5. Economy
In addition to South Africa's cash and strategic mineral contributions to Israeli-South African military undertakings, the two have forged economic links that are as strategic as they are profitable. They are almost as well concealed as the military commerce between the two nations, enabling Israel to claim that its trade with South Africa is insignificant.
However, well before grassroots campaigns in the U.S. and Britain prompted the exodus of big business from South Africa and, in the case of the U.S., the imposition of economic sanctions, Israel qualified in many ways as South Africa's most important trading partner. This determination was reached by adding the undisclosed amounts of the weapons Israel sells to South Africa and the diamonds it obtains from the white-run state.
Because the diamonds are sold from a London office by the South African DeBeers syndicate, the Central Selling Organization, which has a lock on the world market for uncut stones, they do not appear in statistics of two-way trade between Israel and South Africa. Polished diamonds are Israel's largest single export item, accounting for over $1.5 billion in 1986. There is very little value added in the polishing: imports for 1986 were $1.25 billion.
Also invisible in the published statistics of trade between the two nations are revenue from joint military and civilian enterprises of Israel and South Africa. The known civilian undertakings are Zimcorn, a shipping company, and South Atlantic Corporation, a fishing enterprise. A range of business activities are carried out by one in the economy of the other. Iskoor, the Israeli-South African steel company which makes tank armor, Is owned by South African Jews and Israel's Histadrut trade union federation, and operates in Israel.
Thus, although the revealed statistics of trade between Tel Aviv and Pretoria seem rather paltry $66.4 million Israeli exports to South Africa and $187 million exports from South Africa to Israel-it is important to bear in mind that they reflect only trade in items both sides are willing to make public. These include coal, steel, base metals, timber, tobacco, hides, wool, paper, minerals, and foodstuffs from South Africa and from Israel finished products such as computer software, agricultural and other types of machinery, textiles, pharmaceuticals, electrical goods, and "safety and security products." Although trade grew by a multiple of ten between 1970 and 1979 (from $20.9 million to $199.3 million) the numbers on paper certainly do not seem large enough to explain the existence of dynamic Israel-South Africa Chambers of Commerce in Tel Aviv and Johannesburg, or the annual meetings of finance ministers" under the framework of the ministerial committee set up during the 1976 Vorster talks. By contrast, Israel exported $2.2 billion worth of goods and services to the U.S. in 1985.
What is truly remarkable is the unrevealed and hence uncalculated scope of Israeli-South African economic cooperation. It goes well beyond weapons and diamonds, falling under the broad category of investment in each other's economies, but it is most notably directed to helping South Africa escape the rigors of the sanctions which, in an effort to force the white minority government to dismantle apartheid, the international community has begun to impose.
South Africa has a significant interest in the Israeli economy, providing 35 percent of all non-U.S. investment in the three years prior to 1984. This South African investment, "tens of millions of dollars...has been an important source of new funds for Israeli industry and construction."
Although originally an exception to South Africa's extraordinarily tight currency and trade laws, the export of Jewish contributions to Israel, (see above) was expanded under the 1976 bilateral agreements as a unique dispensation for South African citizens to invest in approved projects in Israel. In 1980, the white minority government also gave permission for Israeli government bonds to be sold in South Africa. While Israelis trying to minimize the extent of their country's economic relations with South Africa will often explain that dealing with Pretoria enables South African Jews to get their capital out of the country, a South African newspaper points out:...investors in Israel today include names off the company boards of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange]. For the individual or smaller corporate investor, there exists a handful of Israeli companies whose specific business is to attract [South African] and other foreign investment in joint ventures.
In fact, raising funds from the Jewish community and boosting business links with South Africa go hand in hand. In 1982, on one of the annual meetings established under the 1976 agreements, Israeli Finance Minister Gideon Pat visited South Africa and: [took] part in 17 meetings of the emergency [a reference to Israel's invasion of Lebanon that June] bonds fundraising group, will meet with economic officials and will see to increasing investments by South African companies in Israel.
South African capital has contributed to major Israeli infrastructural projects: development projects in the Negev desert, a coal loading facility, a Mediterranean-Dead Sea water diversion project, a major insurance company, tourist and sports facilities and commercial and residential real estate as well as a railroad linking Tel Aviv with the Red Sea port of Eilat. Other approved areas for South African investment include film production, oil exploration, and the purchase of shares in Israeli companies to increase production capacity, all areas of obvious benefit to South Africa.
