SOUTH AFRICA Through the Back Door

...While there is a certain reserve in the public conduct of relations beI "'tween Pretoria and the Pinochet regime, the tenor of Paraguayan-South African relations is one of unabashed celebration...

...On August 9, 1985, Jose Sarney, the president of Brazil, issued a decree prohibiting export of arms, crude oil and petroleum derivatives to South Africa...

...A state visit by President Alfredo Stroessner and a party of 70 in 1974 was the first visit by a nonAfrican head of state to South Africa since the Portuguese president's visit in 1956, and the second since King George VI brought the British royal family there in 1947...

...The mining giant Anglo American has led the way with its investment in Brazilian companies, especially in the mining sector where it has sunk $84 million into the Carajas iron ore reserves...

...The center," said then Deputy Foreign Minister Louis Nel, "would play an important role in forging closer links between South Africans and South Americans...

...in 1987 this had risen to $419 million, not including suspected covert military sales...

...In the last 10 years South African investment in Latin America has totaled over $500 million...

...Other Latin nations-Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay--have trade agreements with Pretoria dating back to the mid-1960s, when it was forced out of the Commonwealth of Nations...

...Furthermore, Latin American military establishments and arms industries have become increasingly attracted to South Africa not only as a buyer, but as an adviser in counterinsurgency...

...In 1980, under military rule, Argentina's exports to South Africa totaled only $8.7 million...

...There might also be validity to the June report in The Independent that in late 1986 the Argentine defense ministry struck an agreement with the foreign ministry, allowing under the counter shipment of arms exports through third countries or fronts...

...Between 1982 and the present, Chile, Paraguay, Guatemala and El Salvador borrowed over $190 million...

...This spring Paraguayan Foreign Minister Carlos Augusto Saldivar visited South Africa and received the Order of Good Hope from his counterpart Pik Botha...

...Political and Economic Factors Ecuador, Colombia and Peru signed their first-ever trade agreements with South Africa in 1985-but they are exceptions...

...In the early 1980s the South Africans offered counterinsurgency troops to Guatemala...

...South African Prime Minister John Vorster returned the favor with a state visit to Paraguay the following year...

...But in recent years increasing pressure from anti-apartheid activists has inhibited North American and European sales, even of so-called dual use items...

...But the idea withered, especially in the aftermath of the Malvinas-Falklands war...

...In the past year the white regime has assigned two new military attach6s to join the one already stationed at its embassy in Santiago...

...South Africa is planning to build submarines at its own yards in cooperation with Chile and there is speculation that Israel, which helped the white regime acquire plans from a West German company, is a third partner in this enterprise...

...While the re- gion's governments have not gener- ally welcomed the apartheid regime as an official ally-most do not even host a South African mission-this has not stopped many from establish- ing economic and military ties...

...Spurred on by Latin America's geographic proximity and the political affinity of its right-wing militaries, the white minority regime has been methodically preparing for the current boom...

...Israel is performing the same overhaul on Chilean Mirages that resulted in the South African Cheetah...

...In October 1983 Chile's state-owned naval docks and yards company, ASMAR, entered a joint venture with South Africa's Sandock Austral to build a shipyard in Punta Arenas...

...It built a copper processing plant in Chile...

...In September 1987 Gen...

...In the past the NATO governments, France and Israel have freely violated the UN embargo...

...And since there has been little outcry in the region, Latin America's involvement with South Africa may well continue to grow...

...Denis John Earp in Santiago...

...Flouting the Embargo It is a major step, of course, from economic cooperation with South Africa to providing weapons to the apartheid regime, which is strictly forbidden by the United Nations Security Council Mandatory Arms Embargo of 1977...

...According to an officer at the South African Embassy in Washington, Pretoria now has full-fledged missions only in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile, with honorary consuls in Colombia and Guatemala...

...tutelage, the South Atlantic Treaty Organization (SATO) would have paired South Africa with the right-wing regimes of * See Report on the Americas, Vol...

...A particular benefit Latin governments derive from trading with Pretoria is the latter's easy lending policies, initiated in 1966...

...It not only helped arm the contras but provided aircraft and personnel to deliver weapons...

...Anglo American also bought into mining operations in Mexico in the 1970s and more recently in Peru...

