, he added “... it’s no more depressing than teaching Economics 101.””

By Don Lane

Are you a student of UPEI? Do you feel that your life has no meaning, that there’s a lot more to UPEI than classes, that you have just too much spare time on your hands?

Well we need you to help out with “Panther Pride,” the UPEI student yearbook. Currently, last year’s yearbook is available upon Tequest (you may need a student

LD.) at the Student Union office *

in the Barn. Even though you can now pick up last year’s book, this year’s is under preparation even as you read this message. Pubs, classes, activities, orientation, all of these things have been captured

— We Want You! a)

on film for this year’s yearbook.

To make “Panther Pride” a complete success, we need you, the students, to express your opinions and volunteer some time

production. Your help will be valuable experience on a resume. We need people to help with lay- out (putting the photos on the page), production (organizing the pages and photos), graphic artists (people who can draw cartoons and graphics for the yearbook), and people with fresh ideas for a yearbook format.

If you're interested in joining the yearbook staff, just leave your

name with the Student Union office (down in the Barn). What have you got to lose?

have you got to lose? Nothing! You gain experience, you can have some fun, and if you’re a fresh- man, you can meet some upper- classmen {not that that’s any great thing]. Even if you have a simple idea about something you want to see in this year’s “Panther Pride’’, then drop down to the Barn and leave a message for James Connolly, the editor, or a message with Paul Ledwell, the VP Academic (in charge of the Gem and PANTHER PRIDE).

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