Portland Observer
Trade with South Africa: Economic reality
“The supermarket shelves in Mozam
biqua, Gabon, Zambia, Malawi, Mauritius
and Ivory Coast are lined with goods
labeled in Afrikaans - their South Africa
origin in no way disguised.
“Much of the mining equipment in
Northern Zambia's copper belt was pur
chased from South Africa and brought up
on one of the regular South African A ir­
ways freight flights to Lusaka from
Johannesburg.
“Zaire now ships copper, its major ex­
port, through South Africa's Port Eliza
both. A hotel in Bangui. Central African
Republic, is being constructed with South
African money and material.
“And at a luncheon for U.8. Secretary
of State Henry A. Kissinger, given by
Zaire President Mobutu Sese Seko in
Kinshasa last April, the beef served was
imported from South Africa, a reluctant
Zaire official acknowledged.“
This is how the Washington Pest (July
13th, 1976) began a long report from
Johannesburg headlined, “ 'White' and
Black Africa:'Partners' In Trade."
The report underscored a little-known
but nevertheless significant fact of inter
national life: while Black African coun
tries have loudly condemned South A fri­
ca's racial policies in public, privately
they recognize that they must trade with
the apartheid regime of South Africa if
their economics are to survive and grow.
In all. 19 Black African states have
trade relations with South Afriea:Angola,
Botswana, Central African Republic,
Chad. Congo, Gabon. Ghana. Ivory Coast.
Lesotho, Liberia. Malagasy Republic,
Malawi, Mauritius. Mozambique. Nigeria,
Senegal, Swaziland, Zaire and Zambia.
Their trade with South Africa is flourish
ing and growing.
South Africa's exports to the rest of
Africa amounted to some 1493 million in
1975, or about 11 per cent ot the total,
according to the South African Foreign
Trade Organization. Imports from Black
African states were reported to nave
increased from $107 million to $133 mil­
lion for the first five months of 1976 over
the same period in 1975. Exports rose
from $205 million in the first five months
of 1975 to $247 million in the same period
of 1976.
However, knowledgeable sources indi­
cate that South African trade with Black
Africa is even greater than suggested by
the official statistics, and that the pub­
lished figures have been lowered to avoid
giving embarrassment to all sides. A c­
cording to these sources. South Africa
actually imported about $340 million
worth of timber, coffee and other goods
about the commerical connections of
Black Africa with South Africa. Here are
examples from nine Black African coun­
tries:
Botswana has put moat industrial en­
terprise and development in the hands of
South Africa. The Anglo-American min­
ing corporation, the giant South African
mining corporation mines copper and
diamonds.
Central African Republic has received
the promise of investment of $250 million
over the next ten years. In addition, a
South African construction company is
putting up 560 low-cost houses, and S.A.
geologists are surveying for mineral re­
sources.
Ivory Coast gave S.A. landing rights in
April, 1976 for its Europe-bound flights.
Lesotho trades more extensively with
S.A. than any other country. The DeBurs
Corporation of South Africa, will develop
Lesotho's diamond industry.
Malawi is the only Black African coun­
try that has retained formal diplomatic
relations with Pretoria. S.A. has supplied
funds for development projects and M a­
lawi supplies workers for South African
mines.
Mosabique has growing economic rela­
tions with South Africa. The Pretoria
regime is Mozambique's second biggest
customers. Mozambique sells S.A. 90 per
cent of the power generated by its dam
on the Zambesi River; in 1975-76 S.A. will
have expended $165 million in Mozam­
bique's ports and railways. According to
Africa Report (July-August, 1975) says,
“South Africa remains Mozambique's
chief source of aid.”
Zwaziland sends an estimated 15 to 20
per cent of its exports to S.A.; about 90
per cent of its imports come from South
Africa.
Zaire has substantial trade with S.A.
and openly invited South Africa firms to
bid on construction of a massive mining
project there.
Zambia imports more goods from
South Africa than any other country.
Pretoria is providing long-term export
credits to Zambia importers of capital and
consumer goods.
from Black African states during 1976,
•qua to about 5 per cent of ita total
imports.
A major development heralding still
closer commercial relations between
South Africa and Black Africa occurred in
April 1976 when South African Airways
(SAA) began making weekly refueling
and passenger stops at Abidjan, Ivory
Coast, on flights to and from Europe. In
addition, a private South African com­
pany now charters planes and crews to
SAA and A ir Botswana, jointly, for
freight flights between Johannesburg
and Lusaka (Zambia), Bangui (Central
African Republic), Libreville (Gabon),
Abidjan (Ivory Coast) and Nairobi
(Kenya).
