SOUTH AFRICA
Rising struggle against apartheid is not sufficient to explain so sharp a lems of human rights, that underlie the congressional debates.
the representatives of class are obviously of a sort.
Moreover, few days vote in the US House of Represent the French premier, also announced that
I rame spurs debates and maneuvers change its attitude towan "We want to invest in this he said. "But if in a reason 18 months to two years, defin are not taken by the South regime to put an end to its pra I think that not only will Franc
By 295 votes to 127, the US House of Representatives decided on June
5, 1985 to take a certain number of economic measures against South
Africa. Just before this, a committee of the Senate, which is dominated by the Republicans, had also taken a position in favor of economic sanctions.
These votes indicate that a section longer really believe in Ronald Reagan's so-called policy of constructive engagement. What this policy calls for in
Pretoria regime in order to facilitate its efforts to reform the apartheid
Peter BLUMER
In reality, the Reagan administration's doctrine has been a miserable smoke screen to hide total complicity with
Pretoria. Moreover, the most "realistic"
declarations by government representatives have never really covered up the fact that the essential thing for them safeguarding interests in the country by maintaining the stability of the present regime:
South Africa, the country in this region, it is not up to us to choose between Blacks and whites.
In this rich state, inhabited by important Western interests are at stake, in the economic and strategic spheres, as well as the moral or political. We must take care not to undertake any action that could aggravate the terrible regardless of their race." (1)
This policy no longer has the confidence of a section of the American ruling class. But what are the real reasons for this evolution? Should we believe the declarations of faith in democracy and the inevitable reflections on human rights that are always included with all official seriousness in strategic discussions?
The fact is that the US Congress decisions come after an unprecedented upsurge of anti-apartheid mobilizations in the United States. Since November
21, 1984, a continual sit-in has been maintained in front of the South African embassy in Washington. At the same time, agitation against the Pretoria regime has been assuming a broad scope on several university campuses, and eleven municipal governments have decided to break off their financial relations with
US companies established in South
Africa.
There is no doubt that the Congress took account of these mobilizations, as well as of the pressures brought to bear by some church lobbies. But this
International Viewpoint 15 July 1985 of the bourgeois politicians no
" is not opposing the turn - which, on the other hand, may be temporary, if other events occur in South Africa - in the attitude of the US House and Senate.
The official aims of Reagan's policy were to encourage some reforms in South Africa and solutions aimed at pacification in souther Africa. In both regards, the elections for the "coloured" and "Indian" chambers were met with massive boycotts
Every day the repression of the mobilizations and strikes of the oppressed population has grown more severe. The Botha regime has gone back to its "internal solution" in Namibia, which the Wester countries reject because they no longer believe in
The Nkomati agreement with Mozambique was a swindle whose main consequence for the moment is a reinforcement of the pro-South rillas of the RNM. In Angola, the authorities have just captured a member South African commando team who was preparing to sabotage Gulf Oil's installations in the province of Cabinda. What worries the US congress
All of this indicates what sort of margin for maneuver the racist regime has. Washington's policy is to establish a kind of peaceful coexistence in southern Africa in order to open the way for a of US investment in Angola and Mozambique and to Pretoria regime to resolve its internal problems and choke off subversion.
None of these objectives has achieved because of the extent of the contradictions at work, the upsurge of the mass movement in South Africa, the economic crisis now country, and the crisis of political leadership that is starting to take form in the white racist camp.
It is such factors, rather than the probbe able to expand its investment it will have to call a halt to them." (2
This statement was made at a puti colloquium on human rights. should not be thought that it was mot vated simply by the circumstances Even if, as is likely, France does no carry out its threats, it can be reasonably assumed that the Western goverments are now very worried about the situation in South Africa.
The imperialist governments have realized that South Africa may now be plunged into a situation of large-scal social confrontations accompanied by strong radicalization of the Black popula tion. The sort of threats Fabius made ar only another muddled move that indicates that the imperialists are looking for a solution but they have not found one.
All this agitation has revived the debate over the question of whether or not to support a boycott against South Africa.