Although Israel's economy hit the skids in the 1980s, South African businessmen have had a compelling motive for continuing to invest their money in the Jewish state: Israel provides a tried and true "springboard" into markets where South African products are unwelcome. Since the late 1970s South Africans have been establishing joint ventures in Israel where their cheap-labor products are brought for final assembly and marked with a "made in Israel" label. Shipped abroad, these products enter U.S. and European markets under Israel's duty free entitlement. Israel has a Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. under which all tariffs will be removed by 1995; a similar agreement with the EEC allows duty-free entry for all Israeli nonagricultural products.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, such an opportunity was particularly attractive to South African businessmen, as their own highly protected economy was faced with steep tariffs by Western trading partners. In 1977, in conjunction with the South Africa-Israeli Chamber of Commerce, the Universities of Tel Aviv and Stellenbosch presented a series of seminars in South Africa entitled "Israel: Crossroads of International Trade," to acquaint South African businessmen with the benefits of exporting via Israel.
In 1979, South African industrialist Archie Hendler, whose joint venture in Israel manufactured kitchenware, noted that "the main reason for going into Israel is to gain access to the Common Market" on Israel's favorable terms.
In the mid 1980s, as sanctions began to threaten South African exporters, the use of Israel as a springboard or back door into Western markets became even more attractive. In 1983 the Israeli Finance Minister went to South Africa with specific proposals for joint industrial ventures that the South African Government could establish with Israel.
How effective has this bilateral conniving been? What is the actual amount of goods Israel has helped South Africa sneak into the market baskets of unwitting consumers? That, of course, is difficult to determine-especially since no one has tried very hard to unearth the facts. It has been known for a decade that Iskoor has been representing the South African steel industry in the European Economic Community. It was reported in 1980 that the Israeli government's agricultural marketing board, Agrexco, was selling South African fruit in the U.S. South Africa's large electronics firm (owned by the Oppenheimer holding company Angle American) Control Logic mated with the Israeli Elron group to form Conlog, whose business is to springboard South African products from Israel. The United Nations, in 1981 , published a report containing the names of several companies and their products Koor, owned by Histadrut, and Sentrachem, a Jewish owned South African fertilizer and chemical concern, Israel's Polichrom and South Africa's Chemtra, exporting chemicals for the paints and plastics industries; Transvaal Mattresses, exporting with Israel's Greenstein and Rosen; and Israel's Muenster foods, selling the South African brands Honey Crunch, Epol and Vital-but this did not contain the brand names under which South African products were sold abroad.
In one more recent case, products were sold with no labels. The Hanita kibbutz, which is affiliated with the labor movement buys drills and other small tools from South Africa and reexports them to Japan, South Korea, the European Economic Community and the United States...The products are sold with no marks to identify them as either Israeli or South African.
Histadrut, the parent of Koor, is involved in a great deal of the South African trade and the Hanita Kibbutz is no aberration.
What is certain is that as the anti apartheid movement in the U.S. gathered fo rce via local and union boycotts o f South A frican products, and local and institutional divestment from corporations involved in South Africa and, in 1985 and 1986 pushed sanctions legislation to the top of the Congressional agenda, Israel and South Africa both stepped up efforts on this type of sanctions busting.
In September 1985, the South African Ministry of Trade and Industry released an "Export Bulletin" reminding exporters: [Companies ] can use Israel as a production base from which they can export their goods duty-free to the U.S. provided value added in Israel is at least 35%~ of the article's value when it enters the U.S.
A Johannesburg daily said that "Local companies...say they are being encouraged by senior Israeli officials.'' A November 1985 report noted a 53 percent increase of South African exports to Israel between the previous January and May."
Also in November 1985, the white South African government set up an office to coordinate "nonconventional trade" through "other countries." Several months earlier an Israeli businessman, Amnon Rotem, had offered himself to the South African government as "a middleman in channeling [South African] exports to European and American markets... duty free" and said the scheme would require "a large investment" by the government. By year's end, "new strategies to counter the challenge on sanctions and boycotts by overseas political lobbies" were in place, and South Africa's exports had risen 44 percent in the first 10 months of the year over the corresponding period the previous year."During the first two months of 1986, South African exports increased again by 25 percent over the first two months of 1985. Although it is not possible to establish a direct relationship with the increased South African exports, Israeli imports of merchandise did register a gain of 11.4 percent in the first five months of 1986 over the corresponding period in the previous year. In August 1986, the South African minister of trade and industry urged censorship of trade statistics, which "could easily be used by our adversaries...''
South Africa has tried to organize businessmen in a number of western countries and to establish front companies in dependent African countries.
For instance, a joint South African-Israeli operation called Liat has recently set up shop in the West African nation of Sierra Leone and a number of South African companies operate in Swaziland.
A great portion of South Africa's sanctions busting strategy has involved Israel. As early as July 1984, the senior general manager of Iscor Ltd., the South African partner in Iskoor, met with Israeli leaders to discuss the consortium of South African companies and banks proposed to finance-to the tune of $250-$300 million-the completion of the Eilat rail road. "The railway to the Red Sea port city would spark new life into the nagging port facilities and would help speed South African exports to their destinations in Israel."
