Washington MemoSource: Africa Today, Vol. 14, No. 5, American Policy in Southern Africa (Oct., 1967), pp. 24-26Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4184822 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 10:08

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Indiana University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Africa Today.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.49 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:08:03 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Washington Memo: In the past few months probably the most

significant event in American political life af- fecting Africa was the resolution introduced by 58 Congressmen in support of the sanctions against the Smith regime in Rhodesia.

The 58 Congressmen do not plan to push their resolution through the House Foreign Af- fairs Committee to a vote on the floor of the House. Given the current make-up and temper of the House, it's doubtful they could get a ma- jority of the Committee to back the resolution, let alone a majority of the full House. One of the major motivations for the effort to introduce the resolution was to counteract the speeches and resolutions of the conservatives who have been attacking the UN sanctions.

However, the event should not be dismissed too lightly. Traditionally the House pays little attention to foreign policy, especially Africa. Fifty-eight Congressmen is a very large number to introduce any foreign policy resolution, and unprecedented for Africa.

The total effort involved in persuading 58 Congressmen to introduce the resolution probably produced more sympathetic concern for Africa than any previous event. It occurred in the face of a strong right-wing campaign in the U.S. against the sanctions, and no signs that the sanc- tions policy has been a success. The resolution fully backed efforts by the United Nations and the President to topple the Smith government, and even contained a militant section demanding majority rule before independence.

A lobbying campaign, led by the American Committee on Africa, was instrumental in stirring the 58 Congressmen to introduce the resolution. The ACOA was backed, to a limited extent, by the churches and the Committee of Returned Volunteers, a New York-based organization of ex- Peace Corps Volunteers. This was a first step toward creating a lobby of citizens in the United States concerned about Africa. If an African crisis more dramatic and encouraging than the stalled Rhodesia situation develops sometime in the future, this first lobbying effort can be used as a base for future action.

The Rhodesia resolution was initiated by Rep. Donald Fraser (D-Minn.), the leader of the Con- gressmen sympathetic to Africa. Rep. Jonathan Bingham (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the Demo- cratic Study Group Foreign Policy Steering Com- mitte (certainly an impressive title) was active in circulating the petition. Rep. Barratt O'Hara (D-Ill.), chairman of the African Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee, was responsible for the NIBMAR section of the resolution.

Richard Thomas analyzed in some detail the character and origins of the support for the Reso- lution. A detailed assessment (with appendix) is available from the Amnerican Committee on Afri- ca, 211 E. 43rd St., New York, New York 10017. His conclusions were:

1. Given that a Congressman is on record Continued on Page 24

AFRICA

OCTOBER, 1967 VOL. XIV, NO. 5

Editor: George W. Shepherd, Jr.

Associate Editor: Ezekiel Mphahlele

Editorial Contributors Board: Robert Browne-Fairleigh Dickinson University Fred Burke-Univ. of Syracuse Stanley Diamond-New School for Social Research William H. Friedland-Cornell University Collin Gonze-New School for Social Research George Houser-Executive Director, American

Committee on Africa Betsy Landis-American Committee on Africa Tilden LeMelle-Fordham University Robert I. Rotberg-Harvard University James Scaritt-University of Colorado W. A. Skurik-University of Colorado Richard Stevens-Lincoln University Arthur I. Waskow-Istitute for Policy Studies Sheldon Weeks-Harvard University Peter Weiss-American Committee on Africa

AFRICA TODAY Application to mail at second class rates

is pending at Denver, Colo.

Published bi-monthly by Africa Today Associates, c/o Graduate School of International Studie, Univer- sity of Denver, University Park Campus, Denver, Colo- rado 80210.

Founded by: The American Committee on Africa.

Subscriptions: One year, $5.00; two years, $9.50; three years, $13.95. Students: one year, $3.00. Foreign (ex- cept Canada and Pan America) add $1.00 per year. Sterling zone checks accepted.

Advertising: Rates on request.

Change of Address: Notify four weeks in advance, advising old and new address. Unsolicited manuscripts will not be returned unless requested and accompaned by a stamped, sell-addressed envelope.

Cover Design by Richard Sillick

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.49 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:08:03 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

African Development Bank: there are indications that it is keeping an eye on developments.

