Reaganaut Redoubt
As Reagan's core constituency, the organized Right had expected to influence Administration policy. Reagan's campaign rhetoric reflected right-wing themes and some of his first...
...The Committee of Santa Fe proposed using the Rio Treaty and other hemispheric security mechanisms to send OAS-sanctioned forces into Central America...
...On a visit in October 1981, Vice President Bush announced that Brazil would be given"a special case exemption" from nuclear nonproliferation regulations to allow it to purchase nuclear fuel.' And Washington tried an end run around the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, regarded as the center of opposition to U.S...
...General Galtieri during August 1981 visit to Fort Lewis, Washington...
...But Reagan's foreign policy network was not attuned to the need for long-term programs for the stabilization of capitalism under a democratic facade in the Southern Cone...
...Chester Crocker, then director of African studies at the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies and head of Reagan's African Working Group, attempted to calm the storm by saying that Churba's views had "no standing" as a statement of Reagan's position...
...And even in Argentina and the rest of the Southern Cone, it was applied inconsistently...
...It is also giving South Africans Coast Guard training and has added more consulates and military attaches...
...Even the South African government, wishing to save potential friends from embarrassment, stated that no one would attend in an official capacity...
...arms embargo...
...Churba's remarks provoked anger and worry in Africa and the United States...
...The Reagan Administration has no intention of destabilizing South Africa in order to curry favor elsewhere.' 27 Crocker's statement of "neutrality" followed close on the heels of South Africa's invasion of Angola...
...Reagan's campaign rhetoric reflected right-wing themes and some of his first political appointees were drawn from their ranks--such as former national security adviser Richard Allen...
...The sponsors invited Haig's special emissary Vernon Walters and U.N...
...He emphasized "southern Africa's geopolitical importance along the strategic sea routes" and its "growing importance as a source for critical minerals...
...It also offered to help Brazil finance the construction of a military base on its South Atlantic island of Trinidade...
...Thus the Administration tried to ease the mistrust that had developed in the wake of Carter's human rights and nuclear nonproliferation policies...
...it is a throwback to the Nixon-Kissinger era...
...The Right moved swiftly to consolidate a proSATO position within the Reagan Administration...
...The Botha regime, however, did not rest its hopes on Churba alone...
...Lefever had called torture in Argentina and Chile "a residual practice of the Iberian tradition...
...One reason was the absence, until the Malvinas/Falklands War, of any major political crisis in the region...
...Churba's book, Retreat From Freedom, was printed in South Africa...
...Not only are such traits oflittle value in a genuine ally, but the characterization is surprisingly nonideological-even cynical-for the ideologues of the New Right...
...In a memo prepared to brief Haig for his May 14, 1981, visit with South African foreign minister Pik Botha, Crocker noted, "Although we may continue to differ on apartheid, and cannot condone a system of institutionalized racial differentiation, we can cooperate with a society undergoing constructive change...
...3 B In seeking support for the military regimes on this basis, the Right portrays them as willing to "sell themselves to the devil," the Soviet Union, for a pound of export credits, technical aid and perhaps even the gold pot of military equipment...
...4 2 Reports multiplied of Argentine support for U.S...
...Lefever Fever Although the Reagan team approached the region in concert, the Administration's policies soon came under attack...
...And such an analysis trivializes the extensive material linkages-political, military and economic-which tie the regimes, and the economic elites they represent, into the Western system...
...support, the Pinochet regime expelled four of the leaders of that opposition right after she left the country...
...In Chile she refused to meet with human rights activists of the democratic opposition...
...Although the Lefever nomination was eventually withdrawn (to avoid probable defeat in the Senate), the Administration's policy hasn't really changed...
...approval of World Bank and InterAmerican Development Bank loans to Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay...
...The hemispheric focus was on Central America, not the South Atlantic...
...He told Haig to urge Pik Botha to help "make this approach credible," and to "recognize that this period represents your best shot...
...Then on April 2, 1982, Washington received a dividend it hadn't expected: the Argentine takeover of the Malvinas/Falkland islands...
...The major stumbling block for the conference, and for SATO generally, was South Africa's status as leading international pariah...
