Since the adoption of our last report, the situation in South Africa has become worse and worse. The South African regime is stubbornly and systematically pursuing its inhuman policies of apartheid despite the resolutions of the United Nations. To cite but one example, I might mention the decision taken by the South African authorities on 11 February 1966 to declare the centre of Cape Town, known as District Six, a White area. This means simply that 20,000 non-Whites have to evacuate this area, although the non-White community of Cape Town has lived there for three centuries and three of the largest mosques of the Malay community are situated there.
The brutal repression of the opponents of apartheid is continuing with more and more atrocities.
A large number of people, mostly women, have been arrested under the outrageous "180-day Law", which authorizes the regime to imprison, without charges, any person whom the authorities may regard as a possible witness in security cases. The names of these persons, particularly the non-Whites, are a closely guarded secret. They are not allowed to communicate with their lawyers or their families.
The news of these trials and of the numerous arrests reassures us to some extent because, so long as there are fighters and opponents of apartheid of all racial origins, the South African Government cannot feel quite secure. In this connexion, allow me to recall operative paragraph 5 of resolution 2054 A (XX), in which the General Assembly "Firmly supports all those who are opposing the policies of apartheid and particularly those who are combating such policies in South Africa." These men and women compel our admiration and deserve all our sympathy.
As an example, I should like to mention the case of the Weinberg family of Johannesburg. Last year the father, Eli Weinberg, was sentenced and imprisoned for reasons connected with the Fischer case. Mrs. Violet Weinberg was arrested in November 1965 under the "180-day Law" and their daughter, Sheila Weinberg, a university student, is on bail, having being sentenced last year to eighteen months' imprisonment for taking part in the activities of the African National Congress - one of the popular and democratic parties banned by the South African regime.
I should also like to mention the case of the Schermbrucker family. Mr. Ivan Frederick Schermbrucker is serving a prison sentence and his wife, Mrs. Lesley Schermbrucker, was arrested in November 1965 under the "180-day Law".
Although there are hundreds of African families and persons of Asian origin who have been persecuted in this way, I mentioned the case of these two white families intentionally in order to emphasize the fact that opposition to the inhuman policies of apartheid is not of a racial character but is essentially democratic and moral and that a large number of honest and decent members of the privileged white group have risen up against apartheid and struggled to safeguard the principles of dignity and freedom for all men, regardless of their race or religion.
Meanwhile, the South African regime has been making great efforts and spending large sums of money in lying propaganda. I should like to draw your attention to a detailed article entitled "South African Propaganda: Methods and Media" by Professor Vernon McKay, the well known American expert on Africa, which appeared in the February issue of Africa Report. The author points out that the South African information budget has risen from $146,000 in 1949 to $4,459,000 in 1965-1966.
This intensive propaganda campaign is accompanied by a large number of other measures designed to stifle the truth.
Quite recently, the South African regime refused to grant visas to Mr. Waldemar A. Nielsen, President of the African-American Institute, and to Professor Gwendolyn Carter of Northwestern University.
It also refused to issue passports to Mr. Knowledge Guzana , leader of the Democratic Party of Transkei - a party which received more popular votes than Mr. Matanzima's party - and to Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, a member of the Zulu royal family, both of whom had been invited by the United States Government to tour the United States. I suggest that we might bring these facts to the attention of those Governments which speak of keeping the channels of communication open, so that they may realize that timid non-coercive measures will never induce the South African regime to change its policy.
While the situation in South Africa continues to deteriorate, the trading partners of South Africa persist in ignoring the resolutions adopted by large majorities in the General Assembly. Indeed, South Africa's exports and imports reached record figures in 1965, in spite of the drought which caused a sharp drop in its agricultural exports.
Even the arms embargo proclaimed in three Security Council resolutions is being seriously violated. The Special Committee has already had occasion to mention the construction by the Atlas Aircraft Corporation at Kempton Park, near Johannesburg, of a factory to manufacture jet trainers for the South African armed forces. The factory is said to have cost $70 million, financed partly by foreign loans, and to be employing a large number of foreign technicians. A spokesman of the company said recently: "We are receiving more than thirty immigrants a month and although most of them are from Britain, there are also several from Italy, Germany, France and other countries."
Members of the Committee are no doubt aware that the Sub-Committee on Africa of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives has been holding hearings since 1 March on the United States policy towards South Africa.
The Chairman of this Sub-Committee, Mr. Barratt O'Hara, an experienced Congressman, represented the United States in the debate on apartheid at the last session of the General Assembly. He appears to have taken note of the many criticisms leveled against his country's policy, a policy which amounts to a not very convincing condemnation of apartheid without any really effective action to eliminate it or even to dissociate the United States from it.
