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Cnfmpnewsaopt.Pdf Introduction Civil war is consuming South Africa. The country is embroiled in a violent conflict that may well lead to the death of thousands upon thousands of its citizens. The past two years have established beyond any doubt that the black majority is prepared and willing to pay the price of untold suffering to end apartheid. What is so unconscionable to many Americans is that our own government refuses to use our considerable economic and diplomatic influence to help dismantle apartheid and stave off the spectre of escalating violence in the country. The United States is and for decades has been a willing partner with the South African government in maintaining an immoral, racist policy towards the black population of South Africa. In conducting this policy, the U.S. government betrays the tenets of democracy and morality upon which our country was founded. Our first purpose in preparing this resource is to unveil the real motives that drive U.S. foreign policy towards South Africa. To this end we review U.S. economic interests in South Africa to help explain why the Reagan administration wants to prevent any fundamental change in political relations in the region and we outline the strategic importance of such investments to the maintenance of apartheid. The second purpose of this pamphlet is to review and refute the justifications used by the present and past administrations to rationalize our South Africa policy. During the past forty years, U.S. relations with Pretoria have been justified on three premises: 1) the need to confront the absolute evil and imminent threat of communism; 2) to protect our national security which is defined in narrow, militaristic terms; 3) to stop the region's cycle of war but only by condemning certain kinds of violence ("terrorism") while endorsing others ~ We will examine each of these explanations for U.S. foreign policy and discuss why they have resulted in the United States sustaining the racist apartheid regime. U.S. Foreign Policy: "A Matter of Interest'' The driving interest behind U.S. involve­ ment in South Africa has been economic profit. Through the mid-1970's, U.S. invest­ ments in that country brought a 19% rate of profit. That was almost double the world COMORO ISLANDS average of 11% at that time. These super­ •.. profits were the natural byproduct of apart­ , ANGOLA heid's cheap labor and drastic restrictions on the black trade union movement. U.S. economic involvement in South Af­ rica began during World War I when U.S. investors were eager to join British com­ panies in exploiting the world's largest gold ........ and diamond deposits. U.S. investment in .South Africa's mining sector continued to grow until World War II when U.S. com­ panies began developing other industries, such as explosives and chemicals, to support mining activities. The profitability of these investments was reflected in the ability of the United States to acquire 60% of the ATLANTIC Western' worl.d's $33 billion in gold by 1960. OCEAN · While the gold industry continued to provide the backbone of the South African economy, cheap labor and government incentives attracted U.S. investments to new areas of fledgling South African industry. U.S. investors concentrated on automobile production, tires, textiles, and oil refine­ ment. By 1960 over half of all cars produced on the African continent came from South Africa and most of those were produced by SOUTHERN AFRICA U.S. companies and powered by gasoline refined by U.S. subsidiaries. During this vestments in South Africa, second to Great mutually beneficial arrangement is vital to period, South Africa emerged unquestion­ Britain's 50%. U.S. capital, however, has apartheid's internal and regional repression. ably as the most important industrial country been concentrated in key industrial sectors. Special attention needs to be directed at in the region of southern Africa. Economic When the United Nations voted in favor of the role U.S. companies have played in development of the neighboring countries an arms embargo against South Africa in developing South Africa's nuclear industry. of Mozambique, Angola, Zambia, Botswana, 1977, some of the over 400 U.S. companies In 1978, the world learned that South Africa and Zimbabwe was tied to and driven by the operating in that country helped the apart­ was readying its first nuclear weapons test­ growing economic power of the apartheid heid government to develop its own arma­ the culmination of almost two decades of regime. Those countries today remain ments, not to mention South Africa's vital oil technological and capital support provided largely dependent on South Africa's refining, and electronics industries. U.S. by American companies with U.S. govern­ economy to fuel their own economic companies provided technology and capital, ment approval. We must ask against whom growth. while the South African government pro­ such weapons would be used if not South Direct U.S. investments have accounted vided tariff and tax incentives and, of course, Africa's own people and its closest African for approximately 20% of total foreign in- an abundant source of cheap labor. This neighbors. Page 2 U.S. economic involvement in South Af­ rica has made a vital contribution to preserv­ ing the apartheid state beyond fueling the strategic sectors of the South African econ­ omy. Massacres of black people at Sharpe­ ville in 1960 and Soweto in 1976 taught the United States and other Western nations how to help stabilize the South African economy in times of political upheaval such as the country is embroiled in today. One key aspect of such stabilizing programs is indirect economic assistance througn a variety of loan mechanisms involving private banks and international lending agencies. Currently, however, despite the assistance of Western investment, the South African economy is in a profound crisis. Profit rates have fallen from 20% a decade ago to 5% today. The increasingly militant labor move­ ment in South Africa has gained broader rights and is forcing concessions from mine and factory owners. The growing pressure from the American public to disinvest from Pretoria's friends in the U.S. consistently try to cloud the issue. South Africa renders past and present in­ vestments in the country increasingly ten­ East-West struggle by asserting that South Botha, has met privately with President uous. This growing threat to the consider­ Africa is containing the communist threat Reagan, no leader of the African National able financial interests of U.S.-based banks posed by the governments of Angola, Mo­ Congress has been received by our gov­ and corporations is an important factor in zambique as well as the anti-apartheid lib­ ernment. It is foolish for both Washington guiding the Reagan administration's policy eration movements of Namibia and South and Pretoria not to recognize that the ANC of "constructive engagement" in the region. Africa. holds the key to achieving peace in southern The overriding objective of our government The U.S. government has reinforced the Africa. is to protect U.S. investments in that country apartheid regime's depiction of South Af­ U.S. administrations have consistently dis­ while thwarting the progress of the legiti­ rica's internal opposition as communistic in torted the South African struggle as one of mate liberation movements in southern an effort to shift attention from the inherent communism against capitalism while black Africa in order to maintain a "pro-Western" immorality of apartheid to renewed cold South Africans know it as a struggle for political climate in the region. war hysteria. Washington has exaggerated freedom from white supremacy. In a 1985 the link between South Africa's under­ memo from Chester Crocker, Assistant Sec­ Smoke and Mirrors ground liberation movement, the African retary of State for African Affairs, to Secre­ National Congress (ANC) and the exiled tary of State George Shultz, Crocker claims As this overview illustrates, U.S. economic South African Communist Party (SACP). that "the chief threat to stability and coop­ interests in South Africa are very broad and Administration officials portray the ANC as eration in Southern Africa is the pressure • longstandi.ng. Yet such economic interests a vehicle for expanding Soviet influence and influence of the Soviet Union and its are seldom referred to when our govern­ and interests in southern Africa. In April of allies." However, as South Africa's April 1986 ment discusses our policy towards the 1986, the Reagan Administration put their bombing of three neighboring countries apartheid regime. To talk about U.S. opinion on record by stating, "It is our view demonstrates, South Africa is the most ser­ corporate superprofits made possible by an that any group that is supported by the ious threat to regional stability. The apart­ inhumane system of racial oppression would Soviet Union does not have freedom as one heid government has demonstrated repeat­ hardly satisfy the moral concerns of the of its objectives and we would not agree edly a determination to dominate its own American public. For this reason, other that the ANC are freedom fighters." people as well as its neighboring countries rationalizations have been developed dur­ The irony of the administration's state­ through economic, political, and military ing the past 40 years to make the U.S. ment is that the failure of the United States aggression. presence in South Africa more acceptable to address the historic grievances of the The narrow cold war reading of events in to the public at large. We now turn our black majority under apartheid has led the the region by U.S. administrations has at attention to the justifications which the U.S.
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