Lutheran Student Movement-USA

1978

78-9 Resolution on Apartheid and American Investment

Background

To the black Africans, apartheid is the denial of basic human rights.  It means the denial of a husband, wife, and their children to live together for more than 72 hours a year.  Eighty-seven percent of fertile and mineral-rich land is reserved for four million whites and eighteen million black African are physically confined to thirteen percent of the land that is arid and without mineral wealth.¹ A black African has no right to move freely within his own country without a pass.  Apartheid means that black Africans are barred by law to determine their own political, economic, and social destinies.  They cannot vote, own property, join political parties, form trade unions or go on strike for better wages and working conditions.  Prime Minister Vorster states: “You may call the antidemocratic principle of government a dictatorship if you with.  In Italy they call it fascism; in Germany, national socialism; in South Africa, it is called Christian nationalism.”²

The maintenance and continuation of direct and indirect US investment and trade have weakened the material, spiritual, and social conditions of the black African people by strengthening not only the economy, but also the killing capability of the apartheid government.  More that 600 students were gunned down in cold blood when they asked peacefully for their basic rights (Soweto).  The US investments of 1.7 billion to 2 billion dollars in 1978 by more than 300 American corporations including churches, and have provided the apartheid regime with the ability to produce nuclear weapons.³  American bank loans have played and still play a crucial role in rescuing the apartheid economy form collapse.  They have helped in the development of South Africa’s industrial base, trade, and infrastructure.  Yet, at the same time, this development has be accompanied by increasingly systematic and brutal repression of all conceivable basic human needs of the black majority, whines, Shapeville (1960), and Soweto (1976).  Organizing against these banks have proved effective in changing loan policies of some of the banks in the US.  All must be forced to stop bailing our and propping up the apartheid system.  By selling or owning Krugerrands, the Americans are directly supporting the existence of apartheid.⁴

A variety of ways have been employed to help this situation.  Student Christian groups and non-Christian groups alike in major American universities and colleges have mounted effective campaigns for the divestment, witness, the University of Wisconsin, and protests at the University of California campuses, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc.  The city of Davis, California, has successfully passed an initiative (measure A) in March 1978, ordering and barring city council to divest and stop investment in corporations which directly or indirectly do business in and with South Africa. 

We believe that, as Christians and concerned human beings, our solidarity with and support for the liberation struggle against apartheid is critical at this hour.  Let us extend our hands to those whose souls and bones have borne the brutality and ruthlessness of the apartheid system. 

Resolved

1) We, the African students attending the LSM Conference at Wittenberg University, Ohio request this assembly to endorse and adopt a resolution to condemn apartheid and to support the liberation struggle of the Africans against the inhumanity of apartheid policies just as it was critical for all men and women, Christian or non-Christian, to eliminate Nazism which ruthlessly cremated 6 million Jews alive in gas chambers and killed millions of others. 

2) Since the net effect of American investment in South Africa has been to strengthen the economic and military self-sufficiency of the apartheid regime, we therefore demand immediate withdrawal of American corporate support of apartheid.

3) That LSM-USA recommend to its members and groups to:

a. Stop banking on apartheid by withdrawing our money from banks doing business in and with South Africa,

b. Stop and campaign actively against university and college investments in corporations doing business in and with South Africa; to urge shareholders in such corporations to express their disapproval of effective corporate support of apartheid through shareholder resolutions and public statements of position at shareholders meetings,

c. Stop and campaign actively against the investment of your city money in corporations doing business in and with South Africa,

d. Stop and campaign actively against the sale of the Krugerrand4 by South Africa and its agents in your community and in the United States

4) That the International Concerns Secretary seek out and disseminate information on this resolution. 

References

Reference 1: United Nations, Apartheid In Practice, Document OPI/531, p.2

Reference 2: From “Last Grave at Dimbaza,” (a film on apartheid made in 1972 or 1973.)

Reference 3: Reported in various newspapers and magazines. Report by sub-committee on African Affairs, U.S. Senate, (January, 1978); “Investing in South Africa,” Los Angeles Times, (April 9, 1978); “Washington’s Stake in Southern Africa,” World Review, (March, 1978).

Reference 4: The Kruggerrand is a coin about the size of a half-dollar, containing one troy ounce of pure gold.  While considered as legal tender in South Africa, the coin is intended mainly for foreign investors.  Its value rises and falls with the international price of gold.