Despite mounting pressures from international circles and within its own ruling establishment-a former director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry urged Tel Aviv to downplay "the public aspect of the South Africa connection" and also to resist "the pressures of] some South African businessmen" and their Israeli counterparts "who have their links with influential politicians here" to act as an export conduit for South Africa Israel has continued to respond to the white government's needs as if helplessly in its thrall.
The grim news for anti-apartheid activists is that South Africa, percent of whose trade is already clandestine, would only need to boost Its sanctions-busting by 16 percent to compensate for the U.S. sanctions now on the books.
In late 1986 both Israel and South Africa were embarrassed by an advertisement placed in the Johannesburg paper Business Day offering "unconventional trade" services including"trans-shipments,re-lnvolclng,document recertification, temporary warehousing, bartering and buy backs." The Voyager Corporation in Tel Aviv placed the ad. Its South African agent said it had been placed in error by U.S. associates!
In June 1986, in an effort to head off demonstrations marking the 10th anniversary of the Soweto uprising, the apartheid government instituted its most brutal state of emergency to date. At the last moment, Israel followed other Western governments in a 24-hour closure of its Pretoria embassy. The Israeli Knesset took the opportunity to issue some elegant statements condemning apartheid. One of these claimed, "Israel as the state of the Jewish people is committed to stand at the head of those who negate apartheid and fight for human rights. Prime Minister Peres said, "We know it is impossible to compromise with racial discrimination."
Less than two months later, with one official privately warning "In the end, we're going to have to pay a heavy price for this," a delegation departed for South Africa, under the leadership of the director general of the Finance Ministry. The director general said that the annual agreements with South Africa were about to expire and Israel justified the trip by pointing out that the delegation was for the first rime not headed by the finance minister himself.
The talks were said to concern Israel's fishing rights in South African waters, a better deal on credits for its coal imports, and, most significantly, increased South African investment in and trade with Israel. The talks "highlight[ed] Israel as a potential weak link in the chain of international sanctions against South Africa."
The trip, taken when South African authorities were jailing and torturing thousands of anti-apartheid activists, made international headlines and prompted intense speculation on the role of Israel (and the South African Jewish community) as "South Africa's insurance policy against isolation. A statement issued after the talks said they had been held in "a friendly atmosphere" and "were fruitful and continued trade and financial cooperation is considered to be in the interest of both countries". It was also announced that South African investment in Israel would be allowed up to about $15 million during the coming year. Meanwhile, to revive its beached economy, Israel is banking on a more sophisticated and aggressive marketing campaign for its exports to the U.S. and specialization in high technology development and exports, another area of vital concern to South Africa, which will be discussed below.
It is worth contemplating whether protection for Israel is embedded in the agreements the two governments have signed, should international attention some day turn from South Africa to focus on Israel's human rights abuses. One known area of such cooperation is the coal which Israel receives from South Africa.
Israel was badly traumatized by the oil price rises of the 1970s, and by the abrupt cessation of its oil supply when the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1978. It later returned the Sinai oil fields to Egypt under the Camp David Accords. Although Israel's oil supply is guaranteed by the U.S. and Mexico, and it is therefore not subject to the threat of boycott, there is no guarantee that the price won't go through the roof again. Because of its refusal to sign the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, Israel has also been unable to find a country willing to help it build nuclear power plants. South African coal companies have not only signed a series of contracts to deliver increasingly large allotments of coal to Israel for power generation, but South Africa has promised to join Israel in a naval escort should there be a problem with making deliveries. Israel has built a new coal-fired generator and unloading facilities and is "aggressively moving' toward coal-fired powerplants.
5.3) Israel's Stake in South Africa
Israel obviously does not compare in size of investment to U.S. and European participation in the South African economy, as the latter occurs through national and multinational corporations. However, Israeli investment in South African enterprises has shot up recently; excluding the United States and Western Europe, Israeli investment in 1983 and 1984 trailed only Taiwanesee investment and included investment in South African steel enterprises, with ten new Israeli enterprises reported in 1984. A 1985 report said Israeli investment in South Africa had grown "tenfold" in two years. Meanwhile, U.S. and European firms are leaving South Africa in droves.
What the Israeli investment might lack in volume, it makes up by being concentrated in two key areas: high technology and the bantustans, the austere tribal reserves to which the white government has exiled more than half of the black majority.