Ever since the question of a boycott was raised, the racist regime has responded by explaining that what was involved was an unrelenting Communist plot against South Africa, and moreover the main victims of a boycott would be the Black workers themselves.
Immediately after the decision of the US House, the South African undersecretary for foreign affairs said, as if he fact, that "The Americans must know that South Africa will defend itself and show to the entire world that it is a regional power in Africa." The recent raid on Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, allegedly aimed against activists of the African National Congress (ANC), was a warning to back this up.
The US administration was also to pick up this argument. George Schultz, speaking on April 16 to the National Press Club in Washington, explained that sanctions "would lead us to ineffective actions that would strengthen the resistance to change more than the forces of reform." He added: "There has been more change in South Africa in the last four years than in the thirty before."
To justify its position, the US government financed a study by Professor Laurence Schlemmer of the Institute of Social Research at the University of undersecretars African affairs, August 29,
'Le Monde', June 2-3, 1985.
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Natal in South Africa on the attitude of the Blacks in the country about the withdrawal of foreign investment.
Not unexpectedly, this study came to the conclusion that three fourths Blacks are opposed to disinvestment. This finding, however, has been disputed to a large extent by another academic, Herman Giliomee, of the University of the Cape and by a series of articles in the independent press. (3)
The debate on the boycott question is indeed a fundamental one that concerns strategic perspectives in South Africa. So, no poll in a highly repressive country can give a clear impression of the opinion of the Blacks on
The imperialists and their retainers wring their hands about the jobs created by the multinationals. They pretend not to know that these countries invest in the country of apartheid for reasons that have to do with the rate of profit. The rate of profit has begun to drop sharply, and it is not the boycott campaign but simply the laws of capitalism that are the reason why foreign companies withdrawing their capital. None of these people are worried about the unemployment this is producing.
economic crisis now gripping South Africa is sharply reducing the possibilities of a number of companies to rake in superprofits. Ford and Coca Cola have announced that they are going to trim their interests in South African companies and become minority stock manufacturer, Blue Bell: and a highsold off all their holdings. Several British companies, such as Associated British Foods and ICL, have done the same. The civilised capitalists?
British business The Economist, more than thirty American companies have withdrawn from South Africa since 1980. (4) All this is mainly due to the recession, and nobody in the capitalist world has had anything to say about its consequences for the jobs of Blacks.
Another argument that is generally used to justify and defend investment companies bring a positive pressure to bear on working
"Codes of Conduct" were in fact initiated to favor such a policy. One example is the Sullivan American companies. But it has been known for a long time that these rules have not been followed, if at all.
Of course, more and more foreign companies are recognizing the independent nonracial unions and improving working conditions. But it is quite clear that the bosses involved are mainly interested in keeping strikes from increasing and in making sure that their . 4 factories keep running. Their good will goes no further the bounds of capitalist profitability.
A recent report on the 107 British companies working in South Africa points up the number of violations of the EEC code. Seven firms reportedly pay less than the subsistence wage to 1,700 of their employees. Thirty-nine pay less than the EEC recommended wage to about 9,000 of their workers. Among twenty out of independent unions.
Moreover, a report to the British minister notes that the number of workers paid less than the subsistence wage is now growing. (5)
not do much to confirm any "positive" effects for the Black workers of foreign companies in South Africa.
Black workers have in some instances been able to take advantage of the fact that they were dealing with a multinational certain advantages and openings for pressing some demands. But this has always happened because in the plants concerned there was a union that knew how to utilize this margin for maneuver.
been precisely because of the relationship of forces some foreign companies the workers have been able to extract certain favors from the bosses. But this is no different than for the South African bosses.
"General Motors (SA) recently provided an excellent example of the invest/ technology/employment of foreign companies around disinvestment. On the same day as its managing campaign for its lack of concer with Black workers jobs, his company made two announcements. The first was that it would spend R40 million on retooling an assembly line in GM's Port Elizabeth plant, to bring a new model onto the market. It is almost certain that this money will come from profits earned by GM (SA) rather than representing a new capital flow into South Africa (6) ... But in another statement (7), GM announced that poor market conditions necessitated an 8-week layoff of 465 workers, more than 10% of the company's workforce, with permanent retrenchment a distinct possibility." (8)
Most Black organizations and personalities have come out in favor of the boycott of South Africa. They have argued that despite the negative consequences it might have for the workers, it would be a "short-term pain for the sake of a long-term gain."