...7 The move to make Argentina the linchpin of covert and overt action in Central America was also anticipated in right-wing circles...
...And Jeane Kirkpatrick paid a goodwill visit to Argentina, Uruguay and Chile...
...In July 1981 restrictions were also lifted on U.S...
...3 1 Three Cheers for the Juntas Jesse Helms attempted-again unsuccessfully -to defeat the nomination of Thomas Enders, a former Kissinger aide, as assistant secretary of 32MaylJune 1982 state for inter-American affairs...
...In a March 1981 interview with Walter Cronkite, President Reagan asked about South Africa: "Can we abandon a country that has stood beside us in every war we've ever fought, a country that strategically is essential to the free world in its production of minerals we all must have, and so forth...
...Among those concerned with the South Atlantic are Roger Fontaine of the Council for InterAmerican Security (CIS), responsible for Latin American affairs on the National Security Council, and retired general Gordon Sumner of CIS and the American Security Council (ASC), serving as special adviser to the assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs...
...Not only was the conference put at arms' length, but the governments involved used the occasion to deny any interest in the ultimate aim: a South Atlantic pact.'" South Africa Lovefest Even before Reagan took office, divisions were apparent within the Reagan camp on how quickly and how publicly to embrace the apartheid regime...
...The military regimes, dedicated followers of Friedmanite economics, were hard pressed to "deliver the goods" even to the middle classes, and opposition was building...
...2 1 When Crocker was nominated for assistant secretary of state for African affairs, SenatorJesse Helms fought a hard but unsuccessful battle to defeat the nomination...
...activities designed to defend the Salvadorean regime and destabilize the Nicaraguan government...
...But the event backfired, an early indication of the inability of the Right to dominate policy...
...And he urged that South Africa be accepted as a full partner in the "struggle against Communist expansion...
...In a major address on August 29, 1981, Crocker surveyed conditions in South Africa, Namibia and Angola and declared: "We cannot and will not permit our hand to be forced to align ourselves with one side or another in these disputes...
...2 " "Constructive Engagement" Reagan's pro-South Africa approach has been translated by Crocker into practice under the policy of "constructive engagement...
...acquiescence to "so-called majority rule" in South Africa, bring together the MPLA andJonas Savimbi of UNITA in a coalition Angolan government, impose a SWAPO government on Namibia and promote "unqualified support for the Marxist redistributionist program of Mr...
...Ambassador Kirkpatrick to attend, along with military and political figures from South Africa, Chile and Brazil...
...Reagan's first choice for national security adviser, Richard Allen, had in 1973-74 been a higly paid propagandist for Overseas Companies of Portugal, a governmentsponsored business consortium dedicated to maintaining Western investment in the African colonies...
...Within weeks of taking office, the new Administration welcomed to Washington the commander of the Chilean Air Force (a member of the ruling junta), the chairman of the Brazilian * Of course the Carter policy failed to support victims of torture in strategic areas like Iran, South Korea and the Philippines...
...If Washington had to choose between close ties with Black Africa or backing South Africa as a "fighting ally" on the African continent, "the choice," he said, "would have to be South Africa...
...leadership.' Brazil's independent foreign policy was as evident in Central America as in Angola, and definitely an irritant to the Reagan team...
...But the Administration has officially eased the ban on visas for top-ranking military and police officers...
...On December 16, 1981, shortly after General Galtieri assumed power, the Argentine junta granted the Salvadorean junta a $15 million lowinterest loan...
...and 3) strengthen South Africa's ability to defend the Cape route by providing it with helicopter gunships, and possibly providing the South African Navy with a nuclear capability...
...But Brazil is also the region's most powerful country, with massive U.S...
...Through publications and conferences CIS, ASC and other right-wing groups have tried consistently to focus public attention on the alleged Soviet threat to the South Atlantic...
...CIS and IAR, together with two Argentine foundations (Fundaci6n Carlos Pellegrini and the Ateneo de Occidente) held another conference on South Atlantic security in Buenos Aires in May 1981...
...military presence at the Simonstown naval base...
...2) establish a U.S...
