African Activist Archive

This document responds to Bank of America's "Some Straight talk on South Africa, An Interview with President Tom Clausen" in the April 1978 BankAmerican. The document says the significance of loans to South Africa should be measured in terms of its financial and diplomatic contribution to apartheid. On the one hand, the Bank seeks to minimize its total loan size in South Africa, while it also seeks to maximize its "leverage" or positive effects. Although the bank says it has no loans at present to the South African government, but it has no policy prohibiting such loans in the future. The document mentions the high rate of return on investment, low African wage rates and working conditions, U.S. firms, the African population, productivity, a fair wage, the black labor force, political upheavals, Zimbabwe, Rhodesia, resistance of the African population, Ian Smith, negotiations, Vernon Jordan, the National Urban League, Donald Woods, the late Steve Biko, the Black People's Convention (BPC), the Soweto rebellions, the African National Congress (ANC), the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), the United Nations General Assembly, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), sanctions, a crime punishable by a prison term of 5 years or death, violations of human rights, racial discrimination, segregation, white South Africans, African states, the recent expulsion of Barclays Bank officials from Nigeria, South African Prime Minister John Vorster, boycotts, picketing, and other pressures. More information is available from the Interfaith Center of Corporate Responsivity (ICCR) in New York or Northern California ICCR in San Francisco.

African Activist Archive

A RESPONSE TO BANK OF AMERICA'S COMMENTS ON SOUTH AFRICA

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