U.S. and China A good deal may depend on the attitude of

the U.S. Government. There are two views in the State Department on the right way to react to the Chinese offer. One says America cannot af- ford to let China undertake the project-the third biggest in independent Africa after Egypt's Aswan Dam and Ghana's Volta Scheme. The other group believes that China should be allowed to go ahead. They doubt whether she could con- struct the railway as well as Western experts while at the same time it would tie up a vast amount of her foreign aid budget on a single project.

Since Washington, apart from its influence with the World Bank, is also the government most likely to take the lead in any Western offer to finance the railway, this debate is the crucial one. Here, certainly, is an excellent opportunity for the Americans to make a spectacular start on their new African aid policy with its emphasis on regionalism.

If it turns out that the Chinese offer is the best or the only one, the Zambian and Tanzanian Governments will need to exercise ordinary cau- tion over such matters as the pricing of Chinese equipment. More generally, they will have to bear in mind that China's motive will be purely politi- cal: she will be attempting to gain a major foot- hold in terms of influence in a sensitive part of

the world which is economically important to the West. Why else, would a country with a much lower income per head than Zambia's agree to devote such a chunk of her scarce foreign re- sources to a project like this?

So long as this is clearly understood there is no reason why China should not be allowed to- show how far she is prepared to help the de- veloping countries. From their point of view, any addition to the list of potential donors of aid or finance must be sheer gain. And the danger of tens of thousands of Chinese coming in and "tak- ing over the country" is no more than a figment of diseased Western imaginations. The progress of the Friendship Textile Mill in Dar es Salaam_ provides a model in miniature of what to ex- pect: a somewhat old-fashioned but serviceables operation, with the Chinese technicians keeping very much to themselves. Any attempt to use the project as a base for Chinese politicking is likely to be self-defeating, as events elsewhere in Africa have shown.

The important thing now is for the two governments, through the medium of the new company, to make sure they get the best offer that can be drummed up. To start with, that means drawing up the strongest possible economic and political case for the rail link. It would be equally as foolish to fail to play off the East against the West as it would be to reject the Chinese on grounds of suspicion. -Reprinted from Business and Economy of Cen- tral and East Africa.

as hin gton Mefmo Continued from Inside Front Cover

on, a) tough civil rights issues and, b) the United Nations; then, if that attitude is positive there is a high predictability that it will also be positive on Southern Africa. However, there seems to be nothing to choose between U.N. issues and civil rights issues if we were to use a single test to see how a Congressman might react on Southern Africa. (Appendix I)1.

2. The limited interest in the Southern Af- rica issue by Congressmen in the mid-west is clearly demonstrated. (Appendix II) Certainly it was expected that Ohio would be represented and that Illinois and Indiana would each provide more than one sponsor. In addition a larger num- ber of California representatives were predicted.

3. If the sponsors are viewed from the angle of their Committee membership (Appendix III), the complexion of various committees clearly emerges. The existence of Rep. Nedzi's name alone from the Armed Services Committee is testimony to the reactionary composition of that body. Of the other Committees and subcommit- tees dealing with foreign policy, the subcommit- tee on Africa was the only one where a majority sponsored the Rhodesia resolution; although to offset any optimism, less than one-third of the whole Foreign Affairs Committee became spon- sors.

4. Rhodesia as a "moral" issue in terms of

its appeal to Congressmen according to their re- ligion is analyzed in Appendix IV. On the reso- lution there is a disproportionately large number of Catholic co-sponsors, yet there appears to have been negligible lobbying by Catholics as such. This anomaly is difficult to explain. It might be suggested, however, that the concentration of Catholics in the northern urban centers is identi- cal to the concentration of liberalism. Certainly the Protestant groups will always have difficulty in balancing out the negative factor caused by their heavy Southern predominance.

5. The value of different methods of lobby- ing is assessed in Appendix V. We conclude that bulk mailing is feeble and that personal mailing is as productive as interviewing. Futhermore the lobbyist should have mass support, at the very least local support in the Congressman's district. The Rhodesia Resolution-Conclusion

On balance, the exercise must count as a failure, because it was realized in April (and. correctly so) that anything less than 100 co- sponsors would fail to impress the Administration. The resolution was certainly hampered by its "dead issue" look in this summer of crises, but in spite of that, a well-oiled lobbying machine might have produced 25 more Democrats and 15 other Republicans.

