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JPRS-SSA-87-036

16 APRIL 1987

Sub-Saharan Africa Report

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JPRS-SSA-87-036

16 APRIL 1987

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA REPORT

CONTENTS

INTER-AFRICAN AFFAIRS

RSA Neighbors Gear Up for Possible Air Embargo

(THE STAR, 17 Mar 87)

ANGOLA

Briefs

Economic Delegation Visits Moscow z

Brazilian, Zairian Citizens Expelled 2

BURKINA

Sankara Address to Islamic Summit Conference

(Thomas Sankara; SIDWAYA, 30 Jan 87) ,

IVORY COAST

Abuses Committed by Prefect Denounced

(Kebe Yacouba; FRATERNITE MATIN, 25 Jan 87) 7

Full Reform of Monetary System Urged

(Diaby Aboubakar; FRATERNITE MATIN, 27 Jan 87) 9

Existing Need Seen for Economic Justice, Not Aid

(Jean-Pierre Aye; FRATERNITE MATIN, 28 Jan 87) 11

Export Earnings Affected by Dollar Decline

(Hien Solo; FRATERNITE MATIN, 27 Jan 87) 13

Dollar Fluctuations Adversely Affecting Economy

(Diaby Aboubakar; FRATERNITE MATIN, 27 Jan 87) 15

LESOTHO

Briefs

ANC Terrorists Deported to Zimbabwe 17

- a -
LIBERIA

Finance Ministry Audits Government Ministries

(Monrovia Radio ELWA, 12 Mar 87) 18

MADAGASCAR

FRG Signs Agreement To Provide Further Industrial Aid

(Franck Raharison; MADAGASCAR MATIN, 28 Jan 87) 19

Medical Aid Agreement Signed With Armenian City

(MADAGASCAR MATIN, 20 Jan 87) 21

Japan Providing Aid for Tananarive Street Construction

(J. Rakotonirina; MADAGASCAR MATIN, 16 Jan 87) 22

Consumers Posing Questions Concerning Shortages

(Editorial; MADAGASCAR MATIN, 21 Jan 87) 23

Problems With Sugar Supply Discussed

(MADAGASCAR MATIN, 22 Jan 87) 24

Briefs

Debt Rescheduling Studied 26

MOZAMBIQUE

Director of Ports Describes Slow Growth in Beira Corridor Traffic

(THE HERALD, 12 Mar 87) 27

NIGERIA

Briefs

Air Force Communication System 28

Nigeria Airways Clears Debt, Rejoins IATA 28

ZAMBIA

Grey Zulu, Uganda's Museveni Discuss Obote

(Lusaka Domestic Service, 8 Mar 87) 29

Briefs

Minister Warns of Misinformation Campaign 30

Teachers Urged To Return To Work 30

ZIMBABWE

South African Visitors Describe Police Authoritarianism

(FRONTLINE, Feb 87) < 31

View From Sam Sole , 31

Nomavenda Mathiane's View 34

- b -
Export Promotion Details Released

(THE HERALD, 12 Mar 87)

Bulgarian Ambassador Discusses Increase in Trade

(THE FINANCIAL GAZETTE, 6 Mar 87)

Records Show Trade Surplus With Belgium, Switzerland

(THE FINANCIAL GAZETTE, 13 Mar 87)

CSO Records 18 Percent GDP Growth for Last Year

(THE FINANCIAL GAZETTE, 13 Mar 87)

Drought To Force Use of GMB Reserves

(THE HERALD, 18 Mar 87) •

ZNFU Donation to Mozambique

(THE HERALD, 19 Mar 87) ••

Minister Praises Farmers' Oilseed for Maize Substitution Program

(Fanny Mushava; THE HERALD, 19 Mar 87)

/

Director of Beira Corridor Group Expresses Optimism

(Charles Rukuni; THE WEEKLY MAIL, 20-26 Mar 87)

/

NRZ Successes in Rehabilitating Railway to Beira Noted

(THE FINANCIAL GAZETTE, 6 Mar 87)

Work on New Roaster at Kwekwe To Be Delayed

(Siegfried Raphael; THE HERALD, 12 Mar 87)

Briefs

Emigration Slows; Visitors Increase

36

38

40

41

42

43

44

46

48

44

50

SOUTH.AFRICA

AFRIKANER/GOVERNMENT

Treurnicht Discusses Failed Electoral Pact Between CP, HNP

(Andries Treurnicht Interview; FINANCIAL MAIL, 20 Mar 87) 51

BLACKS

Causes of Factional Fighting Among Blacks in Townships Explored

(Nomavenda Mathiane; FRONTLINE, Feb 87) 53

Uwusa Attempts To Heighten Profile

(FINANCIAL MAIL, 13 Mar 87) 56

- c -
Black Housing Attracts Developers

(BUSINESS DAY, 18 Mar 87) 58

SOCIOPOLITICAL/OTHER

SACP Underground Leaflet Urges White, Black Workers To Unite

(THE AFRICAN COMMUNIST, No 108, Fourth Quarter 1986) 59

Independents Stress Election's International Significance

(SUNDAY TIMES, 22 Mar 87) .... . 61

NRP's Sutton Discusses Election, Reform

(Bill Sutton Interview; Johannesburg Television Service,

17 Mar 87) 63

PFP's Swart Attacks Government Security Strategy

(SAPA, 19 Mar 87) 67

Survey Reveals Afrikaner, English Integration Doubts

(SAPA, 19 Mar 87) 68

Editor Decries Rise of Pseudo Liberals; Role in Protest

(Denis Beckett; FRONTLINE, Feb 87) 69

Negative Consequences of Regional Services Councils Seen

(FINANCIAL MAIL, 13 Mar 87) . 72

Pattern, Impact of Migrant Labor Viewed; Need for Change Noted

(FINANCIAL MAIL, 13 Mar 87) .... 77

Briefs

Emigration Rate 81

ECONOMIC

AHI President Outlines Plan for Economic Growth

(SAPA, 20 Mar 87) 82

Standard Bank Head: Government To Blame for Inflation

(Helena Patten; BUSINESS DAY, 27 Feb 87) .... 84"

Plight of Unemployed Cape Town Population Highlighted

(Rehana Rossouw; THE ARGUS, 2 Mar 87) 85

How White Households Spend Income

(BUSINESS DAY, 4 Mar 87) 87

MD Sees Positive Side of Disinvestment

(Helena Patten; BUSINESS DAY, 4 Mar 87) 88

- d -
Taiwan Experts Train Black Farmers in Trial Rice Production

(FINANCIAL MAIL, 20 Mar 87) . •

89

Freegold Able To Produce Gold Well Into Next Century

(Peter Stacey; BUSINESS DAY, 4 Mar 87) 91

Large Areas of Unmined Evander Gold Field To Be Exploited

(John Spira; THE SUNDAY STAR, 8 Mar 87) . 92

Briefs

Trade With Denmark Diminishes 94

Government Approves Coffee Planting \ 94

Foreign Investors Buy Farms \ 94

Ventron in U.S. Shares Purchase 94

Netherland: Bank Severing Investment Ties 95

RSA Manufacturing Production 95

Xerox Affiliate To Sell Subsidiary 95

Seaborne Imports Outstrip Exports 95

INDUSTRIAL/S&T

Gencor Into Chilean Shipbuilding Venture

(FINANCIAL MAIL, 20 Mar 87) 96

/9987

- e
INTER-AFRICAN AFFAIRS

RSA NEIGHBORS GEAR UP FOR POSSIBLE AIR EMBARGO

Johannesburg THE STAR in English 17 Mar 87 p 10

[Text]

Neighbouring countries are preparing

themselves to become South Africa's

gateways to the world. It is now clear

that Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland

are improving and extending their facilities to cope with a possible air embargo against South Africa.

In less than three weeks' lime, on

March 31. a British Caledonian jet will

take off from Gatwick airport near

London to establish a direct link between England and Botswana. Some

observers already call this the first

step in transforming Sir Seretse

Khama Airport into "the new Jan

Smuts".

Significantly, Botswana has been expanding its airlinks with the rest of

Africa and recently, advertisements

were carried in Botswanan newspapers

for vacancies in technical jobs at Sir

Seretse Khama Airport.

There are now links between Botswana and Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia

and Tanzania from where airlines fly

to several European capitals.

An important link between Gaborone

and the outside world, as far as South Africans are

concerned, are the flights from Sir Seretse Khama

Airport to Harare which have now been expanded

to five times a week.

On October 31 SAA will lose its most lucrative

route when it terminates its services to Australia as

part of the Australian Governments package of sanctions. ... ,

The Australian airline Qantas no longer flies to

Johannesburg but has a weekly flight to Harare.

If Zimbabwe implements the threat to cut the air

links between Harare and Jan Smuts, South African

passengers will be obliged to first go to Gaborone

and then to Harare before flying on to Australia.

1FLIGHTS TO BRITAIN

There is a lucrative market to be gained there. The

Australian airline has disclosed that about 85 percent

of its passenger traffic with Zimbabwe is on its way

to or irom South Africa.

From Harare there are also flights to Britain.

Air industry 'experts warn, however, that much remains to be done at Gaborone's international airport if it is ever to be able to handle international

air traffic in great volume.

Mr Sam Kongwa, a researcher at the Pretoriabased Africa Institute, said that Harare had made

contingency plans to cut air links between Zimbabwe and South Africa on December 31 last year.

This, however, had to be postponed because Zambia,

which was supposed to announce the same measures, refused to go along at the last minute.

However, it is clear that despite the last minute

reluctance to apply the embargo, neighbouring countries are preparing themselves for such an eventuality.

The Lesotho Minister of Transport and Communications. Colonel Pgili Mokhantso. went to the United

States and Europe last month to look for a mediuinrange aircraft to extend the services of Lesotho Airways.

Lesotho Airways sources said the airline wanted u>

provide a service to residents in South Africa who

could not fly to some African countries because of the

ban on SAA flights.

This week Swaziland's prime minister. Mr Sotja

Dlamini. opened a R6,5-million airport control tower

at Matsapha airport which, he said, was an important

step in developing the country's airlinks.

Mauritius is building new access roads and a new

terminal at its international airport, and is regarded

as perfectly placed to handle traffic between South

Africa, Australia and the East.

At least seven international airlines — British Airways, El Al, Iberia, KLM, Lufthansa, Olympia and

Swiss Air — fly to Johannesburg with stops In Nairobi.

Other airlines have stop-overs in Brazzaville and

Kinshasa. SAA has stop-overs in Cape Verde's Ilha do

Sal.

Even if the African countries imposed a ban on

stop-overs of flights bound to or from South Africa,

no mention has been made of their denying overflight

rights to airlines which might decide to have direct

flights to and from South Africa.

/13104

CSO: 3400/358
ANGOLA

BRIEFS

ECONOMIC DELEGATION VISITS MOSCOW—In Moscow, where Comrade Mambo Cafe is now,

Angola and the Soviet Union are discussing the development of economic ties.

According to a dispatch yesterday from ANGOP, the Angolan official was

received by Konstantin Katushev, chairman of the USSR's State Committee for

Foreign Economic Relations. Comrade Maria Mambo Cafe leads the Angolan

delegation participating in the proceedings of the fifth session of the

Angola-USSR joint cooperation commission being held in Moscow. During the

talks, the implementation of construction contracts with Soviet technical

assistance and cooperation in energy, petroleum, mining, agriculture, and

transport will be examined. [Text] [Luanda Domestic Service in Portuguese

1200 GMT 25 Mar 87] /9599

BRAZILIAN, ZAIRIAN CITIZENS EXPELLED—Two foreigners, one Brazilian and the

other a Zairian, have been expelled from Angolan territory. According to a

communique from the Ministry of External Relations, the Brazilian, Ademir

Viana, 30 years old, with passport No 796,118 was expelled for illegal

possession of explosives. The Zairian citizen, (Matuben Dantone), with

passport No 78071/86, single, 23 years old, was expelled for falsification of

passport and false identity. [Text] [Luanda Domestic Service in Portuguese

2300 GMT 24 Mar 87] /9599

CSO: 3400/319
BURKINA

SANKARA ADDRESS TO ISLAMIC SUMMIT CONFERENCE

Ouagadougou SIDWAYA in French 30 Jan 87 pp 3-4

[Speech by Captain Thomas Sankara, head of government, to the Fifth Islamic

Conference in Kuwait; date not given]

[Excerpts] Your Highness:

Mr Chairman:

Today more than yesterday, the world resembles a jungle functioning on the

basis of social and economic injustice, state terrorism, intimidation, and the

selfishness of states and communities—a world where the law of the strongest

is on the way to becoming everyone's law. It is a world where the shameless

exploitation of man by man and domination of the majority by the minority are

being practiced more and more openly without shame, without any voice being

raised to denounce them, and without any world organization such as our own

doing anything to stop them.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference [OIC]—our organization—cannot

remain indifferent to this situation. It must not be a group that uses the

support and mobilization of men and states linked together by a common belief

in Islam for other causes that are often far removed from the basic noble

principles and fundamental precepts of the Koran. The OIC cannot remain

indifferent to the legalized oppression and pogroms engaged in by certain

powerful states against entire peoples who are thus forced into wandering

exile and whose fight for freedom and dignity is cynically called terrorism.

Here I am thinking of the Palestinians, whose inalienable right to live free

in the land of their fathers is being denied them and some of whose fighters

were born during the Palestinian people's long peregrination in search of a

country to take them in.

From within the Sahel, the Burkinabe people are living that nightmare in

solidarity with the Palestinian people, because those men, women, and

children—the victims of the greatest injustice in history because they have

been despoiled of their land, humiliated, wounded in their honor and dignity,

and seen their rights flouted—must be supported with a view to achieving
their self-determination and founding an independent and sovereign state under

the clear-sighted leadership of the PLO.

What did our organization do when the big powers, impelled by their arrogance,

pursued the PLO and bombed its headquarters in Tunis? What did we do when

Zionism, moved by the need for a Hitler-style final solution, massacred

hundreds of Palestinian children in Chabra and Chatila? What did we do when

Libya was bombed by planes from U.S. aircraft carriers and bases in Europe and

the Mediterranean? We maintained a guilty silence even though those tragedies

affected men belonging to the peoples in whose name we are meeting and talking

today. Worse than that, are there not direct responsibilities among us for

certain distressing events experienced by the Palestinian people?

Your Highness,

Mr Chairman,

I would also like to take the opportunity provided me by this Islamic Summit

Conference to express my people's viewpoints on the Arab-African relations

woven by history and geography. At a given moment in the advance of peoples,

the Arabs and Africans, because they were faced with the same problems, the

same oppression, and the same exploitation, discovered in each other the

response or echo to their own struggles. As a consequence, the ties of

solidarity, friendship, and fraternity, and with them the ties of cooperation

that have developed between Black Africa and the Arab world, have found a much

more powerful and suitable framework in which to combat the same evils.

Arab-African solidarity has indeed been manifested in many circumstances. But

because of the failure to encourage it and provide it with a structured

framework capable of keeping it alive, that cooperation quickly ossified,

giving those who desired it the opportunity to resume relations with the

Zionist state. Although the reasons given here and there as justification for

that new alliance scarcely conceal that surge of betrayal, it must be admitted

that their wording has very often embarrassed us because it reflects a genuine

disappointment and a sometimes shared frustration.

You condemn Zionism. But how can we weaken and destroy Zionism if we

strengthen it by pushing our allies of yesterday into its camp? Even though

some of those allies were not very committed, we should have kept them and

strengthened them.

Those among them who tried to remain faithful to the principles of ArabAfrican solidarity and fraternity were sorely tested by the inconsistency,

diversions, and one-way nature of our relations.

Statistics could show that as part of that cooperation, much Arab money has

been invested in certain African countries. That money is truly essential for

creating happiness for our peoples, but as far as we in Burkina Faso are

concerned, our friendship is not based solely on a financial balance sheet,

because there are rich states with which we do not cooperate, preferring other

and sometimes less well-off states in their place. Our friendship respects
principles of solidarity and human warmth that no fortune can buy. At that

level, it must be recognized that our expectations have not always been met.

Our relations have become like those governing our cooperation with other rich

countries. How many Arab leaders have visited our African countries?

Certainly very few! Under those conditions, it is difficult to give our

struggle permanent vigor and objective organization instead of the sporadic

and insufficiently thorough contacts we have at these summit meetings.

You Arabs generally have more contact and dialogue with the Americans and

other Westerners than with us Africans. You put the Americans in the same

class as those who support the enemies of Arab unity. But still, as I just

said, you have closer contacts with them. So how do you classify Africans?

How do you classify those who are there with you combating Zionism, racism,

colonialism, neocolonialism, and imperialism?

Your Highness,

Mr Chairman,

To conclude my address, I would like to bring up a subject which, although not

included on the agenda for our summit conference, merits a few words: I would

like to talk about the project for the Institute of Black Peoples [IPN].

I bring up this subject to simply thank and pay tribute to the Organization of

the Islamic Conference, which at its 16th ministerial conference was kind

enough to pay special attention to that project by adopting a resolution

devoted to it.

One of the project's chief objectives is to seek the building of universal

civilization through dialogue and cooperation with the peoples of other

communities as equal partners. It seeks aware, voluntary, and solidary

participation by the black peoples in the Islamic Ummah through the building

of worldwide civilization.

Those objectives mean that the IPN is not a project for Burkina Faso but a

project for the OIC—a project for the entire world.

Burkina Faso decided to initiate this project because it feels that any

development project has a cultural dimension and that blacks should have a

structure for dialogue that will not be antagonistic to other such structures

but complementary to them. In that spirit, the institute must be kept free of

temptations to engage in opposition and safe from racist concepts. Men of

good will are already taking part in it. They come from Europe and America,

they are Arabs, they are of all religions, and they are of all philosophical

persuasions.

Mr Chairman,

In that institute, researchers are determining what the black man has

contributed to others, what he can expect from those others, and how to

harmonize that fraternal life and rise above skin color to see only the man.
While reiterating to you my very hearty congratulations on your outstanding

election as chairman of our conference and my gratitude to the Kuwaiti people

for their warm welcome and cordial hospitality, I assure you of the complete

willingness of my country, Burkina Faso, to work together with all brother

states belonging to our organization on behalf of peace, well-being, and

concord among nations and peoples.

I thank you.

Fatherland or death. We shall overcome!

11798

CSO: 3419/79
IVORY COAST

ABUSES COMMITTED BY PREFECT DENOUNCED

Abidjan FRATERNITE MATIN in French 25 Jan 87 p 2

[Article by Kebe Yacouba]

[Text] Once upon a time there was....a governor. Excuse us—a prefect. He

loved power, the honor involved, and everything which allowed him assert his

authority. The people feared him because he embodied a certain threat of

terror. Each of his appearances in the streets, in the markets and in the

poor quarters has been reported in the local papers. He was also, and at the

same time, commissioner of police, commander of the gendarmerie and president

of the court. Thus he could have citizens arrested and then decide whether

they were guilty of having done this or that. Small businessmen, government

employees, truck drivers and the unemployed have already paid the price of his

excesses.

The prefect also had a very definite penchant for public meetings and

speeches. And on these occasions, he was able to exchange the stick for the

carrot. He was eloquent, and he always found the proper words for making an

intelligent appeal for peace, unity, solidarity and dialogue. But in the

daily exercise of his authority, dialogue had a very low priority. He always

preferred the forceful method. He was a prefect unlike others. For to his

official functions, parallel roles were added, since he was also a baker and

an owner of plantations and taxis.

His commercial activities played an essential role in the local economy. And

a sort of monopoly in that marketplace may have been established. None of

this would have been very serious if he had shown fairness and tolerance

toward his competitors. But this was a man who believed himself to be above

the law. The slightest opposition to his desires might make his subordinates

vulnerable to serious difficulties. And his relationships in higher circles

made this possible.

For example, government employees were transferred on the basis of mere

reports accepted in Abidjan as gospel truth, whereas the reasons for these

penalties lay elsewhere. For this prefect confused the professional and

private lives of his subordinates. As to his proteges, they had important

status in the department and they too could commit abuses with impunity.
The municipal democracy was to deal his previously absolute authority a harsh

blow. Today he is no longer the sole authority in the town, since it has been

made into a commune. Stripped of his basic authority, the prefect has since

been reduced to "inaugurating garden shows." He reigns, rather than governs.

His duties have become more honorific than executive. The excesses of a

mayoral personage conducting himself like a young prime minister and with

superb connections brought him down, in the end. The balance provided by a

municipal authority which is closer to the people and is obliged to listen to

them has finally forced this prefect to show more reticence and restraint in

his activities.

But he has not lost everything. He is, after all, the representative of the

executive branch in his department. By this token he has sponsorship of all

the ministries. In the past, these responsibilities of his have only been

acknowledged in theory. Only the minister of civil service has decided to

give the prefects full power to act on his behalf in their departments. With

this delegation of authority, which became effective at the beginning of

January 1987, it is suggested that the prefects pay unscheduled visits to the

administrative departments to see if the agents are at their work posts, to

ensure that they are working efficiently, and to suspend the wages of agents

whose situation is found to be irregular. This gives this unusual prefect a

fine opportunity for reestablishing the authoritarian practices of the past.

For these are important powers which some might use for the purpose of

settling accounts. As was done in the past. It is on this level that the

concern of a number of government employees in the interior, who remain

convinced that abuses are inevitable, is justified. Now Minister J.J. Bechio

believes that it is basic to link the prefects with the defense of his

recovery policy, so that permanence and continuity in the administration can

be assured.

But the fears of these employees are also legitimate. And as confidence does

not preclude control, it is to be hoped that provisions will be made on the

level of the Ministry of Civil Service to establish the real justification of

certain penalties. In the name of justice.

While the overwhelming majority of the prefects have a noble sense of their

duty, the fact remains that a handful are still devoted to practices which the

democratization of political life in the Ivory Coast is in the process of

eliminating. Gradually.

5157

CSO.-3419/98
IVORY COAST

FULL REFORM OF MONETARY SYSTEM URGED

Abidjan FRATERNITE MATIN in French 27 Jan 87 p 29

[Article by Diaby Aboubakar]

TTextl For a certainty, the American dollar reveals the world economy in its

true colors! Stronger weak, the greenback sets the tone ^rth. other

currencies and the economies of the non-American countries, where it dictates

whether there will be cloudy or fair weather.

The matter is the more serious since the international P

ic

'"

e

J" J^

seriously weakened by all of the economic, social and political crises

upsetting It. The erratic fluctuations of the dollar in turn make any

possibility of adjustment unpredictable.

This situation created by the dollar bears spectacular witness to the ££«£

incapacity of the monetary system to ensure proper management of the rates or

exchange and stability in the world economy. The dollar, havxng *•««*•

epicenter of monetary and financial activity through the action ofthe SMI

seems in the effects of its fluctuations, like a slipknot controlled by the

United States, which thus has the rest of the world at its mercy.

Will this continue to endure? Will the international community settle for

such a situation? We think not, in view of the discussion provoked by the

need for reform of the international monetary system as a result of the

numerous criticisms made of the floating rates.

It is true that steps have been taken to deal with the most urgent issues—the

strengthening of the coordination of the exchange markets and the adoption by

a number of the PVD of floating rate systems (with the float being assisted or

free).

But this is not enough, since the imbalance in the present system has caused

substantial disparities in the rates of exchange to develop n*"** "*^

in serving as a support for a system of open exchange or making the national

economic policies compatible with enduring world economic growth.

In addition, it is important to reduce the role of the dollar which gives tt.

United States a privileged income. Out of a total of $4.36 trillion
circulating in the world, more than $1.5 trillion are circulating outside the

United States. This gives additional supremacy to this country, as compared

to the others, and makes any reform profoundly difficult. The fact remains

that such reform is desired, and a number of theses have been put forth. Some

urge the index solution, as was the case at the Tokyo summit meeting, while

others favor the establishment of a single international currency accepted by

all, which would be issued by a special world bank. The intermediary thesis

suggests a monetary system synthesizing the system of fixed parity, which was

eliminated with the Jamaica Accord in 1986 because it was too rigid, and the

system of floating rates, under which disparities and overvaluation have

become endemic.

In order to do this it would be necessary to establish goals for the principal

zonal currencies. Each of these theses has its advantages and its

disadvantages, which need to be analyzed and quantified in order better to

understand them.

In the meantime, and within this framework of agreement, it is important for

the African countries, individually or collectively, to search for monetary

solutions suited to their economic situations. But what is the status of the

proposal to create an African currency? Didn't Europe invent the ECU to

protect itself against erratic dollar fluctuations?

5157

CSO:3419/98

10
IVORY COAST

EXISTING NEED SEEN FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE, NOT AID

Abidjan FRATERNITE MATIN in French 28 Jan 87 p 2

[Article by Jean-Pierre Aye in the column "My Open Letter"]

[Text] My dear Julien:

Economics is certainly the business of those with experience, as you are

accustomed to saying. And one cannot venture into this field without having

taken the usual precautions, if only to avoid displaying too much ignorance!

But then I wanted to understand—not much, only on a basic level—the

consequences of these green bills, the dollars, which curiously and

paradoxically, as the rate varies upward or downward, are such a serious

threat to the economies of the developing countries. And ours is not spared

this more than worrisome situation.

If one takes a close look, as one of our col leagues wrote yesterday, it is

not only the dollar which is at issue, but rather the entire monetary system,

which represents in fact the institutionalization of injustice which is being

tolerated in foreign relations and foreign trade.

And one must wonder how Europe, North America, all these continents and al 1

these countries made up of right-thinking men full of verbal generosity, can

contribute to the development of the Third World, to eliminating famine, to

improving health in our countries by protecting such an unbalanced monetary

system.

How can these continents and these countries hope to achieve demonstrable

results in the implementation of their aid policies if that aid must serve to

deal with the most urgent problems, to provide make-shift rather than enduring

solutions? / j

How can one maintain one iJs contributed to the development of our countries

when the exchange systems bleed us of 10, 20, 50 or a 1,000 times as much as

we are given? And this to;the benefit of those who assuage their consciences

by parsimoniously distributing the crumbs which fall from their table, rich as

they are thanks to the "huge profits" resulting from the deterioration m the

terms of trade and the decline in the costs of raw materials.

11
The truth today is that our countries do not want to be aided any more. Or at

least they would like to be given definitive help through the establishment of

a more just monetary system, through the stabilization of raw materials costs.

Above all, let no one accuse us of wanting to revolutionize the world, when

all we want is justice to correct the upsets into which their North has

plunged our South since time immemorial!

Until next Wednesday!

5157

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12
IVORY COAST

EXPORT EARNINGS AFFECTED BY DOLLAR DECLINE

Abidjan FRATERNITE MATIN in French 27 Jan 87 p 28

[Article by Hien Solo]

[Text] The year 1986 was a relatively fortunate and satisfactory year for our

HZtL It is true that not all of the difficulties were eliminated, but the

irht

r

s

y

have switchedto green again. Coffee and cacao brought the peasants a

ofal income of about 330 billion. These two V«*«££'£Z%££* an

percent of the gross domestic product. As reported «, I.ECHO DE I; ^; *

expert above any suspicion of complacency was able to write that The ivory

Sltis in the process of winning exporters back again, since they are seeing

all the advantages of the recovery in Abidjan, which has been perceptible,

moreover, since 1985.

But will the recent declines in the dollar, the reference currency and also

the mtans of commercial and financial payment involved in a very arge part of

the transactions in all categories on the ^.^^Ll^e'fact regains continued hopes? It is difficult to answer this question. The fact remains

t^at Tt is on the basis of the dollar that the rates for most raw materials

are quoted in New York and Chicago, and the American currency has depreciated

about 35 percent on the international exchange market, which has reduced the

corresponding income totals by that same percentage.

Moreover, the quotations are obviously given in present currency, so that if

one compares current rates with those of several^ years ago •"*«'";

corresponding to the devaluation of the currency has to be made in order to

establish their real value.

In all, the loss in purchasing power in the Third World over a long period has

been substantial. This is the result of the deterioration in the terms of

trade of Jwcn the experts in the economies of the developing countries speak.

nee the prices of Sports increased «il. the price^^J^HZtir

i^t\"\v^ehei:^^^

cotleÄa^ance Stern^e! ^^^.^SiV^Z

13
francs dropped 8 percent for cacao and 7 percent for rubber. The combine

effects of the decline in the dollar and the world rate are thus considerable,

reducing the income of our nation. Indeed, it could be noted, on the other

hand, that the erosion of the dollar is also reducing the weight of the

foreign debt. This is true, and in the Ivory Coast, this reduction might even

reach 70 to 75 billion CFA francs. Viewed on the scale of all of Africa, this

is a sizable economy in funds. Only, you see, our continent is being

undermined by wars, debts, the sale of raw materials at a loss. The export

income total dropped from $60.6 billion in 1985 to $44.3 billion in 1986,

reflecting an average decline of 27 percent. In some countries this reduction

reached 42 percent, or even 47 percent. The raw materials crisis is very

clearly the basic cause of this erosion.

Dollar Used for 80 Percent of Sales

The decline in rates on the international market alone has caused the Ivory

Coast to lose about 200 billion CFA francs. But with the collapse of the

dollar, the losses in income will be vastly higher than this estimate, because

80 percent of our export sales and various other loans linked with these sales

are effected in dollars. The harm done is thus real, and it requires the

implementation of a series of political, economic, monetary and financial

measures which could bring about a real improvement in this economic context,

which is supposed to contribute to stability, and indeed to long-term growth,

in the export income of the developing countries. This would also, to the

extent that this is possible, prevent the excessive price fluctuations from

which these countries suffer. Put in another way, the dollar plays too great

a role, and in anarchic fashion, in the international monetary mechanisms,

although given the current state of affairs, no alternative possibility can be

envisaged.

For the Third World countries, and for the partners of the United States in

general, stabilization of the dollar to make the reorganization of all the

monetary mechanisms possible is absolutely essential. But for the time being

nothing justifies the hope that such a reform will be implemented soon, since

it is rejected in advance by the main party involved—the United States

itself. What, then, can be done? No one can say today. It is necessary then

to contxnue with it, trying to prevent it from claiming too many victims.

For the present, the Ivory Coast must make do with the increase in its

production, both of coffee and cacao, to improve its treasury position, since

it cannot rely on the favorable development of the market. With the help of

adequate rainfall, our country will have as good a cacao harvest as last year,

when our production exceeded 5,500 tons.

The same optimism is justified where coffee is concerned. After obtaining

82,000 tons in 1983, a decline resulting from the effects of the drought and

brushfires, production in the Ivory Coast has begun a spectacular recovery

toward its average annual capacity of 300,000 tons. In fact, production is

expected to reach about 260,000 this year.

5157

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14
IVORY COAST

DOLLAR FLUCTUATIONS ADVERSELY AFFECTING ECONOMY

Abidjan FRATERNITE MATIN in French 27 Jan 87 p 29

[Article by Diaby Aboubakar]

[Text] Struck full force by the drastic increase seen for greenbacks, which

was reflected in an unprecedented increase in its foreign debt service, the

Ivory Coast is now suffering from the cumulative decline for that same

currency. But ours is not the only country to suffer from this state of

affairs. All countries, even the United States, are affected.

The decline will continue irreversibly for a long time yet, and this is likely

to do real harm not only to the world economy as a whole, but also and above

all, to the economies of the developing countries in particular.

With the depreciation of the dollar, the risk of disorganization of the

European monetary system is great. The deutsche mark, the pivot currency, is

gaining in value dangerously, to the detriment of other currencies m the

European basket.

Profiting in fact from this weakening of the greenback, the German currency

has gone up to 3.351 francs per deutsche mark (1 deutsche mark was worth

166.85 CFA francs at the 23 January rate). But curiously, this decline has

put the German and Japanese economies in a bad position. And one can

understand why the Japanese government, after paying out 10 billion yen in the

first 10 days of January to prevent its economy from slipping, demanded,

through its minister of finance, a prompt meeting of the Group of Five, the

same nations which agreed in September on the drop in the dollar.

Where the economies of the developing countries are concerned, one would be

tempted to believe in disparities in the effects of the decline depending on

the degree of dependence on the dollar. Nothing of the sort is the case, for

they all countries are experiencing harsh effects because of the decline.

In order to appreciate the impact of the decline of the greenback on our

economy, it would be well to survey the sectors of activity linked with the

dollar^ Our basically agricultural economy, like those of the majority of tte

PVD, derives a good part of its income, approximately 60 percent, from the

sale of coffee and cacao.

15
Now, 80 percent of its sales on the international market are effected in

dollars. A large part of our exports to the United States are primary

products. Moreover, our trade with the countries in the dollar zone, such as

Nigeria, are of considerable significance.

And the successive declines for the greenback have without a doubt been

reflected in a decline of several billion CFA francs (the pivot currency of

the franc zone with which the CFA franc, which itself has appreciated, is

linked) (see article in this issue by Hien Solo). All of these represent

resources which leave our country's financial circuit, placing the recovery

which has begun in our country in serious jeopardy.

This is the more serious since this decline for the greenback accentuates the

loss of our country's purchasing power, such that it must find two if not

three times as many dollars to pay for the goods it needs on the foreign

market. Unless it is willing, in order to maintain this purchasing power, to

plunge into a campaign of overproduction which itself is punishing in the long

run, not to overlook the inflationary pressures which it might cause.

For example, a decline in the dollar between 1974 and 1978 led to a decline of

20 percent in the international purchasing power of the OPEC countries.

One thing which is very often forgotten is that a drop in the dollar is

reflected in an increase in export costs. Moreover, a decline in the dollar

is reflected in the substantial appreciation of other currencies, which has

the result of making our imports from the European countries involved in 70

percent of our trade more expensive, and increasing the service on that part

of our debt negotiated in deutsche marks, yen or francs, for example.

This is particularly true since at the time the dollar went up, we had

diversified the currencies in which we borrowed in order to minimize the

effects of the increase.

Everything leads us to believe that the balance (if one were to take the

trouble to calculate it) resulting from the reduction in the funds paid out

and the reduction in the funds coming in resulting from the cumulative decline

in the dollar will tend toward a negative area in which the gain on the level

of our debt service will not suffice to cancel out a good part of the

deterioration seen in the terms of trade.

But there remains hope nonetheless, if the monetary and financial officials

evidence more ingenuity, if we continue to rely on ourselves by finding within

our own system the safeguards capable of protecting us against fluctuations in

the dollar.

For it is not a steady increase which we see, but rather erratic fluctuations.

Now increasing and now decreasing, the dollar rate fluctuates daily, thus

making any planning, any foresight, impossible. Given the current situation,

our country cannot afford such improvisation.

5157

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16
LESOTHO

BRIEFS

ANC TERRORISTS DEPORTED TO ZIMBABWE~Our correspondent in Maseru reports that

four ANC terrorists who have been detained in Lesotho have been deported to

Zimbabwe. Two others would probably be deported on Friday. [Text]

[Johannesburg Domestic Service in English 1600 GMT 25 Mar 87] /9599

CSO: 3400/319

17
LIBERIA

FINANCE MINISTRY AUDITS GOVERNMENT MINISTRIES

AB131013 Monrovia Radio ELWA in English 2000 GMT 12 Mar 87

[Text] The Ministry of Finance has announced that it has begun a physical

audit of the payrolls of all government ministries and agencies in an effort

to further reduce the wage bill of government. In recent times, a Finance

Ministry spokesman said that there is an alarming increase in the wage bill of

the Liberian Government.

According to today's edition of the DAILY OBSERVER newspaper, the comptroller

at the Finance Ministry, Mr (Wise Power), noted that the objective of the

salary deduction or reduction in the redundancy of all civil servants

exercises in 1985 was to reduce government wage bills and make salaries

current, but this has been achieved. Mr (Power) said reports have reached

them at the Finance Ministry that most of those declared redundant have

returned to government's payrolls. He said what the government hopes to

achieve from the exercise is to remove all ghost names from payrolls and to

determine whether there exist justifiable reasons for returning the payroll

cost to the level at which it was after the redundancy exercise, which is

estimated at 25 percent less than the present payroll cost. Mr (Power)

explained that during the exercise, employees will have to be properly

identified by their section heads before checks are disbursed, while those in

the LPA [Liberia Ports Authority] will be identified by both their section

heads and their [word indistinct] before payment.

/9599

CSO: 3400/314

18
MADAGASCAR

FRG SIGNS AGREEMENT TO PROVIDE FURTHER INDUSTRIAL AID

Tananarive MADAGASCAR MATIN in French 28 Jan 87 pp 1-2

[Article by Franck Raharison]

[Text] Visibly, it is continuity which dominates the cooperation sector

insofar as the FRG and Madagascar are concerned. Despite the statements by

FRG Ambassador Karl Heinz Rouette (dean of the diplomatic corps) to the effect

that articles on diplomatic activities have been given too much space in our

Malagasy newspapers, as compared to reports on national life, we must make our

excuses today, for we cannot remain silent about this new gesture the West

German government has made toward the Grand lie.

It involves, in fact, a new contribution from the FRG in the amount of

1,227,000,000 Malagasy francs (3 million deutsche marks) for the purpose of

supplying us with goods essential to industry. This financial cooperation

agreement, which was signed yesterday by Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean

Bemananjara and Ambassador Karl Heinz Rouette, will make possible the (foreign

exchange) purchase of semi-finished products, industrial equipment, machines

and tools, replacement parts and other raw materials.

In this connection, the head of the Malagasy diplomatic service mentioned the

numerous contributions made to Madagascar by the FRG: the building of a 158-

kilometer road linking the RN4 and Port-Berge, construction of the road

between Port-Berge and Antsobiby, the building of a match factory in

Moramanga, the expansion of the SOTEMA, the financing of small industrial and

agricultural products through the BNM (now the BNl), the youth village in

Vinaninkarena, the agricultural operation in Tsarahasina, and FAFIMALAL

medical-veterinary aid in the provinces of Fianarantsoa and Tulear.

As to current projects, Jean Bemananjara mentioned in particular that under

way in Betsiboka (rice-cultivation program), the improvement of cattle

production, the improvement of the RN-7 road between Ibosy and Sakaraha, etc.

FRG Ambassador Karl H. Rouette, for his part, announced that the West German

government will make a credit line of 10 million deutsche marks (4.09 billion

Malagasy francs) available to Madagascar within the framework of the CASA.

Also, he discussed a problem affecting German-Malagasy cooperation. "It is a

question of the capacity to maintain the production of firms in Madagascar

which use West German equipment requiring a minimum of replacement parts and

19
raw materials," the ambassador said. He added that "The only source for

meeting these needs (in foreign exchange) is this credit line. It would be

sad if major sectors using German investment products were to suffer, above

all in a phase when our development aid is intensifying, not only in terms of

cooperation, but also in terms of financial volume. This would mean a

suspension of services for certain brands of German automobiles. The printing

and textile sectors are involved as well."

This somewhat unexpected remark by the FRG ambassador appeared to be an

invitation to the authorities in Madagascar to give greater priority in the

distribution and allocation of foreign exchange quotas to the local companies

using production tools and equipment "made in West Germany." This is a

request which will without a doubt provoke comment in various circles.

5157

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20
MADAGASCAR

MEDICAL AID AGREEMENT SIGNED WITH ARMENIAN CITY

Tananarive MADAGASCAR MATIN in French 20 Jan 87 p 3

[Excerpt] (ANTA)—The executive committee of the Council of People's Deputies

of the city of Yerevan in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia and the

Municipality of Tananarive in the Democratic Republic of Madagascar

(Fivondromampokontany d'Antananarivo Renivohitra) have signed the proposed

cooperation agreement which defines a program whereby the two cities will

exchange medical and teaching personnel with a view to enriching their

respective experience in the medical sector, particularly in the fields of

urban hygiene and urban education and development.

Yerevan will, consistent with its capabilities, accept medical patients sent

from the city of Tananarive, in particular those suffering from vascular

ailments. Yerevan will also host Malagasy apprentices in various sectors.

Tananarive, for its part, will host a health official and an urban development

expert from Yerevan. The two cities will undertake to exchange delegations of

specialists in the field of social training (teachers and educators of

children), and they will also exchange books and records for the libraries of

the two cities, as well as traditional art objects, sports teams and

performing artists.

The city of Tananarive will ask the city of Yerevan to provide a contribution

of spare parts for the repair of Soviet-manufactured vehicles (ZIL 130 and 131

fire engines, MM 800B motor-driven pumps, and "Latvia" ambulances contributed

by Yerevan), a contribution, gift or subsidy for the improvement or building

of a swimming pool, volleyball and basketball courts, a covered stadium with

artificial ground cover, bleachers and large electronic panels for the

Mahamasina stadium, aid or assistance in rebuilding the Tananarive municipal

headquarters, furnishing it and providing office equipment and electrical

installations, and machinery including pulley systems for rapid scene changes

at the two municipal theatres.

5157

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21
MADAGASCAR

JAPAN PROVIDING AID FOR TANANARIVE STREET CONSTRUCTION

Tananarive MADAGASCAR MATIN in French 16 Jan 87 pp 1, 6

[Article by J. Rakotonirina]

[Text] Our Japanese friends definitely follow up their ideas. After

providing the city of Tananarive with 55 Isuzu buses in 1983, as well as

other buses supplied to five other faritany seats, they are now providing the

city of Tananarive itself, as a nonreimbursable gift, with construction

equipment and machinery for the improvement of the streets in the capital city

worth about 400 million yen (or more precisely, 398.5 million yen), which is

the equivalent of 2 bil lion Malagasy francs.

The documents (memoranda) pertaining to this gift were signed and exchanged

yesterday in the offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by Minister Jean

Bemananjara and the Japanese ambassador to the RDR, Yoichi Yamaguchi.

In his speech, Minister Bemananjara first mentioned the two earlier agreements

signed last 12 December (the first two signed by Ambassador Yamaguchi after

his arrival in Madagascar), which provided for food aid and supplies of farm

equipment for the purpose of increasing production in this sector. He also

mentioned the other gifts allocated to the transportation sector, explaining

that this was nonreimbursable aid, the principal type of aid the Japanese

have provided in the course of these recent years. He then made a point of

expressing the extreme gratitude of the people of Tananarive to the Japanese

government. Ambassador Yamaguchi, for his part, voiced his satisfaction with

this new stage achieved in the cooperation between the two countries.

He then noted the complementary nature of the current aid and the previous

gifts of transport vehicles, explaining that the use of the vehicles goes

together with the maintenance of the streets in excellent condition, since

poor street conditions not only cause delays and the waste of gasoline, "but

also damage vehicles and shorten their useful life."

The streets in the capital will thus benefit from aid channeled to the proper

place, since it will contribute to their maintenance.

5157

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22
MADAGASCAR

CONSUMERS POSING QUESTIONS CONCERNING SHORTAGES

Tananarive MADAGASCAR MATIN in French 21 Jan 87 p 6

[Editorial]

[Text] Inflation, devaluation, the international economic crisis, etc.—these

are terms which real ly belong in the realm of the macroeconomy, and they are

generally beyond the understanding of simple consumers. These consumers have

no idea what the exact origin of this series of shortages and the confusions

which currently exist in the country might be, and for them, the crisis is

therefore first and foremost domestic. A large proportion of the people, in

fact, only believe in what they can see.

No one challenges the government's intention to put our economy back on the

path of growth, but the majority of the consumers have difficulty believing

that the daily difficulties they are encountering today result from the world

economic slump. If the crisis is truly international, there are many who

cannot understand the abundance, if not the opulence (all relative) in which

the people of Mauritius, the Seychelles, and Reunion live.* There are

neighboring peoples who have certainly never experienced shortages of rice,

cigarettes, sugar or oil in their lives. Are these people perhaps suffering

more than the people of Madagascar, without being aware of it?

Whatever the case, the statements by the president to the effect that we hope

to be self-sufficient in food by 1990 bring hope. And the hope is that this

self-sufficiency will pertain not only to rice, but also to all the basic

foodstuffs and other items which are unavailable now except on the black

market. It can be said, on the other hand, that the recent liberalization of

imports will make it possible to eliminate once and for all these problems

with consumer goods, which are needed moreover by everyone, such as cassettes,

razor blades, quartz watches, cosmetics, clothing and sports shoes, etc., not

to forget certain foodstuffs of which the Malagasy people are fond (canned

sardines, Kub'Or, cheeses and other delicacies). Now, it remains to be seen

whether when the time comes, the items mentioned above will be within the

reach of all pocketbooks!

5157

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23
MADAGASCAR

PROBLEMS WITH SUGAR SUPPLY DISCUSSED

Tananarive MADAGASCAR MATIN in French 22 Jan 87 pp 1, 3

[Article by D.R.]

[Text] If sugar diabetes were gaining ground at present in the population of

Tananarive, this could not be ascribed to excessive sugar consumption. Fewer

new cases of this sort of diabetes would be more logical, precisely because of

the lack of sugar.

In fact, sugar continues to be a problem in the capital market, although the

volume supplied was well below the normal quota. From the month of August,

when the black market in this product made its appearance, until the month of

December, 350 tons per week were supplied to the Tananarive market, while

according to a study made by the pertinent authorities, the need was assessed

at 250 tons per week. These figures, it should be explained, were provided to

us by the Office for the Supervision of Distribution at the Ministry of

Commerce. Officials at the Siramamy Malagasy (SIRAMA) confirmed them to us.

New Provisions

This increase in the quota established in order to deal with the problems in

no way changed the situation. The results were not what was hoped, which led

the Office for the Supervision of Distribution (DTD) to adopt different

measures beginning at the first of the year.

The production and distribution companies are now required to present the DTD

with daily reports on their respective activities. They must specify the

quantity of sugar they have delivered each day and the names of the stores

which accepted their quotas. Where the distribution companies in particular

are concerned, they must append a list of the stores which they supply. It is

obvious that this list must also show the quota allocated to each party, which

in turn must submit a document reporting each sale of sugar.

None of this has prevented the continued existence of long lines and disputes,

sometimes requiring the intervention of the police, such as that which

occurred in front of the Famatsiana Malagasy (FAMA) store at the beginning of

the week.

24
Nor has it prevented retailers from plying their trade on a cash basis on

every street corner, and larger or smaller packets of sugar are selling like

hotcakes, despite the price—900 Malagasy francs, as compared to the normal

price of about 400.

Mercenaries

"In order to obtain tangible results, it will be necessary first of al 1 to win

the battle against the 'mercenaries,' who, it should not be forgotten, account

for 80 percent of the sugar purchasers in the waiting lines," the director of

the DTD explained to us. How can this be done? to date, no truly effective

solution has been found. Each merchant is applying his own more or less

satisfactory solution.

For example, some merchants have decided to stop selling sugar, since too many

of those in the waiting lines are "mercenaries," as our interlocutor called

them. Or merchants may decide to sell the balance of their stock to

acquaintances, or again, and why not, to anyone willing to purchase the lot

at ä high price. This is an attitude which, although entirely consistent

with what business thinking would dictate, is nonetheless reprehensible, given

the current state of affairs. Is it to this kind of practice that the term

"sabotage" applies, as used by Pres ident Ratsiraka during the inauguration

ceremony in connection with the sugar shortage? Probably so.

The talks we have had with sugar production and distribution officials have

not revealed any spectacular kind of sabotage (arson, for example). It must

be recognized, however, that diverting sugar from the market might in fact

have equally insidious consequences. Whether or not the action is undertaken

for political reasons, the results could be equally dangerous.

Rum

We will not attempt to determine the reasons which lead certain private

persons to amass vast quantities of sugar at the expense of the people. We

will simply draw attention to two facts which might explain the situation in

part. One is the depletion of the rum the production companies have in stock,

and the other is the succession of holidays in the month of December. The

clandestine distilleries had to operate at full capacity throughout the month

in order to meet the demand for "toäka gasy," a local liquor, and they will

certainly continue their major effort with the coming shortage in mind.

Everything points to the fact that this is inevitable. It will be necessary

to survive until the next sugarcane harvest in the month of July.^or in other

words, until the companies producing rum can renew their stock. In order to

avoid being faced with a Similar situation, we will reestablish the quota

system as of this period," the SIRAMA officials have informed us. Let us

remember that the Sale of rum was liberalized a short time ago.

5157

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25
MADAGASCAR

BRIEFS

DEBT RESCHEDULING STUDIED—The year just beginning promises to be a good one

where relations between Bonn and Tananarive are concerned. An important

delegation from the Bank for Reconstruction and Development (KFW) is expected

to arrive in the capital on Tuesday. This delegation, which has five members

and is headed by Dr Schmidt Garritzen, a high-ranking official in the West

German finance ministry, has come for negotiations with a vievr to the

rescheduling of the Malagasy debt to the FRG. It will be a good year because

barely 6 months after the signing of agreements following the negotiations

between the RDM and the FRG (mixed commission) in Bonn, the cooperation

projects involving the two countries are beginning to materialize. A credit

allocation in the amount of 14 billion Malagasy francs is being provided for

this purpose over the next 2 years. The photograph shows Minister of Foreign

Affairs Jean Bemananjara and Mr Andreas Meyer-Landrut during the signing of

the official documents pertaining to these agreements in Bonn in June 1986.

[Excerpts] [Tananarive MADAGASCAR MATIN in French 16 Jan 87 p 6] 5157

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26
MOZAMBIQUE

DIRECTOR OF PORTS DESCRIBES SLOW GROWTH IN BEIRA CORRIDOR TRAFFIC

Harare THE HERALD in English 12 Mar 87 p 1

[Text]

ZIMBABWE sent 204 200

tonnes of traffic along the

Beira Corridor through

central Mozambique in

1986, an increase of 13

percent on 1985, according to Mozambique's •national director of Ports

and Railways, Cde Fcrreira Mendes.

The Mozambican railway authorities consider

this rate of Increase as

"very slow growth".

'Only a third of tlio installed capacity at the

port of Beira is being

used," said Cde Mcnde*

in an interview with AIM.

A. healthy situation would

imply two or three trains

a day circulating- between

Beira and Zimbabwe,"

which is far from beia»

the case.

Cde Mendes,, who COM»

(acted potential clients in

Zinibalbwe last year, said

there is still a certain

reluctance to use Beirat

on the part of some Zimbabwean 'businessmen

and a preference to send

their traffic via South

African port«.

"Obviously we lia,ve

mijnie prdbloma, hut ara

people interested in solving these problems or

not?" ho said.

li'or a while it may be

true that tne South African ports "have the adge

over Beira In terms ■■<jfv

efficiency, it id even truer

that Beira is the natural

port for Zimbabwe. The

Beira Corridor is the

«hortest. route to the sea

from Harare. It is just

600 km from Beira, while

the journey to Durban is

2 065 km,

Ode Mendes said improvement of Beira services depends on using

the port to the full.