...And more to the point, Crocker asserted: "In South Africa, the region's dominant country, it is not our task to choose between black and white...
...He denied that the December 1972 massacre of hundreds of Mozambican civilians at Wiriyamu and other villages by Portuguese troops, documented by reporters and missionaries, ever took place...
...The Los Angeles Times, for example, reported that the first contingent of Argentines arrived in Central America in November Washington's friendship with Argentina seemed to be paying dividends...
...Even as arrests and detentions without trial were increasing rapidly-sweeping up trade union leaders, church activists, student leaders and others-Crocker testified before Congress in December 1981: "While the basic structure of apartheid remains intact, there was improvement in practice on some human rights fronts through non-enforcement of some existing racial laws.'"29 Two months later Niel Aggett, the organizing secretary of the Africain Food and Canning Workers Union, died while in detention...
...officials derailed a French attempt to have the Western allies join in a mild rebuke...
...See "Carter and the Generals," NACLA Report XIII (MarchApril, 1979...
...Joseph Churba, president of the Center for International Security and a defense policy adviser to president-elect Reagan (and then to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency until May 1982...
...And while human rights advocates tried to expose the hypocrisy of the authoritarian/totalitarian dichotomy, that formulation has become part of the standard lexicon of mainstream political discourse...
...Indeed, Lefever's much-lauded replacement, Elliot Abrams, is a fellow neoconservative, and Lefever himself was later hired by the State Department as a consultant on terrorism...
...n 34MayfJune 1982 Argentine "SpeM Carriers" Administration policy toward the Southern Cone was also guided by the need for support within the OAS for its policy in Central America, viewed as the key battleground in the hemisphere...
...In South Africa as a guest of the Department of Foreign Affairs in June 1980, Churba explained that he would urge Reagan to 1) end the U.S...
...Robert Mugabe, who came to power in Zimbabwe through terrorism...
...Some Reaganites argued that if the United States did not roll back restrictions on economic, military and nuclear aid, the regimes would abandon the West and turn to the Soviets...
...Aggett was white...
...And he counted on verligte (enlightened) Afrikaners around Prime Minister Pieter Botha to lead the country toward necessary political and economic reform (though far removed from majority rule), and away from the anachronistic total apartheid of the verkramptes (hardliners...
...In a report issued shortly before Reagan's inauguration, the Committee of Santa Fe, a CISsponsored study group to which both Fontaine and Sumner belonged, asserted: "We are by omission encouraging our southern neighbors to embrace the Soviet bear...
...But compared to the policy conflicts over southern Africa, the Reagan Administration exhibited relative unity during its first year with regard to policy toward the Southern Cone...
...blatantly articulated the underlying premises of the Administration's unfolding policies-all too blatantly, as it turned out...
...No one had epitomized right-wing hopes for 30 NACLA ReportMayIJuns 1982 31 Mass grave for some of the 600 Namibian refugees killed by South African soldiers in Cassinga, Angola in May 1978...
...He charged Crocker with wanting to foster U.S...
...Confident ofU.S...
...Timerman credited international pressure, especially the Carter Administration's human rights policy, for his survival and eventual release...
...Export regulations restricting the sale of "non-military" items to the South African police and military (e.g., most types of communication equipment) have been loosened, and loopholes have been widened for the export of "dual-use" items, with civilian as well as military applications, such as light aircraft and computers and other equipment that can be used in the fabrication of nuclear weapons...
...policy toward Argentina became a focus of attention largely due to the presence at the hearings of Argentine publisherJacobo Timerman, who had been detained and tortured by junta forces...
...23 As a candidate, Reagan had advocated arming UNITA forces still fighting against the Angolan government and called SWAPO a "Marxist terrorist band," while praising the 1979 elections in white-ruled Rhodesia as "free and open...
...When word got out that five military and intelligence officers met with Kirkpatrick in March 1981 (on a visit sponsored by the American Security Council), the White House covered up by saying that the South Africans had traveled incognito...
...3 U.S...
...Furthermore, the hopes of the organizers that Kirkpatrick and Walters would attend in their personal capacities" were dashed when they withdrew at the last minute as the result of international press attention and intense third world diplomatic pressure...