Mr. O'Hara apparently took note also of the attacks made against the intensification of his country's economic relations with South Africa, which the Special Committee has mentioned in its reports. In announcing the decision to hold the hearings, Mr. O'Hara said that the purpose was to bring out the facts in order to promote a review of United States policy.
I have studied the initial statements made by some representatives of the United States Government which are more detailed and informative than those of the United States representatives in the United Nations. I must confess, however, that they do not reflect the urgency of the situation in South Africa. They show, of course, a certain awareness of the dangers of apartheid but they also reveal a tendency to think that the United States alone cannot bring about a decisive change in the situation in South Africa by a unilateral adoption of economic measures.
In this connexion, I might perhaps add that what the world expects of the United States is not only that it should adopt more energetic measures but that it should take the initiative, as we are entitled to expect of a great Power which professes ideals of liberty and racial equality in promoting coercive measures against the dictatorial and inhuman Pretoria regime in order to achieve a decisive and just solution of the racial problem in South Africa.
I must admit that I was particularly disappointed in the statement made by Mr. Alexander B. Trowbridge, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, on 2 March 1966, in which he defended American business men, who have been getting more and more deeply involved in South Africa's obnoxious racist policies, for the sole purpose of making easy profits.
Mr. Trowbridge refers to the United States favourable balance of trade with South Africa and to the considerable profits derived from United States investments in that country. Naturally, slavery is always profitable for those who practise it, until the slaves revolt. In any case, slavery degrades those who practise it.
We are, of course, aware that South Africa is able to maintain an unfavourable balance of trade with many of its trading partners since it exports millions of dollars worth of gold each year. We are also aware of the fabulous profits made by foreign investors in South Africa. In fact, at the risk of advertising South African market opportunities for foreign businessmen, we have dealt with these profits in great detail in the reports and documents of this Committee.
Mr. Trowbridge points out that the increase in United States investments in South Africa has resulted from reinvestment of profits by American companies rather than from the inflow of new capital. He states:
"… between 1955 and 1963, the total net outflow of new U.S. capital to South Africa amounted to only $9 million; the remainder of the growth in the value of U.S. private investment came from reinvested earnings totalling $209 million."
In other words, the profits are so fantastic that the United States investment keeps growing rapidly without a single dollar being sent from the United States.
Mr. Trowbridge's researchers have apparently not worked hard enough. I have obtained more detailed and more up-to-date figures from United States Department of Commerce publications, which show how this "miracle" worked after Mr. Verwoerd's National Party came to power in South Africa.
At the beginning of 1950, the United States investment in South Africa was no more than $105 million. In the next fifteen years, the net flow of United States capital to South Africa was about $76 million. If the loss of $36 million suffered by a mining company in 1960, when it liquidated its subsidiary, is taken into account, the amount is only $40 million. That makes a total of $145 million.
During those fifteen years, the United States companies made a profit of nearly $800 million, of which they took away $500 million and reinvested the rest in South Africa. The United States investment itself grew to $467 million by the end of 1964.
In other words, in the fifteen years the United States companies made a profit of four or five times the capital they had invested in 1950 and quadrupled their capital without sending a single dollar from the United States. I am referring, of course, to net flows of capital. Moreover, I do not think that these figures reflect the true picture, since the market value of the investments has soared tremendously during the last few years.
I do not propose to comment on foreign investment in general, but this special case of investment in a racist country deriving exorbitant profits from the blood and sweat of the coloured people is particularly immoral and outrageous. Such investment is to the detriment of workers, who are subjected to inhuman and barbarous treatment because of the colour of their skin.
Thus it is hardly surprising to find foreign investors firmly attached to this apartheid goose which lays the golden eggs.
We know that an embargo against South Africa calls for sacrifice. We have recommended that South Africa's trading partners should make the necessary sacrifices to resolve the explosive racial problem, as many other countries have done in Africa, Asia and elsewhere, rather than profit from the policies of racism.
Although such racism may be profitable to many United States companies, these profits are not vital to the United States of America, a great Power which has a special interest in seeking a peaceful solution to the problem of racism in general. Moreover, with every passing year the trade and investments increase and the profits mount up, so that the decision to take action against South Africa becomes more and more difficult.
To revert to Mr. Trowbridge; I wish to express my surprise that he has seen fit to praise the United States companies for exerting a positive influence on some aspects of racial practices in South Africa.
Mr. Trowbridge concludes, and this seems to be the gist of a stale and unconvincing argument:
"… the maintenance of a significant business community in South Africa may provide a useful channel of communication with influential South African private and official circles."
This United States business community has existed, we know, for a number of years. What has it done with its "channel of communication"? We have never heard of any serious opposition to apartheid. I would even say that this community has not hesitated to finance propaganda in favour of the South African regime and that it has used all its influence to discourage any action by the United States Government.