The Republican response was in fact the

24 AFRICA TODAY

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.49 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:08:03 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

greatest single disappointment. Rep. Morse was reluctant to solicit co-sponsors, yet demanded .that he organize the minority support on the is- sue. One might with some justification have ex- pected Reps. Mailliard, Schwengel, Mathias, Har- vay, Cahill, Dwyer, Kupferman, Fulton, Schwei- ker, Stafford, Mosher, Esch, and Dellenback to add Republican names to the list.

On the Democratic side the most remarkable omissions were Farbstein (who joined three -weeks late), Irwin, Moss, Dow, Eckhardt and Dawson all of whom protested the Roosevelt visit; Leggett, Rees, Mink, Annunzio, Yates, Ford, Ashley, Vanik, Barrett and Byrne all of whom have very high ADA ratings; and Murphy of Illinois, admittedly the most inconsistent and superficial of the Democrats on the Africa sub- -committee. With a few out of the blue like St. Germain, Adams, Hechler, Mrs. Kelly, Feighan, Mrs. Sullivan, O'Neill, Philbin, Dingell, Daddario, Ronan, and Hathaway the 100 sponsorship mark -would have been reached. There were various reasons to believe that each of the aforemen- tioned Congressmen were as likely to sign as those who eventually became co-sponsors. (Ap- pendix I.)

There has been some attempt to analyze other reasons for the failure. Of course, the resolution must be put in the perspective of 1967 U.S. foreign policy: Rhodesia is a low priority non- crisis issue generating little enthusiasm in Con- gress. It is a complex problem and the complex solution of U.N. sanctions appears to Congress- men to have failed. There is also a liberal neo- isolationalism developing, demonstrated by those Senators, Fulbright and Mansfield, who objected to the military assistance 'to the Congo.

Wayne Fredericks Resigns From State Dept. Wayne Fredericks will be missed. The State

Department official received tributes from the Department, African diplomats, and the Congress -upon his resignation as Deputy Assistant Secre- tary of State for African Affairs. Fredericks will rejoin the Ford Foundation, the organization he left in 1961, to come to Washington with "Soapy" Williams.

A number of ceremonies accompanied his leaving. Fredericks received the State Depart- ment's highest honor, the Distinguished Honor Award. The Ambassadors of all the African na- tions presented him with a silver tray at a re- ception at the Tunisian Embassy.

An unusual Congressional tribute to a retir- ing official occurred when ten Representatives praised Fredericks during a Special Order on the House floor. Senators Frank Moss and Phillip Hart joined in praise on the Senate side.

Fredericks accomplished the unusual feat of winning the confidence and affection of both Congressmen and African leaders. He will not be easy to replace, as indicated by the title of a May 9 New York Times editorial, "Key Job to Fill at State."

U.N. Trust Fund for South Africa The recently passed foreign aid bill contains

funds for a U.S. contribution to the United Na- tions Trust Fund for South Africa. This should end the embarrassing lack of contributions to the fund by the U.S. government.

The UN established the Fund in 1965 by a vote of 95 for (including the U.S.), one against (South Africa), and one abstention (Portugal). The Fund was needed to meet the increasing repres- sion of the South African government; private sources, both inside and outside South Africa, had been unable to fulfill the growing need for aid.

The UN Trust Fund provides legal aid, relief and education for the victims of apartheid legis- lation and their families. By June of this year 32 nations had pledged or contributed, but not the U.S. government ($50,00 had been donated by a private American fund, the African Aid and Legal Defense Fund).

Although AID briefly mentioned the contri- bution in its presentation before Congressional committees, there was no explicit sign of it in the foreign aid bill itself. Probably the vast ma- jority of Congressmen and Senators did not realize they were providing money for a U.S. contribution to the U.N. Trust Fund. Aftermath to FDR Ship Incident at Capetown

The U.S. Navy has written Rep. Donald Fraser that no U.S. Navy ships have stopped at South Africa since the furor over the USS Roose- velt visit in February of this year. Since that time eleven ships have been diverted to ports in other countries for refueling. Congressmen and civil rights leaders who protested the Roosevelt visit hope that the Navy is developing permanent alternatives to South African ports, but the De- fense Department will only acknowledge that their policy is "under review."

South Africa After the Roosevelt incident, little activity

on South Africa has reached the surface. Official- ly the 1966 hearings of the Africa Subcommittee are still open, though Dennis Brutus has been the only witness this year. The January 1966 edition of Africa Today was reproduced as an Appendix to Part V of the hearings. It is ap- parent that the Chairman of the Subcommittee and his staff are disinclined to produce a report, which would entail making recommendations on U.S. policy toward South Africa.

