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Tom Conrad, AFSC/NARMIC Tel AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE 1501 Cherry Street Philadelphia, PA 19102 June 13, 1986 MEMORANDUM From: Tom Conrad, AFSC/NARMIC Tel. (215) 241-7004 . , Re: U.S. rugh-Tech Sales to South Afri.ca The United States is South Africa's top supplier of high-tech equipment. The United Nations arms embargo notwithstanding, U.S. companies ship millions of dollars of strategic goods to Pretoria every year ($185 million in computer hardware in 1984 alone; millions more in other high-tech sales). Despite the embargo, which bans shipments of "arms and related materiel," the U.S. government licenses the commercial export of a vast array of sensitive technology to Pretoria, including computers, electronics, electrooptics and communications equipment. Such shi ments should be sto ed to insure U.S. com liance with the United Nations arms embar o. T scan e one by strengt en lIg H.R. 868 t Ie Ant -Apart eid Act of 1986") which is currently before Congress. H.R. 4868 makes no reference to the arms embargo. While this bill is R step in the right direction, it will not stop U.S. strategic technology from reaching the practicioners of apartheid. How can the Anti-Apartheid Act be strengthened? 1. It should bar exports to South Africa of commodi.ti.es on the Munitions List • .. The Munitions List (Code of Federal Regulations, Title 22, pp. 323-327) identifies 21 categories of technology with explicit military applications. Current export controls continue to permit Munitions List items to be exported to South Africa (the Administration has licensed sales of navigation gear, image intensifiers and data encoding devices ostensibly destined for civilian applications). This equipment has been sold to commercial end-users and ­ government-owned labs. Once it reaches South Africa, the United Stat~p is powerless to prevent .it from being used for military or repressive purposes. 2. It should ban not only computers but electronics, electronic components, communications gear, instrumentation equipment and aircraft parts. The 'South African arms industry, now the 10th largest in the world, still uses off-the-shelf parts for much of its arsenal. The state-owned weapons conglomerate, ARMSCOR, and cownercial weapons developers can simply buy equipment and parts over the counter. According to a South African military journal, "Most of the imported parts still used by ARMSCOR are components that are freely available on the commercial market, making it unnecessary for ARMSCOR to produce them locally." ' , I" Because H.R. 4868 onlv covers computers, it will permit exports of large quantities of other high-tech equipment that fall under the ~related lIIateriel­ part of the arms emba rgo. For example, several u.s. electronics firms without subsidiaries in South Africa evade scrutiny by operating there through distributors. Bendix, Fairchild Indus tries, Racal-HUgo, Germanium and other U. S. corporations provide electronic componentry to local South African companies wllich resell it on the local market (Automating Apartheid). This spring, South Africa unveiled a new prototype combat helicopter that closely resembles the Hughes Apache. It is highly proba ble that Pretoria can get imported helicopter components over the counter from commercial suppliers. H.R. 4868 would do virtually nothing to stop this. A further example: Armson, a small company based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, was recently reported to have developed an advanced night sight. According to Multinational Monitor, this night sight has found its way to South Afric~ where it is being built into the Striker, a powerful antiriot gun which ARNSCOR rolled out in 1985. This presumably happened via commercial channels. Because H.R. 4868 doesn't bar these kinds of high-tech exports to South Africa, sales of this type will likely continued to be allowed. Another example: SEL, the West German subsidiary of ITT began providing fiber optics and laser technology to South Africa early in the 1980s for use in civilian telecommunications. This technology is also vital to a new generation of military products, including avionics, anti-submarine warfare, intruder detection and anti-tank missiles. H.R. 4868 will not likely prevent these kinds of transfers. 3. It: should use the Commodity Control List (CCL) as a basis for reviewing export license requests for products destined for South Africa. The Commodity Control List (Export Administration Regulations, Part 399) is a series of commodity groupings with particular strategic significance. Many of the entries on the CCL cover dual-use items which are not authorized for export to the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe. A few CCL items are also controlled for shipment to South Africa. However, for the most part, SOuth Africa falls under the -V- category of nations -- friendly non-aligned countries. Every item on the CCL followed by an "A" is controlled by the COCOM (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls) countries. To further the arms embargo and to insure that no militarily-significant dual-use technology reaches South Africa, the United States should bar the shipment of products on the CCL to South Africa and urge its COCOM allies to do the same. 4. At: the time implementing regulations are written, there should be no exceptions or loopholes written into them. The regulations implementing the presidential directive E.O. 12532 (Federal Register, Nove m b ~ r 18, 1985) are studded with loopholes that weaken the E.O. on the operational level. The Commerce Department regulations contain a generous Contract Sanctity clause, which exempts certain deals that were cut before the Executive Order. South Africa has been stockpiling computers; it is likely that Pretoria will "buy ahead" to avoid the sting of a cutoff. The bill should insure that equipment already in the pipeline is covered by the ban. H.R. 4868 refers to direct and indirect computer sales to South Africa. On .. the operational level, it should be made clear that this includes shipments of equipment from offshore subsi.diaries of U.S. compaoies whether the equipment is considered to be of U.S.-origin or not. Finally, the implementing regulations should not make allowance for any "percentage exceptions." Current controls, for example, permit sales of u.s. computers and components to "apartheid-enforcing agencies" as long as they make up less than 20 percent (by value) of larger systems that are assembled outside the United States. For instance, a computer system costing $5 million sold by a Japanese company could contain up to $1 million in U.S. components as long as it is assembled overseas. 5. It should bar all exports to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) arur-all South African commercial military contractors. The CSIR is South Africa's largest government-sponsored research agency which does civilian as well as military work. Its suppliers have included Amdahl, Control Data and IBM. The CSIR has a tight relationship with ARMSCOR and its security-related projects have included missile design, fingerprint Btorag~ systems and counter-insurgency vehicles (the Casspir, which is currently being deployed in the townships). ARMSCOR farms out contracts to approximately 1000 local contractors all of which have access to U.S. ~xports on the commercial market. These include, for example, Altech, which is the leading military electronics corporation in South Africa. Also Magois which makes military vehicles; Grinel which outfits the military with state-of-the-art communications systems; and Diel. Trivetts, Barcom and others which work on other military systems. To insure that U.S. technology doesn't inadervently find its way into South African weapons, DO exports should be permitted to the CSIR or South African military contractors. ..--.
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