Rehabilitation work is

in full swing along the

Corridor, including the

upgrading of the ZimbabwQ-Beira Railwaly, the

road running parallel to

it, and the port itself.

Work is 'being carried

out by National Railways

of Zimbabwe and Mozambique Railways on therailway to Machipanda on

the border. NRZ is providing most of the equipment and trained personnel for upgrading.

The work started at

the border, and the 140

km stretch from Machipanda to Gondola hart

been completed.

At the Beira Corridor

donors' conference in

April' last lyear, it was

agreed that by the end of

19S6 the port should be

able to handle three million tonnes of cargo.

However, the current use

of the rail and port capacity is way below this

level.

"To reach the three

million tonne target, we

must maximise the use of

the railway," Cde Mendes

said. "Tf we can deal with

three trains a clav. why

aren't thcycomlng?"

Some Zimbabwoan

clients, however, have increased their use of thi*

port, and have expressed

satisfaction.

Cue Mendes cited the

case of Zimbabwean cotIon export which "liav.»

never had any problems"

with Beira.

He said that merely

appealing to the Zimbabwean exporters on commercial groups was not

sufficient, and that it

would be necessary for

the Zimbabwean Government to take measures to

ensure that more of its

traffic used the Corridor.

'Ilia problem was that

South Africa had created

"certain relations of dependency", which the relations between the railway management of Mozambique and Zimbabwe

had not managed to overi come.— Zlnna-AIM.

/13104

CS0: 3400/364

27
NIGERIA

BRIEFS

AIR FORCE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM--The Nigerian Air Force has installed an

inter-command communications system. Commissioning the system in Lagos

yesterday, the chief of air staff, Air Vice Marshal Ibrahim Alfa, reminded men

of the Directorate of Communications of the role of the Air Force in defending

the nation's air space. This role, he pointed out, relied heavily on secured

communications. In his remarks, the chairman of Radio Communications Nigeria

Limited, Chief Moshud Abiola, whose company supplied and installed the

equipment, called for the standardization of tele-communication equipment in

the country. [Text] [Lagos Domestic Service in English 0600 GMT 13 Mar 87]

/9599

NIGERIA AIRWAYS CLEARS DEBT, REJOINS IATA—Nigeria Airways has been readmitted

into the International Air Transport Association, IATA. The readmission

follows the clearing of outstanding debts to the association. The minister of

transport and aviation, Brigadier Jeremiah Useni, announced this while

commissioning the Nigeria Airways clinic in Lagos yesterday. He advised the

management of the company not to allow debts to accumulate to the magnitude of

being an embarrassment to the airline and the government. [Text] [Lagos

International Service in English 0830 GMT 14 Mar 87] /9599

CSO: 3400/314

28
ZAMBIA

GREY ZULU, UGANDA'S MUSEVENI DISCUSS OBOTE

MB081953 Lusaka Domestic Service in English 1800 GMT 8 Mar 87

[Text] Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has rebuked his high commissioner to

Zambia, Mr Tiramanya Mishanga, for casting doubts on Zambia's assurance that

no Ugandan rebels were being trained in Zambia. President Museveni s rebuke

to his envoy was expressed to party Secretary General Grey Zulu in Lxbya [word

indistinct] during the 10th anniversary celebrations of Libya's proclamation

of the People's Assembly. Comrade Zulu, who returned home this morning, told

a news conference at his residence that President Museveni had accepted

Zambia's assurance that no Ugandan rebels were being trained in the country.

Comrade Zulu said President Museveni genuinely expressed regrets that his high

commission had chosen to (?reply) to what President Kaunda told the special

envoy. The Ugandan high commissioner claimed at a recent press conference on

Lusaka that exiled Milton Obote and his team of (?soldiers) are going about in

Zambia freely and the former leader had a shop in Lusaka. Dr Mishanga said

that although President Kaunda has assured him that Zambia would not allow the

former president to conduct clandestine activities, this did not conclusively

mean the man is not organizing something.

/9599

CSO: 3400/320

29
ZAMBIA

BRIEFS

MINISTER WARNS OF MISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN—Lusaka, 10 Mar (ZANA/PANA)~Minister

of State for National Guidance, Information, and Broadcasting Services Rabson

Chongo today warned Zambian journalists against racist South Africa's campaign

of misinformation. Chongo said short of a military attack South Africa will

continue a relentless campaign of misinformation against Zambia. Officially

opening a 6-week course for journalists at the mass media complex yesterday,

the minister said the struggle for liberation in southern Africa was getting

fierce and the reaction of apartheid ever more ruthless at every front. He

said the propaganda campaign was a challenge to those in the Zambian media.

More than ever before we will need progressive journalism to counter the

propaganda of the reactionary and outdated philosophical pretence that

apartheid is, Chongo said. [Text] [Dakar PANA in English 0815 GMT 10 Mar 87]

/9599

TEACHERS URGED TO RETURN TO WORK—Prime Minister Kebby Musokotwane yesterday

appealed to the striking teachers in several parts of the country to return to

work immediately because their grievances have been attended to. In a

statement released yesterday afternoon, the prime minister said the Ministry

of General Education and Culture has already completed the processing of

increments which will be paid in the March salaries and the basis for

continued strike is no longer at stake. Comrade Musokotwane said the party

and its government (?viewed) the grave concern the action by some teachers who

have refused to perform their duties in protest against an apparent failure by

the ministry to pay them their annual increments. Prime Minister Musokotwane

said two wrongs do not make a right and the continued strike by teachers will

not help anyone. [Text] [Lusaka Domestic Service in English 0600 GMT

11 Mar 87] /9599

CSO: 3400/320

30
ZIMBABWE

SOUTH AFRICAN VISITORS DESCRIBE POLICE AUTHORITARIANISM

View from Sam Sole

Johannesburg FRONTLINE in English Feb 87 pp 16-18

[Text] S

(

f

:

I OUTH Africa is a cheerless place,

1 presenting a bleak future and a

k current abnormality ... reason

r^^J enough for a visit to Zimbabwe (a

"scc-for-yourself" demonstration that

there is life after independence).

There is also the promise of a respite

from the claustrophobic South African atmosphere that makes every question a

moral wrangle. So, the need for a breather

and a taste of social harmony prompted a

friend and myself to head North.

In truth, the simple and undramatic

way in which Zimbabwe has changed

from a white state to a black one — without becoming shockingly different — is

refreshing. Yet, without looking for trouble we began tripping over the pervasive

tentacles of state security — experiences

which stripped us of our innocence and

made the rest of our stay too tense to be a

holiday. ....

Baldly put, Zimbabwe is a police state

- - one quite as bad as the portrayal so

often given of South Africa. A mild foretaste was provided by an occupational^

suspicion customs official at Beitbridge:

"What is this?"

"It's a pocket compass."

"Why do you have this?"

"To find our way."

-But you have maps. Why do you need

this1Let me see your radio. Hmmm."

A rolled-up scarf with a flag on it also

attracted his attention. He obviously

thought it was a subversive Rhodesian

flag:

"What nag is that?" ^

"A Zimbabwean one."

"Unroll ;t. Let me sec. The other side.-

Hmmm."

Fortunately a diversion presented itself:

an irate Polish businessman whose import

permits were for some reason unacceptable. Our man was keen to embroil himself in the developing dispute and quickly

stamped our forms.

Leaving Beitbridge, we encounter our

first roadblock — there is one outside

every major town. They take down our

registration number, where we have come

from and our destination. The policeman

asks if we will give his colleague a lift.

As the "colleague" is armed with an

FN and an automatic pistol, we are hardly

likely to refuse. "He's CIO," says the cop

meaningfully, and laughs incredulously

when we look puzzled (the Central Intelligence Organisation is the Zimbabwean security branch).

So Comrade Lee — a Shona — accompanies us for the next 100 km. Bearded

and denim-clad Lee is a one-man army.

"If the car is attacked, I will shoot

through the windows!" he offers generously. He hunts down dissidents, spending

most of his time in the bush.

"Last week I shot two and captured

one," he says cheerfully. "I was given promotion to inspector."

Notwithstanding these dramatic claims,

we never saw any evidence of dissident

activfty — roadgangs worked unprotected

in the middle of nowhere, and no one we

met'expressed any fear of attack. Dissidents were described as little more than

bandits, short of ammunition, roving in

twos and threes.

It was plausible that Rambo-stylc Lee

was an effective counter to these small

groups, and, more to the point, he could

keep an eye on the locals. CIO has no

doubf learned from thf "pscudo" tactics

31

.'*. >\^
once employed by the Selous Scouts to

identify enemy sympathisers.

Lee had missed the war but claimed to

have had three years training — two in

Pakistan and one in Libya. He is complimentary about the standard of the South

African army, but reserves his highest

praise for the British military instructors

working in Zimbabwe — "Man, those

guys are No 1".

Discussing South Africa, he surprises us

with conservative statements about tribalism and the need to maintain order. He

sounds as if he would be quite at home in

the South African Security Branch.

Later, we are told that Lee might have

been a plant, checking out two South

Africans of military service age — there

are stories of anonymous hitchers who

have been derogatory about Comrade Mugabe; when other passengers express enthusiastic agreement, they are promptly

arrested.

There is a security presence everywhere. Military and police vehicles form a

large proportion of the road traffic.

Bridges and dam walls have a permanent

guard. In Gweru we are treated to a

glimpse of Cde. Mugabe as his entourage

screams through town on the way back to

Harare. The street is temporarily cordoned off for the passing of the cavalcade

— outriders with sirens, a string of Mercs,

a mobile anti-aircraft gun bringing up the

rear.

The Gweru crowd seemed to find the

whole affair rather amusing. In Harare,

the perceived threat of assassination is

such that the Prime Minister's vehicle is

shielded by another on each flank. In the

capital the net does seem to be drawn

tighter than elsewhere — as we found out.

As good tourists, we wished to see

Heroes' Acre — that (we assumed public)

monument to the fallen of the Chimurenga War. The monument is on a rise and,

taking a wrong turning, we landed up at

the foot of the hill — separated from our

objective by a security fence.

I suggested we simply jump the fence

and walk up, but sloth got the better of us

and we turned the car round. At the official entrance we were confronted by a

guard with an AK. In the background,

several soldiers lounged in the shadow of a

machine-gun emplacement.

For no apparent reason the guard began

to work himself up as we explained our

desire to sec the monument. What were

we doing here? No, the monument was not

open to the public! No entry without a

letter from the Ministry of Information!

We didn't argue. I imagined our bodies

being exhibited as "racist saboteurs" —

that guard didn't give the impression he

would have asked questions first had we

been spied trespassing.

Back in town, we step Unthinkingly over

a low chain to take a short-cut across a car

park. Another man with an AK shouts at

us. Realising our mistake (it must be a

government carpark) we turn to retrace

our steps.

"Stop!" shouts the man, rushing up.

"Why did you jump over the fence?!"

We try to explain. He interrupts.

"What's your mission?"

We can hardly believe this! A smooth

man in a suit comes up to see what's happening. We offer to take the guard to our

car to demonstrate our innocence. Half

way there he buys our story and says we

can go. Now the smooth man sees us coming back without having been checked

out. Back wc go to the car. He is satisfied,

but advises: "In. future, you should carry

your passports on you, otherwise you

could land;üp in jail."

Hardly able to credit our bad luck, we

decide that a day's fishing Will at least

keep us out of trouble.

The Skyview Hotel is a small establishment overlooking a river some 20 km

south of Harare. Wc plan to park here and

walk along the river. The only other vehicle is a police four-wheel drive and we

park next lo it.

My friend goes across to the hotel to

ask about bail. I'm unpacking stuff to

take with us. There is a chilling scream —

the kind of wrenching groan that you recognise from torture scenes in films. I look

around. There is no movement from the

hotel. I approach the police vehicle — a

"Nissan Patrol", similar to a Range

Rover.

In the small space behind the third row

of seats, I can make out somebody's shoulder — he must be tied up and crammed in

there. I begin throwing things back in the

car.

My buddy emerges from the hotel and

cannot understand my white face and gesture for him lo hurry up. Later he says

there were two cops casually having a

drink at the bar.

From the single scream, the man sounded barely alive — they must have left him

for dead, intending to dump him at their

leisure. We could not decide what to do. If

we had been tinkering at the van when the

cops came out, they might have considered it necessary to dispose of us äs well.

As foreigners, without any kind of back32
up, we simply felt too vulnerable. So we

got out of there and did nothing. We left

Harare as soon as possible, feeling like fugitives.

Everyone we spoke to said we had done

the right thing. A senior black official

stated privately: "CIO does what they

like. There has been a butchery of thousands in Matabeleland, which has gone

completely unnoticed by the international

Press. 1 have some contact with ordinary

policemen and many of them have conic

back wrecked by what they saw or were

forced to do in the rural areas."

This assurance did nothing to lessen the

sour taste of moral discretion. We had

ignored a last plea for help and we now

found it difficult to paste on the smiles

that are the passport to dealing with the

security forces. We could no longer relax.

The security machine docs not only affect foreigners — if anything they have it

easier. At roadblocks you might have to

open your boot for a perfunctory search,

but the local people who travel by bus arc

required to get out and have their identity

documents and belongings checked.

We took a bus trip down from Vic Falls

on a "Hwartge Special" — a cheap and

efficiently run service, despite the chickens and goats on the roof. Another man

was forced to get off because he couldn't

pay the fare, yet a stick of heavily armed

counter-insurgency police simply stopped

us andhitched a lift for 50 km.

At the roadblock outside Bulawayo the

crowded bus responded with a good-natured groan when requested to get out for

the usual search: "It's Christmas time —

can't you laugh it off?"

The policemen laughed, but we still had

to get off.

The local cops seem to be on good

terms with the locals, and generally the

police were polite; but the man in the

back of the police van kept prompting the

question — what happens when someone

doesn't feel like smiling?

White Zimbabweans can blind themselves to the clampdown because it is not

directed at them. Haying abdicated

claims to political power, they are no

longer a threat. Said a railway official at

Beitbridge: "It's a great place to be, provided you steer clear of politics. We have

security now."

The sentiments were echoed by an

Harare businessman: "My work always

took me through the townships. I can

drive through without fear now."

The Ndebcle, however, do not rest so

easy. In Bulawayo, for example, Mugabe

has built a costly new barracks in order to

separately house a battalion of exclusively Shona police.

State control is not limited to security

matters. Import restrictions and foreign

currency controls have meant that manufactured items are scarce and exorbitantly priced. An element for a simple iron

costs $50. Spare parts for cars can fetch

virtually whatever the seller demands. A

car bought for Rl 000 in South African

can be sold for $4 000.

Price fixing and import restrictions produce a thriving black market. While we

were there, there was a beef shortage because farmers were bypassing the Cold

Storage Commission's fixed price and selling directly to butchers supplying private

clients.

New car prices are controlled; the secondhand market reflects economic reality

— new car production is a fraction of

what it was five years ago; the secondhand

business is booming. There was speculation in the Press about legislation to plug

both loopholes.

For me, these were all signs of a state at

odds with the spirit of its people -— seeking to drag them into a fiction of ideological correctness instead of being led by

them into a reality of tolerance and confidence.

For the Zimbabwean people seem

ready, willing and able to get on with their

lives. There is no longer a race problem.

We visited bars which were once filled

with white soldiers. Now we were the only

whites among the clerks and office workers— yet there was never any hostility. In

fact, the relaxed atmosphere was in stark

contrast to the current of aggression found

in any white South African bar.

The old colonials -

:

slowly dying off —

are regarded with tolerance, even affection. In a posh Harare suburb I found a

rather charming network of gardeners

who provide their madams with insulation

from the fierce new world, and also with

the neighbourhood gossip these ladies

would once have gleaned from the garden

parties and soirees that are now only a

memory.

The extreme generousness of whites is

at once cheering and saddening. It represents a bygone world of human relations

— where one can arrive, unknown and unexpected (purely on the recommendation

of someone previously met) and be gladly

welcomed. Yet this hospitality seemed

part of a considerable loneliness— white

Zimbabweans still have servants and large

houses, but face a dwindling pool of social

33
nourishment. They arc outsiders now. And

so are you.

It is a salutary experience for a white

South African. In a country familiar

enough to be yojir own, suddenly the

bank-tellers, the shop-keepers, the officials

and most of their customers are strangers,

whose first language is unintelligible.

Yet the values are unmistakably middle-class — from the blithely materialist

ads on ZBC TV to the couples that crowded into the Harare cinema to watch the

strange antics of neurotic Europeans in

the Meryl Streep film "Plenty".

ZBC propaganda is not noticeably

worse than that dished up by the SABC,

though one tires of hearing "Cde. Mugabe

said today..." as the first item on every

newscast. The phrase "racist South African regime" also palls rapidly.

What is disturbing is the absence of an

independent Press and the propagation

of a one-party mentality. A striking example was an article on the violence subsequent to the Machel air crash. Describing an incident in which black youths accosted a white and roughed him up when

he refused to recite party slogans, the

writer condemns the violence but expresses puzzlement over why the man refused.

It seems that liberal ideals have once

again been thrown out along with the colonial bathwater. It is perhaps this which

ultimately denies whites their sense of

inclusion and limits the potential for black

freedom.

Yet freedoms are difficult to weigh up.

Back across the border in Messina we go

into a bank to cash a cheque. The black

man in front of me wants some change.

The lady teller (on this side they are all

white again) stiffens immediately at his

approach: "Ja! Wat wil jy he?! Ja, dan gee

die geld tog!"

The man probably speaks Ndebele —

we are a mere 10 km into the territory

of the 'racist regime" — but for him, at

that moment, it cannot but be 10 km too

far.

Nomavenda Mathiane's View

Johannesburg FRONTLINE in English Feb 87 pp 20-21

Bi [Text] "^ EFORE we can enjoy our first

breath of freedom we drive into a

police roadblock. This is a few

kilometres from Beitbridge on

the way to Harare.

"Do you have anything that could be of

interest to the police," one of the officers

asks us as he goes through our luggage.

We strike some rapport and we soon get to

know they are on the look out for South

African spies out to blow their bridges in a

bid to cripple their transport services.

What a life, we have just passed numerous roadblocks in South Africa where we

were being searched for similar reasons.

Anyway, we were to meet plenty more police, roadblocks and searches up to

Harare.

Having spent a few days in Harare talking to people and reading newspapers, one

grc\»4o understand the heavy presence of

security. South African aggression paranoia is at boiling point.

Yet, despite heavy security, Harare remains an interesting town, pulsating with

activity. Everybody and everyone is there.

It has managed to attract people from

most parts of the world.

The middle class, who are beginning to

reap the fruits after their contribution to

the liberation army, arc visible in executive positions. Most have bought houses

previously owned by whites and are maintaining the standards of such buildings.

Unlike in town, where names of streets

and avenues were changed, in the suburbs

they stili remain very British. You still

find names such as "Garden Close".

For a South African black to actually

see the well-manicured lawns and gardens

and large yards with black children playing fills one's heart with more than envy.

Zimbabweans are fashion conscious.

This can be seen in the shop windows and

from the locals. Punk fashion has taken

the town by storm — from the short hair

crop style to the colourful pinks, mauves

and whites.

And for women, hair-dressers play an

important role. They do braids, perms and

relaxors. Fridays and Saturday mornings

are the busiest times for those in the hair

business.

Come Friday night, everybody has a

ball. It would seem fun is a must as people

go to discos and on pub-crawls. There is a

lot of drinking. Class, ideology and ethnicity dictate where one goes.

In Harare, for instance, the Oasis

Hotel, whose bars are like Soweto's beer

34
taverns, is a haven for Foreigners and Ndcbeles, but watch your tongue in case you

say anything anti-ZANU. The place is

crawling with the CIO. They don't stick

out, but people constantly warn you of

their presence.

The next stop is the Park Lane. Almost

the same class of people goes to this hotel,

but they seem ZANU-oricntated. It is also

a much glorified shebecn-type, marked

with smoke and glasses from the terrace

to the lounge. It can be very rowdy, real

Third World.

The Monomotapa, or Mono's as the

locals call it, has tried to maintain standards. Some parts are "Third World", but

generally this is where the upper class

goes. It also attracts a lot of overseas clients.

- That goes for Meikles, too. Although

occasionally there will be one or two notso-up-to-date characters slouched in the

lobby, it is by and large of international

standards.

The Sheraton compares favourably with

the Cape or Johannesburg Sun.

We attended a wedding between a

South African girl and a Zimbabwean at

the Sheraton. Lo and behold who should

be there but Joshua Nkomo; right in

Harare at the Sheraton Hotel. In fact, it

turned out to be some great cultural event

as people from South Africa held Zimbabweans spellbound with their gyrating

dances. The old guerilla leader took to the

floor and joined the dancing.

One is led to believe the old man hardly

sets foot around there. He also seemed to

have not more than three bodyguards in

his sleek Mercedes.

A cynical Zimbabwean actually said

"the South Africans seem more interested

in dancing than attaining freedom".

Also surprising was the fact that Mugabe was addressing a Press conference at

the same hotel while we were dancing. So

much for the hostility we hear of from the

SA Press.

Most educated Zimbabweans have

lived abroad and are particularly sensitive

about being up to date with everything.

Yet one misses foodstuff such as rice. And

when we asked for toothpicks we were

given a box of matches.

Some locals claim society has a long

way to go to rid itself of the slave mentality of colonial rule.

"Some waiters will say 'good morning' to a while person, but say 'makadini* to a black," a friend said to us.

His argument is why should he, because of the colour of his skin, be taken

foraShona.

But how do they know the white man

speaks English?

1 tried to make him feel better by saying in Durban they say "good morning,

sir" to a white person and "good morning, chief', to a black. He was not impressed.

But talking of discrimination, we were

exposed to a lot or it at roadblocks. At

one next to Harare we were made to

open the boot of our car in pouring rain

while a South African white was allowed

to drive off after a cursory glance at his

drivers' licence.

Those with the naive belief that blackness is a passport to anywhere in Africa

are in for a shock.

In Kenya, for instance, immigration officers would not "dirty their hands with

a South African passport" and yet one

would see obvious South African whites

travelling on British passports being attended to. What double standards.

Of course, one has to understand that

it has a lot to do with the great propaganda that SA blacks with passports are

government spies.

Ironically though, there hasn't been a

case of a confirmed black SA spy. We

are, however, grateful for small mercies

such as being occasionally allowed into

such countries.

Zimbabweans have a highly developed

sense of humour and are aware or their

economic strength when compared with

most African countries. Pointing at an

area in Harare, one Zimbabwean said "if

we were to donate these buildings to Tanzania they would be forever grateful".

Another one told us how at their first

independence celebration they took heads

of stale around and Shagari from Nigeria

Tainted when he saw the clean suburbs or

One Zimbabwean, said or the 5>neratan: "If ihcy built that' in Central Africa, people would die or heat because the

air conditioners don't work there".

One said lo us in rarewell — "I hope

you will live to see Uhuru and not find

yourself at Voortrekkers Hoogte".

1 suppose to him that seemed a likely

enough Heroes Acre for South African

blacks. u

/13104

CSO: 3400/364

35
EXPORT PROMOTION DETAILS RELEASED

ZIMBABWE

Harare THE HERALD (Business) in English 12 Mar 87 p 2

[Text]

THE Ministry of Trade

amd Commerce's new ana

revamped export pro- ■■

motion division has released details of the various export promotion

services it can' offer

through international development agencies.

The ministry last week

announced that the division, formerly only a

branch, had now completed itB rehabilitation

programme and was

ready to help businessmen' increase their exports in a big way.

The services offered

through international

agencies are:

.0 Commonwealth Fund

for Technical Co-operaition — past activities

have included "contact

programmes" in European markets for clothing, furniture, and textiles, while market surveys were conducted in

West Africa and the United States for selected

companies.

The division has

arranged for a Comimonwealth export development skill's adviser

to be attached to the

Zimbabwe National

Chamber of. Commerce

for an initial period of

two years. Market researcfi and

contact promotion • programmes envisaged for

Commonwealth funding

include an "intensified

contact promotion programme" for ZimbabweV

automotive industry in

the Kenyan and Ugandan

markets as well as in the

United States.

# CHI — Netherlands

Centre for the Promotion

of Imports from Development Countriespast assistance has Included market surveys on

horticultural products

and Zimbabwean textiles

in the Netherlands. This

has also involved the

participation of Zimbabweans from both the

public and private sectors

in CBH export marketing

training programmes.

Planned activities Include increased human

resources development

with special emphasis on

horticultural / floricultural products and textiles, clothing and leather

products. Help is currently being offered to horticultural producers by the

Netherlands through' the

provision of a production

and marketing expert.

# EEC: each year this

provides financial support

for participation in international trade fairs in

Africa and Europe as

well as fellowships to

allow exporters to take

part in short-term training programmes in Europe. Financial and tech~

nical assistance under

Lome n made it possible >

to train a number of export promotion officers in

the Ministry at Trade and

Commerce.

i Planned activities

under Lome HI include

intensified activities in

the development of the

manufacturing sector's

I export capabilities, the

development of exporting

•skills and the creation of

appropriate mechanisms

to generate exports in

the . longer term. This

five-year programme is

I expected to cost f7,8 million, which has already

been approved by the

EEC.

