A GUIDE TO THE BLACK FRONT

The 16 states of subequatorial Africa have varying degrees of involvement in the region's gathering racial, political and ideological confrontation. Some, like Rwanda and Burundi, which are both the poorest and most densely populated African countries (total pop. 8,300,000 in an area smaller than West Virginia), are too wrapped up in their own tribal rivalries to pay much attention to tensions elsewhere between blacks and whites. Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta, the grand old man of African liberation, has kept Kenya out of the Rhodesian confrontation, perhaps because of the frustration he experienced while trying to mediate the Angolan civil war last year. Uganda plays a noisy but purely verbal role in the southern Africa drama. Uganda's dictator Idi Amin Dada regularly threatens to dispatch a "suicide battalion" to Rhodesia or South Africa; so far, however, Amin has limited the Libyan pilots who fly his Soviet-supplied MIGs to making practice bombing runs on an island in Lake Victoria that he has renamed "Cape Town."

Other states that depend on trade with the white regimes have adopted contrasting political postures. In Zaire (pop. 25,600,000), which has been receiving U.S. military and economic aid to counter Soviet influence in neighboring Angola, strongman President Mobutu Sese Seko takes a firm stand against Rhodesia and South Africa in public while carrying on a brisk covert trade (perhaps as much as $100 million a year) with the white regimes. Malawi (pop. 5,100,000) practically flaunts its desire for cordial relations with the white governments. Says the country's U.S.-educated President, Hastings Kamuzu Banda: "I'd trade with the devil if it's for the good of Malawi."

The countries most deeply involved in the struggle over southern Africa are the five black African front-line states. A brief Baedeker of the five:

TANZANIA. Pop. 15,600,000. Independent (from Britain) since 1961. One-party socialist regime; 25% Christian, 31% Moslem, the rest animist. Literacy: 20%. Per capita G.N.P.: $156. Exports: cotton, coffee, sisal, cloves. A primitive agricultural economy beset by zealous collectivization campaigns.

President Julius Nyerere, 54, is the leader of the front-line-five chiefs, occupying the swing position between the moderates and the militants. Tanzania's capital, Dar es Salaam, is headquarters of the Organization of African Unity committee charged with planning confrontation strategy with white regimes, as well as a port for guerrilla supplies from the Soviet Union and China. Five thousand Rhodesian insurgents are training in Tanzanian camps.

ZAMBIA. Pop. 5,100,000. Independent (from Britain) since 1964. One-party government based on President Kenneth Kaunda's philosophy of "Humanism," which he defines as primary concern for "the dignity of the individual." Literacy: 20%. Per capita G.N.P.: $500. Economy is almost entirely dependent on copper for cash income and is currently in deep recession because of a drop in world prices.

Kaunda, 52, is the most peace-minded of the front-line five. He met with South Africa's Vorster and Rhodesia's Smith in a failed effort to get Rhodesian negotiations under way last year, but has since reluctantly endorsed the armed struggle. His country now harbors 2,500 Rhodesian and 6,000 Namibian guerrillas.

MOZAMBIQUE. Pop. 9,300,000. Independent (from Portugal) since June 1975. One-party Communist-socialist regime. Literacy: 7%. Per capita G.N.P.: $200. Exports: cashew nuts, sugar, cotton. Economy was hurt by the ten-year preindependence guerrilla war, which was followed by a flight of skilled whites and imposition of doctrinaire socialism. The country is heavily dependent upon transit trade with South Africa and $120 million a year in wage remittances from Mozambicans employed in its mines.

Marxist President Samora Machel, 43, rejects a peaceful settlement for Rhodesia and says that a long war is needed to "liberate the minds" of blacks. He operates camps for 5,000 to 8,000 Rhodesian guerrillas. His own Chinese-trained 10,000-man army has staged an occasional raid into Rhodesia.

BOTSWANA. Pop. 700,000. Independent (from Britain) since 1966. Multiparty parliamentary democracy. Literacy: 10%. Per capita G.N.P.: $280. Exports: beef, diamonds, hides and skins. Economy is expanding (exports have increased twelve times since independence, to $120 million in 1975) with the discovery of abundant mineral wealth and substantial foreign investment.

Although Botswana is heavily dependent on trade with neighboring South Africa and Rhodesia, President Seretse Khama, 55, has been expanding ties with black African countries and refuses to have diplomatic relations with either Pretoria or Salisbury. Forced by geography to be the most conservative of the front-line-five presidents, Khama denies the presence of Rhodesian guerrillas in his country and is reluctant to resort to violent confrontation.

ANGOLA. Pop. 6,400,000. Independent (from Portugal) since November 1975. One-party Marxist-socialist state. Literacy: 15%. Per capita G.N.P.: $490. Exports: diamonds, coffee, oil. Economy was wrecked by the civil war and the exodus of white technicians.

Last February the Moscow-backed President Agostinho Neto, 54, finally managed to prevail over his Western-backed rivals with the help of $300 million in Soviet-supplied arms and 12,000 Cuban soldiers. Neto, now the hardest-lining of the front-line five, continues to reject a peaceful solution for Rhodesia and harbors 3,000 SWAPO guerrillas across his 800-mile common border with Namibia.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.