Bishop Tutu himself has supported of disinvestment if certain conditions are not met in the next 18 to 24 months. (9) The ANC has also long behind the boycott position. Finally, a number of the independent that today organize hundreds of thousands of workers are in favor of this policy. The biggest federation, the CUSA, has, however, declared through its chair that it in favor of "selective disengagement." Protesters taking the bread out of the mouths of Black workers?
The second biggest federation, FOSATU, has given a thoroughgoing explanation of its support for the boycott. In a resolution adopted in April 1984, it declared "FOSATU as a trade union organisation which is concerned with iobs and the livelihood of its members has to give careful consideration to the question of disinvestment. However, it
FOSATU's considered view that the pressure for disinvestment has had positive effect and should therefore not be lessened. FOSATU is definitely to foreign investment that accepts the conditions of oppression maintained by this regime. FOSATU is, also clear that its own focus of attention must be the building of a strong workers movement in South Africa that can set the terms of foreign investment and ultimately ensure that factories, machines and buildings presently in South Africa will be retained in South Africa to the ultimate benefit
In fact, once you start to make distinctions between speculative investment, factories and machines, and stocks or bank loans, the boycott policy begins to take on different aspects. Not all of these aspects of the problem necessarily have the same importance for the long-term strategy of the South African workers movement. This seems to have been what one of the leaders of FOSATU, Alec Erwin, was explaining
"Disinvestment pressure has a number of dimensions; it can be directly on the State through cutting off foreign borrowing facilities or it can be indirect through who constitute a powerful lobby. These forms of pressure are supported by FOSATU. We must, however, out the question of actual withdrawal of existing assets from South
This raises a fundamentally different political issue. The legal ownership of these assets may rest with foreign companies. However, they have been developed and enlarged by the hard and labour of South African workers. In FOSATU's view therefore assets now constitute a part of -'South African Labour Bulletin', May: 1985.
'The Economist'. March 30, 1985. 'Marches Tropicaux et Mediterranneens', April 1, 1985. 6. 'Business Day', February 22, 1985. 7. 'Star', February 22, 1985. 8. 'South African Labour Bulletin, May 1985, p. 56. 9. Rand Daily Mail, January 3, 1985. One notices that the time limit proposed by the bishop is exactly the same as that presence of Tutu in May 1985 In Parer. proposed French in the
International Viewpoint 15 July 1985
But many more companies with a much larger workforce are dependent egree or another on US Technology.
and in virtually all cases a necessary and useful part of — the social wealth of South Africa. We can see absolutely no sense in handing over part of the social wealth of this country in order to place pressure on this regime." (10)
The other aspect of the problem up for discussion in the trade-union and political movement is the argument that attributes to the boycott a positive
Botsw ozambiqua
Louis
Trichardt
Soakme
Pretoría function for the development of ' Bophuthatswana South African capitalism in the narrow sense. The example generally given is the Rhodesia of lan Smith's time. After the British took a certain number of measures designed to force their rebel colony to yield, we saw the development of a whole series of substitution industries and the development of a Rhodesian industrial bourgeoisie.
In the imperialist camp itself, comments have been made that the embargo on shipments of oil and arms to South Africa has already enabled the country to develop two major import substituting industries. The Sasol chemical complex makes it possible for Pretoria to convert coal into petroleum products, and the country is now an arms exporter.
The argument that the boycott aids: the local bourgeoisie, however, is a feeble one. In fact, it has been possible for South Africa to compensate in this way only because the boycott has not halted the inflows of foreign capital and technological inputs into South Africa.
So, a certain level of boycott "could" be a formidable weapon against the South African government in an immediate sense.
