A Case Study of Shipowners, Sanctions and Solidarity Movements
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"Fuelling the Apartheid war machine": a case study of shipowners, sanctions and solidarity movements http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.naip100031 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org "Fuelling the Apartheid war machine": a case study of shipowners, sanctions and solidarity movements Author/Creator Eriksen, Tore Linné; Krokan, Anita Kristensen Publisher Nordiska Afrikainstitutet (Uppsala) Date 2000 Resource type Articles Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) Norway, Southern Africa (region) Coverage (temporal) 1973-1987 Source Nordiska Afrikainstitutet (Uppsala) Relation Eriksen, Tore Linné, ed., Norway and national liberation in Southern Africa. Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2000. 197-215. Rights By kind permission of Nordiska Afrikainstitutet (The Nordic Africa Institute). Description Part of a study on National Liberation in Southern Africa: The Role of the Nordic Countries, hosted at the Nordic Africa Institute Format extent 20 page(s) (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.naip100031 http://www.aluka.org Chapter 5 Chapter 5 "Fuelling the Apartheid War Machine": A Case Study of Shipowners, Sanctions and Solidarity Movements Tore Linn6 Eriksen and Anita Kristensen Krokan Introductioni The supply of crude oil was vital for the survival of the apartheid economy and the South African war machine. It is, therefore, not difficult to understand why the African National Congress (ANG) and the international antiapartheid movement singled out oil as a critical issue in the struggle for sanctions against the South African minority regime. While the Norwegian trade with South Africa was rather modest in terms of commodities (see table 1), Norwegian shipowners in the tankers market occupied a prominent position as transporters of crude oil and oil products. The main focus of this chapter will, therefore, be on the shipping of crude oil by Norwegian tankers. (For a further discussion of the Norwegian debate on sanctions, see chapters 1, 6 and 7). The idea is to take a closer look at how the Norwegian shipowners, the anti-apartheid movement, the main political parties and the successive governments responded to the ANC call for oil and transport sanctions as a step towards ending apartheid. The period in question spans from the early 1980s to the adoption of the Norwegian sanction laws in 1987. As is evident from other parts of this study, the sanctions issue is only one element in the Norwegian policies towards Southern Africa. There are, however, several reasons why the role of the Norwegian shipping industry merits special treatment as a case study. The most important reason is the fact that the support to the liberation movements and the Frontline States was accepted across the political spectrum, while the deliveries of oil to the apartheid regime turned out to be a highly contentious issue. 1 This case study is largely based on Anita Kristensen: Norske myndigheter og boikoften au STrAfrika. Thesis, University of Oslo, 1996; R. Hengevold/J. Rodenburg (eds.): Embargo. Apartheid's Oil Secrets Revealed. Amsterdarrr Amsterdam University Press, 1996 and Tore Linn6 Eriksen: "Norge, sanksjoner og Sor-Afrika" ("Norway, sanctions and South Africa") pp. 83-112 in Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Arbok 1985. Oslo: Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 1986. The authors also thank Karin Beate Theodorsen for her generous assistance during the initial phase of this project. Background: Norwegian official policy until 1984 During the Labour Party minority government (1973-1981) Norway imposed various unilateral sanctions against South Africa, such as prohibiting new bank loans, investments and export credit insurances. At the same time, sports and cultural links were kept at a minimum. Apart from these actions, Norway-together with the other Nordic countries-was consistently calling for mandatory sanctions within the UN system. From the late 1970s the official Norwegian policy also stated that there was to be no sale to South Africa of oil produced from the North Sea oil fields.2 This position resulted from a "gentlemen's agreement" between the Norwegian government and the companies exporting Norwegian oil. There were, however, no legal restrictions on Norwegian tankers transporting oil originating from other countries to South Africa. This seemingly inconsistent attitude was dramatically exposed at the beginning of the 1980s, mainly as a result of the concerted efforts of the Norwegian Council for Southern Africa (NOCOSA) and the Shipping Research Bureau (SRB). While NOCOSA had been formed in 1967 (see chapter 6) as an umbrella anti-apartheid movement, SRB was set up in Amsterdam in 1980 to monitor and make public the involvement of shipping companies in supplying oil to South Africa.3 According to SRB, the first aim was ... the publication of comprehensive lists of oil tankers which had visited African ports during at least 24 hours in 1979 and 1980, together with their owners, flags and cargo capacities; the publication of a black list of shipping companies and ships (especially those of the major oil companies) which had made themselves guilty of shipping oil to South Africa; the extension of this basic data with the "voyage histories" of the tankers in question, with the specific goal of determining whether a pattern of any kind could be elucidated from the data respecting the origin of the oil and the various detours and tricks of the embargo-breaking trade by means of which oil eventually wound up in South Africa (swap arrangements, transhipments in Rotterdam, the Netherlands Antilles, Singapore).4 The first publication produced by the SRB was a special report on Norway, presented in Oslo on 3 December 1980. This report especially featured the 2 Stortingsmelding nr. 26 (1985--86): Ooz norske tiltakmot Sar-Afrika, p. 9. 3 According to Oystein Gudinx "A defeat for the shipping lobby? The Norwegian experience" in R. Hengevold/J. Rodenburg (eds.), op.cit., there was a distinct Norwegian input to the establishment of The Shipping Research Bureau. In late 1979, the left wing weekly Ny Tid (New Times) carried a story about Norwegian oil tankers from the Bergesen Group delivering crude oil to South Africa in June and July in the same year. The source for this piece of information was a report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the General-Consulate in Cape Town. While other newspapers paid little attention to the story, the issue was brought up at the UNsponsored International Seminar on the Role of Transnational Corporations in South Africa, held in London in early December 1979. Oystein Gudim, who attended the conference, explains how some of the first informal contacts on the oil sanctions issue were made during the course of this conference. 4 R. Hengevold/J. Rodenburg, op.cit., p. 59. history and movements of the Norwegian tanker "Havdrott", which according to public reports had made two trips to South Africa between January 1979 and October 1980. Investigations by the SRB showed, however, that possibly 12 trips had been undertaken during this period, without having been disclosed to the international shipping press (read: Lloyd's).5 Based on the 1980 report issued by the SRB, the shipowners were criticised for sabotaging resolutions by the OPEC countries to not supply South Africa with oil, as well as neglecting resolutions passed by the UN General Assembly calling for a mandatory oil embargo on South Africa. Antiapartheid activists in Norway, as well as the mass media, showed a keen interest in the material provided by the SRB. Close links were also developed with the ANC London Office, where Frene Ginwala on many occasions showed great interest in exposing the role that was played by a large number of Norwegian tankers. Following extensive mass media coverage of the documentation provided by NOCOSA/SRB about the heavy involvement of Norwegian tankers in transporting crude oil to South Africa, the shipowners were met by strong moral reactions from broad sections of the political establishment as well as the general public. Even if the oil transports were not prohibited in a legal sense, they were considered morally and politically unacceptable. The shipowners began to censor the information they regularly provided to the business newspaper "Norges Handels- og Sjofartstidende".6 In the weekly "Shipping List" they would no longer include Cape Town and Durban as destinations for tankers, and they were trying their best to camouflage trips to South Africa.7 The public pressure for oil and shipping sanctions was increasing in line with the general acceptance of the need for trade sanctions as a means of fighting apartheid. In the question hour in Parliament in January 1983, Bjarne Ytterhorn from the rightwing "Progress Party" wanted to know if the Conservative Party minority government agreed to the proposal from Kaci Kullman Five (MP, Conservative) to instruct the shipping companies to report all calls at South African harbours to the Norwegian authorities.