Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-11

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.  Doctor Randera?

DR RANDERA: Mr  Roshal, first of all let me say thank you very much for the co-operation we've received from your office and yourself in the preparation of the submission.  I want to actually start with a very general question, that you yourself have perhaps taken issue with Professor Terblanche's submission, but what comes out very clearly as we've read through all these submissions, is almost a polarised view point.  One the one side, a position that's been taken by yourself and many other business organisations, that there were rules, regulations, laws, a government that was very oppressive.  On the other side, submissions from the trade union movements, from political parties, like the Communist Party, the African National Congress, the organisations that are representing black business; that essentially is making the accusation that business was very integral, was very much part of the culture of the time and I think that the underlying theme that we have in this whole period is a racist ideology based on a belief that black people were unequal to, were not equal to white people.  Now it is within that context that I want to try and understand your own position, because when people say they were against apartheid, and you yourself has talked about going back to 1963, and having made statements against many of the policies of the government of the time.  But it's this overwhelming culture that seems to emerge, that we'd like to understand and perhaps your own views on that.

MR ROSHALT: I think if I can explain, I was not disagreeing with Professor Terblanche's summary of the background over the century.  I was disagreeing with his 'lumping' together business as one unit; and I detect even in your question to me, much the same misunderstanding of what business is.  My only answer to you is, that I don't think you can find a common attitude towards apartheid, of all business units.  There were certainly some, and Professor Terblanche made it very clear where he thought the fault lay, too were supporters.  There were others such as my own organisation and myself personally who were not supporters.  It is very difficult to prove that.  I know that, I read the part by Mr Jay Naidoo, I don't know whether he's still here this morning, about COSATU's view of the implications that all business were supporters of apartheid.  I would just like someone to tell me, what business could have done to change the political arena.  No one has, there are general accusations, statements, that business generally, again I can't agree with business as general, was supportive of apartheid.  What could it have done?  Was business to break the law?  That is the crucial question.  In my view it was not, and as I said in my submission, if the circumstances arose again, unhappily in the future, where a government was interfering with human rights for instance, should business then break the law?  Or should it try to remedy the situation?  We are speaking now with a great deal of hindsight, but in those days, it was not so easy.  I don't think that's the answer to your question.  I don't have an answer to you question, Dr Randera.

DR RANDERA: Mr Roshalt, if I can take you forward and perhaps ask you more specific questions, and I want to actually go to the period, 1973 and the decade following that.  The Minister of Defence at the time in 1973, formed the Defence Advisory Council

MR ROSHALT: Ja

DR RANDERA: And I understand you yourself were a member of that council.  That period also leads us into that, the whole period of the total onslaught strategy, which in many, one of the basis of that strategy was to, was that, twenty percent of that was military and the rest was political, social and economic.  Now, if someone who was opposed, as you so clearly said yourself, opposed to apartheid of the time, could we try to understand what the role of big business was, in the Defence Advisory Council, and what role they played if any, to change the climate that existed at that time?

MR ROSHALT: I can't help you here, because in fact, I was invited to be a member of that council, I went to one meeting at Voortrekkerhoogte and that was the end.  It never got off the ground or I was never invited to participate any further.  So I'm afraid, I'm not avoiding the issue, but I was not a member, I was not an effective member of that, for more than one meeting.

DR RANDERA: Can I take that a little further, than the, and just bring into the equation,  the role of Barlow Rand itself in that whole military, industrial complex period.  There have been accusations made that Barlow had a very close relationship in supplying the military, industrial complex with electronic equipment specifically

MR ROSHALT: Ja,

DR RANDERA: Could you comment on that?

MR ROSHALT: Yes, I think again, one has to go back to the, the conflicts of the time.  The west had been engaged in a very destructive war against the totalitarians, nazism.  When that contest was over, it was faced with a cold war against an equally totalitarian system as Russian communism.  If you look at any country in the west, there were countries, there were companies which engaged in military procurement, and I see, and as far as we were concerned, there was no difference at that time, under those circumstances and Barlow certainly was in electronic procurement for the forces.

DR RANDERA: And would that have included breaking the UN embargo, if necessary?

MR ROSHALT: Yes, and as you know, there has been an ongoing, happily now concluded, legal procedure with, through Armscor, with the State Department

DR RANDERA: In the same vain, would you say it was (unclear), to Armscor at the time, was part of that same sort of thinking, it was more against Russian economy and yet they talk of communism in this region, rather than part and parcel of the oppression existed inside South Africa.

MR ROSHALT: Certainly at the time, it was the former.

DR RANDERA: Thank you.  I want to actually just come to Barlow's attitudes towards trade unionism.  Many articles that I've read certainly talked about the enlightened policy that Barlow had but, there's also the attitude that  there was a great deal of union bashing that went on from Barlows' subsidiaries in the eighties.  Would you agree or disagree with that?

MR ROSHALT: I think that you've got to understand, that although, the main board of any company has to take responsibility for the actions, and they can't hide from them.  Barlows at that stage was a com, was a group of well over a hundred operating companies, with two hundred and thirty nine thousand employees.  So that for anyone at main board level to be in touch with every single action that took place, in those operating subsidiaries, it would be virtually impossible, that's the background.  I haven't heard, of any union bashing.  I give you our philosophy that we were one of the very first companies ever, unpopularly to recognise unregistered trade unions.  My memory of the problem of those days with the unions, was not bashing, it was the dispute which continues now between  negotiating at plant and operational level, rather than, as the unions wanted, at central level.  And we were right.  How any negotiation could take place at central bargaining level, when you had a hundred diverse business' with diverse policies, not policies so much as diverse interests and trading, I still don't know, but Dr Randera, as far as bashing is concerned, I was certainly unaware of that and I certainly wouldn't have allowed it.