South Africa's Prime Minister Vorster
has met with several Black African presi­
dents in recent years. In 1974 Vorster
flew to Abidjan, where he conferred with
Ivory Coast President Houphouet-Boigny
and with Senegal President William Tol­
bert. These visits were more or less
secret; but there was also a well publi­
cized meeting of the South African Prime
Minister with Zambian President Ken­
neth Kaunda in 1975, at Victoria Falls.
There is also considerable evidence of
trade relations between Arab States and
South Africa. Saudi Arabia has pur­
chased large quantities of foodstuffs from
South Africa and sent a purchasing mis­
sion to Johannesburg to discuss the pur­
chase of several million rands worth of
prefabricated building materials.
According to veteran African specialist
Colin I^egum, writing in the lim es of
Zambia, Arab-South African trade is ac­
tually growing, despite the Arab League
decision in 1973 to impose an oil embargo
on the Pretoria regime. It was not until
all but two of the Black African states
(Malawi and Swaziland), under severe
Arab pressure, broke diplomatic rela­
tions with Israel late in 1973 that the
Arab oil states agreed to honor a request
by the Organization for African Unity to
impose an oil embargo on South Africa.
And there are strong indications that this
ban is not strictly enforced. The Time of
Zambia, which along with other Black
African newspapers has called attention
to the Arab's less-than conscientious fol­
low through on the 1973 agreement, has
labeled this failure “the big Arab let­
down.”
Despite a determined and systematic
effort by the government of South Africa
and the Black African countries to sup­
press or keep silent the numerous and
growing relationships among them, it has
been possible to learn important details
According to the Economist of London
(January 18th, 1975), nearly 80 per cent
of South African mine labor is drawn
from neighboring Black states. And their
numbers are growing. In early 1975 the
number of foreign Blacks working in
South African mines was estimated at
296,000. In the gold mines alone, as of
early 1976, the number of foreign Black
workers came to 214,282.
The case of Black miner» from Mozam
bique is revealing and instructive. Ac­
cording to the Washington Pent (April
16th, 1976), the number of workers from
Mozambique in South African mines and
industries has increased from less that
100,000 before that country’s indepen­
dence in 1975 to nearly 180,000 today.
Mozambique mine workers in the Trans
vaal, South Africa, bring in the largest
chunk of foreign exchange which Mozam­
bique earns from any source.
The terms under which Black laborers
from Mozambique work in South Africa
can best be described by the American
phrase “sweetheart contract” - except
that In this case it is the Mozambique
government rather than a labor union
that signs the contract for the workers.
Under the standard arrangement, the
South African mining companies pay the
Mozambique workers 40 per cent of their
wages directly, in South African curren­
cy. The bulk of their wages - the remain­
ing 60 per cent - is paid by the companies
not to the Black workers but to their
government in gold bullion. Not until the
miners return home after their contracts
have expired does their government pay
them the 60 per cent of their wages that
had been withheld. And then they are
paid in local currency; Mozambique re­
tains the gold.
South Africa's gold payments to Mo­
zambique for providing workers for the
mines are computed at the old "official’’
fixed price of $42 an ounce, rather than
the current market value of over $100.
Thus, if a Black worker earns $70 a month
in the mines, his monthly take-home pay
is $28; Mozambique receives $42 in gold -
one ounce at the “official" rate. But one
ounce of gold is actually worth more than
$100. When the miner finally leaves
South Africa and returns home, he re­
ceives in local currency the $42 per month
that has been withheld from his wages.
His government will have received, in the
meantime, about $100 worth of gold (de­
pending on the metal’s international
price) for every month the miner worked
in South Africa.
This arrangement gives Mozambique a
profit of over 200 per cent on the labor of
its citizens. I t also amounts to a subsidy
paid by South Africa to the Black African
state for furnishing miners who - in order
to find work - accept not only harsh
working conditions but the status of veri­
table indentured servants.
(Editor's Note: This report was sup­
plied by the American Jewish Congress
in reply to Bayard Rustin’s questioning
the justification of South Africa Prime
Minister Vorster's official visit to Israel.)
(PNS) - The people of Cuba will go to
the polls this month for the first time
since the 1959 revolution that brought
Fidel Castro and his guerrilla comrades
to power.
A series of elections beginning October
10th will lead to the establishment of local
and prv/incial legislatures and a national
parliament, to be known as the National
Assembly of People's Power.
No longer is any apparent imminent
danger, the Castro government is moving
to involve the people in decision-making
in a manner unprecedented in modern
socialism.
The seeds of “People's Power" were
sown in 1970. after the failure of the
10-million-ton sugar harvest on which
Castro had sUked “the honor of the re­
volution.” In a series of speeches after the
harvest, Castro accepted responsibility
for the failure and declared that Cuba
needed to change ita internal power
structure.