• Finland — Pfodec: In

the past this organisation

has been involved in

training programmes on

market research techniques and intends to

continue providing both

the private and public

sectors With this training,

• Federal Republic of

Germany ,—< (Deutsch©

Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit

(OTZ): Through GTZ the

FRO government has

provided an export adviser and another adviser

has bee;}, made available

to the Zimbabwe International /Trade Fair. In

addition, market surveys

jfor Zimbabwean products

in the West German

market are carried out as

an outgoing exercise.

36
f Government of

Ireland: this has in the

past provided fellowships

to both the public and the

private sectors for export

development programmes

in Dublin run by Coras

Trachtala. This is an ongoing exercise.

# United Kingdom

Trade Agency for Developing Countries: this

has undertaken studies of

potential markets «n

Europe for Zimbabwean

manufactured products.

It is planned to exploit

the facilities of this

organisation in, finding

markets in Britain for

Zimbabwean products.

ft UNCTAD / Zimbabwe

workshop on Zimbabwe

trade and economic relations with socialist countries in Eastern Europe:

65 participants from both

the private and public

sectors in Zimbabwe and

representatives of Bulgaria, German Democratic Republic, USSR,

Czechoslovakia, Poland

and Hungary took part In

this workshop.

The seminar resulted in

positive steps being taken

to enhance two way trade

between Zimbabwe and

socialist countries in:

Eastern Europe, as re-'

fleeted by the number k>f

trade delegations visiting

Zimbabwe from tn'-*

area.

0 Eastern and Souther*1

Africa Management Ir"

stitute: this regional

training institute based in

Arusha, Tanzania, offers

a wide range of trade

related courses to citizens

of the sub-region.

# Nordic assistance —

Denmark: a Joint Nordic

seminar was held hi

Harare at the end of last

year in which importers

from! Nordic countries

met Zimbabwean suppliers. Similar seminars

involving buyers from

Nordic countries will be

held in September and

November this year in

Harare and possibly in

other centres.

# International Trade

Centre UNCTAD-GATT:

ITC has conducted

numerous studies on horticultural produce exports, which have been

coupled with training

requirements for export

promotion. In addition,

ITC produced a manual

for Zimbabwe's trade

representatives.

With UNDP aid, ITC

plans to hold a workshop

in Geneva for Zimbabwe's

.trade representatives

sometime this year. It

is also supplying additional equipment such

as training kits, video

equipment films and a

printing press.

0 To support these activities, the Ministry of

Trade and Commerce is

expanding its external

trade representation.

Last year, externa.1 stations existed in Algiers,

Bonn, Brussels, Gaborone,

London, Lusaka, Maputo

and Washington. By the

end of February this

year, stations had also

been established in Geneva, New Dehli and Ottawa, Before the end pf

the current financial

year, it is hoped that

other missions will have

been opened in Lilongwe,

Luanda, Lubumbashi,

Nairobi, Moscow, Paris

and Sydney.

The export promotion

division is also involved -

in a drive to promote exports from cottage Indus tries, including

crocheted products, carvings and Works of art.

The ministry will also

offer consultancy services

mrough the Horticultural

Association of Zimbabwe

to small-scale communal

producers of exportable items.

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37
BULGARIAN AMBASSADOR DISCUSSES INCREASE IN TRADE

Harare THE FINANCIAL GAZETTE in English 6 Mar 87 p 1

ZIMBABWE

[ Text ] BULGARIA will buy US$5 million worth of goods from Zimbabwe under general cash transactions this year; is waiting to finalise a US$12,5 million barter deal

with Zimbabwe; and has increased

to 200 the number of scholarships

available to local students.

In addition, discussions are tak-.

ing place between Bulgarian and

Zimbabwean firms to establish

joint venture projects for the

manufacture of forklift trucks and

commercial production of tobacco

and maize. Bulgaria has also

offered to help Zimbabwe's cooperative movement and the tourism

industry.

These details were given by Bulgaria's ambassador to Zimbabwe,

Mr Alexander Atanassov, during

an interview with the Gazette this

week, during which he revealed

that the first joint venture between

this country and a socialist state for

the production of maize and tobacco will be launched some time in

June this year.

The project, which has still yet

to be approved by the two governments, will be carried out by the

Zimbabwe Agricultural and Rural

Development Authority .(Arda)

and Agromodel of Bulgaria, at one

of the former's farms "around Harare," said the ambassador. Two

Agromodel personnel are expected in the country within the next

few months to work with Arda.

Bulgaria's Balkancar, which has

the largest forklift plant in the

world, has already held discussions

with a local firm, Duly & Company Limited, with a view to assembling forklifts in Zimbabwe.

The kits

for the forklifts will be supplied

once the barter deal is finalised,

and the formal agreement will be

signed "very soon."

Another Bulgarian company,

Bulgargeomin, is currently holding

discussions with the Zimbabwe

Mining Development Corporation

(ZMDCj on mineral prospecting in

the north of the country. A

memorandum of agreement for the

establishment of a joint venture

company was signed in January

this year.

Mr Atanassov said that his

country will, within an agreement

signed also in January between the

Bulgarian Association for Recreation and Tourism and the Zimbabwe Ministry of Natural

Resources and Tourism, promote

Zimbabwe in Bulgaria. It will also

encourage study tours, information

exchange and visits by different

groups such as women's organisations to either countries.

A "very serious cooperation

project" which is being considered

is the supply of computers to the

country's post-secondary colleges.

Bulgaria is one of the leading computer manufacturers in the Camecon countries, "and is willing and

ready to share its experience with

Zimbabwe. Contacts have already

been made with a local firm, C F

Tulley, and we are working out details to reach an agreement which

will enable us to supply computers

to colleges," said Mr Atanassov.

Asked if he was aware that the

Zimbabwe Government is considering manufacturing microcomputers, Mr Atanassov said that he

has already heard about it, and "we

are willing to participate if we are

invited. We have got the technical

expertise and this may be a very

38
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good joint venture."

Technical assistance, which was

one of the areas discussed by the

Zimbabwe/Bulgaria permanent

joint commission of cooperation

from January 12 to 16 this year,

is another important field which

Bulgaria would want to help.

The development of cooperatives is also an area Bulgaria is interested to help, through the provision of training schemes, either

in Zimbabwe or Bulgaria. Mr

Atanassov said that his country

would like to share its experience

and mistakes with Zimbabwe's

cooperative movement. "We are

ready to tell the mistakes we have

made." . , Mr Atanassov said that to ease

Zimbabwe's foreign currency

problems, details of a US$12,5 million barter deal are being worked

out. The agreement will involve

the exchange of tobacco for Bulgarian chemical products and

machinery. "We are also planning

to buy US$5 million worth of

goods under cash transactions."

39
ZIMBABWE

RECORDS SHOW TRADE SURPLUS WITH BELGIUM, SWITZERLAND

Harare THE FINANCIAL GAZETTE in English 13 Mar 87 p 1

[ Text ] ZIMBABWE recorded a surplus

in its trade with Belgium, and Switzerland during 1986, but recorded

deficits with Canada, Finland and

France, according to figures

released this week.

The trade commissioner at the

French embassy, Mr Christian

Saillard, told the Gazette that during the twelve-month period, Zimbabwe exported $37,6 million

worth of goods to France, and imported about $41 million worth of

electronic equipment, machinery

and chemical products, among

other things.

He said that Zimbabwe's main

exports included tobacco ($9,2m),

ferro-chrome ($10,3m) and nonmetallic minerals ($ 19,2m). There

was a j 20% decrease in Zimbabwe'^ exports and a 32<X> decrease fi our total exports to this

countrjj."

FINLAND

A spokesman at the Finnish embassy said according to latest

figures,' Finland sold Zimbabwe

$13 to $14 million worth of wood

pulp, paper board and machinery

for the mining, forestry and energy sectors of the economy. "These

goods," he said, "were partly aid

financed and partly commercial

transactions." Exports to Finland

/13104

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totalled about $3,6 million, made

up of tobacco, ferro-chrome and

coffee.

A Swiss embassy spokesman

yesterday said that Zimbabwe exported about $37 million worth of

meat products, gold and precious

stones, and his country supplied

about $20 million worth of

machinery, precision instruments

and other products.

Meanwhile, trade between

Canada and Zimbabwe during the

10-month period, from January to

October, 1986, totalled about $16,3

million, a spokesman at the Canadian embassy said. Canada's imports worth about $7,5 million included raw sugar, tea, sculptures,

statues, ferro-chrome and other

miscellaneous items. Its main exports (about $8,8 million) were construction and technical equipment

and agricultural machines.

From January to November,

1986, trade between Zimbabwe

and Belgium totalled about $57,03

million, said Mr Jan Bruffaerts, the

commercial attache at the Belgian

embassy in Harare. Zimbabwe's

exports, worth $45,43 million, included tobacco and ferro-chrome.

Imports worth about $ 11,6 million

were mainly made up of chemicals,

plastic products and spare parts for

industrial equipment, he said.

40
ZIMBABWE

CSO RECORDS 18 PERCENT GDP GROWTH FOR LAST YEAR

Harare THE FINANCIAL GAZETTE in English 13 Mar 87 p 1

[Text]

ZIMBABWE'S GROSS Domestic Product (GDP) (expressed in

constant prices) showed growth of

only 0,18% in 1986 compared to

the previous year. This confirms

the forecasts of local economists,

but contradicts recent claims by

some politicians of 3% growth during the year. The official figures

were published this week by the

Central Statistical Office.

Expressed at constant prices,

Zimbabwe's GDP totalled $3 894

million, compared to $3 887m in

1985. Constant figures are calculated on 1980 as a base year, when

GDP was $3 224m. At current

prices the GDP increased by 155%

to $8 232m ($7 303m).

In the 14 economic-sector

categories for which figures are

provided, seven show an increase,

one equals the 1985 figure, and the

remainder show declines.

Manufacturing's contribution to

GDP increased to $915m ($902m

in 1985), electricity and water increased to $108m ($79m), distribution, hotels and restaurants provided $415m ($410m), public administration contributed $39 lm

($370m), education added $370m

($355m), health increased to

$106m ($99m) and "other services"

$252m ($237m). Real estate maintained a constant contribution of<j

$44m.

Economic sectors that showed a

decline in contribution were

agriculture and forestry $540m

($614m), mining and quarrying

$285m ($288m), construction

$60m ($64m), finance and insurance $197m ($216m), transport

and communication $244m

($246m) and domestic services

$57m ($59m).

20,5% INCREASE

The growth in GDP, in constant

price terms, from $3 224m in 1980

to $3 894 in 1986 represents an increase of 20,5%. At current prices

the increase in GDP from $3 224m

in 1980 to $8 232m in 1986

represents an increase of 155%.

The difference between the two

rates of increase is termed the

"GDP Deflator", which is in fact

the nation's inflation rate, which

does not always equal the rate of

inflation as expressed by the Consumer Price Index. However, a

134% GDP deflator does match

fairly well the 140% recorded by

the Consumer Price Index since

1980.

More seriously, the increase of

21% in GDP in constant terms

since 1980 represents a 3% increase per year. If one accepts

government's figures of a 3% increase in population, this means

that Zimbabwe has recorded zero

per capita growth since Independence.

Other 1986 figures released this

week were for gross fixed capital

formation at constant 1980 prices.

This showed a decline in 1986 of

7,3% to $465m from $502m in

1985. The 1986 figure is 41% lower than the peak year since Independence, 1982, when $788m

was invested.

In an analysis of the type of assests in which investment has been

made, only transport equipment

showed an increase, with $93m being invested compared to $80m in

1985. $17m was invested in residential building ($20m in 1985),

$85m in non-residential building

($104m), $20m in civil engineering

work ($24m), and $250m in "other

equipment, plant and machinery"

($274m),

At current prices gross fixed capital formation in 1986 totalled

$1 473m ($1 347m).

• The figure of $2 215m as Zimbabwe's total foreign debt during

1986, as published in The Financial Gazette of March 6, was confirmed in the Reserve Bank's Quarterly Economic and Statistical

Review, dated September, 1986,

but released only yesterday.

It records that Zimbabwe's total

debt (domestic and foreign),

reached $5 192m in mid-1986 compared to $1 840m in 1980. The total foreign debt is $2 215m, and the

total domestic debt of $2 977m is

made up ofstocks $2 560m, bonds

$136,9m, Treasury Bills $250,4m

and "other" $29,8m.

/13104

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41
DROUGHT TO FORCE USE OF GMB RESERVES

Harare THE HERALD in English 18 Mar 87 p 1

ZIMBABWE

[Text] ZIMBABWE will have to dip into Its

maize reserve» this year with expected

deliveries of maize to the Grain Marketing Board likely to be around 531 680

tonnes.

The first crop report of the crop

forecasting committee was released yesterday by the Central Statistical Office

whose representative chairs the committee.

The toial maize crop is expected to

total around 0S0 680 tonnes with 401 430

grown in the commercial areas, 360 000

toufio» in the communal areas and

109 260 tonnes on resettlement schemes.

With communal farmers keeping

hack more than half their crop for their

own consumption, resettlement farmers

a little under half and commercial farmers around one third, total deliveries

are expected to be around 521 680 tonnes with 305 420 tonnes coming from

thu commercial sector.

The committee warn» that its figures

are provisional and subject to revision

when more information is available.

la a reasonably normal year the

GMB can sell around 700 000 tonnes

with this rising in a drought year as

farmers who are normally self-sufficient

have to buy maize, often using money

earned on .food-for-work schemes. Other

crops are not nearly so hard hit.

'Hie flae cured tolMicco crop is expected to amount to 140 376 000 kg with

almost all coming from commercial farmer*»; hurley tobacco should hit 3 461 000

kg with more than a third, 1 351000 kg,

coming from peasant farmers and the

rest from the conunercial sector. The

oriental crop will be; around 26 000 tonnes.

Soya deliveries are expected to

amount 09 470 tonnes, almost all from

commercial farmers and with only minute quantities kept back by farmers for

their own use.

A 317.616 Albar cotton crop Is expected with communal farmers expected to deliver 124 200 tonnes, commercial

.farmers 150 057 tonnes and other area»

40 366 tomfcs. The commercial sector is

delivering less than half the crop.

Around 2 400 tonnes of Deltaplme cotton and 7 225 tonnes* of Dolmao cotton

are also expected.

While peasant farmers are growing

more than two thirds of the expected

60 210 tonnes of unshelled groundnuts,

they are keeping large quantities back

for their owiti consumption and less than

6 000 tonnes of the expected deliveries

of 24 560 tonnes wilt come from communal anil resettlement farmers.

Bull peasants will dominate th« sunflower trade. Total crop is expected to

he 25 800 tonnes with GMB deliveries

around 24 500 tonnes. About 19 000 tonnes will come from communal and resettlement farmers.

Sorghum^ mhunga and rapoko crops

are expected to total almost 137 000

tonnes but almost all of this will he

retained by the farmers and only just

over 20 000 tonnes are expected to bo

uellvcred to the GMB.

/13104

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42
>

; V

ZNFU DONATION TO MOZAMBIQUE

Harare THE HERALD in English 19 Mar 87 p 1

, DONATIONS te the Uoz-

[TextJ amblcan solidarity fund

hnve reached, more than

si.10 000 following a contribution of 55 060 by the

Zimbabwe National Farmers' Union (ZNFU) yesterday.

Presenting* itho cnequw

to the chairman of the

Zimbabwe - Mozambique

Friendship Association,

Lieutenant-Colonel Clcmence Gaza, ZNFU cÜ

a

,

lr"

man Cde Gary Magadzire

said the money would be

used to buy 23 tonnes of

mcalis moal for thfc Moaambicans, reports Zinna.

Cde Gaza appealed to

other organisations to

»show their solidarity

with the people ot Mozambique because it w

when you have problems

that you Will realise who

iyour true friends arc .

The Mozambique

Ambassador, Cde Francisco Madeira said Moaa-

•mbicans were now going

hungry ibecause- of a situation imposed on them iby

"external forces".

Cde Madeira said

Mozambique had rich soil,

but the people could not

plough because of interlerenco from MNll bandits. The food that Zimbabwe was pouring into

Mozambique was "ammunition" to keep the

people going so that they

could fight harder to end

the war.

Lt-Col Gaza said a consignment of gifts to

Mozambique given by Zlnfbabweans over the last

few weeks, was expected

to leave tomorrow. ICadoma farmers made a

separate donation of ?170

tills week while Fromat

(Pvt) Iitd gaveljliSO. —

/13104 43

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ZIMBABWE
ZIMBABWE

MINISTER PRAISES FARMERS1OILSEED FOR MAIZE SUBSTITUTION PROGRAM

Harare THE HERALD in English 19 Mar 87 p 1

[Article by Fanny Mushava]

[Text]

in an interview with

The Herald, the minister

said people should now

have learnt not to sell all

•their produce to the Grain

Marketing Board, but to

leave some for themselves

in case of drought.

The measures Cde Mahiichi announced in September last year to reduce maize production

due to the increasing

C03ts incurred by the

GMB for storage were accepted by most farmers.

Cde Mahachl said.

"They were successfully

followed by a reduction in

maize hectarage by commercial farmers."

He added then the iueaiure.i «;!3o uiicwura^ed

small-scale commercial

and communal farmers

to diversify into other

crops such as the oilseeds

badly needed by the country.

Cde Mahachi said the

GMB was hoping to get

double last year's intake

of groundnuts and sunflowers and, had it not

been for the drought,

there would have been a

record cotton crop this

year.

"My call to grow oilseed

crops has been a blessing

in disguise to most farmer» as those who diversified have not bees' as

hard hit by drought,"

said Ode Mahachi.

In future farmers

should diversify as much

as possible. In marginal

rainfall areas they should

not grow maize at all,

but should concentrate on

millet which did not need

much rain, he added.

Thiei stringent measures

announced last year may

be lifted when new producer prices are announced later this year.

Commercial farmers

Were warned that they

could be pa*d less than

the producer price of ?ISO

per tonne of maize if they

exceeded allocations given

them.

"We might have to lift

the measures after the

producer price announcement to allow us to restock our stockpile," said

Cde Mahachi.

I The'minister said the

Government had decided

to send food relief to

areas affected by drought.

The food would be extended on a food'forwork basis and all ablubodied people were urged

to come forward.

The old and young

would get free relief.

How the food would be

distributed would be up to

the Ministry of Labour,

Manpower Planning and

Social Welfare.

He assured the country

thj'.t there would be

enough toed for everyone

even if there "is nothing

planted in the nJHXt' 11

to two years"

Cde M«hr»c?il' ojcpiswusfl

concern about -trcas that

had produced1 > picnty of

food la.it year and sold it

all to the GMB.

"A clever communal

farmer should have left

food enough for his yearly requirements\ to last

him to the next harvest,"

said Cde Mahachi. "We

think that pattern of behaviour should now

change and people should

reserve their own food."

- Some of the areas that

were already short of

. food such as Gutu, Zalta

and Bikita had GMB depots still full from last

season's intake.

"Those who want food

will have to work for It,';

said Cde Mahachi.

His ministry was planning to build village silos

so that surpluses could bo

stored. The maintenance

of the silos would be the

responsibility of his ministry.

"In times of plenty,'

each family from the village would bo required to

contribute a certain number of bags which would

(be drawn out In times cf

need." . The mtaister added

that the offtake of maize

«Tom the ^MB was Increasing. Those who

A4
wanted to buy maize from

depots In the countryside

could do so at a price set

toy the «MB.

Cde Mahachi said that

because of the good quality of the country's products, it had managed to

secure the best overseas

markets, Zimbabwean

beef was one of the Ibest

in the world and,, despite

strong competition from

Argentina and Brazil, the

country had managed to

withstand that.

This was because of the

methods cattle were raised

here, carefully selected

and slaughterixl with

ptrlct hygiene conditions

being iidheied to.

Totacco had also managed to fetch g'ood prices

on tat world market, of

which Zlmtabwo was the

number three «upjflior.

JßuVttd« season's crop had

%K'2ii.t&v.exaeiy. affected by

tUo dsvmght und the ci;op

mlgliit b<5 .Jightor tihaa,

usual. \;: ' ' " -< • ' .'. '

:

An indication of the

quality of tho country'!*

products waa that of

cotton which was sold

even before it was picked,

he said. The overseas demand for horticultural

products had also risen

"because of the good

quality which has enabled

us to penetrate those markets".

The country's dairy products, especially cheese

and yoghurts, had also

caught the eye of tho.

overseas buyers.

The country was getting the best prices for

coffee and tea.

Said Cde Mahachi: "We

have maintained good

quality in our products

and in today's market.

"Now we cannot afford

to make a mistake, and

must strive to protect

this quality."

On the merger of the

three farming unions,

Cde Mahachi said, all he

could do was to urge

them to follow the Prime

Minister's call to join.

"They are not Government departments or

parastatals which I can

give orders to.'*

These are pressure

groups representing the

interests of the farmers

which operate independently, he said.

"Legally I have no

authority to force them

to merge, out it wouia

be iu tneir best interest

to ao so."

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45
ZIMBABWE

DIRECTOR OF BEIRA CORRIDOR'GROUP EXPRESSES OPTIMISM

Johannesburg THE WEEKLY MAIL in English 20-26 Mar 87 p 17

[Article by Charles Rukuni]

[Text] EDDIE CROSS was once chief

economist of the Agricultural

Marketing Authority. As such, he

helped Ian Smith's pre-independence

government bust sanctions —

particularly in terms of tobacco, the

country's biggest foreign exchange

earner.

Now he is the first managing

director of the Beira Corridor Group

(BCG) — a company representing the

interests of the private sector in

securing and developing the main

trade route from Zimbabwe through

central Mozambique to the port of

Beira. It opens offices in Harare on

April 1.

The corridor, under threat from

Renamo in Mozambique and protected

by Zimbabwean troops, is vital to

Southern African countries trying to

reduce their dependence on South

African ports.

It is the shortest route to the sea that

does not pass through South Africa,

and includes a road, railway and oil

pipeline.

Cross says: "We will have to put the

ingenuity we put into breaking

sanctions in the UDI (Unilateral

Declaration of Independence) era into

solving regional transport problems."

Cross was always opposed to the

Smith regime — he was a member of

the Centre Party in those days — and

when Robert Mugabe took over as

Prime Minister in 1980, he was given

the job of resuscitating the Dairy

Marketing Board.

Having put it on its feet, he joined

the Cold Storage Commission, which

was in crisis over beef supplies. Now

'.hat, too, is working well again and

Deef ...exports to the European

Community have resumed.

On his new challenge, Cross is quite

clear about the need to break free of

the South African stranglehold. He

says: "My loyalty lies with the

interests of Zimbabwe.

"For Zimbabwe to succeed over the

next 10-15 years we must' be more

independent of South Africa. It's like

being in water with a drowning man.

If you don't keep some distance

between the two of you, he might

drown you too.

"If Zimbabwe does not put a little

water between itself and South Africa

we could be drowned by the situation

in South Africa."

He adds: "I think Zimbabwe,

Botswana, Zambia and the other

countries of the Southern African

Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) must accelerate

their efforts to become more

independent.

"By being so dependent on South

Africa for the export of our

commodities we are putting our longterm security at risk. So the

motivation for those of us involved in

this project is really straightforward."

Cross says that as well as securing

efficient cost-effective outlets to the

sea, BCG will also seek joint ventures

in Mozambique — particularly in

agriculture — in an attempt to

stabilise the economy and ultimately

the military situation there. Cross

says:

"As far as I am concerned

Mozambicans have a great potential.

46
All they require is some direction and

a suitable operating framework.

"Once these are provided they are

capable of running their

infrastructure perfectly.

"I have been working with them for

the past 18 months and I am most

impressed."

He admits that the war in

Mozambique, and South Africa s

involvement in particular, have set

back that country's development since

independence.

"There is overwhelming evidenpe

that the South Africans have set about

to systematically destroy the

Mozambican economy — and they

have done a tremendous job of it,

either by using direct commando

attacks or using Renamo," he says.

"Simply by funding the bandits and

building it to the stage today where it

has an army of similar size to

Mozambique, they have virtually

destroyed any chances Mozambique

had ofsimply rebuilding its economy.

"There has also been a fair degree of

mismanagement on the part of the

Mozambican government, but they

have acknowledged this. They

recognise they, made some errors at

the beginning and they now want to

correct these shortcomings.

"Reforms taking place in

Mozambique today are laying the

foundation for what I think is a very

exciting future." _

Cross explained how BCG will

work: "It will be financed by the

private sector in the SADCC region.

We have provision for $Z3-m (about

R4,5-m).

"BCG will be looking after the

interests of companies insofar as the

establishment of efficient, costeffective outlets to the sea which are

independent of South Africa. This

involves providing services.

"The governments are going to be

/13104

CSO: 3400/360

responsible for providing the

infrastructure — the railways, roads,

port facilities, bridges, pipelines and

dredging.

"When it comes to clearing and

forwarding, shipping, specialised

handling facilities, private medical

facilities, car hire, translations, legal

advice, that will be the job of the

BCG.

"We believe in competition between

individual companies but what we will

do,is coordinate to make sure the

problems of individual exporters and

importers are adequately resolved."

Until January 1, for example,

shipping companies calling in Beira

charged a premium over the South

African ports. "We have now agreed

with the shipping lines that freight

rates at Beira will be the same as

Durban, Port Elizabeth and Cape

Town. If anything makes it

uneconomical to use Mozambican

ports, we will see to it that we

negotiate the rates so that they are

competitive."