The movement in solidarity with the oppressed people of South Africa does not have to get involved in economists' arguments. No one could think, moreover, that we are going to see a real total boycott of the South African economy by the imperialist countries. What is more, it has to be realized that a real boycott would have as bad effects for the world imperialist economy as South Africa alone. The latter is, in fact, the Western world's major supplier of gold. It is also the major supplier of rare metals such as platinum and palladium and strategic ones such as manganese.
Furthermore, a strangling of the racist regime could in the very short term open up a revolutionary situation in the country. So, the imperialist govemments and the multinationals have
### JORA
Sevate * Bermoisten Kwathema. Port Elizabeth Cape Town no interest in a real boycott.
It is, not therefore, very useful to have a debate on the effects that such a boycott could have, if, by some miracle, the western countries ever came to deplore apartheid to that extent. The uses of boycott
What the mass movement in the United States has already managed to achieve is quite positive, and the pressure of the municipalities and the churches has not plunged South Africa into an economic chaos in which the primary losers would be the Black workers.
The question of the boycott has to be looked at from a political point of view. Any such campaign is a way to show the complicity of the imperialists with the racist state and the fact that apartheid is fundamentally an instrument of capitalist superexloitation.
The first objective of boycott campaigns is, therefore, to denounce the investments of the multinationals
### JOHANNESBURG
Swaziland Durban Lesethe in South Africa and to show that onl the pressure of the mass movement -not any human-rights ethics of such companies — can force them to retreat.
In some cases, boycott campaigns can be very easily linked to the needs of the workers movement itself. This is true, for example, as regards South African shipments of coal to countries such as Great Britain and France, where the authorities are closing pits while keeping up their imports of South African fuel.
The banks can also be easily exposed by showing that the South African branches of British, American, or French banks are financing military projects or being used as channels through which industrialists can place investments in South Africa for a while and exploit all the advantages of apartheid. These are the sort of aims that should be set for boycott campaigns, and not that of strangling the local economic system. The latter objective, in any case, is utopian.
It is necessary above all to link such concrete support campaigns to the workers and people's organizations that are fighting in South Africa. Both things can be done at once because the problem is not to convince the racists that they
US INVESTMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA
Direct US investment in South Africa amounts to 2,3 billion dollars. If you add indirect investment, stocks in US hands, the total comes up to 6.5 billion dollars.
The South African government sells
Kruggerrand. In 1984, 578 million dollars worth of this coin were sold to the US, or about two thirds of the international sales.
While the US comes after Great Britain and West Germany in the size of its investment in South Africa, it is the country's main trading partner. In 1983, the
US was both the major importer to, and the major exporter from,
It exported 2.4 billion rands worth of goods to South Africa and imported 1.7 on from it.
bout 350 American companies operate in South Africa, employing 55,000
Wiewpoint 15 July 1985 coin on the world market, the should "democratize" the society. It is to help the oppressed overthrow this system.
In this way, boycott campaigns can be kept clear of the demagogy of . bourgeois democrats and Social Democratic governments. A boycott serves no purpose unless it is a means for the workers and anti-imperialist movement to offer concrete solidarity to the South African mass movement. 10. Speech at the University of May 8, 1985. FOSATU document.
There is nothing that can be so effective as a refusal of dockers to load material for South Africa, if this is backed up by support from their union to an independent dockers union in the Cape or Durban. There is nothing better than a campaign for a boycott of coal imports that leads to ongoing solidarity between a miners union and the South African Union of Miners. This is the way to really expose the imperialist interests in South Africa.
The debates in the US congress and positions taken by the authorities are at least indicative of the circles. Moreover, on March 7-8, 1985, a in Leeds castle in Great Britain. On this occasion, had to discuss the reforms that had to The moderates' game
The debate is a constant one within the South African bourgeoisie itself. There are, first of all, differences among the Liberals and nationalists, which partially reflect the division between big finance capital of Anglo-Saxon origin and the Afrikaaner bourgeoisie. Then, on top of this, there is the split between the "verligte" (enlightened") and the "verkrampt" ("hard line") wings of the nationalist camp, between those who want to propose some face-lifting changes and those who reject this.
