African Activist Archive

Report on the South African and Namibian fishing industry. The report says before 1950 Los Angeles was recognized as the fishing capital of the world, producing some 940 million pounds valued at $43.5 million. The report says Namibia and South Africa were no strangers to U.S. fishing concerns; American whalers have been fishing off Namibian waters since 1784, a hundred years later Americans were introducing purse-seining into the South East Atlantic; and South African rock lobster was arriving in Philadelphia as early as 1876, more than 20 years before the California sardine fishery commenced caning operations in San Francisco. The report says just as World War One provided the stimulus for the growth of the California fishing industry, so did the Second World War affect the fisheries of Namibia and South Africa. The report says because of South Africa's apartheid policies both Ghana and Malaya officially boycotted all South African goods, thus eliminating the third and fourth largest markets for Namibian canned fish. The Philippines followed the boycott several years later (and has sinceforth reinstated the boycott following the recent Soweto massacres). The report discusses Del Monte Corporation; Star Kist Foods; Municipal Ovambo Compound at Walvis Bay; Tsumeb; Anglo-Transvaal Industries Ltd. (Anglovaal); Oceana Group; Tuna Corporation of Africa, Ltd.; Metal Box Company; Bien Trading Company Inc.; Durkee Famous Foods; Norwegian Fish Importers; Mitsubishi International Corporation; Booth Fisheries; Farrell Lines; Robin Lines; Lykes Lines; South African Marine Corporation (Safmarine); South West Africa Fishing Industries Ltd. (SWAFIL); and Norwegian Fish Importers Inc. • THE CONTRACTORS: the rise and fall of the California fishing industry • THE EXECUTIONERS: the emergency of the Namibian fishing industry • THE PAYOFF: profits from apartheid • THE GANG: bantustan bodyguards • THE BUST: the sheriff is an outlaw [Note: This report was apparently researched and produced by the Southern Africa Support Committee.]

African Activist Archive

THE CONTRACTORS: the rise & fall of the California fishing industry

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