Several tasks will be crucial to the

new company: "One is hotel

accommodation in Beira. Another is

food distribution. We have to supply

workers within the system with

adequate food and basic necessities.

"We have to establish specialised

handling facilities, particularly for

cotton, tobacco, tea and coffee.

"Another urgent task is a phased

build-up of traffic. If we were

suddenly to push traffic down the

corridor we would flood the system.

We want to build up the system

gradually.

"I think last year Beira was the

biggest source of foreign exchange

earnings for Mozambique. If we put

people back to work, raise their

standard of living, improve the supply

of food, then we will be able to

stabilise the economy and the military

situation very quickly." — Gemini

News Service.

47
NRZ SUCCESSES IN REHABILITATING RAILWAY TO BEIRA NOTED

ZIMBABWE

Harare THE FINANCIAL GAZETTE in English 6 Mar 87 p 1

[ Text ] DUE TO the very rapid rate o!rehabilitation work undertaken by

the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), the carrying capacity ofthe Mutare/Bcira railway line

now far exceeds the handling ability of Beira port.

This situation will become more

unbalanced in May when the line

is expected to be operating at full

capacity. At present the line is

capable of carrying 700 net tonnes

each way each day. From May this

potential will increase dramatically to 3 500 net tonnes each way

each day.

However, at present although

the situation is improving, the port

of Beira cannot handle present

potential traffic.

"The key to the full success of

Beira as a port for Zimbabwe's exports and imports depends on three

factors", an executive in the freight

forwarding business told the

Gazette this week. "One is the improvement of the railway line

which, due to splendid efforts by

the NRZ, now seems to have been

rehabilitated to a standard that

should last for at least ten years,

if it is well maintained. Secondly

the port itself has to be improved,

and-work. -here—wilL take much

longer, particularly as quays 2 to

5 have to be reconstructed, which

is a three-year programme."

The third element, the executive

said, was the re-establishment of

shipping links to the port. "Since

the port has been virtually out of

action for so long, shipping lines

have dropped it from their schedules. We now have to persuade

them to re-establish Beira as a port

of call, and this cannot be done

overnight. Moreover, we have to

prove that the line and port can

operate efficiently and consistently, for ships delayed in port involve

heavy expenses for shipping

companies".

A spokeswoman for the NRZ

this week told the Gazette that as

at February 20, 60% of the rehabilitation of track on the total

Machipanda-to-Beira section had

been completed.

"70% of the rehabilitation of

track on the Machipanda-toGondola section has been completed, and 44% on the Gondola-toBeira section," she said.

"Work is continuing on schedule and the line will be available for

full operational capacity by the end

of May 1987. Clearance of traffic

to and from Gondola is satisfactory, and capacity exists to move

more traffic if it was on offer. Efforts are being made to encourage

increased use of this route by exporters and importers," said the

spokeswoman.

The length of the entire line

from the Machipanda border at

Mutare to Beira in Mozambique is

315km, while the distance from

Machipanda border to Gondola is

137km. Initially, the NRZ had

only been called upon to carry out

the rehabilitation work from

Machipanda to Gondola, while the

Gondola-tOrBeira section was to be

rehabilitated by the Mozambique

Railways. The NRZ is now assisting in the rehabilitation of the entire line.

/13104

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48
ZIMBABWE

WORK ON NEW ROASTER AT KWEKWE TO BE DELAYED

Harare THE HERALD (Business) in English 12 Mar 87 p 1

[Article by Siegfried Raphael]

[Text] WORK on a new fh5 million Edwards roaster at the

Roasting Plant in ICwekwe, which Is intended to raise

the plant's gold ore processing capacity to 1850

tonnes per month, is now nearly complete, but antipollution concerns may delay the commissioning of the

new roaster. ' Cde (Morgan Kadenhe, manager at the roasting

plant, told Business Herald this week that pollution

abatement equipment valued at J75Ö 000 was required

before the roaster could ba commissioned.

The same anti-pollution concerns were also delaying vital rehabilitation work required on the two

existing roasters at the plant, both of which were at

least 50 years old, he said.

To leave the ore amenable to the final process,

cyanldation, it is heated in the roaster and other

substances in the concentrate are driven off. These

include sulphur, arsenic and antimonies.

Said Cdo Kadenhe: "Because we arc driving these

off, there' are environmental constraints. According to

the 1Ö71 Anti-Pollution Act, we cannot throw more

than a certain amount of arsenic trioxide, one of our

discarded bi-products, into the atmosphere.

"We are therefore looking at pollution abatement

equipment, which requires $750 000 in foreign currency,

before ws can commission the new roaster. However,

the first tests on the local content (which cost |1,5

million) are scheduled for the middle of this year.

"The other two roaster» are now 50 years old and

need rehabilitation. The problem: is that unless we can

get three roasters functioning, it is very difficult to

plan how and when to do this.

"Also, certain new methods are coming in to solve

the problem of pollution abatement, so we have to

look at whether to go for refurbishment or go for

these new methods."

The Roasting Plant's current capacity Is 900

tonnes of concentrate processed per month. The new

roaster will take it up to 1 350, tonnes per month and

increase gold production from 45 kg to a minimum of

60 kg per month.

/13104

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49
ZIMBABWE

BRIEFS

EMIGRATION SLOWS; VISITORS INCREASE—The number of emigrants from Zimbabwe

appears to be slowing to a trickle while the number of visitors are increasing

steadily, according to latest Central Statistical Office figures. Between

January and September last year, Zimbabwe had 3 345 immigrants and 2 631

emigrants, giving it a net migration gain of 714 compared to a loss of 2 030

during the same period the year before. If this trend continued for the rest

of the year, the country could have seen a net migration gain for the first

time since 1975. Emigration which peaked between 1976 and 1984 fell

substantially in 1985 while immigration picked up in 1980 and by 1984 and 1985

averaged 5 500 a year. Between January and September last year, Zimbabwe had

308 034 visitors compared to 268 440 during the same period last year. The

number of visitors on holiday increased from 217 744 to 240 998 while those on

business increased from 30 919 to 37 378, most of which were probably people

attending the NAM summit. The number of people coming to Zimbabwe for

education also increased, from 595 to 880 while those in transit increased

from 19 182 to 28 778, probably reflecting the large numbers of South Africans

passing through Harare as they emigrated to countries such as Australia. But

the numbers of Zimbabweans travelling to other countries decreased from 255

195 to 203 177. [Text] [Harare THE HERALD in English 13 Mar 87 p 3] /13104

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50
SOUTH AFRICA

TREURNICHT DISCUSSES FAILED ELECTORAL PACT BETWEEN CP, HNP

Johannesburg FINANCIAL MAIL in English 20 Mar 87 p 50

[Interview with Andries Treurnicht, leader of the Conservative Party; date and

place not given] ~~^-~.-r.;,.„a..

[ Text ] Andres Treurnicht Is leader of Ihe Conservative Party (CP). He discusses the failed electoral pact between the CP and the Herstigte

Nasionale Party (HNP), and how he differs

ideologically from the National Party (NP).

FM: How do you feel about the failure to

reach an agreement with the HNP?

Treurnicht: Obviously we arc disappointed

... But it seems as though it has become

rather impossible to have an agreement, and

I think the time has run out. Our organisation is on its way. We have nominated 120

candidates, and at this stage it is impractical

to stop the trend.

Even in individual constituencies?

That was a suggestion we made to the

HNP last year in Klipriver, but Mr (Jaap)

Marais rejected it at the time, and he said we

couldn't have a decision on a local level. He

decides from above as leader of the party. So

al this stage I don't think it's feasible.

Was the CP's aim to wipe out the HNP?

That's a very negative approach. We have

a positive approach and that is to become one

righfving political party, and in the process

wc, the CP, would disappear as the CP and

become a merger, a new party — possibly

with a new name. But that would be decided

in a democratic way — decisions on the

policy, name and leadership.

Where do you part company with the HNP?

First, they disagree with us on Mr Vo'rstcr.

They want us to reject him openly and in

every respect. Second, it's not clear what

their position is towards the AWB.

When we were around this table with the

HNP recently, they demanded that we reject

the AWB in every respect. And now Mr

Marais invites them to take part in the political fight and he would discuss the allocation

of seats through the AWB.

Third is the language question. We cannot

agree with them that there should be only

one official language, which would be a denial of democracy and of the specific cultural

right of a particular cultural group.

Fourth, we cannot agree with their views

as to the Indian people. We say the Indians

6rp entitled to political rights and their own

political structures even, if they prefer so, to

political independence. They say only limited self-government.

Opinion polls have generally suggested only

18% of the white electorate support the

rightwing parties, which suggests that you

couldn't form a government?

That's an underestimate. According to

certain other estimates the support for the

CP countrywide may be around 28% to 30%

... Very few people expect a young party

like the CP immediately to take over power

against a strong party like the NP. But we

arc aware of a strong flow away from the NP

in the direction of the CP.

Even if we don't win the election we will

continue because we believe our political

formula is the best for SA, not only for the

whites but including other racial groups.

Are you not concerned that a rightwing split

will be to your disadvantage?

It's a debatable point. One has first to

establish what is the real strength of the

HNP. If it is between 1% and 2% in Pretoria

(a certain estimate is about 7%, and for the

CP about 40%); if that is so, the HNP's

real support is debatable.

Then you have to be aware of the fact that

51
not all members of the HNP arc going to

vote for a CP candidate, and not all CP

members are going to vole for an HNP

candidate on account of its policy. We had

that experience in Klipriver. They accused us

when about 1 400 people who were identified

as rightwing in Glencoc did not vote. But

that was because of the policy of the HNP

candidate.

A third factor is that there are many

members of the NP who arc looking for

another political home. Many of them sec it

as the CP but, they say, they are not going to

vote for the HNP. A fourth factor is that

English-speakers (with some exceptions) are

not going to vote for an HNP policy which

claims only Afrikaans as the official language.

How do you see SA under your stewardship?

First, you have to take into account the

reality in SA of the diversity of its peoples

and cultures and races. The reality also demands that for the sake of self-determination, which is a very important principle, the

various groups of peoples should have the

opportunity to exercise real self-determination.

We don't think that is possible in a unitary

system, and that is why wc believe in diversity. We believe in the division of land for the

various groups of peoples in which system it

is possible to achieve the highest form ofselfdetermination and even sovereignty.

Is the NP's notion of "healthy power-sharing," which retains Afrikaner control, much

different?

The NP is covering up the real end of the

road towards which they are leading the

people. We don't think that's being honest

with the electorate, because it's obvious that

sharing of power cannot mean that you retain power. It means the loss of power — at

least, you lose control.

Despite the built-in mechanism of white control in the tricameral parliament?

In such a system you cannot speak in

terms ofself-determination for the coloureds

and the Indians. In such a system they are

still minority groups, and who is going to

guarantee the minority rights? It must be the

majority, the larger party.

The crux of the matter is that if Mr P W

Botha fulfils his promise, bringing in the

blacks, wh.ch will be about 16m-17m, in a

democratic way with equal opportunities and

equal treatment, it's quite obvious that the

majority will be a black majority — black

majority rule.

The NP is looking for a mandate in this

election to negotiate with blacks. Is negotiation with blacks not needed to deal with black

protest and demands for a say in central

government? How would you handle it»

The difficulty with the NP's approach is

that it renounces its position of power and

control, and then wants to negotiate. That is

to lose your power base and to pool authority

and then try to recover something from that.

We think that's politically foolish

Doesn't your separatism ignore the reality of

economic interdependency in SA?

We all accept an interdependence of the

various racial groups, but we still think it's

poss.ble to maintain separate political structures. There are various examples of economic interdependence between sovereign

states without them denying their own sovereign political power.

Should the CP come to power, are you not

worried by the prospect of increased foreien

sanctions on SA?

It is clear that sanctions do not scare

people as much as those who wish to impose

them would like. The US admits that SA has

a strong economy and could survive even

without the US. That's true. So if you have a

strong government which guarantees internal stability, then there is also confidence

from abroad.

But will blacks be happy under your rule'

It depends on what they demand. The

demands of the African National Congress

lor instance, mean a takeover of SA, denying

the rights of other communities in the country. That is totally unacceptable. If such

demands were forced on the country thev

would meet with very strong resistance because it would mean surrender. And any free

people would simply refuse to succumb to

those threats.

/13104

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52
SOUTH AFRICA

CAUSES OF FACTIONAL FIGHTING AMONG BLACKS IN TOWNSHIPS EXPLORED

Johannesburg FRONTLINE in English Feb 87 pp 24-25, 27

[Article by Nomavenda Mathiane]

[Text] A: SATURDAY in January. In

an Azapo-hcld portion of

"Deep" Soweto there is a com-

.motion. A group of people are

chanting and wielding firearms and weapons. Could this be a bunch of thugs or an

impi winding up the festive season?

On a closer look, one recognises familiar faces. These are respectable guys who

clutch briefcases on Monday morning,

rushing about their business as insurance

pcop'e, trade unionists and computer programmers. They arc conscientious husbands and fathers and I have listened

with admiration to them holding forth

at diplomatic parties, speaking up for the

black cause while clicking champagne

glasses and looking as if they had never

touched a dangerous weapon.

But this is a funeral, of the mother of the general secretary of Azapo Mr

George Wauchope. She died of natural

cau^rt, but politically related funerals

have become battle grounds for power.

The people are staking out their territory and their defiance of their rivals.

It is riot like 1976. In those days the activists had their guard up only against

the police. Now, although there are many

Casspirs and Ford Sierras and youths

scuttle whenever the Yellow Mellow armoured police bus appears, the main conflict is between people who used to be

friends and allies.

In 1976 nearly all the activists were

Black Consciousness, but now some have

followed the route and are with Azapo

and others have taken a different route

into the UDF. The fight between the

two is wreaking more devastation than

the fight with the System.

Last year an Azapo member, Sipho

Mngomezulu, was abducted from his

home in Emdeni in full view of his helpless parents. His body was later found

amongst the rubble in some veld.

On the morning of his funeral the family was getting ready for the burial and

mourners had dispersed after the vigil.

Then some people set the coffin alight.

Azapo members were alerted and arrived

in time to stop the corpse being burnt.

Later, when the mourners were returning from the cemetery, a combi stopped

and Martin Mohau (22), who was recently released from Robben Island, was kidnapped. His body was found at the government mortuary. From then on the feud

has worsened.

Such is the life and death of people in

certain areas of Soweto, Tembisa, Bekkcrsdal and portions of the Rastern Cape.

In some cases, one group has had a member kidnapped and to secure the release

of their member they would kidnap from

the rival organisation and an exchange

of victims would take place.

While this is going on, the townships

are in a demoralised stale. The school

crisis, detentions and mugging in broad

daylight are causing concern and the rent

boycott is a big worry as people expect

lights and water to be cut off.

That is the background against which

the civil war of the townships takes place.

Each group accuses the other. Azapo

claims that the UDF wants to wipe it

off the face of the political scene. UDF

counters with claims that Azapo are the

aggressors with the help of the police

53
and the Makabasa.

"No" says Azapo, "it is the UDF

who have the help of the police. Our

members who have been found with weapons have been arrested but no UDF member has."

While the argument of "who's doing

what to who" rages, people are dying.

Azapo has names of 24 people (16 in the

Eastern Cape and8 in Johannesburg) who

have died in the feud, plus many who are

injured. Now George Wauchope has twice

had his home petrol bombed and two of

his relatives have died by violence.

What is it all about? Nobody is certain.

Some trace the beginning to 1983 when

the president of Azasm, Kabelo Lengane,

was assaulted at Durban Westville campus and later at Turfloop by students who

were turning away from the Black Consciousness line.

Azasm— known as the Zim-Zims—

remain in the Azapo fold, and have recently been chased out of some schools

falling in the UDF area, but the same has

applied to Sosco members in Azapo areas.

Some people say that the crunch came

when Azapo picketed Senator Ted Kennedy's tour and forced him off a platform in Soweto. From that moment on,

some Azapo members claim, the writing

was on the wall. It was war. They say they

opposed Kennedy because he was assuming the role of liberator, but UDF saw it

as an attack on them.

Some say the conflict began as early as

the 1982 commemoration service of June

16. Traditionally, Azapo convened the

main service at Regina Mundi, but that

year, claims Azapo, the Wararas (a nickname for charterists, meaning people with

no clear policy, the" waar-waars) tried to

take over. Azapo won the day but one

of the speakers— Mr Samson Ndou of

the General Allied Workers Union— is

alleged to have said that "those who do

not recognise the Freedom Charter are not

with the struggle".

There was also the fact that Azapo

claims it tried to createa broad anti-government front when it inaugurated the

National Forum at Hammanskraal in May

1983.

It included people who were not Black

Consciousness, but four months later the

UDF was formed at Mitchell's Plain with

the same objectives.

UDF has since come up with numerous

committees such as the Free Mandela

Committe, the ECC, and many more,

while little is heard from the National

Forum.

Other incidents also inflamed the conflict. Azapo sacked its president, Mr

Curtis Nkondo, for addressing multi-racial

gatherings and seeking the help of Mrs

Helen Suzman to secure the release of his

detained brother. Azapo claimed he had

acted against, its principles by collaborating with government-created bodies. Some

outside elements tried to pressurise for

Nkondo's reinstatement.

Then at the mass funeral at Uitenhage,

Azapo members claimed that they had

their T-shirts torn off their bodies, and the

last straw was at that funeral when the

UDF organisers allowed PFP speakers to

address mourners, but refused to give

Azapoa platform.

What is certain is that we now havea

completely new kind of trouble. Ideological differences arc nothing new. Any visitor abroad can endorse this.

You feel the hostility between ANC

and PAC as soon as you arrive, and if you

land on the ANC camp then the PAC will

certainly ostracise you and vice versa. You

can innocently think that you are only

calling on old friends who are now in exile,

but you soon find that they have divided.

If the first friend you call on has fallen

into the ANC camp, then your next

friend, who is PAC, will not even greet

you.

But their war isa cold war. They do not

kill each other. Even David Sibeko's death

was finally attributed to internal PAC

wrangles. First, there is no way the exile

movements can start eliminating each

other without earning the wrath of the

host governments. Second, try and imagine any of the guys in exile being necklaced in Botswana or in London. It would

create chaos. The bottom line is that it is

in no-one's interests.

But inside South Africa the organisations which arc linked to the mother

bodies abroad behave in deadly fashion.

This is also new. The split from the ANC

by the PAC, when they were still in South

Africa, was certainly not gentle, but at the

same time it was not bloody.

Now we have open war between forces

which both claim to be opposed to the

government. The war does not make sense

to many people and leaders like Bishop

Manas Buthelezi and Bishop Simeon

Nkoane have tried to bring the groups together.

Azapo claims that the failure of these

efforts is UDF's fault. Azapo president

Mr Nkosi Molala says that UDF people

duck meetings or if they attend come up

with "flimsy excuses" such as "we need to

geta mandate from our member organisations", and then do not come back

54
"An issue in point is when we proposed

that both organisations should tour the

country jointly and instruct our supporters

to cease fire. They agreed in principle but

told us they would first have to get a mandate. They have since not come back,"

says Molala.

It is not easy to get to the heart of the

matter. What makes it worse is that in

most cases these people have been friends.

Some have been at school and university

together, others have spent some time on

Robben Island.

In fact, the situation can be very embarrassing for onlookers and non-activists.

These have to declare loyalties which they

do not want to have and take stands that

go against their principles. If you have a

wedding you cannot freely invite friends,

as could be done even about three years

ago. Now you must exclude supporters

from one side.

So far, ordinary adults have not been

coerced to join either side. Most people

are not at all interested in either ideology,

but only in liberation. They pay no attention to the war between the movements,

except when there is fighting in their

neighbourhood.

Now every funeral of a young person is

a political football. One of the Movements

will claim that person, even if he or she

has had nothing to do with politics. An

8-year-oid girl died in a car accident and

Wararas went round collecting girls to attend the funeral. From this funeral the

Zim-Zims stayed away. But commonly funerals end in more deaths and most people

are frightened even to go to a funeral.

What is more, both groups now carry

guns, claiming "for protection". In political deaths, people are not stabbed any

longer. They arc necklaced or gunned.

For youngsters it is more difficult to

avoid taking sides. For example if there is

a predominantly Zim-Zim school and the

Wararas are chased out, then those who

remain are seen as Zim-Zims. They canot

say "I am not involved" because people

will assume that they are at least ZimZim supporters, and then they can be attacked in their turn.

From UDF sources it is difficult to obtain comment. Many members are in hiding. One leading member refuses comment and threatens "consequences" if this

story sees the light of day.

But Mrs Albertina Sisulu, a UDF president, criticises both organisations. She

says: "Azapo must not pass the buck and

tell a deliberate lie. It is not just U1M

killing; everybody is killing.

"Azapo must not provoke people by

running to the Press and saying UDF is

killing them. Both groups must come together and solve this problem." u

/13104

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55
UWUSA ATTEMPTS TO HEIGHTEN PROFILE

SOUTH AFRICA

Johannesburg FINANCIAL MAIL in English 13 Mar 87 pp 53-55

IText] Ten months after its impressive May 1

launch at Kings Park in Durban, the United

Workers' Union of SA (Uwusa) believes the

time has come to heighten its profile.

The union, which is currently scouting for

a media liaison officer, says it wants to

attract the right, qualified, personnel to help

guide its fortunes. The motivation comes

from secretary general Simon Conco, who

says he wants to beef up the union's leadership cadre before he steps down in a few

years' time.

Says Conco: "We are definitely looking

for younger blood. We would really be happier with a man at the helm better versed in

labour matters than myself."

Reflecting on the progress Uwusa has

made since its rousing sendoff on May Day,

Conco says it is now representative at 44

factories in Natal and 30 in the Transvaal,

where it opened an office in September.

It has 132 000 signed members, about a

third of which are already paying dues. The

mining industry — where:several access

agreements have already been tied up — and

the Transvaal remain strong target areas for

recruitment.

Conco admits the organisational thrust

has not been directed at major industries

because he feels the union must also serve

"the small man." Also, most of the negotiating so far has been done on behalf of aggrieved individuals. A further eight cases are

to go before the Industrial court in Natal

shortly. But where the union has negotiated

wage agreements, he maintains none of the

settlements have been under 16% and some

have been as high as 30%.

Bold claims were made at the time of

Uwusa's bunch that the union had the capacity to quickly increase its paid membership

to around 80 000. But Conco claims the

disappointing membership growth can easily

be explained. At the time, the union was

engaged in merger talks with other union

groupings which subsequently fell through.

Latterly, he says, Uwusa was forced to slow

down its recruitment drive and send personnel off for training when it became clear that

it did not have the qualified personnel to

properly address workers' problems.

"We could not let the membership run

ahead of us," claims Conco, "because we

recognise the union will be judged on its

effectiveness at solving workers' problems.

We have to deliver the goods and show them

that we know what we are about."

For all that, he believes workers will find

Uwusa's anti-sanctions/disinvestment

stance more appealing than the ideological

stance of its opponents in the longer term. He

is aiming at recruiting 100 000 due-paying

members by the end of the year and 200 000

by the end of 1988. Nor has he given up his

objective of forming an alternative federation to Cosatu, and says merger talks with

unnamed "other parties" are continuing.

Ironically, Uwusa was branded at its inception as a "sweetheart" union. Conco puts

at least some of the blame for its tardy

progress at managements' door. Management, he says, seems to prefer "dealing with

a devil they know rather than one they

don't."

He cites the on-going dispute with the

Food and Allied Workers' Union (Fawu) at

Jabula's Springs plant, and a stevedoring

company in Durban where Uwusa has

proved it is representative but still has no

signed recognition agreement, as examples

of management showing a preference for

their opponents.

What has not been helpful either, Conco

contends, is the on-going confrontation with

56
/13104

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Cosatu and intimidation on the factory floor.

SIis evidence, he says thaMUstemg

"orchestrated by a central force Perhaps

the best example is the dispute with Fawuat

Jabula, where 29 Uwusa workers have been

unable to resume work because of widespread intimidation. , ,.h

The allegations of intimidation invariably

have Uwusa cast as the aggressor. But last

week Uwusa won a Rl 600 damages suit

against Fawu members in the Durban

Supreme Court for violence at the Clover

Dairies plant.

As disturbing and unseemly as the violence may be, Conco gives notice that in

future the new look Uwusa will be more than

a match for its opponents. "We're not complaining," he says, "we have the capacity to

look after ourselves. We promise our opponents nothing but a very hard game.'

It is going to be interesting to see whether

Uwusa will be able to live up to its proud

boast. Most analysts still see it as a largely

irrelevant force in the black trade union

movement. Whether the infusion of new

leadership will change all that remains to be

seen.

57
BLACK HOUSING ATTRACTS DEVELOPERS

SOUTH AFRICA

Johannesburg BUSINESS DAY in English 18 Mar 87 p 16

[Text] BLACK housing continues to attract major developers, and longterm projections now

include the sector as

prime expansion territory.

Time Housing has had

its continuing interest in

Transkei and Ciskei rewarded with two government contracts worth

R34m for 700 homes.

500 homes

The first development

is at Hillcrest, outside

Umtata and involves 500

affordable homes. The

contract is worth R22m.