Scientific cooperation-in the civil as well as the military sphere was a major element in the 1976 Vorster agreements, and what has been provided on a commercial basis (with either private or parastatal enterprises) seems to have been in close conjunction with the bilateral undertakings. As time goes by and one of the most powerful effects of international sanctions that South Africa will be left by the wayside of technological progress-does not come to pass, the significance of the Israeli contribution will be understood, perhaps lamented.
Visiting Israel in the fall of 1986, S. Kruger, the director of the South African Department of Trade and Industry, noted that "Israel could provide much of the high-technology needed by South Africa."
Although much of the collaboration in technology has seen South African money going to the Israeli industrial sector, some energy has been directed toward providing the Beers with their own industrial applications. The 1983 agreement, according to the South African Finance Minister Owen Horwood, covered joint projects already tackled and still to be tackled by the two countries. It also made provision for the freer flow of money between the two countries and the setting up of mutual trade and credit and cooperation in the spheres of agriculture, technology and research.
Out of that agreement was born the Israel/South Africa Industrial and Agricultural Research and Development Programme. Working under the direction of Saidcor (South African Inventions Development Corporation) and the Israeli Ministry of Trade and Industry, the program establishes bi-national partnerships for specific projects. To date the projects have included educational software, computerized water management systems, and an enhancement of the capability of South Africa's Posts and Telecommunications Department. Under consideration are a laser-material processing center and a pilotless (drone) crop spraying plane.
In 1984, the Israeli minister of science and development and South Africa's ambassador to Israel met and announced that Israel and South Africa would strengthen scientific and research ties. In early 1985, a South African delegation concluded a visit to Israel by secretly signing yet another agreement with Tel Aviv for cooperation in science and technology. According to similar reports in "Jane's" Defense Weekly and the Israeli daily Ha 'aretz the "joint ventures and projects in high technology fields" stipulated by the contract were worth $5 million. The agreement was negotiated by the Israeli ministries of finance and trade and industry. It was then approved by the Israeli cabinet.
(That two such articles should evade Israeli censorship is highly unusual. It might even be that the story was floated as an attempt at a priori damage control. Thus, the suspiciously low figure of $5 million might have been given with the idea that later on it could be cited to prove the "minimal" nature of Israel's dealings with South Africa.)
The inclusion in the trade delegation that visited South Africa in August 1986 of a representative from the chief scientist's office points to yet another increase in Israeli cooperation with South Africa in the sphere of civilian technology. Israel and South Africa have held 14 joint scientific symposiums, nine in Israel and five in South Africa. The last one was held in 1984 at Ben Gurion University in the Negev. South African money has also been poured into Israel's Technion, the country's major scientific university. In 1984 the South Africa Advanced Manufacturing Systems Building and Laser Laboratory, financed by $1.5 million from South African, was dedicated.
It is in this institutional context that Israeli investment in South Africa must be regarded. At least a dozen major Israeli companies have invested in South African operations, among them the military electronics firms noted above. Afitra, one of many companies owned by the Israeli labor federation Histadrut, whose giant Koor is a major player in South Africa, markets some of Israel's most sophisticated products (advanced software, computerized milling machines, emergency lighting systems, etc.) as well as products of Israel's kibbutzim, or collective farms. Another Israeli firm, Agri-Carmel, brings the latest Israeli agricultural developments to South Africa. Agri-Carmel is a partnership of the Israeli parastatal Agridev and the South African company Gerber Goldschmidt.
A critical element of Israeli investment in South Africa is a rapacious "private enterprise" interest in the bantustans, the barren pseudostates that warehouse much of the black majority. The centerpiece of apartheid, the bantustans were envisioned as "tribal homelands," putting forth the fiction of South Africa as a number of diverse tribal groups. The "white" tribe, which did the geographical engineering, just happened to have the homeland with all the industrial infrastructure, rich farmland and access to transport.
The Israeli government provides development and military aid and a measure of political recognition for the bantustans accorded by no other government. This has been especially evident in the case of Ciskei, an enclave of 600,000 near Cape Town, which has been described as "one of the most economically underdeveloped areas in the world and also one of the poorest in Africa".
During the 1983 Israeli-South African bilateral economic meeting, the Israeli radio reported: "It was...decided that close ties will be established between Israel and Ciskei, one of the puppet states set up in South Africa for the blacks". The radio quoted South African reports that Israel would also supply weapons to Ciskei. The Israeli government denies it now, but it was reported to have signed an arms contract with Ciskel In I982. A twin engine jet once used by Israeli Prime Minister Begin was sold at a nominal cost, and "special weapons and knowhow" was also transferred to Ciskei. Included in the deal was the gift of a police dog to Charles Sebe, security chief and the brother of bantustan "President" Lennox Sebe During the summer of 1984, a group of farmers from Ciskei studied on Israeli kibbutzim and moshavim (communal and cooperative settlements, respectively).
