African Activist Archive

Contents: A Factual Summary of American Economic Involvement in South Africa • A Criticism of the "Engagement" Strategy • Aspects of Disengagement • Final Questions • Paper for the Special Session at the United Nations Headquarters on March 17-18, 1969 in which Houser comments on the debate about opposing apartheid that revolves around the terms "engagement" and "disengagement." U.S. policy has included condemnatory statements made at the United Nations against apartheid; the official ban on American arms shipments to South Africa; the cancellation of an official naval ship visiting a South African port; sponsorship of an occasional interracial gathering by the American embassy; assistance to the South African Atomic Energy Board in developing a nuclear reactor; the establishment of American tracking stations in South Africa with primarily white South African personnel; the import of South African sugar; and expanding American tourism to South Africa. The main U.S. exports to South Africa are chemicals and fertilizers, machinery, transport equipment, and petroleum. Principle U.S. imports from South Africa are fish products, chemical elements and compounds, metals, uranium, vanadium, chromium, asbestos and diamonds. The report says total private direct investment was $600 million in 1968; more than 260 American firms earn more than $100 million a year through affiliates or branches. Houser says the Bantustan system has been started both in the Transkei and in Ovamboland in South West Africa. The paper says the South African government has begun to provide direct military aid to the colonial wars of Portugal and the counter-guerilla actions of the illegal Smith regime in Rhodesia.

African Activist Archive

THE UNITED STATES SHOULD DISENGAGE FROM SOUTH AFRICA

SPECIAL SESSION AT THE UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS 17-18 MARCH 1969

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