The second is a R12m,

200-home development at

Mdantsane, outside East

London, to be named

Golden Highway.

At Mdantsane, servicing is expected to start

within the next two

months and construction

will follow in parallel.

Time group chairman,

Colin Hibbert, says he

sees exciting growth opportunities in Transkei

and Ciskei.

"And our association

with Rand Merchant

Bank enables us to round

off our professional project approach by offering

clients cost-effective financing packages. This,

we believe, gives us a distinct edge over our competitors.

While houses at the

Hillcrest development

will be priced from

R25 000, those at Mdan-,

/13104

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tsane will cost between

R45 000 and R55000, including land.

At Hillcrest, the company plans to have at

least 140 homes completed in the next 12 months.

The remainder will be

built in accordance with

market demand.

S M Goldstein reports

that work-in-hand for

public sector mass housing projects totals R18m.

A spokesman says the

contracts, mainly in Ciskei and the Cape, are for a

total of 1062 units, with

clients being provincial

administrations and community development

boards.

Liat Construction CE

Izak Sperling says the

company's major project

is still the 2 000 unit contract at Mabopane in Bophuthatswana.

"Already 1001 new

houses were handed over

in November 1986. Phase

two, the construction of

900 homes, has started

and all are for completion

by October."

The houses, simple in

design, are of two sizes

with floor areas of 50m*

and 60m'. Most sites are

300mV The unit price

based on July 1985 estimates, is about R12 000.

"The building of these

houses is a great step forward for the people of Bophuthatswana. Liat's role

has been from the initial

planning to active completion of the project."

58
SOUTH AFRICA

SACP UNDERGROUND LEAFLET URGES WHITE, BLACK WORKERS TO UNITE

London THE AFRICAN COMMUNIST in English No. 108 Fourth Quarter 1986

[Text ] Our country is at war with itself. This is where apartheid has brought us.

From the time Van Riebecck landed in the Cape to the present you have

lived on the basis that the way to yoursurvival, to your privileged wages, and

to your prosperity and progress depended on the super-exploitation of black

workers and to white domination over all blacks. Our rulers (and they are

your rulers too, white worker) fed you with racism and promised you peace

and prosperity if you joined hands with the bosses and politicians.

White worker, they asked you to forget your own experience of struggle

against the mine owners and the bosses. They fed you with tribalism (ofthe

Afrikanervolk,) and racism (ofwhite superiority) to blindyou againstthe real

lessons of the struggle ofworkers the world over against the bosses and the

state thatservesthe capitalist class. With the spectreof'SwartGevaar' and the

carrot of economic, social and political privilege ifyou would serve asjunior

partners of the capitalists they turned you away from your fellow black

workers and from your real future. And so you surrendered your class

interests to the poisonous ideas of racism.

Communists have always worked for* future to be won by the unity in

struggle of all v.brkers. Unity and struggle based on class not colour is the

road to our real future.

Look at South Africa today. Is tljfc the future you wanted?

Is there the peace your heart desires? From centuries of domination and

exploitation the black people have risen in revolt. Black workers are* uniting

in their hundreds of thousands and fighting the bosses and the apartheid

state. Black children stand with stonesin hand, unafraid oftheCaspirs, ofthe

sjambok and rifle-wielding SADF and SAP. The black people have taken to

arms and all the power that Botha-Malan can muster is doomed to failure.

Apartheid has plunged our country into a bloody conflict. Spurred by profit

and power Botha-Malan have set our country on the path of disaster.

What has happened to the never-ending prosperity the ruling class

promised you? For decades you closed your eyes to black poverty and black

unemployment. Now the economic crisis of our country cannot be rescued

by apartheid and capitalism. Economic growth is at a standstill and inflation

has become rampant. The breadbasket that your privileged wages buy for

you is shrinking. You cannot keep up your house mortgages and the

insurance companies are foreclosing on your mortgages. Unemployment is

59
beginning to stare you in the face as well. Ail this while the capitalists you

agreed to join hands with continue to reap fat profits. That is your future

along the apartheid road.

And that grim outlook is made even more certain because even the world

has risen against apartheid South Africa. The world's revulsion is isolating

the Botha regime more and more. And sanctions will most certainly result in

a lower standard of living and unemployment for you as well.

When the bosses tempted you to become theirjunior partners they had a

clearer vision ofwhat they wanted to do with you. Today you are apartheid's

cannon fodder. It is your life that is threatened and endangered when

apartheid invades Angola, refuses to yield Namibia to the Namibian people

under Swapo and carries out murderous raids against the independent

African states. Itis you who are brutalised and yourlife threatened when the

SADF and the SAP occupy the black townships of our country. When the

Botha-Malan clique imposed conscription into the army for you and your

children, they knew better: they wanted to guard against the day you would

wake up to the truth and ask yourselves: why should I and my children serve

in an army of oppression, an army that serves a doomed future?

While calling you junior partners, they in fact made you time-servers of

apartheid. And because they won 4ou over on the basis offalsehood and raw

prejudice, they insist on controlling the media so that your eyes should be

closed to the truth.

If until now you have slept in your suburbs in relative peace and security,

that will be no more. If you have deluded yourselves into thinking that the

struggle ofthe black man will forever be confined to the black townships and

crushed within those townships by repression and military might, that time

is now past. ^

The revolt of the black people can never be repressed and their right to

freedom cannot be denied. From the fortresses of the black townships the

struggle for liberation is drifting into the white areas and is destined to engulf

the whole of South Africa.

Even the capitalists are reading the signs of the future. Big Business is

demanding the unconditional release of Nelson Mandela and all political

prisoners. Big Business is demanding that Botha unban the African National

Congress. Big Business and even some Afrikaners are saying apartheid must

go and that the future of our country must be negotiated with the African

National Congress. Are you going to tail behind those who lured you into

deserting yourreal class interests? Is it nottime that you faced the future with

courage? Courage born out ofa vision that you have lived a lie. Only then will

you be able to set yourself free of the prison of racism and strike out boldly

towards a future which will be born out ofthe liberation ofthe black man and

the unity of all the workers ofour country. Stand up against apartheid!Join

forces with your class brothers — the black workers! Ifyou do this you have

nothing to fear and everything to gain. Fight side by side with the black

people for a united South Africa, for a democratic South Africa based on one

person one vote, for a non-racial South Africa, and for a South Africa where

working men and women who are the real producers ofour country's wealth

shall truly enjoy the wealth they produce!

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SOUTH AFRICA

INDEPENDENTS STRESS ELECTION'S INTERNATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE

MB220851 Johannesburg SUNDAY TIMES in English 22 Mar 87 p 18

[Advertisement issued in support of independent candidates Wynand Malan,

Esther Lategan, and Denis Worrall; words within slantlines published in

boldface]

[Text] /The eyes of the world are on them./

/Here's why your support is of international importance./

The general election on May 6 has created intense interest overseas.

Politicians, investors, sportsmen, traders, and many old friends and

well-wishers, are sitting up and taking notice.

Their attention has been aroused by the independent challenge of

Denis Worrall, Wynanda Malan and Esther Lategan.

What's more, reactions from abroad have already had a positive effect

on financial markets.

In fact currency dealers in London attribute last week's dramatic rise

in the Financial Rand to what they call the "Worrall factor."

/WHAT THE WORLD WANTS NOW/

The world is waiting for a message from South Africa.

It will interpret the election results in the Helderberg, Randberg and

Stellenbosch constituencies in one of two ways:

Either that white South Africans are ready for fundamental changes

involving all races.

Or that they would prefer to carry on with apartheid despite unrest,

disinvestment, trade boycotts, sports isolation and the increasing

threat of sanctions.

61
The independents believe that South Africa's future must be decided by

South Africans of all races in South Africa.

They emphatically reject foreign meddling in our affairs.

But they also insist that world opinion must be taken seriously. Not,

as some of our leaders suggest, disregarded with contempt.

After all, South Africa needs world markets, foreign investment and

international trading opportunities in order to survive.

To create employment. To re-build our struggling economy.

/YOUR SUPPORT WILL MAKE A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE/

The more support the independents receive, the more South Africa's;

image will improve.

But how can you support them if you are not, eligible to vote in their

constituencies?

The answer is to return the coupon at the foot of this page. It gives

you five ways to express your support.

Your coupon will prove that, like many others, you believe the time is

NOW to set a new course for the future.

And for South Africa to become a respected member of the international

community once again.

/The New Spirit of South Africa/

/The time is NOW/

/12624

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SOUTH AFRICA

NRP'S SUTTON DISCUSSES ELECTION, REFORM

MB172021 Johannesburg Television Service in English 1830 GMT 17 Mar 87

[Interview with Bill Sutton leader of the New Republic Party, by Freek

Robinson on the "Network" program — video recorded]

[Text] [Robinson] Good Evening, Mr Sutton, and welcome to "Network." Could

we first start off by discussing policy as such. Now you are not going to

put out a policy manifesto for the NRP as a party, but could you just

briefly indicate from a personal point of view your political platform

for this election?

[Sutton] Well, we have got six points which I have put out in my own

personal manifesto, which is the manifesto of the party. People in

other constituencies will obviously have to put out manifestos which are

related to the local conditions and local problems. Our first point that

we make: We stand for a government of national reconciliation. We

believe that people have been so estranged in this country by actions

of the government over the last 30, 40 years, that we actually have to

go out now and reach out to people and bring them together, as happened

in the previous really great crisis in our history, the time of the gold

standard crisis when the great leaders of our party, which became the United

Party [changes thought] General Hertzog and Gen Smuts reached out to

each other and formed a coalition, which led to one of the most productive

periods of legislation in South African history. Now we say we have got

to repeat that performance today. We've got to show that sort of

leadership. So we want a government of national reconciliation based on

three principles. One is: Bring saam wat sam hort [Bring together those

who belong together]. In other words, go out and find the people who

are the moderates, the realists, the people who believe in democracy and

believe in the free enterprise system. The second principle is the

indaba, the principle of negotiation. When we've brought the people together

that principle will allow them to come to really sound conclusions. And

the third principle is that reform begins with the inclusion of blacks in

parliament. We say that for a very very specific reason. If you're going

to negotiate with people and you're going to come to agreement with them,

people have got to be equal. The only way in which people can be equal

is in parliament, because only in parliament are people all of the same

standing, and even the state president coming into parliament bows

to Mr Speaker. So we are absolutely insistent that blacks must be included

63
in parliament as a beginning of reform. I think people tend to think

that the government will reform. They will do a bit of reforming here

and there, and as they go along, and as they feel like it, and if there's

no crisis and no by-election, then they do a bit of reform. When they

have finished it, then the blacks will be invited to get on the wagon..

But our point of view is not like that at all. It is. more urgent now,

most urgent, that blacks should be included in parliament now, so we can

get on with real reform. And the second point we make is that there

should be a coalition government for South Africa, across party and.color

lines. And that [changes.thought^. We have actually made movement

to get that thing initiated, the,meeting we had in Pretoria earlier this

year, where we brought together black leaders and ourselves to talk about

reform. We have another meeting coming up very shortly, where we will

expand the base of that movement to include other parties in politics,

other groups, Indian, colored groups, the black groups, so that we can

actually talk to the government as a group of South Africans interested

in a coalition government which.will include blacks in parliament.

[Robinson] It seems to me, Mr Sutton, what you are putting forward is

not policy as such, but strategy, and it seems that; you have decided

that in the alliance, with the PFP you are going for an overall strategy.

Now, some people say these days, as the election campaign evolves,

that you are actually a dying party, and that you can only be saved

by the alliance with the PFP.

[Sutton] Well, I think people have been saying that about us for a long

time, and it still hasn't happened.. I.- think if you look at what we: are

doing now and what the future is going to hold, we say we are the grain

of sand in the oyster.. Around us there is going.to coalesce the pearl

that is going to become the new South Africa. Because you talk about

policy, what we are saying now to get blacks into parliament, that is

the first priority. And what we believe can be done as a matter of urgency

is that there [changes thought] It should be considered that the proposed

national statutory council could be included in parliament as an upper

house, or a senate, as we had before, which would give us federal links,

between the various homelands, and the government and allow other blacks to

come into parliament, to come into the standing committees of parliament,

where the negotiation ought to take place. Now, what we say is this,

if you are thinking about having.a national.statutory council, which

was seen by the government as being a means of including, blacks in the

negotiating process or any other, process -- legislative process or anything

else — you cannot afford to create a rival to parliament. Now we have

had from the government in this election absolutely no indication of what

their proposals for reform are. We say to them that we would like to

know exactly what they are talking about. They tell us: Don't worry about

reform. We have got it all planned out, it's all there, we know what

we are going to do. When I watched, the other night Mr Barend du Plessis

with his manifesto, it seemed to me he was saying to me: In this packet

here, this nice little packet, I've got a nice sack, I've got a nice little

fat little pig, and I'll sell it to you for 50 rands. And I say to him:

Barend, show me the pig. And he says: No way, you should give me the

64
50 rands first. Now, I'm telling you, and I'm telling him, and I m telling

the country: No farmer will ever guy a pig like that. We want to see the

pig. So what we say to the government: Tell us what is your policy.

We've got a proposal to make. We believe blacks must, come into

parliament. We say so,.now in this election, that is the bottom line

for any kind of reform and any kind of progress. Now, I say to the

government: You show us the pig. We want to know what your policy is.

We have got a policy. And we. believe that parliament is the place

where the guarantee of all people, all groups, all culture groups, can be

maintained, because parliament has got rules, it has got discipline, it

s a place we know how to; operate.

[Robinson] All right, Mr Sutton, let's see what you have in that bag,

because I think it is possible to say that if you say blacks must be

included in parliament that is not necessarily a policy. How are you

going to do that? And!I believe some of the constituents in Caledon

might say: Where are the safeguards? I think that is a possible question.

[Sutton] Well, we had a meeting in Caledon the other night, there were

52 people there, and not all of them supporters of our party by any means.

And when we had finished speaking to them and we had told them why we

wanted blacks in parliament, and. about our .proposal as an immediate

short-term step to include the proposed national statutory council...in

parliament there was not a vote recorded at the end of the meeting against us.

And the questions asked by people who were.Nationalists were all seeking

Clarification of the proposal, clarification of the idea, but there was

absolutely no opposition whatever to what we are saying must be the leitmotit

of this particular election: That: blacks must be included.in parliament.

What we are hoping for is a coalition, which means that at the time the

next election comes, the coalition will field candidates in all three ^

chambers of parliament, and any black elections that may come up. And I

want to point out to you what we are talking about is the fact that if

we are going to control the black urban areas, there.is only one way to do it,

^and it is through a political motivation that, gives those people the

incentive to reach out and control their own areas, control the streets,

protect the candidates, protect the meetings; and they will only do it if

they know there is an incentive that they can come into the,cabinet and into

parliament. Now I say to you: you say how are we going to do it? We made

our proposal but in fact the truth is the constitutional form is of minimal

importance. What is important is that people who work within the form,

because you can have.the worst constitution in the, world, but if the

people who work within it want to make it work, it will work like a charm

and you can have the most smart, clever, constitution in the world

where people don't want to make,it work it won't work. So what we say is —

and everybody says it — the whole of the political spectrum says you must

consult with balck people, how they see themselves.and their future in

politics; what we set as the bottom line that they must be included in

parliament, nad that is something that nobody...[changes thoughtJ the

government certainly has not accepted as a principle.

65
[Robinson] Judging on what you have said now, it seems to me that

you are actually seeing this election as an interim step to foster

an alliance between various groups and then to make 1989 actually the

election of the real issues.

[Sutton] Well that means we are not going to die this election, doesn't

it? That means we are going to go ahead. [laughter] Well, I am telling

you we are not going to die in this election. We are going to go ahead.

What we have started here is. something which is of most immense

significance for South Africa, for one reason, and that is (?where) it

shows leadership. The,biggest problem we have got today with the

government is there is absolutely no leadership whatever.

[Robinson] The leadership by whom?

[Sutton] By the government, and the change when we had at the rubicon

[Robinson, interrupting] But who shows leadership?

[Sutton] Well we are showing the leadership because we are saying to the

people of South Africa, here is the way which you can solve the problems,

and we are going out and we are bringing people together. We are doing

what we were asked to do. I and Dr Slabbert [Former PFP leader] were

asked by the special committee appointed by the state president a couple

of years ago to find people who would come and, talk to the government,

to put together a structure of people who would come nad talk to the

government and negotiate about reform, and that is what we have done.

We are doing it now, we will continue to do it and we will go and

talk to the government about reform. But we say the bottom line on which

we will negotiate is the inclusion of blacks in parliament, because

only on that basis of equality can you talk meaningfully to people about

reform.

[Robinson], Thank you Mr Sutton. ,

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SOUTH AFRICA

PFP'S SWART ATTACKS GOVERNMENT SECURITY STRATEGY

MB191244 Johannesburg SAPA in English 1243 GMT 19 Mar 87

[Text] Durban, 19 Mar (SAPA)—Natal PFP leader, Mr Ray Swart, today

attacked the government for "its endless commitment involving tens of

thousands of young South Africans to border duty and township patrols

with no light at the end of the tunnel." Launching the campaign in

Umlazi of PFP candidate, Mrs Ann Currie, Mr Swart said this was part

of a security problem confronting South African. "It is ironic that

he Nats, who talk so often and loudly about security, are themselves

the biggest security risk which this country has. The security

situation is obviously of major concern to all South Africans, and the

Nat propagandists are hell bent on exploiting this concern to bully

and cajole people to support the Nats in this election," he said.

Mr Swart described the security offered by the government as "a limited,

short term, ad hoc security bolstered by a state of emergency." The PFP

was far more realistic in its concern, over the, security situation.

It was just as committed to maintaining law. and order in South Africa, and

protecting the borders against attacks from outside. Those were just

short-term measures made necessary by the circumstances of the political

desert into which Nat policies had driven the country.

"What is needed, is to get to the root of causes of discontentment

and unrest in South Africa,, and to do something about them. We need

to seek reconciliation among South Africans who are divided today

as never before, and this can only be done by way of free and open

negotiation," Mr Swart said.

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SOUTH AFRICA

SURVEY REVEALS AFRIKANER, ENGLISH INTEGRATION DOUBTS

MB191505 Johannesburg SAPA in English 1421 GMT 19 Mar 87

[Text] Johannesburg, 19 Mar (SAPA)—Two people in every five are

worried about racially mixed residential areas, one person in every three

about mixed beaches, and one in every four about mixed cinemas,

hotels and pubs.

These are the result from Market Research Africa's [MRA] sociomonitor

study, which ran a survey on 2000 white urban adults between March and

May, 1986.

Afrikaans speakers were shown to be more concerned about the issues

than their English counterparts.

56 percent of Afrikaans speakers were worried about mixed residential

areas, compared to only 24 percent of English speakers.

Although women were more concerned than men about mixed* beaches and

cinemas, hotels and bars, there was equal concern between the sexes

on integrated residential areas.

The youth were more concerned than older South Africans about integration,

especially in cinema, hotels and pubs.

Integration of public facilities is likely to be most opposed in the

OFS [Orange Free State], followed by the Transvaal, Cape and Natal,

the survey showed.

Opponents are also more likely to be poorly educated and in the lower

income group.

Commenting on the findings, Helena Oosthuizen, senior research

executive in MRA's sociomonitor division said, "the rejection by

young adults of the concept of integration does not augur well for

a harmonious existence in a mixed society." "It is unlikely integration

will take place without much rejection from certain sectors of the

population," she added.

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SOUTH AFRICA

EDITOR DECRIES RISE OF PSEUDO LIBERALS; ROLE IN PROTEST

Johannesburg FRONTLINE in English Feb 87 pp 36, 37,

[Article by Denis Beckett]

[Text]

ii

|HE Central Methodist Hall in

Johannesburg. A lunch-hour

meeting early in December,

launching a campaign to have

detained children freed by Christmas.

The air is thick with Liberalhood, of the

peculiarly South African variety. This is

not always the same thing as liberalism, in

the normal dictionary definition.

Down there near the front sits a fierce

UDF-ite — white and well-off, like many

of the fiercest — who is given to making

gleeful pronouncements about publications and practices which are due for the

chop "when The People take over". Nearby is an elegant lady who denounces

apartheid and its perpetrators loud and

long, but is hotly opposed to the idea of

peasants and labourers having the same

political rights she does.

Both are identified as Liberals, in the

SA context, although neither has much

connection with authentic liberalism — to

which the notion of separate levels of citizenship is quite as alien as is the dictatorial instinct.

Most of the people here may share liberal values, but the main unifying factor is

that nearly all look Liberal — the whites

among them especially. They smell of

c\ais and education and difference.

Wha{"would happen if a crowd of potbellied, heavy-jowled, comb-in-sock,

white-shoed, safari-suited, sideburned,

Brylcreemed caricatures of white South

Africa were to walk into this hall and take

scats? Would the Liberals rejoice that

they were making headway at last, or

would they look askance, peeved at losing

their exclusivity?

40

The meeting starts with a batch of short

und punchy speeches. Abundant sincerity,

abundant outrage. There are tales of brutality and callousness, tales of casual ar-.

rests of suspects' relatives, accounts of the

traumatic effect upon the children.

It is all very moving. Indeed more than

moving. The spoken voice is a different

'.hing to a newspaper account. It brings

home an emotive depth to the catastrophe

we are living through in a way which, for

me, translated objectionable generality

into living reality.

Most of the speakers are well-known

liberals. Two are not. They arc township

parents. These two are different. Their

speeches are even shorter. Their English is

different. (They both apologise for this.

They have no need to. It is perfectly clear,

expressive English, adding vibrancy to

what will eventually become a South African lingua franca.) They refer not at all to

the abhorrence/shame/disgracc/etc of

apartheid. They just want their kids out of

jail.

One has a particular worry. A local

child was released one night at 7.30, with

one rand in cash. The Dicpkloof gate was

just opened for her and she was out. She

spent her rand on a taxi to Bara (the taxidriver also displaying a certain shortage of

Christian compassion), and then set out to

walk through the night to Katlehong,

some 20 kilometres away.

The father's concern was that his

daughter — 13 years old — might receive

the same treatment. If the police can

bother to come to our house to collect her,

was his plea, will they kindly bother to

come to our house to bring her back.

69
The other father had no specific complaints. He said vaguely that the treatment was bad and the food was bad, but

the particulars seemed minor to him.

What came through, wjth shattering conviction, was the sheer horror of his daughter spending night after night in a prison.

One didn't need to be liberal or Liberal

or anything other than flesh-and-blood to

feel like throwing up at all this evidence of

what is happening in our country.

However, precisely how much improvement did the Free The Children campaign

achieve? How much did it even hope-to

achieve?

What it did not achieve was a Christmas amnesty. Government's public response consisted of a statement that only

256 children were in detention (a stark

deflation from the figures mentioned at

the meeting).

Could real results have been achieved?

Perhaps. And perhaps the fault lies not

only with the government but also with

the disdain of the Liberals to seriously attempt to communicate with it.

From most speakers, the message was

that apartheid was bad, apartheid must be

rooted out, washed away, destroyed root

and branch, abolished, dismantled, and

meet all the other usual fates.

After which, the unspoken assumption

was, everything would be fine. What there

was not, was any indication as to how or

why it would be fine.

We heard about the iniquities of apartheid, but nothing about its defenders' desperate belief that their lives depend on it.

We heard about the ills of detention, but

heard noteason for today's detainers to

cease believing that it is what protects

them from becoming tomorrow's detained.

Nor did we hear any suggestion as to why

they should envisage a future regime

being any more tolerant of dissent than

the present one, or any more meticulous in

identifying offenders.

We heard about the special vulnerability of detained children, but only one

speaker even hinted at the not wholly irrelevant factor that childish hands have

also proved capable of jamming people's,

heads into tyres and turning them to charcoal.

If it is understandable that the oppressed resort to violence to oppose their

oppression it is equally understandably

that the oppressors resort to violence to

oppose the new oppression they fear will

replace it.

To end the violence it is necessary to

end oppression. But to end oppression it is

necessary to end the fear of reverse oppression.

This, though, is not an issue here today.

The message is a lot simpler and a lot less

helpful. The government is bad; it should

stop being bad.

After the speeches there is a resolution

to send a telegram to the State President.

Everyone, or nearly, agrees. A pity there

isn't a second resolution, asking how many

people have any expectation of this having

any effect.

Then we come to the national anthem.

Not once, but twice, the lady chairman

prepares us for the national anthem. She

does not say "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika"; not

"one of the national anthems"; not even

that racist but at least untotalitarian term

"the black national anthem." No; "the national anthem," just like that. A tidy symbolism here, all right: a fig for you Boere

and your Stem, you don't count.

In an aisle seat in the back row there is

an anomalous person. A hefty middleaged white man. He doesn't belong in this

place. He doesn't look even a little bit like

a Liberal. He looks like an ordinary South

African. He has a green suit and a clipped

Moustache. Special Branch, maybe?

Maybe, although he lacks the tell-tale

pale shoes. But maybe just a genuinely

ordinary South African, troubled in mind

and conscience and seeking sustenance.

He stood up for the national anthem. As

a hundred or more voices launched into

Nkosi Sikelele he stood still for a minute,

then quietly slipped out.

The hall sings Nkosi Sikelele. At least,

about half the hall sings it. Most of the

whites just stand up silently.