In particular, he said the Communist
Party had become fat too involved in the
day-to-day administration of government,
urging that it confine itself to providing
broad political direction for the country
but withdraw from administration. The
Cuban revolution, he said, was entering
“a new, more mature phase . . . the
democratization of the revolutionary pro­
cess."
For five years, a group of leading
Cubans, led by Bias Roca, a member of
the Central Committee of the Party, and
Dr. Denio Camacho, dean of the Law
School at Havana University, worked to
shape Castro's proclamation into specific
proposals. The result was the approval
last January of a national constitution,
which Cuba had not had since the revolu
nu Kiu r rvrm
tion.
As a result all Cubans over the age of
16 will be eligible to vote on October 10th
for local representatives to 169 municipal
assemblies. The electoral districts will be
very small, giving voters a chance to
meet each candidate personally.
In recent weeks, posters have begun
appearing on walls and bulletin boards
throughout Cuba displaying photographs
and biographies of the candidates - the
only form of campaigning permitted
other than personal contact. Candidates
run without party affiliation and may not
spend money to campaign.
On October 28th, the municipal assem­
blies will convene and elect from their
number representatives to 14 provincial
assemblies, which is turn will select the
members of the National Assembly.
According to the new constitution, the
National Assembly of People's Power “is
the supreme organ of state power” and
“is the only organ in the Republic invest­
ed with constituent and legislative
authority.” Previously, these functions
had been the province of the Communist
Party.
Members of the National Assembly will
serve five-year terms, and all but those
elected to leadership posts will keep their
regular jobs.
The Assembly's first act after it con­
venes December 2nd will be to elect, from
among is deputies, a 30-member Council
of State. The president of the Council of
State will be head of state and head of
government, appointing a cabinet and
directing the government within the re­
volutionary socialist policy set by the
party.
Precisely where the line of authority
will be drawn between the party and the
“organs of People’s Power” remains to be
seen.
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Under the constitution, it appear that
Fidel Castro will not be eligible to retain
his post as prime minister unless he is
elected to the Municipal Assembly of
People's Power by his neighbors and then
to the Provincial and National Assem­
blies by his fellow delegates. Even if he
does seek election, he may plan to step
down once he is convinced that the new
structure of government is sound.
In any case, he is expected to retain his
position as first secretary of the Com­
munist Party.
In 1970, in one of Castro’s first major
statements on the process that was to
become "People's Power," he said, "The
revolutionary process itself has gradually
revealed the inconvenience of bureaucra­
tic and administrative methods."
(
Popular sovereignty, he confessed,
“had taken a back seat - not through the
fault of either the workers' organizations
or the workers themselves but through
our fault, the party’s fault, the fault of the
country's political leadership.”
Castro emphasized that “our party’s
role cannot be - not can it ever be - that
of replacing the administration or the
mass organizations.” Without yet know­
ing what would be the final product of the
process he was initiating, he pledged that
the nation “will emerge stronger and
more democratic than ever before . . . it
will be very strong because it will be very
democratic."
The constitution gives broad powers to
the National Assembly, including the
power to pass repeal laws, to approve the
national budget, to declare war, to name
the attorney general and to approve “the
principles of the system for planning and
the management of the national econo­
my."
Municipal and provincial assemblies
are given similar administrative author­
ity, combining executive and legislative
powers. According to the constitution,
they will “direct economic, production
and service units . . . and provide econo­
mic, cultural, educational and recreation
al services."
Flue shot«
The St. Johns YWCA and Peninsula
Project ABLE are sponsoring a flu shot
clinic, October 12th at the Schrunk Tow
ers, 8832 N. Syracuse. The clinic will be
open from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. only.
The clinic will be open to all ages and
will immunize against the more common
varieties of influants, such aa the Asian
strains and the London flu, not the swine
flu. Only one shot is required and the cost
is $2.00.
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These delegates, serving for two-and-a-
half years, will also retain their regular
jobs.
Other socialist countries, where popu­
lar elections are often viewed as open to
manipulation and corruption, will be
watching with great interest as Cuba
launches a process that will likely bring
more change than it has seen since the
revolution.
Cuban leaders admit they are not cer­
tain how successful “People’s Power" will
be or what new problems it may create,
but they are clearly convinced that the
administration of government should be
under popular electoral control.
-1
W ASHERS AND
DRYERS
■ > ito m O » qio
v
Castro’s Solo
page 3
Joe Joseph
W ill Castro run?
Bringing democracy to
Thursday, October 7th. 1976
dependability, ® f v’’oe’
’218
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