A Campaign of Persuasive Pressure

In a bold and calculated move, South African bishop and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu last month called on foreign corporations investing and operating in his country to push for specific reforms in South Africa's apartheid system.

Speaking at a press conference in Johannesburg just a few days after his return to South Africa, Tutu said a campaign of "persuasive pressure" is the nation's "last chance to avert a bloodbath."

Tutu also threatened economic sanctions against the foreign corporations if they do not succeed in forcing substantial changes in apartheid policies within a test period of 18 months to two years. The archbishop insisted that his proposal was not overly high-handed or demanding, but was intended to "show that we are trying to be reasonable. We are saying, 'Please can you give us a way of changing apartheid reasonably peacefully.'"

Upon his return to South Africa, Tutu apparently was confronted with internal tensions volatile enough to compel him to commit the breach of South African law there that he would not violate when speaking in the United States. When Sojourners had asked him just two weeks earlier at a Washington press conference if he supported sanctions against U.S. companies in South Africa, Tutu replied that it would be against South African law to do so. Media representatives would just have to use their "common sense and good judgment" to determine his feelings on the matter, he said.

But at the same press conference, Tutu expressed grave concern about the volatile situation in his country, saying that while he hoped there would be no widespread violence, he supposed the situation could "explode at any time."

Speaking two weeks later in Johannesburg, he indicated again that imminent timing of nonviolent changes is of the essence. He warned that he might call for economic sanctions and divestiture before the end of the two-year test period, "because I think that we are having a crisis in this country that is deepening."

To avoid economic sanctions, foreign companies applying "persuasive pressure" should demand that the South African government make specific reforms within a certain time, Tutu said. Changes should include the abolition of pass laws that prevent blacks from moving around the country freely, an end to the migrant labor system that separates black workers from their families, unrestricted labor union rights, and investment in black education and job training.

SUCH STATEMENTS by the Nobel laureate strengthened the legitimacy of the Free South Africa Movement in the United States and confirmed as proper a direction in which it had already begun moving. Movement leaders had said at the birth of the movement in November that they wanted to bring the issues of South African apartheid and U.S. support for it to the forefront of the U.S. foreign policy agenda. Having accomplished that goal and having attracted the attention of the Reagan administration, the media, and the political and business establishments, by late December movement leaders were ready to use their new-found leverage to push for more concrete changes in. U.S. policy toward South Africa.

Movement leaders already were preparing to take on the crux of Reagan's "constructive engagement" policy that is sustaining apartheid in South Africa: the 350 U.S. corporations doing business in and with the apartheid nation.

The higher calling of the movement is "to educate the American people to the fact that apartheid in South Africa is not simply a system of social segregation that is repugnant to all decent thinking human beings, but, more important, it is a system of political domination for the purpose of economic exploitation," says movement leader Walter E. Fauntroy (see interview "Dismantling Apartheid," page 14).

Ultimately the movement aims not only to educate Americans about their economic partnership with apartheid, but to convince them to take actions needed to sever those ties with the South African government.

WHEN THE FREE South Africa Movement was born at the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C., many called it a passing fad, a desperate anti-establishment whimper uttered by those infected with the post-election blues. Some criticized the daily demonstrations and arrests as washed-up protest tactics of the 1960s and called movement leaders and participants over-the-hill rebels in search of a cause, or just publicity.

But the movement has persevered and grown. By early January almost 500 demonstrators had been arrested in 11 cities, and the demonstrations soon spread to another nine cities. The longevity and growing strength of the movement, along with the threat of concrete action by movement leaders and then Tutu, have forced the same political and business leaders who tried to ignore the early embassy demonstrations to pay close attention to the movement's implications. A classic foreign policy battle is shaping up, with high stakes and some unexpected twists in the traditional alignments on each side.

But the most basic partnership—that of the South African government, American businesses, and the political powers that protect them—most likely will stand firm in the face of the movement's challenge. Early criticism of South African policies by 35 conservative members of Congress and then President Reagan himself appears to have been largely rhetorical and without impact.

Very few—if any—political or business leaders will say they are in favor of apartheid. So the thin, yet crucial, line separating the movement from its opposition, and the action from the rhetoric, becomes the issue of how best to force an end to South Africa's apartheid system.

In South Africa that question revolves around the choices of violence or nonviolence. Here in the United States, movement leaders see strong, nonviolent policy actions as the last recourse in avoiding widespread violence. The debate, therefore, centers instead on whether or not to impose economic sanctions against South Africa and those U.S. banks and corporations operating there.

U.S. corporations focus the debate on how best to affect the system and claim they are a progressive force for change. They point to the Sullivan Principles, a code of ethics for U.S. businesses operating in South Africa (see "Greasing the Wheels of Apartheid," Sojourners, October 1983). But only 120 of some 350 U.S. companies in South Africa have signed the principles. And while adoption of the principles has resulted in some workplace desegregation and equalization of wages, the code still allows payment of extremely low wages. Thus the exploitation of South African labor, and the loss of jobs in the U.S. labor market, is supported and perpetuated by the operation of U.S. businesses in South Africa.

In response to the movement, 119 U.S. companies acted in December to amplify the Sullivan Principles, effectively obligating themselves to work for the repeal of all apartheid laws and policies. But some of the same corporations are working even more actively to block possible sanctions or forced divestiture. Also in December representatives of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, Mobil Corporation, Dresser Industries Incorporated, Caterpillar Tractor Company, and others agreed to lobby against a possible ban on new investments and bank loans in South Africa.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, a right-wing organization funded by more than 21 leading U.S. corporations, also is working to fight divestment in South Africa. Its funders include DuPont, Exxon, Eli Lilly, Olin, Pfizer, Coors, and Reader's Digest.

BUT MOVEMENT LEADERS believe divestment and economic sanctions must be pursued not only as a last nonviolent resort, but also because they would be effective in ending apartheid. For one thing, the withdrawal of U.S. banks and corporations from South Africa would have a huge impact on the confidence of the government, thus diminishing the likelihood of increased repression without repercussions from abroad. Second, with U.S. industries accounting for 44 percent of South Africa's oil industry and providing 70 percent of its computers and 33 percent of its automobiles and trucks, such a move would cripple the nation's economy. U.S. corporations also pay taxes to the South African government. Finally, sanctions would sever the primary tie between the South African and U.S. governments, thus having a major political impact.

That such sanctions would hurt U.S. businesses and the U.S. economy is highly doubtful. The often-touted U.S. dependence on South African minerals is largely American-made; other supplies of the minerals are available.

The Free South Africa Movement is working to cut through the spurious arguments clouding the South Africa issue. Americans need to see the issue for what it is, not a "colored people's problem" and not a political and economic quagmire, but a simple, black-and-white matter of human rights and decency, of being for workers or against them, of being pro-family or anti-family. And to millions of black South Africans, it is a matter of life and death.

Vicki Kemper was news editor of Sojourners magazine when this article appeared.