It's a beautiful song, and most of the

blacks give it a lot of stick. It goes on for a

long time, first in Zulu then in Sotho, with

an unexpected chorus continually springing forth after what seems to be the end.

Most, but not all, of the blacks sing,

and many have clenched fists raised. With

the whites, it's reversed. A lew sing. A few

more mouth along, half a beat behind.

Most stand silently. A few have their fists

up. Several have their fists hi'f-way up, as

iT in hope that the blacks will see them as

up and the Special Branch will think they

happen to be scratching egg off their

lapels. Others stand to rigid attention, like

a British opera audience during God Save

The Queen.

Up on the platform there are a lot of

closed mouths. There is something odd

about proclaiming as not a national anthem but the national anthem a song

around which you cannot even wrap a few

lines.

As the song ends there is a powerful,

stentorian AMANDLA! from a voice at

70

A-
the back. The crowd turns round and sees

a big black man, thirty-odd.

NGAWETHU! yell most of the people.

The big man yells: "Viva African National Congress, Viva!"

"Viva!" replies much of the crowd.

"Viva South African Communist Party,

Viva!" shouts the big man.

"Viva!" echoes forth from the crowd.

Quickly but calmly, like a movie version of an efficient Secret Service operation, a small group closes around the leader, and in a trice they are all out of the

door and gone.

The crowd mills out, many people awestruck by the closing hijack. "Well", they

are saying, "what did you think of thai?

So it ended. Perhaps some people felt

better for having been there; for having

shown the flag. But nothing had been

achieved; nothing was about to be

achieved; and in the end the occasion had

become but a symbol of that polarising

process which liberalism as it is presently

constituted is so wholly unable to affect.

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SOUTH AFRICA

NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF REGIONAL SERVICES COUNCILS SEEN

Johannesburg FINANCIAL MAIL in English 13 Mar 87 pp 30, 32

[Text] Getting blacks,

coloureds and Indians

involved in regional

development — hitherto the prerogative of

white elected bodies

— makes a lot of

sense. Doing it

through regional services councils (RSCs) doesn't. The new system is scarcely understood; it will be costly

and add to bureaucratic control of our lives.

And since appointment to an RSC is at the

discretion of Pretoria, black boycotts of the

councils appear inevitable.

But, like it or not, the first of a network of

RSCs will be with us in a matter of weeks —

and they'll cost money. Next month businessmen in SA's economic heartland and

elsewhere will receive registration forms preparatory to paying turnover and payroll levies to trie RSC they fall under. Government

will be provided with an enormous new tax

base (see box). While government has provided estimates of revenues that could be

raised, information on the amounts to be

spent by RSCs is virtually non-existent. The

downside implication is that if estimated

revenues and expenditures don't match, levies will simply have to be adjusted upwards.

The first eight RSCs are scheduled to start

operating on July 1. But what are they? And

are they necessary? The proposed system is

riddled with controversial areas and lack of

clarity. RSCs are not replacements for the

residual provincial structures; nor do they

simply engulf local authorities.

Boundaries and services to be supplied are suggested by lower-tier authorities for government vetting, by a

Demarcation Board. Appointments

are made from the constitutive receiv- \

ers of art RSCs benefits — ranging

from city councils to black authorities

which have scarcely functioned in

some key areas in recent years. And

government appoints those who appoint -'- so, ultimately, the lines of

power run into and from the State

President's Cabinet.

According to the Department of

Constitutional Development and Planning, the system rests on three pillars:

D Rationalisation of services at the

third tier of government (meaning the

sharing of expertise to ensure fewer

executive entities and bureaucracies);

D Political participation (of black

local government); and

D Mechanisms to collect and distribute levies.

Will things be as neat in practice? It

seems unlikely: we will have rising

costs and greater bureaucracy. Take

the Central Witwatersrand RSC (see

map), with Johannesburg as the main

agent. Consider what's involved in collecting

the levies.

The City Treasurer's department estimates there are 50 000 levy payers in the

Central Witwatersrand RSC. New costs are

inevitable. Expensive computer equipment is

needed; and the City Council has approved

the creation of 25 posts to collect and receipt

levies. Initial estimated cost of establishing a

branch in the City Treasurer's department to

process the levies is R703 000; and equipment and accommodation to be rented will

cost nearly R20 000 a month.

So the Central Witwatersrand RSC —

and how many others? - - will be born in

debt. No provision exists in the Johannesburg management committee's estimate for

this expenditure, but it notes that R353 000

will be recovered from the RSC as payments

for inputs to the RSCs service functions.

72
Slotting them in

Structures for local government

Local authorities — municipalities — derive income from three main sources: rates

and taxes; payment for goods and services

provided; and often substantial transfer payments from central government (transport is

the most-quoted case). Since the municipalities will not disappear, rates and taxes will

presumably continue — and possibly rise.

There is no guarantee in any RSC legislation

that this will not be the case, despite the fact

that RSCs will take over certain municipal

services.

Then there is business. Apart from the

dubious principle of taxing employment in a

period of high unemployment, using the private sector as a collective receiver of revenue

(as with GST) is onerous. Assocom's tax

committee's Ian MacKenzic points to headaches for bigger companies seeking to work

out levy payments. They will have to:

D Decide which region they fall into for

different divisions (such as sales, service, and

rentals) when activities cross RSC borders;

D Set up an accounting system for exactly

which levies go to different councils; and

D Account for inter-group transactions

which, if exemptions aren't made, could lead

to a cascading tax effect.

The levies are deductible against taxable

income — which implies that the company

must be making profits. Companies trading

at a loss, or in tax-loss situations, must pay

the levies.

The new imposts are apparently low —

0,!% of turnover and 0,25% of payroll (the

maximum rates). In compensation, certain

imposts will fall away — for example, certain trading fees — but an Assocom study

shows a net overall increase in private-sector

tax burden. So the financial and economic

consequences of the introduction of RSC

levies in July are at best uncertain. At worst

they will stifle growth and destroy

jobs.

Economically the two taxes are

flawed — some would say fatally.

High turnover, low margin businesses

will suffer most, while low turnover,

high margin businesses will be less

affected.

Like GST, the turnover tax is indirect, and at least initially will be inflationary. The payroll tax will probably

have an effect similar to income tax —

a direct tax cutting further into employers' disposable income. It will en73
courage the substitution of labour

with capital equipment — whose cost

may be tax-deductible. Payroll taxes

may be imposed on different categories of employees at different rates; and

the turnover tax may also be imposed

on a differentiated basis. Net result:

costly confusion.

RSC levies will also distort economic decisions regarding locality since

they are likely to be lower in rural

areas. Finance Minister Barend du

Plessis has admitted that one aim of

the RSCs is to assist Pretoria's decentralisation drive.

The first eight RSCs are set to come

into operation on July

1: Pretoria, Central-,

East-, and West-Witwatersrand in the

Transvaal; Cape

Town, PE-Uitenhage,

and Walvis Bay in the

Cape; and Blocmfontein-Botshabelo in the

Free State. Natal,

where KwaZulu is

balking {Current affairs March 6), has

yet to present RSC

boundary proposals to

the Demarcation

Board.

Eventually, the entire country will be divided into RSCs. It is

not possible to say

what the final number

will be. We do know

that Transvaal has

proposed another

eight — two each in

western and northern Transvaal, three in the

eastern Transvaal, one for Vereeniging-Vanderbijlpark — in addition to the four already

noted:

The Cape's 38 divisional councils have,

through their Association of Secretaries of

Divisional Councils, proposed that the province be divided into 14 RSCs. And Free

State's Director of Local Government, Willem Weilbach, tells the FM there will eventually be about 10 in that province. He is

hoping that two, Sasolburg and the OFS

goldfields area, will be demarcated before

July 1.

Weilbach cautiously says the Bloemfontein RSC will kick off with smaller functions, such as fire services and traffic control

— "to get it going." In its first few years, he

adds, the RSC will not be in charge of bulk

water supply, which is still being investigated.

An RSC is not forced to take on all 22

services listed in Schedule 2 of the enabling

Act (apart from major services such as

lights, water, sewage and transport, this includes museums, libraries, abattoirs, airports, health services, tourism, and establishing and maintaining other infrastructure).

An RSC may decide to provide only one

(say, civil defence), observes Richard Kruger of the Department of Constitutional Development and Planning.

An RSC may also decide to entrust part or

all of a function to an outside body, such as

Escom or the Rand Water Board. It can

render services itself, via agents, or through

the private sector. It seems that, initially,

RSCs are likely to make most use of the

agency basis.

How services now provided by a municipality will be transferred to an RSC is unclear. If an RSC, for example, assumes all

the designated services, the municipality will

still reticulate, collect charges, maintain and

service. Technical committees are investigating this process.

An RSC, of course, is free to sub-contract

work to other bodies, such as consulting

engineers. It may pay for such services by

charging for them or from its levies. Nobody

knows for certain. The "mixture" of income

will also vary from RSC to RSC.

To illustrate how an individual cash-flow

will work, consider the supply of bulk water.

If an RSC chooses to "take" this over, it will

buy from the supplier, and sell to the municipality, which will reticulate the water to

residents. They will continue paying the

municipality for the water; it, in turn, will

pay the RSC, which will then pay the supplier.

The question arises: why this extra paperwork for what has been in place for decades

anyway? Unquestionably, RSCs will mean

more bureaucracy. The municipality, it

should be noted, never completely disappears; certain powers

may be taken away by

the RSC, but it never

loses others— for example, the right to

collect dog licence

revenues.

The RSC system

has the muddled

stamp of Minister

:Cnris Heunis all over

it. It is based on the

constitutional principle of racial "own af74
fairs," as in the tricanieral parliament; and

it reflects Heunis's belief in graduaWy

bringing blacks into

government from- the

bottom up. Politically,

RSCs could be grafted onto the fantasy of

independent black

"city stales" (like Soweto). But as Johannesburg CBD Association chairman Nigel

Mandy puts it, city states "could never be

anything other than integral parts of the

multiracial metropolis of the Central Witwatcrsrand." The same criticism can be

made of the artificial ethnic structuring of

RSCs. What black local authority can in

present circumstances claim to be representative?

Yet RSCs are regarded asa "cornerstone"

ofa new deal in local government. Local

authorities of all population groups, including what are called "non-viable communities" within a defined area — for example,

small informal rural settlements like those

along the Orange River— will be represented on the councils.

Heunis's ministry says RSCs are "a horizontal extension of local authorities (which)

will not replace the provincial system." In

fact, provincial administrations, since the

abolition of all-white elected Provincial

Councils last year, function as multiracial

"general affairs" arms of government. Appointed provincial administrators are the

real power behind the RSCs.

It is easy to see that RSCs are politically

motivated. There is nothing remarkable

about that. The tax system has always been

used to execute policy objectives. But not

everyone will agree that either the timing or

the statutory funding of RSCs are satisfactory. Organised commerce and industry argued as powerfully as it could for a regional

GST surcharge,a piggy-back tax. The argument was simple: machinery for collecting

GST has been in place for 10 years. And

there is the problem of ministerial discretion:

Finance Minister Du Plessis, for example,

may increase the rates of levies, at an RSCs

request, simply by publication in the Government Gazette.

According to guidelines in the Act, one

matter the Administrator must consider, before farming out a function or service, is costeffectiveness and efficiency. So if Escom is

doinga good job, for instance, why transfer

the service? "The community, in consultation with the Administrator, will decide

which services should be regional services,"

Kruger notes. Yet "the community" will

have no opportunity to vole for the RSC of

its choice— that isn't the way the system

works.

75
The salient point about RSCs, as Weilbach points out, is that they will be financed

with new income (courtesy of business)

which can be more equitably spread. He

describes the system as "very good for the

simple reason that the levies will enable

additional services and facilities not attended

to in the past to be tackled." It will be the

responsibility of each council to determine its

priorities for development.

Neglected — which is to say black —

areas look like being assured of more money

and resources than hitherto. In spite of the

apportionment of voting strength, the poorer

black representatives on an RSC can appeal

against certain proposals. More importantly,

the proviso attached to Section 12 states

that, in appropriating funds, RSCs must give

preference to establishing and improving infrastructure in areas of greatest need. So the

Soweto representative on the Central Witwatersrand RSC, for example, can in theory

at least ensure that the council knows what

his community's needs arc. "Black towns will

benefit most," Kruger maintains.

As a government official points out,

taking over services is not the prime

aim of RSCs. The main aim is the

redistribution of wealth.

"Initially," continues the spokesman, "the RSC would not have money

available either to take over services or

to reduce rates and taxes." In other

words, as the RSC levies take bite, do not

expect municipalities to reduce their imposts. And so: "The RSC must use its funds

where the greatest needs exist." That concept, perhaps the heart of the RSC, is open to

endless debate, and, no doubt, manipulation.

The danger is that, even if the two levies

are kept low — and they will be politically

visible — goods and services used by residents can be charged out at a substantial

mark-up. There is little in the RSC legislation to regulate the charges attached to wate*r, electricity, transport, and so on. Indeed,

loading prices in one area of ah RSC will

enable it to spend more generously elsewhere

— the RSC is authorised to apply differentiated charges in its area. RSC budgets must

however be approved by Du Plessis.

Against that, Assocom's Ken Warren argues that there "is no direct voter control."

"Furthermore," he adds, "there is no direct private-sector representation on the

RSC — notwithstanding the potential observer status for bodies such as chambers of

commerce and the like. In the worst case,

this could defeat the stated objective of

achieving greater cost-effectiveness."

There are yet further dangers. Each RSC

will be a monopoly. The Act provides that

when an RSC provides a service, you are

obliged to buy that service from it to the

exclusion of all other (potentially cheaper)

suppliers. A municipality may apply for exemption from this rule -»- but this is hardly

the stuff of competition.

Their ultimate cost is unknown. The manner in which RSCs are to be financed is full

of holes. Black communities are likely to

reject them out of hand as apartheid-based.

And what impact the impending release of

the Margo Commission will have on the

whole mess is unclear. We are shambling

willy-nilly into area strewn with pitfalls.The

results could be little short of catastrophic.

/13104

CSO: 3400/362

76
SOUTH AFRICA

PATTERN, IMPACT OF MIGRANT LABOR VIEWED; NEED FOR CHANGE NOTED

Johannesburg FINANCIAL MAIL In English 13 Mar 87 pp 33, 34, 35

[Text] Two dates stand out as turning points in

South African economic history: 1867, when

diamonds were discovered at Kimberley; and

1886, when prospectors struck gold on the

Witwatersrand.

Besides being the catalysts for our economic, industrial and agricultural development, these events led to fundamental

changes in the fabric of social life. Ever

hungry to expand, the mines in those days

found it easier to obtain capital for development than to attract blacks for labour.

An adequate supply of labour was

achieved by several means. In SA the government created special reserves for blacks

and forced them to move. Overcrowding and

poverty soon meant that those who were able

had to seek work in the white areas. In the

surrounding states, the colonial authorities

introduced several different kinds of taxes.

SA was the one of the few places where

foreign blacks could earn money to pay the

imposts. Thus started the system of migrant

labour.

Today migrant labour — from both within

SA and outside its borders — is still very

much a fact of life. On June 30 last year,

according to the latest statistics available

from the Department of Home Affairs, there

were some 378 000 foreign migrants from

southern African states working in SA (see

table). The major supplier of labour is Lesotho, followed by Mozambique, Malawi,

Botswana, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Zambia

and Angola. SA has labour agreements with

all these states barring the last three which

do not permit active recruitment of their

citizens.

There were, in addition, some 707 800

migrants from the independent homelands of

Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei (the TBCV states), and about 989 000

from the six non-independent homelands.

: The pattern of foreign migrant labour over

the years reveals several trends. First, and

most importantly, the overall number of migrants has declined significantly. In 1960,

for example, there were 586 400 foreign migrants working in SA. By 1985, the total had

dropped to 297 000. The sexual composition

of the foreign migrant labour force has also

changed. In 1960 women constituted 17,5%

ofthe total number of migrants. In 1985, this

figure had dropped to 2,1%. Employment by

sector has also undergone changes. The miping industry employed 58% of all foreign

migrants in 1964. In 1985 this figure had

risen to 79% (sec table).

The sources of foreign migrant labour

have also shifted considerably. In 1974, with

137 676 of its nationals working on contract

in SA, Malawi stood second only to Mozambique as the major supplier of labour. By the

following year the number of Malawians had

plummeted to 39 308. This cani. about as a

result of Kamuzu Banda's government putting the brakes on recruiting — ostensibly

because of a South African plane crash, in

which 74 Malawian migrant workers were

killed. Cuts in the numbers recruited from

Mozambique and Zimbabwe had a lot to do

with the coming of ulwru in those countries.

Migrant labour is, of course, not unique to

SA. Gastarbcidcr are found in many foreign

countries. But as Natal University economist

Alan Whiteside told a conference on "The

Southern African Economy After Apartheid" at York University last year. "What is

unique about migration to SA is that it has

such a long history, has become so institutionalised and controlled and has taken place

on such a large scale. The present system has

been created by a combination of the apartheid policies and the pattern of capitalist

development."

Whiteside also told the York conference

77
that the future of the migrant labour system

"wit! reflect the changes that must occur to

both capitalism and apartheid." Very true.

For although the system is bound to continue, there are clear signs that, in certain

respects, changes are under way.

Of primary importance, naturally, is government's attitude. In the past this was brutally frank, as a government circular issued

in 1967 vividly illustrates: "It is government

policy that Bantu are only temporarily resident in European areas for as long as they

offer their labour there. As soon as they

become, for some reason or other, no long"cf

fit for work, or superfluous in the labour

market, they are expected to return to their

country of origin."

The abolition of influx control on July1

last year brought about some significant reforms. The key one is that black South Africans, barring those designated as TBVC citizens, are now able to move around at will to

seek work. Although it is impossible at this

stage to quantify the impact of this concession, it clearly has given a great many people

more freedom.

The position of TBVC citizens is less rosy.

They are classified as aliens, and for employment purposes arc subject to much the same

controls as those governing foreign migrants.

In terms of labour agreements the TBVC

governments struck with SA at the time they

became independent, this means: D Employers have to obtain permission

from the Home Affairs department to recruit aliens (the main factor being whether

there are South Africans available for the

job); D The TBVC governments must give employers permission to recruit in their area;

and' D Workers who are recruited must be in

possession ofa valid passport or travel document and a contract of employment attested to in the

TBVC state. A preposterous situation

for people who, after all, are

South Africans.

Then there are the foreign

migrants. It is well known

that the income these work78
ers generate in SA contributes significantly to the

GNP of their countries. Put

plainly, economic factors

outweigh many of our neighbours' repugnance for apartheid.

Government has not been

slow to exploit this factor for

its own ends — especially in

these days when security

considerations override all

others. However, in some

cases its actions have been

taken without due regard for the

interests of employers.

In October last year it decided to

halt new recruitment of labour

from Mozambique; those already

in employment would not be allowed back on completion of their

contracts. This was a response to a

landmine explosion near the

Mozambique border in which six

South African soldiers were injured.

Government's action, Manpower Minister Pietie du Plessis

explained at the time, had to be

seen against the fact that the African

National Congress and the South African

Communist Party used Mozambique as a

base from which to operate against the Republic. No country in the world, Du Plessis

said, could allo>v virtually free access to its

labour market, and, on the other hand, permit its security to be undermined by a country which benefited from job opportunities in

SA.

The move wrecked talks that were taking

phce between SA and Mozambique, flowing

from the Nkomati Accord, to amend their

existing labour agreement which had been

negotiated with the Portuguese colonial

administration in 1966.

The declaration also shocked the mining

industry, for Mozambicans are among its

most skilled black workers. Just how much

they are needed was reflected in government's subsequent about-face on the issue.

In January it was reported that concessions

had been made for certain categories of Mozambicans to continue working on the mines.

New recruitment, however, remains a no-no.

Also affected by government's October

declaration was the agricultural sector in the

eastern Transvaal, which employs large

numbers of Mozambicans. After representations froin worried farmers, a reprieve was

announced. Mozambicans were given until

November 30 last year to apply for temporary work permits. According to Home Affairs, 11 8"M permits were issued, valid until

November 30 this year. The farmers must

then employ other workers.

Notwithstanding these experiences, it is

clear that for government the leverage it has

cvepSA's neighbours as a consequence of the

migrant labour system will remain a key

factor in regional politics.

With unemployment in SA rising, the other important leg of government strategy on

foreign migrants is to root out those who are

working in SA illegally. Here we get into a

real numbers game. Government estimates

that there are 1,3m illegals. Whiteside reckons that at most there is half that.

Whatever the true figure, government is

serious about its campaign. Last year, according to Home Affairs officials, 32 216

foreign' illegals were deported to their countries of origin. Of these the vast majority —

19 801 — were Mozambicans. In 1985 Mozambicans constituted 17 532 of the 28 479

illegals who were deported. Many of those

government calls illegals arc refugees from

Mozambique — not workers — who are

picked up in the Kruger National Park. Presumably many also cross back into SA at the

first opportunity.

The campaign against illegal aliens is,

however, becoming more organised. On September 30 last year Home Affairs circulated

a letter to 190 000 employers pointing out

that it is an offence to employ illegal aliens.

The letter decribes in detail how employers

can determine whether their workers are

legally employed and asks them to advise the

department about how many foreigners they

employ.

Home Affairs plans to train 400 inspectors

who will visit places of employment to check

up on illegals. Appropriately, most of these

people were formerly employed to administer the influx control regulations. Home Affairs officials, however, arc adamant that

illegals will not be picked up by the scruff of

their necks and thrown out.

"Employers will be given the opportunity

to apply for a work permit for these people. If

they fit our criteria, they will be allowed to

stay in SA," a senior official told the FM. He

would not, however, say what the criteria

are. But even if Home Affairs is unable to

find the illegals, there is always the possibility that the police will pick them up.

So much for government. What of the

mining industry? As the major

employer of foreign labour it shoulders much of the criticism levelled

against the migrant labour system.

Nowhere has this been expressed

more forcefully than in a resolution

adopted two weeks ago at the congress of the National Union of , Mineworkers (NUM).

79
Condemning the migrant labour

system as a "gross violation of human rights" which has destroyed

the family life of black workers,

NUM is demanding that employers should make a clear statement

of intent to dismantle the migrant labour

system and the single-sex compounds for

black miners within a "reasonable specified

time." If employers fail to meet its demands

by March 30, the union intends to declare a

dispute as the first step towards a national

strike.

At the time of writing the demands had

not been formally served on the Chamber of

Mines, and its industrial relations adviser,

Johann Liebenberg, declined to respond to

them saying it is not practice to negotiate in

the media.

But Peter Gush, chairman of Anglo

American's gold and uranium division, made

some points in a statement he released last

week. Gush said Anglo has become increasingly concerned about Üie detrimental effects of the migrant labour system and the

system of hostel accommodation.

Anglo's ultimate objective, he said, is to

give its employees, should they so choose, the

opportunity of owning their own homes and

living with their families in a normal society.

Naas Steenkamp, director human resources and public affairs at Gencor, responded this way: "Gencor is opposed to a

system that makes it impossible for men to

live with their families and is committed to

providing family housing as extensively as

possible. We would certainly want to involve

the NUM in developing our approach. The

NUM is clearly on record that this is a major

grievance and grievances are best resolved

through negotiation. We might not find it

easy to agree in all respects, but that does not

mean one should not talk."

Says Gencor's director of human resources (mining), Adriaan du Plessis: "Gencor is considering a new housing philosophy

for employees. The intention is to house

workers with their families as much as possible and less as persons living in single quarters."

But he stresses that hostels on the mines

will not disappear completely: "A certain

percentage of the workforce will be single,

and initially some workers will be hesitant

about moving their families into black townships." Gencor has had an ongoing programme of upgrading its hostels and is at

present making alterations to decrease room

densities. " The objective is to improve the

quality of single quarters," says Du Plessis.

Spokesmen for Rand Mines and Gold

Fields also expressed support for the idea of

moire family accommodation.

Clearly, the mining houses are open to the

suggestion of housing their employees on a

family basis. But many issues will have to be

resolved first. Some of these relate to costs.

Schemes will have to be developed to put

home ownership in the reach of

mineworkcrs. Mow these will work remains

to be seen.

Other factors arc in the court of government: questions like making land available,

proclaiming townships, and the Group Areas

Act.

Quite patently, this calls for more, and

more determined, reform.

/13104

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80
SOUTH AFRICA

BRIEFS

EMIGRATION RATE—Ten thousand people settled in South Africa last year

compared with the 17,000 in 1985. Last year more than 13,700 people

emigrated compared with about 11,400 in 1985. This means there was a loss

of about 6,700 people last year compared with the gain of about 5,900

the previous year. There was little change in the number of tourists.

Last year more than 1,124,000 visited the country with the figures of the

previous year slightly higher at almost 1,217,000 Text [Johannesburg

Domestic Service in English 0900 GMT 20 Mar 87 MB] /12624

CSO: 3400/288

81
SOUTH AFRICA

AHI PRESIDENT OUTLINES PLAN FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH

MB201128 Johannesburg SAPA in English 1050 GMT 20 Mar 87

[Embargoed until 1800 GMT 20 March]

[Text] Johannesburg, 20 Mar (SAPA)—"If South Africa did not do something

now to ensure sustained economic growth, the country was destined for

economic and social problems with incalculable consequences, said the

president of Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut, [Afrikaans Trade Institute, AHI]

Mr Christie Kuun in Cape Town today.