...Yet recently the conservative South African newspaper, the Sunday Times, boasted that last year South African imports to Brazil rose from $50 million to $60.5 million while exports rose from $40 millin to $80.9 million in the same period...

...The business at hand was to update a 1978 economic agreement and to sign accords doing away with visas and establishing air links...

...Pretoria assisted in at least one arms shipment to Argentina during the Malvinas/Falklands war...

...In January 1986 the Argentine government vehemently denied its complicity in another arms deal: the secret rerouting of five loads of French weapons carried by a Danish ship from Bordeaux to Durban, South Africa...

...Argentina, for instance, had sales of $71 million to South Africa in the first 11 months of 1985...

...In the same month South African Foreign Minister Botha visited Chile, suddenly and "privately...

...Although precise details about the wares involved are hard to come by, it is known that Chile has purchased Crotale surfaceto-air missiles from South Africa (produced under French license and called Cactus) and has bought riotcontrol and security equipment from Companhia de Explosivos Valparaiba and other South African joint ventures in Brazil...

...However, the move was opposed by the military and subsequently blocked by President Vinicio Cerezo, who stressed Guatemala's need to surmount its own international isolation...

...It is doubtful, however, whether a major item like combat aircraft could be sold without government approval...

...According to a 1985 report, South African private capital was the second-largest source of foreign private investment in Chile, totaling $80 million in 1984 alone...

...Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia and Paraguay were all candidates for SATO membership...

...Augusto Pinochet met with South African Air Force Commander-in-Chief Lt...

...Saldivar bestowed the Paraguayan National Order of Merit, Class Grand Crux Extraordinaire upon Botha...

...According to Gen...

...The Cheetah and additional Mirage 3's for upgrading into Cheetahs is certainly the next best thing...

...At the start of the decade, part of the South African fish processing industry moved its capital and plant to Chile from Namibia-the former colony of South West Africa, which South Africa continues to occupy illegally, and where fishing grounds had been exhausted...

...In March of this year, Vice Adm...

...The weapons were transshipped to Durban through Paraguay's leased free port in Brazil...

...As late as March 1987 the San Antonio Light of the Knight-Ridder chain reported that South Africa had contra support personnel stationed at Aguacate and Swan Island, both CIA bases in Honduras...

...The former is especially significant as Brazil, the Third World's largest arms exporter, maintains an official policy of excluding South Africa from its arms transactions...

...These South African loans are, according to a recent report in the Toronto Globe and Mail, "mainly government-to-government loans, at half the interest rate prevalent at most international banks and with no strings attached...

...Latin America has found in South Africa a convenient and cheap source of credit, as well as a willing customer for its armaments...

...Argentine analysts noted the possibility that retired navy officers could have provided the forged documents needed for the operation...

...These, say several sources, were refused, although South African advisers are reported to be helping with the "development poles" rural pacification program...

...According to AfricAsia, in early 1983 Guatemalan officers visited South Africa and Namibia to study counterinsurgency techniques...

...In 1984 a Center for Latin American Studies was opened at the University of South Africa...

...Fernando Matthei, commander of Chile's Air Force, the two discussed "how to cope with the embargo problems we are facing and how to enhance mutual cooperation in every aspect...

...4South African companies have been involved in Venezuelan mining and agriculture...

...In a statement denying the sale of Mirages, Buenos Aires reiterated its opposition to the apartheid state...

...A diplomatic row between the two governments followed...

...Navy officials in Denmark said that the shipping documents named Argentina as the buyer...

...Almost immediately after President Alan Garcia took office in 1985, Peru closed its Cape Town consulate as well as the South African consulate in Lima...

...There were reports that the visit was connected to Chile's annual arms fair and international air exhibition, FIDA 88, at which South Africa was--as it has been in the past--a major exhibitor...

...And for years South Africa has tried in vain to obtain fighter aircraft...

...Its embassy in El Salvador, which also represented South Africa in Colombia, was closed in 1979 when the ambassador was killed...

...In 1983 Argentina voiced strenuous objections to the landing of 250 South Africans to work on a British air base in the contested islands, despite assurances by Pretoria (which had professed neutrality during the war) that the government had not been involved in their hiring...

...The Guatemalan military's stance was undoubtedly prompted by its desire to maintain ties with its South African counterpart...

