Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-v5vhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-02T13:40:52.931Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why U.S. Corporations Should Get out of South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Ann Seidman
Ann Seidman*
Affiliation:
Brown University
Get access

Extract

In evaluating the consequences of the $1.7 billion currently invested by U.S. corporations in South Africa, the issue is distinctly not whether or not the U.S. firms involved have adopted the Sullivan Principles. Those principles, purportedly designed to ensure upgrading and equal pay for blacks, are in reality little more than a smokescreen. Behind their rhetoric, U.S. transnational corporations continue to help South Africa build up its military-industry machinery to perpetuate oppression of the majority of black workers.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 10 , Issue 1-2 , Spring/Summer 1980 , pp. 81 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1980 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. The Sullivan Principles, named after their author, the Reverend Sullivan, a member of General Motors’ board of directors, have been urged by U.S. government officials and accepted by the South African government as guidelines for U.S. firms investing in South Africa.Google Scholar
2. Subcommittee on African Affairs (Chairman, Clark, Senator Dick), “U.S. Corporate Interests in South Africa,” report to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 1978), p. 9.Google Scholar
3. The Texaco Star (Texaco Inc.), Vol. LXIV, No. 4, 1977.Google Scholar
4. E.g., U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, The Federal Civil Rights Enforcement Effort—1974 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1974) passim. Google Scholar
5. Cable from Ambassador Bowdler to the State Department, “Subject: Black Attitudes towards Foreign Investment,” reprinted in full in Southern Africa, April, 1978.Google Scholar
6. The full scope and extent of U.S. investment in South Africa is described in Ann, and Seidman, Neva, U.S. Multinational Corporations and South Africa (Westport: Lawrence Hill & Co., and Dartions and South Africa (Westport: Lawrence Hill & Co., and Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1977) and Ann W. Seidman and Neva Makgetla, Activities of Transnational Corporations in South Africa, Notes and Documents, published by the Centre Against Apartheid, United Nations, May, 1978.Google Scholar
7. For discussion of the South African military build-up and the role of U.S. interests in it, see U.S. Military Involvement in Southern Africa, edited by Massachusetts, Western Concerned African Scholars (Boston: South End Press, 1978).Google Scholar
8. GM Bowtie (South Africa: published by Chevrolet Dealers of South Africa, 1975).Google Scholar
9. General Motors South Africa (Pty) Ltd., Inter-Office Memo; published by Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, National Council of Churches, May, 1978.Google Scholar
10. ITT, “ITT in South Africa” (May 1976).Google Scholar
11. Makgetla and Seidman, op. cit. Google Scholar
12. Sechaba, Special Issue, LX. 11/12 (November-December 1975).Google Scholar
13. Dun, and Bradstreet, , Principal International Business, 1975/76—The World Marketing Directory (New York: 1977); and Sperry Rand, Annual Report, 1975.Google Scholar
14. Investor Responsibility Research Center, Corporate Activity in South Africa: Motorola, Inc., 1978 Analysis J, Supplement 4 (Washington, D.C: April 7, 1978).Google Scholar
15. U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on African Affairs, Hearings on “United States Corporate Interests in South Africa,” Sept., 1976 (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977).Google Scholar
16. Varrynen, , Raimo, , “South Africa: A Coming Nuclear Power?,” in Instant Research on Peace and Violence, VII.I (1977)Google Scholar
17. lbid., p. 34.Google Scholar
18. lbid.Google Scholar
19. Westinghouse, Annual Report, 1976.Google Scholar
20. Annual Reports of Raytheon (Boston) and Fluror Corporation (Los Angeles), 1977.Google Scholar
21. Mobil Annual Report, 1977.Google Scholar
22. Corporate Information Center, The Oil Conspiracy (New York: World Council of Churches, 1976).Google Scholar
23. For details see Seidman and Makgetla, op. cit., p. 76ff.Google Scholar
24. Subcommittee on African Affairs, Report, op. cit., esp. part 2.Google Scholar
25. Locke, , Peter, and Wulfe, Herbert, Register of Arms Production in Developing Countries (Hamburg: Arbeitsgruppe “Rustung und Unterentwicklung,” March 1977).Google Scholar
27. E.g., Nov. 10, 1978.Google Scholar
27. Seidman, and Makgetla, , op. cit., p. 36-7.Google Scholar
28. Seidman, , Ann, and Neva, , op. cit.. Chapter on minerals.Google Scholar
29. Bowdler, William, op. cit. Google Scholar
30. To obtain copies of Association statement of principles and newsletter, write to Association of Concerned African Scholars, P.O. Box 791, East Lansing, Ml 48823.Google Scholar