In late 1982, Ciskei had established a trade mission in Tel Aviv. It appointed Yosef Schneider and Nat Rosenwasser as representatives. Schneider had previously served as an aide to extremist Knesset Member Meir Kahane. Rosenwasser was a member of the Herut Party Central Committee Herut is the dominant component of the Likud coalition. Schneider and Rosenwasser had arranged a number of tours to Ciskei for Israeli notables." Undoubtedly their work encouraged Israeli entrepreneurs, some of them former officials, others with close connections to the highest echelons of the Israeli governing establishment, to avail themselves of the cornucopia of investment incentives offered by the minority government in Pretoria to lure employers to Ciskei and the other bantustans.
By July 1984 there were 60 Israeli entrepreneurs operating in Ciskei. Ephraim Poran, former Prime Minister Begin's military secretary, went in with two other major Israeli industrialists to establish the Ciskatex textile factory. Other enterprises taking advantage of Ciskei's cheap labor were a plant of the apparel company Indian Head, Oren Toys" and Classic Cars, an establishment belonging to former Finance Minister Yoram Aridor, which manufactures vintage automobile replicas.
In 1985, there were 200 Israelis-advisers and technicians as well as entrepreneurs-in Ciskei. Ciskei presented special opportunities because of the exalted level of brutality of its leader Lennox Sebe, and his consequent insecurity. Bisho, the "capital" of Ciskei was "rife with stories of the 'fast buck' approach of Israeli entrepreneurs. An explicit look at their activities was provided in 1985, when a scandal burst into the international press as the "authorities" of Ciskei announced via large advertisements in the Israeli press-that it had closed the bantustan's trade mission in Israel and fired its Israeli representatives.
The seams in which many of the Israeli investors became involved were auctioning, or subcontracting, of contracts-many of these were awarded without bids, often far above actual cost to South African companies. Many of the Israelis participating in these deals did so through shell companies.
A key contact for the Israelis was Dr. Hennie Beukes, the only white "minister"-his portfolio was "health"in Ciskei's "cabinet," who was said to have acted as intermediary in many Israeli activities in Ciskei. These included two hospitals built by the Gur Construction Company which Ciskei rejected. (In their off hours, Gur's workers built a bar and swimming pool at Beukes' residence.)
Buekes also arranged for a $10 million pilot training project, which sent 18 trainees to Israel to receive training that critics charged was inferior and overpriced. It is unclear whether the training was for commercial or military aviation. A South African paper noted that Ciskei had two air bases and said Israeli Air Force instructors were to give preliminary training to Ciskeians before they attended pilot classes in Israel.
Beukes also arranged the contracts for Israeli military advisers to work as bodyguards and military trainers in Ciskei. One company, Tammusits owner a former Israeli artillery officer-made $300,000 a year providing security advisers to Ciskei "President" Sebe. Tammus was one of the first Israeli firms to have its Ciskeian contracts canceled.
Ira Curtis, the Israeli owner of the flight school, also bribed the Ciskeians to choose U.S. aircraft, which he attempted to smuggle into the South African tribal reserve, over superior French aircraft. The planes were bought for Ciskei by listing Israel on the sale documents.
In 1984, the Israeli government was forced to reassure Pretoria that it was not involved in a scheme for cheap Israeli flights from Ciskei to Israel and on to Europe. Word of the flights, which would compete with the government-owned South Africa Airways, had sparked a South African government protest to Israel. The apartheid regime warned that it would not be liable for Ciskei's debts for projects that were not in the category of "urgent development" and expressed its unease "over the intrusion of Israeli entrepreneurs and paramilitary advisers into its sphere of influence in the black homelands." The Israeli go vernment then denied landing rights in Israel to Ciskei-even though Israeli entrepreneurs had convinced Ciskei's rulers to build an airstrip.
Ciskei is not the only bantustan in which Israel and Israelis played a role. In 1985, the president of the Development Bank of Southern Africa former South African finance minister Owen Horwood-visited Israel and told reporters that he had come "to evaluate Israel's role in facilitating the economic development of the southern African independent states (i.e. bantustans)."
Israel has invested $45 million in Bophuthatswana agriculture, and is training youth in that tribal reserve after the model of its own "Nahal" (a program combining military training with agricultural development). Israel has also developed a television service for Bophuthatswana. An Israeli, Ilan Sharon, served as a "special adviser" for the bantustan authorities. Israeli architects have signed contracts for major public edifices.
An Israeli company has also moved into Bophuthatswana to manufacture sports shoes. When Bophuthatswana opened a Tel Aviv office, Israeli officials were embarrassed.
Israeli security mercenaries also guard the casino tables at Sun City, the "interracial" gambling resort attached to the pseudo-state of Bophuthatswana."