...3, "South Atlantic Triangle...

...South Africa was also an eager participant in the Reagan Administration's covert resupply of the contras...

...Although Paraguay does not produce arms and is not known to have made major weapons purchases from South Africa's growing arms export industry, on at least one occasion in June 1978 it served as an entrep6t for a West German shipment of missile launchers and artillery to South Africa...

...Those Latin leaders who may genuinely condemn the white regime choose to look the other way in less public matters of commerce...

...Yet it is a step which certainly has been taken by Chile and Paraguay, and apparently by Brazil and Argentina...

...Birds of a Feather But nowhere is South Africa more welcomed in Latin America than in Chile and Paraguay...

...It is possible these officers felt indebted to South Africa, which had reportedly provided military training when the Carter Administration cut off aid to Argentina...

...This spring diplomats confirmed to the London daily The Independent that the wooden-crated Mirage-3 fighter aircraft being unloaded at South African ports were from Argentina...

...Shaft Sinkers, an Anglo subsidiary, has been active in Bolivian mining, and Foreign Minister Pik Botha: shoring up Latin military ties Kt'UK I UN I ti AMENKIAS Jane Hunter is editor and publisher of Israeli Foreign Affairs, a monthly report on Israel's activities outside the Middle East...

...Latin trade at work in Namibia the Southern Cone...

...South African sales to the region, at $321 million in 1987, showed an increase from $210 million in 1980, suggesting that the white government might be using Latin American trading partners to obtain not just the foodstuffs and timber it has always bought, but manufactured items its major Western trading partners are no longer willing to supply...

...Glen Syndercombe, chief of the South African Navy, visited his country's "replenishment" ship in the port city of Valparaiso...

...Ironically, these increases came during a period when military regimes were giving way to civilian governments who were shoring up their postures of nonalignment...

...For Latin American governments who see themselves as victims of similar international attempts to isolate them-such as Chile, Paraguay and Guatemala--South Africa is a natural and sympathetic trading partner...

...Pretoria's extensive collaboration with Chile and Paraguay cannot be a very satisfying substitute for what were once grand plans to establish a South Atlantic alliance styled after NATO.* Under U.S...

...There also have been persistent reports of intelligence ties and involvement of Chilean personnel in Namibia...

...In 1980 Latin American nations' total exports to South Africa amounted to $94.4 million...

...The most spectacular triumphs for the white regime are the pending delivery by Brazil of 200 combat vehicles, worth $16 million, and the reported purchase from Argentina of Mirage-3 fighter aircraft...

...Hemmed in by embargos, South Africa has used investment, loans and grants to the region's governments as a way of surmounting the loss of some Western trade...

...Over the years Pretoria has given wide-ranging assistance, funding and encouragement to major South African corporations to invest in Latin America...

...An Ally in Counterinsurgency During this same period of growing trade and military ties, South Africa's diplomatic representation in Latin America has shrunk...

...There may be other tripartite projects as well: Recently a Danish ship under lease to an Israeli arms hauling firm took on cargo in Chile and delivered it to Durban...

...While these counterrevolutionary activities expand the international scope of the increasingly isolated white regime, South Africa has not given up hope of more conventional relationships...

...In 1986 the Guatemalan Congress voted to break diplomatic relations with South Africa, following a European tour by the body's foreign relations commission...

...The dictatorships of Chile and Paraguay have long been friendly with South Africa, but in recent years a number of civilian regimes have responded favorably to Pretoria's long and attentive cultivation, including several that have publicly condemned apartheid...

...15, No...

...Moreover, all signs indicate that the relationship between the two countries is growing...

...When Argentina JUL, //".UGUS 1 98 broke diplomatic relations with South Africa in 1986 it cited South Africa's "repeated acts of aggression against neighboring nations and the illegitimate occupation of Namibia...

...SATO's last truncated version proposed to include Chile, South Africa, Britain and the U.S...

...The following year South Africa's ambassador to Argentina spoke of his government's continuing support of a South Atlantic pact, but acknowledged that "the idea seems to be a divisive factor which makes the countries that would have to participate uncomfortable...

...South Africa plans to update the Mirages with Israeli technology, rename them Cheetah, and put them into service as replacements for the aircraft it has been losing in recent fighting in Angola...