Kissinger's Africa Policy: What Else Is New?
Grosscup, Beau
Washington pursues the same old policies by new means Kissinger's Africa Policy: What Else Is New? BEAU GROSSCUP The fanfare accorded to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's journey to Africa...
...Finally, in 1971, the Byrd amendment ended the U.S...
...The pattern of American support for the status quo in Africa was highly evident in the time from 1970 through 1972...
...It is apparent, then, that American support for white minority rule in Rhodesia and South Africa, and for Portuguese colonialism, has been a principal method of protecting current and future economic and strategic interests...
...policy planners regard the region as strategically important...
...As American concern over these initiatives deepened, Washington became actively involved in supporting Portugal and the white minority governments...
...The one possible difficulty for U.S...
...Throughout the early decades of the Cold War, Washington was content to let the Western European nations worry about Africa...
...veto was cast in the United Nations to prevent strengthening of the sanctions against Rhodesia...
...investors benefited from the favorable business atmosphere in Rhodesia and South Africa, while the British and the Portuguese coped with the region's complex military, diplomatic, and political problems...
...sanctions against Rhodesia, implying that the Ford Administration will back efforts to repeal the Byrd amendment...
...The goal is still to maintain Africa as a Western capitalist preserve and keep socialist influence out of the continent, or at least hold it to a minimum...
...economic interests are concentrated in key industries— energy, transportation, and communications...
...In Angola, for example, U.S...
...This becomes clear when we review the circumstances that prompted increased U.S...
...Washington wants to maintain good relations with the dominant capitalist interests, be they black or white...
...That policy remains intact...
...Washington has learned that it can no longer stake its interests on the perpetuation of colonies or white minority rule...
...Kissinger's pledge of American support for majority rule in Rhodesia is central to the new tactics being pursued by the United States...
...Finally, Kissinger has promised American compliance with the U.N...
...In the 1960s, however, both China and the Soviet Union began to show keen interest in the newly independent, nonaligned nations of Africa...
...This fear came to a head in the recent Angolan conflict...
...only the tactics have changed...
...The policy has worked with black-ruled nations of northern and central Africa, such as Liberia, Kenya, Zaire, and Uganda...
...policy— the charge that Washington was supporting colonialism and white rule—was handled by an effective public relations campaign and periodic calls for majority rule and humanitarian policies...
...As long as the United States can keep negotiations moving toward a peaceful settlement of the Rhodesian and South African questions, Washington will not be faced with such a difficult choice...
...These actions by the United States and other Western capitalist nations reflect their vital economic interests in Africa...
...To accept these assumptions, however, is to ignore the real purposes behind Kissinger's mission and to obscure the realities of U.S...
...marily Portuguese) colonialism and white minority rule...
...The United States has had a policy toward Africa for the past twenty years—a consistent policy of promoting the continent as a Western capitalist preserve by supporting European (priBeau Grosscup teaches a course in international monopoly capitalism in the politics department at Ithaca College...
...Secretary Kissinger has also promised economic and humanitarian aid to those black nations—particularly Mozambique and Zambia—which have suffered most from the economic sanctions imposed on Rhodesia by the United Nations...
...involvement in African affairs during the decade of the 1960s...
...The second maintains that Kissinger's recent policy statements reflect a new U.S...
...Kissinger's recent policy statements do not represent a new attitude toward Africa or even a reversal of previous positions...
...At the same time, Kissinger has made it clear to both the Ian Smith regime and the black groups in Rhodesia that this American initiative is based on a negotiated settlement providing for a peaceful transition of power to majority rule while preserving minority rights—despite the fact that recent negotiations between Smith and the black nationalists have broken down, and that a large segment of the black nationalist movement has openly rejected the idea of a negotiated settlement...
...For more than fifteen years, the United States supplied Portugal, among the poorest of the European nations, with the economic and military aid that enabled it to carry on its colonial wars in Africa...
...ban on imports of Rhodesian chrome...
...If Washington chose to support the Smith regime in an armed conflict, on the assumption that it could win and hold power for a while longer, it would push the black nationalists into the waiting arms of the Soviet Union and once again legitimize use of Cuban troops...
...American finance rescued South Africa from bankruptcy in 1961, and has provided continuing economic support for the regime by corporate investment...
...American corporations dominate auto manufacturing and the related industries of rubber, steel, glass, and oil...
...The major shipping lanes around the southern tip of Africa, for example, were essential to the West while the Suez Canal was closed, and it is argued that whoever controls southern Africa controls those shipping lanes as well as the strategic ports on both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans...