Addressing the Cape Town Afrikaanse Sakekamer, [Afrikaans Chamber of

Commerce] Mr Kuun, who is also senior general manager of Saambou national

building society, proposed a nine-point plan to ensure economic growth

into the 1990's.

He stressed that implementation of the principles contained in the nine-point

plan was of "the utmost importance".

It would also not help over the longer term to expect the government

to activate growth — the necessary action would have to come from the

private sector itself.

The nine-point plan proposed by Mr Kuun consisted, of the following

principles:

1. Financial discipline and the maintenance of sound monetary and fiscal

policies.

2. A general remuneration policy which bore closer relation to actual

production.

3. An increase in domestic saving from which to finance sound investment

and maintain a surplus on the current account of the balance of payments.

In this connection, Mr Kuun said, further thought would have to be given to

the merits of import control and a new "buy South African" campa on.

4. More purposeful utilization of South Africa's capital assets, since the

ratio between yield and capital tad declined by 25 percent over the

past 15 years.

82
5. Greater fixed investment to awaken economic renewal and growth.

6. Better utilization of production factors such as capital, raw materials

and energy inputs.

7. More research and development, because the amounts which the country

was spending on them as a percentage of its gross domestic product

compared poorly with those of other countries.

8. The continued preservation of the countrys balance of payments.

It was of vital importance, Mr Kuun said, that .the current account

should continue to show a surplus and consequently that those aspects

over which control could be exercised should receive earnest attention.

This meant that exporters should enter the international markets strongly

while domestic spending was kept, in check so that imports did not

increase too sharply.

9. The promotion of effective competition, because.this was the only way

to advance economic efficiency.

Mr Kuun said that apart from maintaining law, order and political

stability, it was and remained necessary that basic economic affairs

be managed correctly and well. If these principles were persevered with,

the country's economic propects would without doubt improve.

/12624

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83
SOUTH AFRICA

STANDARD BANK HEAD: GOVERNMENT TO BLAME FOR INFLATION

Johannesburg BUSINESS DAY in English 27 Feb 87 p 2

[Article by Helena Patten]

[Text] Port Elizabeth—SA was moving into the company of hyper-inflationriddled Latin America and Africa, Conrad Strauss, MD of Standard Bank,

said yesterday.

He told an economic seminar of the Midland Chamber of Industries in Port

Elizabeth that inflation was peculiarly threatening in SA. Social cohesion

was dubious and solutions to the problems of population growth and a more

equitable distribution of income had been made difficult by sanctions,

disinvestment arid lack of confidence in the rand.

He said governments allowed inflation to occur because it disguised their

own efforts to get more of the national output. "By facilitating inflation,

governments automatically increase tax revenue while, at the same time,

reducing their future real debt burden.

"Government is the largest debtor in the economy and thus benefits most

from the erosion of the real value of its debt. Companies, as net debtors,

also benefit from erosion of debt, but the impact on government debt is

particularly important because institutions are forced, through the imposition of prescribed asset requirements, to invest in government paper whose

real value will be considerably lower when repaid.

"This amounts to legal expropriation of wealth in favour of government and

away from individuals."

He said the currently advocated prices-and-incomes policy would be politically disastrous, quite apart from economic considerations. Such a policy

would probably be construed by the black labour force as yet another attempt

to maintain white economic privilege and power.

The currently falling inflation rate was merely technical and future demands

would encourage renewed inflationary pressure.

Monetary policy should allow for a disciplined rise in aggregate demand,

while fiscal policy should be directed at ending existing wasteful and

unproductive expenditure, he said.

/9317

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PLIGHT OF UNEMPLOYED CAPE TOWN POPULATION HIGHLIGHTED

Cape Town THE ARGUS in English 2 Mar 87 p 11 J

[Article by Rehana Rossouw]

SOUTH AFRICA

[Text]

c

I APE TOWN - the sunshine city to which

thousands of tourists

flock to sample the delights

of its beaches and the majesty of its mountains.

But beneath the beautiful

facade of South Africa's

showpiece lies misery and

hardship for the thousands

living below the breadline because of unemployment.

This is the side of Cape

Town tourists never see.

Where hungry children cry

themselves to sleep and desperate parents walk the

streets hoping to earn enough

to last another day.

You need not venture into

the townships to find such

misery.

The problem is far more

widespread. More than 60 000

Capetonians are officially unemployed. This is a conservative figure — the number of

people involved is considerably higher, possibly even

double.

. The Argus has had a wave

of letters from desperate

readers whose lives have

been shattered by unemployment.

One of the saddest and

most consistent problems is

that of people over 40 who

are turned down by employers in preference to younger

recruits.

This letter from a Sea

Point woman says it all: "I

am a proud but humble jobseeker.

"How does a middle-aged

("over the hill"), well-qualified respectable lady say

'please will you seriously consider me for your vacancy ...

you see, my savings are depleted and I have been declared destitute.

"How can a prospective

employer choosing between

the selected shortlisted few,

be aware of the plight of the

person with a smiling face,

sitting opposite him — hoping

and praying.

"How do you get it across

to him? You try to look your

best, smile and make a joke,

but underneath you're desperate, really hurting. There is

no way you can beg him to

give you a job.

"Sometimes you're up

against a bored secretary

who wants to change employers. You want to shout give

me the job, I need it more

than her".

"I've been reduced to going

to the Department of Welfare

for a grant. But that doesn't

help when the bills come in.

"Once you're classed as

destitute, your friends treat

you like a leper. People seem

to think that you do not have

the drive or ambition to secure employment."

Other readers, unemployed

for months, wrote of being

desperate enough to resort to

crime, frustrated by walking

the streets and still going

home without jobs.

But young workseekers are

often just as unsuccessful.

Vanessa Bartlett, 19, a matriculant from Manenberg,

has been job-hunting for more

than a year. She wrote begging The Argus to help her

find "an honest and good job".

"I matriculated in 1985 and

completed a secretarial

course at the Cape Town

School of Commerce. Since

then I have been looking for a

job.

"Every morning my mother

wakes me at 8am and I rush

down to the post office to

phone for jobs advertised in

the newspapers.

"All the companies I phone

tell me they are looking for

people with experience. They

add they want older women.

"I've been to the Department of Manpower, I've sent

application forms to hundreds

of companies and I've been to

all the employment agencies,

but I still haven't found a job.

"Once a week my mother

gives me trainfare to town

where I go from company to

company looking for a job.

The thought of shoplifting and

other means of making mon85
ey has crossed my mind —

I'm that desperate.

A "despondent parent

from Kenilworth wrote of the

anguish of her 23-year-old son

who has not found a job since

he completed his military

service in December last

year.

"He came out of the army

full of enthusiasm, pride and

excitement. This has now

turned to despair, unhappiness and loss of faith in his

country.

"He applied for 10 jobs, was

turned down at eight and refused two prospective interviews. The firms all wanted

experienced people although

my son has a business diploma.

• "He is now thinking of emigrating and I must ask: "Can

South Africa afford to lose

young people of this calibre?"

"Something has to be wrong

with a country when young

people cannot find employment when the economy is

supposed to be on the incline.

What is the future of young

people in South Africa?"

Area manager for a large

personnel agency in Cape

Town Miss Anne O'Healy said

jobs for unskilled, inexperi-,

enced workers were still

scarce, although prospects

had brightened for top

employees.

"We find our clients are

prejudiced against older people, even though they have

more experience and are generally more responsible.

"There are more vacancies

this year than there were last

year, but our clients are still

looking for experienced people.

"We've managed to place a

few matriculants, but only

the top students."

Many job-seekers have given up hope.

/13104

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SOUTH AFRICA

HOW WHITE HOUSEHOLDS SPEND INCOME

Johannesburg BUSINESS DAY in English 4 Mar 87 p 3

BMeditil,

recreation, (woks,

education, persohaf

K restaurants, holidays!

C Transport, eommünijation'

PHousehold operation; servants.

E Furniture and eippment. - ,t

f Housing, fuel, power,' '"'''

G Clothing, footwear.U

H Food, drink, tobacco:« Income tax, insurance,

finance, investments.

White households spend nearly 10%

more of their income on tax and insurance than they did 10 years ago. Government figures show that 32% of income in 1985 was spent on Income

tax, insurance and other financial

needs, compared to 23% in 1976. To

pay for this, the main casualties have

been food and drink, medical care,

entertainment, education and holidays. In 1975, spending on food, drink

and tobacco accounted for 16% of Income in the average white household.

Ten years later, this had fallen to 13%.

Medical services, books and leisure activities, which ate up 19% in 1975, fell

to 15%.

/13104

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SOUTH AFRICA

MD SEES POSITIVE SIDE OF DISINVESTMENT

Johannesburg BUSINESS DAY in English 4 Mar 87 p 2

[Article by Helena Patten]

[Text] DISINVESTMENT of multinationals from SA had created a new breed

of entrepreneurs, Information Trust

Corporation (previously Dun &

Bradstreet) MD Paul Edwards said.

"Managements of affected companies

have, in most instances, leapt at the

opportunity to purchase productive

assets at a fair value," he said in Johannesburg yesterday at the official launch

of the new company. .

SA ownership of foreign subsidiaries

would result in foreign-currency savings

because dividends and management fees

would not be repatriated.

Many deals had also been structured

to allow employees to participate in

ownership. , ...

Edwards said: "Our employees will

receive 25% of the company, based on

their length of service and their level of

grading.

"This has already had a positive

impact on motivation and productivity,;

and will, in turn, create new. wealth;

among employees who might never

have had such an opportunity."

1 On the SA economy, Edwards said:

"The present upturn might just run out

i of steam unless government is prepared

to act quickly and imaginatively.

"Bold action is required by government to rectify the imbalance between

corporate and individual tax contributions.

"Bracket creep has ensured that contribution by personal income taxes,

perks taxes and GST has increased from

24% in 1980 to more than 50% of the total

contribution to State revenue." ;

Government's expansionary fiscal

policies, excessive pay hikes for civil

servants and lack of control on spending

in 1983 and 1984 had led to government

applying the brakes too firmly in August

1984. Government now had to get the

economy moving again without pushing

inflation through the roof. I

/13104

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^OUTH AFRICA

TAIWAN EXPERTS TRAIN BLACK FARMERS IN TRIAL RICE PRODUCTION

Johannesburg FINANCIAL MAIL in English 20 Mar 87 pp 88, 89

[Text] Rice paddies in the Lowveld? It may sound

improbable, but the idea is catching on fast

in the hot Tonga area of KaNgwane — north

of Swaziland. And so far yields are.better

than in Taiwan.

With the retail value of the growing local

market now some R250m a year, there is

huge potential for local producers — provided they can match the price and quality of

current major suppliers, the US and Thailand, who are dumping cheaper rice on the

local market.

At Tonga, black farmers are being trained

by Taiwanese experts to produce rice on 1 ha

plots, soon to be increased to 3 ha. Each plot

yields an average R4 410 net to the black

owner-operator and the July harvest could

add a further R2 000. This will inject a

substantial amount of ready cash into the

local economy.

The Tonga project is part of the Department of Development Aid's (DDA) policy to

establish commercial black farmers in rural

areas. Some 177 000 black families in all six

self-governing territories are now involved in

farming projects, while 1 700 farmers are

operating Commercially on about 36 000 ha.

Says DDA liaison officer Betsie Smith:

"These self-help schemes are unique in the

southern African context. The establishment

of commercial, market-orientated farmers is

a complicated and protracted process of selection and intensive training in technology

and marketing skills. But we have seen spectacular successes."

Kellogg's SA has bought the full 1001

Tonga rice crop plus a similar sized crop

frofn the Makatini area, where a 10 ha experimental project is also under way. Kellogg MD, John Johnson says his group currently imports about 4 000 t of rice from the

US for the manufacture of its Rice Crispies.

The multinational breakfast cereal group is

the market leader in the US.

"Quality is comparable with the best from

overseas. And local purchases will save valuable foreign exchange, while also reducing

the risk of dealing in fluctuating currencies,"

says Kellogg's purchasing manager Alex van

der Linde.

The success of the twin trial projects —

jointly launched by the DDA, KaNgwane

and KwaZulu agriculture departments and

managed by agronomists from Taiwan —

has surprised experts on both side of the

Indian Ocean.

"I am still puzzled how these plots can

yield I0t/ha, which is some 3 t/ha better

than average yields in Taiwan," says DahJiang Liu, visiting senior agronomist of the

Taiwanese Department of Agronomy's Agricultural Research Institute at Taichung.

But to Ming-Ho Chang, the agronomist in

charge of the Tonga project, there is no

mystery.,

"It is a combination of favourable factors.

The very hot climate induces growth even at

night, the excellent loamy soil is perfect for

rice production, while the nutrient-rich waters of the Komati River induces maximum

growth," Chang tells the FM.

Adding to the success of the project, rattoon crops now growing from the cropped

rice plants are expected to yield a further 3 t4 t/ha by July this year.

"We intend expanding the project to

about 400 ha as soon as possible. Some

150 ha should come into production by early

1988, yielding about 1 5001 of rice on current projections. This will be sold on the local

market," says DDA assistant director Aussie

Snyman.

Paddy farming requires lots of water and,

apart from switching from traditional square

89
Chinese paddies lo contour production, optimum water management -is also being researched. Two major dams are being

planned in conjunction with Swaziland authorities and these could vastly increase the

scope of current production.

Meanwhile, the local 170 0001 a year consumer rice market is steadily growing, with

black consumers already representing 67%

of total consumption. Major rice importer S

Wainstein & Co's brand leader, Tastic, is

the largest individual rice brand in the world

and also brand leader in SA.

"Last year the market grew 6% against

7% and 14% in the two preceding years. The

black market has huge potential," says

Wainstein manager Andre Naude.

/13104

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90
SOUTH AFRICA

FREEGOLD ABLE TO PRODUCE GOLD WELL INTO NEXT CENTURY

Johannesburg BUSINESS DAY in English 4 Mar 87 p 4

[Article by Peter Stacey]

[Text] CURRENT developments at Freegold will enable the Welkom megamine to produce gold well into the

third decade of next century.

Fundamental restructuring after

1986's merger has not only kept viable

some otherwise marginal shaft systems

but, in some cases, allowed development

of areas that faced shelving or delay.

MD Lionel Hewitt says the total milling rate at Freegold could be increased

to 24-million tons a year, from 22-million

tons at present. This could be achieved

within existing plant capacity, and no

expansion beyond this levelis envisaged.

Whether sustained production at this

level would have been possible for the

individual, pre-merger mines is debatable, and a number of shaft systems

might have been unviable.

An extensive re-allocation of plant

capacity has taken place. The merger

has allowed tremendous flexibility/

which is another key to continued maximum usage of plant.

While the metallurgical treatment of

one mine's output by another mig^t

seem to offer an alternative, it is a cumbersome process. .,

Freegold can "cascade" production

extensively between shafts with, for

example, total tonnage from Erfdee! —

which comes on stream later this year

— being processed' at Free State Saaiplaas.

With further juggling of capacity,

overflow from Saaiplaas goes to an

extended President Steyn plant, and

some ore from President Steyn can be

processed next door at President Brand.

Interlinking of resources is a major

source of savings, Hewitt says.

While Anglo American has stressed

the production benefits flowing from

rationalising operations at all levels, tax

benefits might have been uppermost in

many analysts' minds at the time of the

merger.

Pre-merger "tax shields" for some of

the mines were inadequate for optimal

exploitation of some projects.

The overall umbrella has changed

this, and a number of new developments

(which, in fact, replace areas coming to

the end of their productive lives) can be

given the go-ahead.

Hewitt points out that optimal use of

resources, including maximisation of

tax benefit, is, ultimately, not depriving

the taxman of revenue. He is, after all,

our biggest shareholder," he adds.

Perhaps just as important as economies of scale to the new mining giant is

the question of risk. To a single mine a

major flood or, more topically, extensive and prolonged labour unrest, can

affect performance critically or even

put a mine out of business.

The size of Freegold, some of whose

mines have seen their share of labour

problems this year, spreads these risks.

/13104

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91
SOUTH AFRICA

LARGE AREAS OF UNMINED EVANDER GOLD FIELD TO BE EXPLOITED

Johannesburg THE SUNDAY STAR (Finance) in English 8 Mar 87 p 6

[Article by John Spira]

[Text]

A VERY large part of

the unmined areas of

the Evander gold field

will be exploited over

the next 63 or more

yearsf.

This is the conclusion

of a leading Johannesburg stockbroking firm;

Menell, Jack Hyman,

Rosenberg & Co, which,

in an in-depth study of

the fields, has mapped

out Evander's potentially exploitable areas.

The conclusion drawn

by the firm places a new

perspective on South

Africa's likely future

share of world gold output — a share which has

been steadily declining

in recent years.

It also suggests that

South Africa's gold-mining industry — and in

particular the Evander

field — has a life a good

deal longer than many

mining analysts are currently projecting.

Focusing on the individual prospects in the

area, the firm points out

that in addition to the

four existing mines

(Winkelhaak, Bracken,

Leslie and Kinross), a

fifth area, the Poplar

venture, is now in the

final stages of planning

and financial feasibility

studies, with completion

only delayed through the

present lack of an availj able tax shadow. ____

[ The drilling and evaluation of the prospect

are being conducted by

Kinross and financed

partly by long-term

loans and partly by tax

savings.

Bracken, and possibly

Leslie, the firm maintains, have short life

prospects, the former

never having been a

high-tonnage mine because severe faulting

losses had eliminated

the reef over about 50

percent of the property.

' '•Further, Bracken's

reef areas are bounded

by the southern sub-outcrop amd worked-out

areas of the adjoining

mining companies.

"Leslie is open-ended

to the north and west of

its lease and has recently extended its prospecting areas in this direction.

"But values on the periphery of the original

mining areas are indeed

low, so that the longevity of its productive life

j is very much dependent

; on the maintenance of a

high gold price relative

to cost levels."

Kinross and Winkelhaak, however, have an

entirely different outlook, being open-ended

to wide areas where the,

reef horizon is estimated to lie above a depth

of 2 000 m.

"Although little is publicly known about any

payshoots or values in

the underdeveloped

areas, the majority of

mineral rights in these

areas are controlled by

the Gencor group.

"It is both significant

and encouraging that the

group is still extending

its prospecting work towards Kinross's Poplar

area."

The firm concludes:

"While Bracken and Leslie are excluded from

any long-term investment recommendations,

Kinross and Winkelhaak

currently occupy reasonably prime positions'

among our preferred

' gold holdings."

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/9317

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SOUTH AFRICA

BRIEFS

TRADE WITH DENMARK DIMINISHES—Denmark's reciprocal trade with South Africa

fell drastically in 1986, according to figures issued by the Danish

government's Office of Statistics. Imports to Denmark from South Africa

have been reduced by almost half, from around 1 billion 685 million kroner

to around 829 million kroner last year. At the same time, exports from

Denmark to South Africa fell from around 613 million kroner in 1985, to

around 423 million kroner in 1986. [Text] [Copenhagen BERLINGSKE TIDENDE

in Danish 20 Mar 87 p 4] /9317

GOVERNMENT APPROVES COFFEE PLANTING—Government has approved the planting

of an additional 5 400 ha of coffee, with an expected yield of 5 000

tons after an Industrial Development Corporation inquiry into the production and marketing of the crop. An SA Agricultural Union spokesman said

a primary objective would be the creation of jobs and the provision of

opportunities for black farmers. Homelands will be allocated a total of

5 000 ha and white areas 400 ha. [Text] [Johannesburg BUSINESS DAY in

English 5 Mar 87 p 2] /9317

FOREIGN INVESTORS BUY FARMS—Cape Town—Several Hundred million rand are

believed to have poured into SA as more foreign investors take advantage

of the still relatively weak financial rand to buy property, listed

securities and businesses. In the Western Cape, historic farms are the

big attraction and several near Paarl and Stellenbosch have been sold to

foreign investors for Rim and more. [Text] [Johannesburg BUSINESS DAY in

English 27 Feb 87 p 2] /9317

VENTRON IN U.S. SHARES PURCHASE—SA Electronics giant Ventron Corp has

bought a significant minority interest in a listed US electronics company.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ventron—

holding company of Altron, Altech, Powertech and Fintec—agreed not to

take up more than 40% of the US firm's shares at this stage. But it kept

Open its option to seek control by obtaining most of the voting securities

or seats on the board of directors. Ventron chairman Bill Venter would

disclose neither the investment involved nor the number of shares bought.

He said the move was expansionary in line with Ventron's aim to increase

its offshore contribution to revenue to 20%. The investment was not made

to secure US supplies as the US firm was in an entirely different field

of electronics, he said. Ventron, now worth Rl,46bn, is to have two

94
representatives on the seven-member board of directors of the US company.

Venter asked Business Day to withhold the name of the US firm. "It is

the intention that the company in which Ventron has invested will continue

to grow through acquisitions but we can influence them only to the extent

of our board representation," said Venter. "We have over the past three

years been involved in an acquisition search and in developing export

markets," he added. [Text] [Johannesburg BUSINESS DAY in English 27 Feb 87

p 3] /9317

NETHERLAND BANK SEVERING INVESTMENT TIES—A Dutch bank has decided to cut

links with South Africa for fear of political violence. Investment

bank (Pearson Helding and Pearson) is the third major Dutch firm to pull

out of South Africa in 2 months. In January, HSV stopped its local

operations after it became the target of political activists in the

Netherlands. Arsonists cause considerable damage at HSV stores around

the country. A few days after the HSV pullout, floor Covering Company

[name indistinct] cut its business ties to guarantee the safety of

its employees. [Text] [Umtata Capital Radio in English 1000 GMT 20 Mar 87

MB] /12624

RSA MANUFACTURING PRODUCTION—The South African manufacturing industry is

still having to contend with general problems plaguing the rest of the

economy. Production is poor, costs have increased sharply, and profits

are under pressure. These facts have been highlighted in Volkskas' latest

monthly economic review. The review notes that there was small increase

of 0.4 percent in industrial production in 1986, although isolated subsections

such as the paper, glass, steel, and. leather industries show increases of

14 and 1/2 percent. Sectors hard-pressed are the motor, motor spares,

metal, and printing industries. Declines of more than 24 percent occurred

in these sectors. [Text] [Johannesburg] Domestic Service in English

0900 GMT 19 Mar 87 MB] /12624

XEROX AFFILIATE TO SELL SUBSIDIARY—American firm Xerox Corporation is

joining dozens of other United States companies selling South African

holdings and leaving the country to protest apartheid policies. Xerox

Corporation's London affiliate, Rank Xerox Ltd, says it will sell its

South African subsidiary to a South African electrical and electronics

company for an undisclosed sum. Xerox says its South African unit

provided less than 1 percent of its nearly $9 billion of annual sales.

So far this year, 9 U.S. companies have left South Africa and another

15 have announced they will soon be pulling out. Last year 49 companies

left South Africa. [Text] [Umtata Capital Radio in English 0500 GMT 21 Mar

87 MB] /12624

SEABORNE IMPORTS OUTSTRIP EXPORTS—Seaborne imports outstripped exports by

nearly nine-to-one last year. Latest Sats figures show nearly 81-million tons

of imports were landed at SA harbours in 1986 while 9,3-million tons of

exports shipped out. [Text] [Johannesburg BUSINESS DAY in English 5 Mar 87

p 1] /13104

CSO: 3400/309 95
SOUTH AFRICA

GENCOR INTO CHILEAN SHIPBUILDING VENTURE

Johannesburg FINANCIAL MAIL in English 20 Mar 87 p 87

[Text ] Sandock-Austi al (S-A), Gcncor's low-profile

heavy engines: ing z?d shipbuilding arm, is

flexing its muscle in world markets.

After winning a US$13m tender against

international competition to build a shipyard

at Punta Arenas, southern Chile, two and a

half years ago, S-A entered into a 50-50

arrangement with Asmar, the Chilean navy's

ship repairer. The jointly owned company is

now operating the Strait of Magellan Shipyard.

Prospects for the new venture, situated on

the main sea route from the Atlantic to the

Pacific oceans, are good, says • Pierre de

Villiers, S-A MD and first chairman of the

joint company.

"The nearest shipyard to service the everincreasing flow of shipping traffic," he says,

"is nearly 1 500 km away at Talcahuano on

the Pacific coast of South America. On the

Atlantic coast, the nearest yard is even further away — at Montevideo."

He points out that the industry is currently

being boosted by the trend to ship refurbishing to avoid heavy capital outlay on replacement.

Also, the new ship repair facility lies in an

area where mineral resources are being exploited and which is becoming increasingly

important for the fishing industry.

The shipyard, now ready to receive its first

vessel, consists of a marine railway drydocking system which retrieves vessels from the

sea and then refloats them when repairs have

been completed.

De Villiers is particularly proud of the fact

that the entire project was managed by S-A.

"Crandall of the US was our design consultant. But all the steel for the project came

from SA; it was fabricated at our Durban

shipyard and, together with our partner Asmar, we installed it on site at Punta Arenas.

,Now we are into the physical operation ofthe'

shipyard."

Encouraged by the success of the venture,

S-A is now looking for new joint ventures

overseas. The company always had a fairly

sizeable stake in the export field through its

involvement with Armscor and its expertise

as a manufacturer of combat vehicles, but it

has never publicised its activities.

"I think we have proved that we have the

ability to handle major projects anywhere in

/13104

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96