In early 1983 the entire "chamber of commerce'' of another bantustan,Venda, visited Israel.
The Israeli government is pulled two ways over the bantustans. On the one hand, there is a powerful "lobby" comprised of former officials and their associates who have investments in the pseudostates. To this must be added the obvious sympathy most Israeli officials must feel for the South African dilemma: no government in the world recognizes the benighted bantustans as the independent countries the racist regime has declared them to be. Israel has the same dilemma, in that not one government (including the U.S.) recognizes its claim to the occupied West Bank, to which it has given the spurious names Judea and Samaria, or, for that matter, (with the exception of Costa Rica and El Salvador) to East Jerusalem, which Israel captured from Jordan in 1967 and annexed as its capital in 1980.
In 1984 during ceremonies held in the Israeli-occupied West Bank town of Ariel, twinning that settlement with Ciskei's "capital" Bisho, Ciskei's Israeli representative Yosef Schneider said, "It is symbolic that no country in the world (except South Africa) recognizes Ciskei, just as there is no country in the world that recognizes the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria."
On the other hand, the Israelis are well aware that recognition of the bantustans would be an unbearable offense to the many African nations, which they have courted assiduously during the 1980s. They tread a fine line.
In its decision in August 1985 to establish close working ties with Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, chief minister of the KwaZulu bantustan, a patchwork of settlements in Natal, Israel seems to have ignored his status as the leader of the entity designated by Pretoria as the "tribal homeland" of the Zulu people. In the West this is also frequently overlooked.
When such heads of state as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher receive the urbane, wealthy and ambitious Buthelezhi is a frequent visitor to the West, where he argues against the imposition of sanctions and badmouths the mainstream liberation organizations-they present him as a "moderate" black leader, opposed to the "violent" methods of the outlawed African National Congress (ANC).
Chief Buthelezi speaks eloquently and sincerely against apartheid. According to a longtime friend of the descendant of Zulu royalty, Buthelezi (along with many of his Western promoters) sees himself as leader of a post-apartheid government. Presumably to further this goal, Buthelezi has developed ties across the entire spectrum of white South Africa. He has close links with the white opposition Progressive Federal Party, with which he tried in 1986 to design a multiracial government for Natal Province. Their plan called for a complex system of racial checks and balances, with overweighted guarantees for the white minority-Buthelezi has always promised to give whites a veto, as opposed to the ANC demand for universal suffrage-but the Pretoria government rejected it out of hand.
Although his disagreements with the Botha government have been widely heralded Buthelezi has refused "independent" status for his bantustan and has refused to participate in "negotiations" over South Africa's future with the Botha regime has certainly been the witting instrument of the minority government, both during his trips abroad and during the turmoil of the past several years.
In 1981, the Economist noted that: Shrewd white strategists know that, sooner rather than later, the Afrikaner government will have to negotiate with the only
coherent tribe larger than its own, the 5 million-strong Zulu... The tolerance of the political activities of Chief Buthelezi has deepened into private contacts between his Inkatha movement and the secret Afrikaner Broederbond.
The Broederbond has been the acknowledged manipulator of the ruling Nationalist Party. Inkatha is Buthelezi's political vehicle and means of patronage distribution. As polls taken over the years have shown, Buthelezi's following is trifling, even in Natal province, compared to that of the ANC, the United Democratic Front (UDF), or Nelson Mandela. Membership in Inkatha, which Buthelezi claims has one million members, is supposedly voluntary, but "strongly recommended for those living in Zululand."
In 1983, the year the UDF was created, the murder of five University of Zululand students was traced to supporters of Buthelezi, in marked contrast to his "nonviolent" label. Inkatha thugs, organized in bands called impis have frequently been reported to have attacked and often killed UDF protesters against the white government.
Visiting South Africa in June 1986, Denis Healey, the British Labor Party's spokesman on foreign affairs, refused to meet with Buthelezi. Instead Healey cited sworn affidavits from vigilante attack victims in the Durban area and showed newsmen a photograph of a member of the Zulu royal family (to which Buthelezl Is related) leading "impi" vigilantes. Later that month, with the nation under a lock-down that forbade any gathering, Pretoria allowed Buthelezi to hold a rally in Soweto, the black township outside Johannesburg. Thousands of Buthelezi's followers, some armed with traditional Zulu weapons, were bused in from Natal for the event.
In December 1986, Inkatha members were blamed for abducting and then shooting to death a shop steward of the Metal and Allied Workers along with another union member and the daughter of a third.