...it recalled the known positions of Reagan and other top officials and held a more confident opinion of Crocker's views than did Jesse Helms...
...8 In 1979 CIS and the Institute for American Relations (IAR), which was established by Senator Jesse Helms, jointly sponsored a symposium on "Free World Security and the South Atlantic," with participants from the United States, Britain, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa...
...South Africa policy more than Dr...
...Crocker advocated a more pragmatic conservative policy which would avoid totally alienating Black Africa with an unconditional South African embrace...
...The Administration also requested Congress to lift restrictions on aid to Argentina and entered into discussions with Argentina and Brazil on South Atlantic security measures...
...Lefever Lefever leaving Foreign Relations Committee hearing...
...3 Reagan's southern Africa policy has been tempered somewhat by domestic opposition-evident, for example, in the successful campaign (to date) against repeal of the Clark Amendment-and by pressure from Western allies, who urged Reagan to remain committed to United Nations Resolution 435 as a framework for Namibian independence...
...Onward Southern Cone Soldiers The Lefever nomination highlighted policies toward the Southern Cone that were already underway...
...In arguing that "it shouldn't be necessary for any friendly country to pass a human rights test before we extend normal trade relations, before we sell arms, or before we provide economic or security assistance," Lefever stripped Reagan foreign policy of any conceivable democratic rationale...
...Emphasis in original...
...On September 1 the United States cast the sole negative vote in the Security Council, vetoing a resolution strongly criticizing South Africa for the attack (Britain abstained...
...policy in Central America, by dispatching military officials to make direct "professional" contact with Brazilian colleagues...
...The Reagan Administration has taken a number of concrete steps, or "gestures" as Crocker calls them, to improve bilateral relations with Pretoria...
...Reagan lifted the prohibition on Export-Import Bank loans to Chile and invited the Chilean Navy to participate in the annual UNITAS exercises...
...Maybe Crocker thinks that this is an improvement in the area of "racial differentiation...
...economic investments...
...The Good, the Bad and the Opportunist The Administration's embrace of the juntas reflected a new view of security, in which the stability of the Southern Cone was seen as threatened, not only by Soviet-sponsored subversion, but by Western negligence and even malevolence...
...33NACLA Report joint chiefs of staff, the then leader of Bolivia's military government and the soon to be inaugurated chief of the Argentine junta...
...2 4 MaylJune 1982 31NACLA Report Never mind that Afrikaners (whose National Party took control of the government after World War II in 1948) fought to keep South Africa out of both world wars, and thatJohn Vorster, prime minister from 1966 to 1978, was among those interned during World War II for pro-Nazi, antiwar activities...
...Questioned about the possible use of U.S...
...Yet the ultimate goal of "constructive engagement" remains unchanged: in Crocker's words, to "end South Africa's polecat status in the world" and to lead to "greater acceptance of South Africa within the global framework of Western security...
...More than any specific measure taken toward the region, the nomination of Ernest Lefever as assistant secretary of state for human rights focused public debate on the new approach to the Southern Cone, South Africa and the third world in general...
...2 8 Meanwhile the Botha regime has intensified domestic repression and backpedaled on reform...
...During the 1980 campaign, Roger Fontaine had advocated a switch from Brazil (the preferred regional gendarme in the Kissinger era) to Argentina, as the Argentine regime appeared more consistently anticommunist and open to U.S...
...equipment against South African blacks, Churba declared that he was "not at all afraid that they might be used against the black population...
...Despite the powerful connections of the conference sponsors, all governments felt compelled to disavow any official participation...
...Of course, the prevailing political calm was an illusion...
...In an August 1980 interview Allen claimed it "appears to have been a Czech disinformation project...
...He publicly opposed the Lefever nomination, equating the "quiet diplomacy" which Lefever and the Reagan Administration advocated with "silence" and "surrender...
...When in August 1981 the government violently uprooted and detained some 1,500 black squatters (mainly women and children) outside Cape Town and then deported them to their "homeland," U.S...
Vol. 16 • May 1982 • No. 3