...policy of active participation on the side of black majority rule, economic development, and humanitarian concern, and a reversal of past practices that might have been construed as official U.S...
...all abound in south Africa...
...Until the 1974 Portuguese revolution, and its attendant repercussions for the African colonies, the United States had reason to be satisfied with the way things were going in Africa...
...The exploitation of the black work force results in a return on corporate investment in South Africa that is substantially higher than the average return by American direct investment elsewhere in the world...
...Kissinger does not want to encourage either side to seek a military solution...
...This is why Kissinger has placed such heavy emphasis on negotiations, why he has told the Smith regime that it can expect no military or economic aid from the United States, and why he has offered no military aid to the black nationalists...
...The fear was that Chinese and Russian influence would threaten the absolutist claim held by the Western capitalist nations on Africa...
...policy in Angola is the principal cause of Kissinger's recent well-publicized moves...
...A military solution to Rhodesia's power struggle would place the United States in a situation painfully similar to the one it confronted in Angola...
...On the other hand, if Washington chose to give military assistance to the black nationalist groups, it would jeopardize the American relationship with South Africa...
...In 1970, the first U.S...
...IBM has a virtual monopoly over computers and computer-related industries...
...In 1971, the United States signed the Azores Pact with Portugal, providing the Portuguese with $436 million in economic aid in exchange for continued use of air and naval bases...
...he declared on April 28 in Lusaka, Zambia, that "the United States is wholly committed to help bring about a rapid, just, and African solution to the issue of Rhodesia...
...So long as the continent remained free of socialist influence, the European colonial powers could have the headaches of decolonization...
...These initiatives are designed to give the impression of setting out new directions for American policy in Africa, but they are completely consistent with the basic U.S...
...Furthermore, the Republic of South Africa has been described as the continent's "industrial workshop"—the cornerstone for African industrial and military development...
...In addition, U.S...
...Rather, they represent new tactics for carrying out the old strategy of maintaining the African continent as a sphere of influence for Western capitalist nations...
...policy toward Africa for about twenty years, and that Kissinger's trip thus provided him with an opportunity to "learn" about the continent and its problems in order to enunciate a coherent and proper policy...
...When the Portuguese announced that they were pulling out of Angola and Mozambique at the very time that the Chinese and Russians were supporting various black nationalist movements in these colonies, the United States was faced with the problem of protecting its interests in the impending power struggle while curtailing Soviet and Chinese influence...
...And if Washington were to stand by and do nothing in such a conflict, it would have to abandon its rigid and fundamental assumptions about the global struggle between capitalism and socialism and the importance of Africa in that struggle...
...Why is Kissinger so concerned with negotiations...
...investment in the South African economy increased by 535 per cent— from $140 million to $750 million—and since 1970 this investment has again doubled...
...American interests are vitally involved in such rich mineral resources as diamonds, manganese, copper, chrome, and gold...
...corporate investments in oil and sulphur are already substantial and potentially even greater...
...In South Africa, U.S...
...Washington hopes it will work in southern Africa...
...The ultimate failure of U.S...
...BEAU GROSSCUP The fanfare accorded to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's journey to Africa last spring, and the analysis of the policy statements issued as a result of that trip, have been based on two simple assumptions: The first, asserted by the American press and supported by the State Department, suggests that there has been no real U.S...
...foreign policy toward Africa, and particularly southern Africa...
...support for colonialism and white rule...
...strategy of maintaining Africa as a Western capitalist preserve and of protecting American interests in southern Africa...
...In the same year, Washington dropped its embargo on sales of strategic and military materials to Portugal and South Africa...
...The American strategy toward Africa remains the same...
...A similar commitment has been evident in American support for the white regimes of Rhodesia and South Africa...
...The United States now seeks to mend its fences with the black nationalist movements by promising economic aid and diplomatic support for eventual black rule...
...He has emphasized the need for a peaceful transition to majority rule...
...Between 1950 and 1970, direct U.S...
...Portugal received Boeing jets and Bell helicopters, as well as $225,000 worth of herbicides...
...Military aid to South Africa, even in the face of the United Nations ban on arms sales, has continued by means of the NATO policy of allowing the sale of materials, blueprints, and patents to the South African arms industry...
...He has warned the minority government of South Africa that it should begin to think about change, particularly in regard to Namibia and the policy of apartheid...
...Let us prove that these goals can be realized by human choice, that justice can command by the force of its Tightness instead of by the force of arms...
...This was done unilaterally, as in the counterinsurgency training provided in the United States for more than 3,000 Portuguese troops, as well as through NATO efforts to supply Portugal with arms and technical aid...
Vol. 40 • October 1976 • No. 10