During the period in which these incidents took place, no Israeli leader moved to dissociate the Tel Aviv government from the close ties it had established with Buthelezi in 1985. Indeed, Buthelezi's official visit to Israel began the day before a mob of armed "impis" under the complacent eyes of government police, began an attack on their opponents in KwaMashu township in Natal. In the week of strife that followed, 66 blacks died, of which the police admitted to having shot 36. The others, "stabbed and mutilated," were assumed to be victims of Inkatha.
That was in August 1985. Israel was at the time casting about for a way to deflect mounting criticism of its ties with South Africa. The criticism came from liberal Israelis who worried that Tel Aviv's South Africa policy was becoming noticeably out of line with other Western states, and, more quietly, from the U.S., where South Africa's links with Israel were increasingly discussed on campuses and within anti-apartheid organizations, causing dismay on the liberal wing of organized Jewry. A poll of the Congressional Black Caucus underway at the time was revealing that those members of Congress and their constituents believed that Israel was a major backer of South Africa. On August 5 Prime Minister Shimon Peres had been queried by Rep. Howard Wolpe (D-MI) and had assured him that Israel was against apartheid. In a separate meeting Yitzhak Shamir, then foreign minister, also assured Wolpe of Israel's "objections" to apartheid.
It was never clear exactly who took the initiative for the Buthelezi visit the South African embassy made phone calls to the Israeli media, asking them to go easy on the chief minister, and the Jerusalem Post responded with particular alacrity, in one case crediting him for preventing a revolutionary explosion in South Africa and asserting that "the wrong South African [then Bishop Desmond Tutu] won the Nobel Prize for peace"-but for the Israeli government, his arrival was a godsend, even though he perpetuated his critical motif, calling for enforcement of the UN arms embargo against the white government.
A wide range of the Israeli leadership held official meetings with the Zulu chief: Prime Minister Peres and Foreign Minister Shamir; former Labor Foreign Minister Abba Eban hosted a luncheon in his honor; Foreign Ministry Director-General David Kimche, Israel's most persistent critic of links with South Africa, agreed to help him. The Israeli government and the Histadrut labor federation eagerly responded to Buthelezi's requests for assistance for KwaZulu, regarding the connection as "a new door into African development." Israel offered agricultural aid and a range of training including "leadership and trade union training in Israel, and assistance for women's organizations and cooperatives." Buthelezi said he had been assured that Israeli specialists would soon visit his bantustan. Yehuda Pat, director of Histadrut's Afro-Asian Institute, made plans with Buthelezi for the establishment of links between Histadrut and labor unions affiliated with Inkatha.
The connection was somewhat odd, even for a labor apparatus like Histadrut, whose companies are active in South Africa, and whose unequal treatment of Arab workers is legendary. Buthelezi has made no bones about running his bantustan for the convenience of those who invest there. Although there is a KwaZulu labor bureau and a labor relations act, the average wage in 1985 was 100 rands a month (at the time less than $100), and workers who complain to the bureau find themselves blacklisted. In March 1986 the KwaZulu "government" announced that the "United Union of Workers of South Africa," widely perceived as a challenge to the powerful Congress of South African Trade Unions, or COSATU, would be launched that May.
Israel presented its new relationship with Buthelezi as a look reward the future and a connection with South Africa's black minority. "Buthelezi's visit will give a t,boost to Israelis who would like to criticize apartheid without breaking off political and diplomatic relations with Pretoria," announced the Israeli government radio. Buthelezi, explained the state radio, "is more than a puppet. While he accepted the chief ministership of the KwaZulu homeland, he refused to have it declared independent like Ciskei or Bophuthatswana. Few critical observers find the distinction a meaningful one.
5.5) A Weapon Against the ANC- Jewish Smear Campaign and Frame Up.
Nonetheless, Israel's newly forged links with Buthelezi provided its supporters in the U.S. with fresh ammunition to use against critics of Israel's relations with South Africa. "Near East Report" the weekly publication of AIPAC, celebrated Buthelezi's visit as "the first by a leading
South African opposition leader," and quoted Buthelezi's parting words: he was "encouraged and inspired by the complete abhorrence which...the Israeli people have for apartheid, and the commitment of the Israeli people to its destruction". For AIPAC, which often sets the pace for other U.S. Jewish organizations, the quote was welcome relief from the old chestnut from Andrew Young, which has been used unremittingly for years:
It is unfair to link Israel to South Africa. If there is a link, you must compare Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States. All of them have links with South Africa. Israel becomes a too easy scapegoat for other problems we have."
Unlike Young, who left the Carter Administration (only several weeks before Israel and South Africa detonated a nuclear weapon) with the Israeli government in hot pursuit after he had met with the PI,O's representative to the United Nations, Buthelezi continued to provide valuable copy. "Israel is indeed a land of miracles," he told a Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reporter, who tagged the KwaZulu leader as a possible first black president of South Africa.