A few Senators and Congressmen inserted comments into the Congressional Record on March 21st commemorating Sharpeville Day. Otherwise it was apparent that many representatives thought that "the new Vorster Government should be given a chance to prove its goodwill." Fact sheets of the American Committee on Africa, information from the National Council of Churches and many reproduced newspaper arti- cles, e.g. from the London Observer, attempted to counteract the results of South African propa- ganda. Various African leaders visiting Washing- ton, e.g. Mr. Sam Nujoma, Dr. Eduardo Mond- lane, Mrs. Herbert Chitepo and Mr. Kotsho Dube, had some effect on the thinking and analysis of

25

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.49 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:08:03 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Congressmen and Senators, but none could ex- tract the slightest commitment.

The representatives of the Churches and the American Committee on Africa worked hard on the U.N. Trust Fund, aid to Zambia and the for- mer High Commission Territories, pressed for the removal of the U.S. Space Tracking Station in South Africa and requested a cut in the Sugar Quota for South Africa. The mood of Congress and the powerful conservatives at the head of vital Committees prevented all but the barest consideration of these items. The sugar quota was cut back to 55,000 tons in 1967 but it remains to be seen whether the quota will be enlarged in piecemeal fashion during the year. Only Rep. Resnick on the Agriculture Committee showed much interest in sugar. Both Reps. Ryan and Eckhardt investigated the possible conflict of in- terest arising from an American commitment to South African stability because of the tracking stations. However, NASA is not going to do any- thing controversial, such as uprooting a $15 mil- lion installation for purely political reasons, on a subject so far removed from the Agency's central bargaining area.

There is no doubt that the Banks Campaign in New York was the subject of much discussion in the State Department; for, though nine Con- gressmen were among the campaign sponsors, if any action to limit investments in South Africa, occurred, it would probably originate in the Exe- cutive. The gist of replies to Senator Robert Ken- nedy's questionnaire to business leaders was that they would be prepared to consider some change (engagement, rather than disengagement) in busi- ness practice, but only after discussions with the Administration. South-West Africa

As in South' Africa, the ACOA has maintained cordial relations with the relevant desks in the State Department. However, it has been apparent that the Administration would avoid any con- frontation with South Africa more serious than the diplomatic one at the United Nations. On the Hill, both the subcommittee on Africa and the subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements had executive briefings from Messrs. Palmer and Goldberg. The few Congress- men who know that South-West Africa is a coun- try rather than a region view the problem as part of the whole South African difficulty; Means were devised only for avoiding discussion on the territory sui generis. Senators Church and Case, special ambassadors to the 1966 session of the U.N. General Asembly, did not press the mat- ter in Washington on their return. Sam Nujoma, President of S.W.A.P.O., failed to get a hearing before Rep. O'Hara's subcommittee, although there was the precedent of an African witness, Dennis Brutus, and of a witness on South-West Africa in 1966, Ernest Gross. Sen. Joseph Clark, fully aware of the extent of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. de- tente, suggested Mr. Nujoma lobby the Kremlin for arms.

Poriuguese Africa From time to time questions were asked of

Congressmen who are NATO specialists (Reps.

Irwin and Philbin of the Armed Services Com- mittee) and of members of the subcommittee on Refugees and Escapees of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary (Sens. Edward Kennedy andc Tydings). But all four politicians consider there is nothing to be gained from rocking the boat on "such minor issues" as Portuguese military assistance through NATO and the plight of 250,000 Angolan refugees in the Congo.

Reps. Fraser and Culver, however, did ques- tion very closely arms supplies to Portugal in the Foreign Assistance Act hearings. Reading be- tween the "security deletions", the answers they received seemed hardly to have satisfied them. 1. Assumptions in Appendix I: a) the sample of 149 Congress-

men was selected on the basis of positive U. N. attitudes, positive civil rights attitudes and high ADA ratings. A few conservatives, however, were included through their asso- ciation with the "liberal"' Republican Wednesday group. b) it has been necessary to compare the records of Con- gressmen by comparing "resolutions" and "votes".

Tarzan, is that you?9'

'~~~~~~~~~4

-From Christian Science Monitor

26 AFRICA TODAY

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.49 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 10:08:03 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions