When the mine owners began to speak about running a candidate to oppose him in the next election, he nationalized the biggest mining company, and the rest of the owners took the hint.
Namibia, to the west of us, opposed a trade policy. He cut off all trade until they decided the policy wasn’t so bad after all.
He was a masterful politician, adept at all forms of power politics. In less than two years he had the shining, modern capital of South Africa—and indeed the whole country—running like clockwork. Not all the people were happy, not all the businesses were prospering, but he had enough of both on his side that he had nothing to worry about. I thought this would give him an incentive to relax and slow down, but it seemed to have just the opposite effect.
For two years he had a map of South Africa on the wall to the left of his desk. Then one day it was gone, and was replaced by a map of the lower half of the African continent. That afternoon I was summoned to his office.
“Yes, Mr. President?” I said, for I always referred to him by his formal title.
“John, my brother,” he said, “I think your talents are being wasted. You are my Postmaster, and yet hardly anyone uses the post office any more. It’s been decades since anyone sent a letter, even a legal document, by mail rather than electronically, and as for parcels, we are competing with half a dozen carriers. Our postal service is an anachronism; I foresee better things for you.”
I remained silent, trying to figure out what he was leading up to, since we had never discussed my future, only his, and only in grandiose if non-specific terms.
“As of this afternoon, you are my ambassador to Mozambique.”
“Mozambique?” I repeated, surprised. It was an impoverished neighboring country, and our primary interaction with them was turning back thousands of illegal immigrants at the border every day.
He nodded. “Don’t look so disappointed. This is a very important posting.”
“Perhaps you will explain what makes it so?” I said, for in my mind it was actually a lesser position than Postmaster, which wasn’t much to begin with.
He smiled. “Take a week to find your way around Beira. Play some golf, visit the casino, do a little sailing.”
“It sounds easy enough,” I said, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“At the end of the week, you will pay a visit to the President of Mozambique and deliver this.” He handed me an envelope bearing the official seal of the President. Another smile. “It will be your last duty as Postmaster.”
“What’s in it?”
“Our demand that they turn over their half of the Kruger National Park to us. It was unfairly divided centuries ago.”
“Do we care?” I asked. “Are you planning on building a city on park land?”
“Certainly not. It is home to the last wild animals on the continent. I wouldn’t dream of changing it.”
“Then I repeat - what is this all about?”
“We want restitution for all the centuries that they have profited from land that should legally have been ours,” said Robert.
“What are you talking about?” I said. “The land was divided by a treaty that was ratified and signed by both countries.”
He shook his head. “It was signed by white squatters who took the land and the government away from the indigenous peoples. It is not a legal treaty.”
“Mozambique has no money,” I persisted. “What can they be making in park fees? Three thousand rands a year, if that?”
“I know. That is why we will not ask for money.”
“I thought you said you wanted restitution.”
“I do,” he replied.
“I don’t understand.”
He walked to the map and pulled a pen out of his pocket. “This is approximate,” he said, drawing a line across the lower third of Mozambique. “This will constitute our restitution.”
I stared at the map in silence for a moment. “You can’t be serious,” I said, although I knew he was.
“It is prime pastureland,” replied Robert. “There are rivers than can be diverted to South Africa during droughts. There is a huge population that has been trying to cross our border for generations, and will be happy to work for whatever wages we offer them, however minimal—and that in turn will keep our own people in line.”
“Mozambique will never agree to it,” I said.
“And we have a well-trained army,” he continued, “an army that needs something to do.”
“It’ll be a slaughter.”
“It will be a good training exercise.”`
“You sound like there’s more,” I said.
“We have treaties with Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Angola…”
“Just how far north do you plan to go?” I demanded.
“Have you ever seen the Mediterranean, my brother?” he asked. “It is quite beautiful this time of year.”
“There have been wars of conquest on this continent before.”
“Led by madmen and fools,” he replied. “I am neither.”
“You really mean to do it?”
He gestured toward the letter. “It is done.”
“Then let someone else deliver it,” I said. “I’ll stay where I am.”
“My mind is made up,” he said. “You will be my ambassador to Mozambique.”
“Why me?” I asked. “You have generals and hirelings who would love to make the President of Mozambique squirm.”
“That is precisely why I want you,” said Robert. “You are a compassionate man who will sympathize with him.” He shot me a triumphant smile. “I know you give most of your salary to local orphanages. You even feed stray dogs and cats. You cannot hide your nature from me, my brother, and you will not be able to hide it from him.”
“What has that to do with anything?”
“When you tell him, truthfully and in some detail, exactly what will befall him and his people should he refuse my demands, when he sees that you actually care, that you do not want his country to become a smoking junk- heap, he will know that I mean what I say, and further, he will know precisely because of your reaction, that I have the power to do what I say.”
“Am I then to become your ambassador to every other country you wish to conquer?” I asked bitterly.
“I have no interest in conquest,” he said.
“Oh? What do you call it?”
“Assimilation,” he replied. “We are one land mass. Once, there were twenty-three hundred tribes, twenty- three hundred separate nation-states, living on this continent. Then the Europeans gave us false borders, and suddenly there were fifty-one countries. It is time for one more redrawing of the map: one continent, one country.”
“And one ruler?” I asked.
“And one ruler,” he agreed.
I delivered the envelope to the President of Mozambique exactly one week later. He opened it, read it, frowned, and asked me if the President was serious, or if this was a bad joke. I assured him that Robert ole Buthelezi was in deadly earnest, and urged him to relinquish the land rather than enter a war he couldn’t possibly win.
He was a proud man, and he tore the demand up, put it back in the envelope, and told me to deliver it to the President.
Three weeks later the South African third, fifth and eighth divisions marched across the Kruger Park and into Mozambique. The Mozambique army fought bravely, but they were outnumbered, outgunned, and overmatched. Within ten days every one of them was dead or a prisoner of war, and Robert announced to his people that South Africa’s territory had just increased by more than sixty thousand square miles.
It would not be the last such announcement that he would make.