In reality the the conflicts among a whole series of capitalist strata whose needs for labor power, labor-cost problems, and trading interests are different. that the two traditional alignments in the white bourgeoisie are evolving. The Botha regime has been obliged to adjust on the political and social level to major changes in the South African industrial structure and economy over the past twenty years.
While the Botha regime has accepted "liberal" measures such as granting new rights to unions, it has had to build up its repressive machinery in order to contain a growing mass movement. It is, thus, the objective situation that is forcing the regime to try to feel its way, seeking to combine some major reforms with the traditional system.
Adjusting to the objective developments in the country, however, is not a simple task when the reforms are coming too late and the mass movement is ad vancing steadily. All this is little by little upsetting the traditional panorama of the South African bourgeois currents. For the moment there is a regroupment "at the center" around Botha. At the same time, a substantial extreme right is consolidating, as well as a liberal layer more and more inclined to flirt with a wing of the Black movement. But this process is far from concluded.
This situation remains all the more fluid since we are now seeing a sort of internationalization of this debate. In the imperialist camp itself, there is now an "enlightened" wing and a "hard line"
What is the project of those who are claiming now that they want to pressure Pretoria to make some changes? Is all
La question of democratic Should we believe, as South African liberals have long stressed, democratic freedoms education of the Black the internal market little of these arguments is cient to explain the sudden eruption of the present debates. At the center of discussions is a political dispute over what means to use to avoid a revolutionary explosion in South Africa.
What is aimed at is not simply to put pressure on Pretoria to calm the situ-
It is to coopt a part of the Black movement and divert it. It is to divide the movement and hitch a section of it to a long-term perspective of a
Such a project makes sense today only because a part of the mass movement is dominated by the churches, whose main personality is Bishop Tutu. The churches are deeply involved in the United Democratic Front, where they share the real leadership with the proANC "Chartist" current. They, however, have very little influence over the trade-union movement.
The furore raised by a part of the US ruling class about sanctions against South Africa is an element in this strategy. There can be no doubt whatever that the entire US ruling class prefers apartheid to a revolutionary crisis. But it is divided over "how" to avert a spiral of social conflict.
By using the South African opposition churches, the backers of this policy of division are trying to pull the UDF to the right. In so doing, they could also test the ANC, which would then have to choose between maintaining its influence in the UDF by making concessions or abandoning this coalition as a means of organizing its supporters. (12) Splitting the movement of the oppressed.
The US Democrats have already begun this work of division. Edward Kennedy's trip to South Africa early in 1985 was a test. A UDF leader, the Reverend Allan Boesak, was one of the organizers of this junket. In the Cape, where he lives, the UDF organized a public meeting with Kennedy. Winnie Mandela, the wife of the imprisoned ANC leader, was also one of the supporters of this tour, and she accepted bust of John F. Kennedy from the US
While the UDF did not officially support the Kennedy operation, it did not support the protests against it either. Tutu explained, for his part, that the demonstrations against Kennedy gave de facto aid and comfort to the apartheid regime. The main union federation, the CUSA, agreed to take part in a meeting
However, forces such as the Black Consciousness group AZAPO, a rival grouping to the UDF, the National Forum Committee, and some unions regarded the senator as an imperialist agent and did not support this operation. Even Oscar Mpetha, the chair of the UDF, refused to share a platform with the American politician.
When political debate is raging among the various currents, among the unions, between the unions and the UDE, etc., an operation such as the Kennedy trip timed to exacerbate
From Paris to Washington, what the imperialists are interested in now is consolidating a moderate current around the churches and a section of the UDF.
the speechifying about economic sanctions against South Africa is a necessary phase of this strategy. 11. According to the 'Financial Times', the companies involved were the following: US Caltex, Mobil, General Motors, Control Data, and Merks; British - Shell, BP, GEC Barclays, Rio. Tinto Zinc; South African -Barlow Rand, Anglo Vaal, and South Africa's Urban Foundation. This meeting was reportedly presided over by former Prime Minister Edward Heath and attended by American preacher Leon Sullivan. 12. Bishop Tutu has, moreover, told the American press that "communism and fascism are the same thing.
International Viewpoint 15 July 1985