The interview Buthelezi gave JTA served to justify Israel's linkage with South Africa, and, as it consisted mostly of a hot diatribe against his sworn rival, the ANC, it delivered the message of the white government in Pretoria to the U.S. Jewish community on the respectable pages of such publications as the Washington DC Jewish Week.
"I would say that Libya's Col. Muammar Qaddafi is today part of the ANC," offered the Zulu chief, a propos of nothing in particular.
"The ANC describes itself as anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic, like many African groups. But anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are one and the same thing, I have always found," propounded Buthelezi. In a lengthy aside, interviewer Levine informs his American readers that
Buthelezi's friendship for Israel is music to the ears of the many South African Jewish leaders, who have grown increasingly concerned over the prospects of an ultimate ANC victory and the establishment of a pro-Soviet regime.
The Washington "Jewish Week" published the Buthelezi interview as part of a front page spread which delivered a clear message-straight from Israel: "Israeli officials are reluctant to criticize the ANC publicly for fear of appearing pro-apartheid. Privately, however, they freely share their growing concern over the prospect of an ANC takeover." The spread containing the Buthelezi interview appeared at the same time a wider effort was set in motion by the right wing of organized Jewry to defame the ANC.
In May 1986 the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) had circulated its newsletter to members of Congress with a front Page headline promising "A Closer Look" at the ANC. The piece was written in old-time McCarthyist style, as if for an audience not aware that most industrial democracies have communist parties which contest and win elections.
Although the ADL built its reputation on original research on racist hate groups, the article it sent to Congress was simply a collection of clippings on the ANC and "evidence" from testimony given at 1982 hearings conducted by far-right Sen. Jeremiah Denton (R-AL), arranged to "prove" that "the ANC is oriented toward the Soviet Union and its East Bloc allies, who have furnished it with arms, funding, military training and other logistic support."
The ADL did not trouble to set forth the context of what it described as the 30-year alliance between the ANC and the South African Communist Party, for years the only multiracial anti-apartheid organizations in South Africa, Besides, the article was in error about the length of the association. "It's been 65 years, not 30," noted Lifford Cengue, a West Coast representative of the ANC, explaining that the alliance between the two organizations goes back to 1921,the year the SACP was founded, and has been public knowledge since that time. Cengue pointed out that the ANC was founded in 1912, "before the October Revolution."
The ADL, article also delved into the ties between the ANC and the PLO, an organization with few defenders in Congress.
As a revolutionary national liberation movement oriented toward Moscow, the ANC has long echoed Soviet attempts to undermine the legitimacy of Israel. Moreover, the ANC is a strident supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
It noted that some ANC: members "trained in the USSR with PLO cadres" and refers to statements critical of Israeli policy made during the 1970s by Oliver Tambo. As have many governments and international organizations, the ANC has long been critical of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians under occupation; its criticism has been informed by Israel's close ties with South Africa. The ADL's assault on the ANC came at a time when Congress members of both parties were calling for the release of imprisoned ANC leader Nelson Mandela, and the State Department was moving toward contacts with the ANC.
The ADL, article had great value for friends of South Africa, as well as apologists for Israel's ties to the apartheid regime. As Smith Hempstone commented approvingly in the "Washington Times" which is generally acknowledged to support the white minority government: None of this [the ADL's "findings"] is particularly original stuff. The same points have been made many times by this columnist. But when B'nai B'rith gets into the game, congressmen who know on which side their political bagels are buttered are likely to sit up and take notice.
In the same issue of Washington's Jewish Week that carried the interview with Buthelezi was a second piece of propaganda authored by Charley Levine, this one titled to play on a prevalent theme of the times: "Arab Terrorists Aid South African Groups." And it was a far more sophisticated job than the ADL's smear job, admitting, for instance, that Sweden contributed more to the ANC than the Soviet Union. Along with some of the same data employed by the ADL, Levine concocted his piece on the seemingly authoritative statements of unnamed "Israeli and South African intelligence sources." (Perhaps they were the source for a rather singular item included by Levine about black South African Muslirns forming Libyan "hit teams.")
Levine wrote of instances when he says the PLO gave military training to the ANC-the one about the training of parachutists is particularly interesting given that the USSR has not provided the ANC with the kind of aeronautical assistance Israel has given South Africa and confided that "Israeli experts on international terrorism" have concluded that the ANC's tactics are similar to those of the PLO
These journalistic efforts were made lust as anti-apartheid activists were intensifying their lobbying of Congress for sanctions against South Africa.
Soon after Buthelezi's departure, Israel would host another group of South African blacks-and again use the opportunity to demonstrate its "anti-apartheid" credentials, without, of course, jarring its vital links to white Preroria.