GC24 Southern Africa (1971S512)

WHEREAS the apartheid policy of South Africa deprives a large majority of its people of economic, political and social freedoms solely on the basis of skin colour; and

WHEREAS the white racist government of Rhodesia is moving rapidly toward a South African type of apartheid; and

WHEREAS Portugal received NATO aid, enabling her forcibly to subjugate indigenous Africans; and

WHEREAS the ambivalence of Canadian foreign policy at present allows a small fraction of trade to weigh more heavily than our attention to Christian principles of human justice, thereby lowering our credibility with those independent African nations whom we support verbally in the UN;

BE IT RESOLVED that this General Council:

1. REQUEST the Canadian government to review its many relationships with South Africa so that its economic, trade and investment policies are brought more into line with its official pronouncements of broad revulsion against the racial discrimination practised in South Africa;

2. COMMEND the Canadian government for its stand at the United Nations against apartheid and economic slavery based on colour in South Africa, and for its recent action to eliminate the last remaining possibilities for the sale of military equipment to South Africa within the terms of the embargo in effect since 1963;

3. SUPPORT and encourage the announced movement towards increased diplomatic missions in independent Africa;

4. COMMEND and support the withdrawal of public monies from Polymer Corporation in South Africa;

5. URGE the Canadian government to abrogate the Commonwealth preferences extended in South Africa and to remove the anomaly that this favoured status creates in the light of our initiative in 1961, whereby South Africa was denied membership in the Commonwealth, and of our condemnation of this same country’s rule of South West Africa;

6. RECOMMEND that no further expenditure of public funds be made to promote trade with or investment in, Southern Africa (including Canadian participation in the Cabora-Bassa Cam Project in Mozambique); and that the government indicate clearly that any such investments by Canadian companies are made without government support; and further that it assist and encourage Canadian importers of produce from South Africa to switch to other suppliers;

7. SUGGEST that a government commission or other agency initiate and publish a study of Canadian economic involvement in South Africa to show its magnitude, its relation to racial practices and its strategic and/or military importance to the South African regime;

8. URGE the Canadian government to be consistent with its UN stance regarding South West Africa by dissuasion of Canadian investment there;

9. URGE the Canadian government through the Councils of NATO to stop assistance to Portugal by reason of her NATO membership until Portugal has given independence to her African territories;

10. RECOMMEND that CIDA identify as areas of concentration for Canadian government assistance programs, those countries (e.g. Zambia, Tanzania, and Botswana) to the north of South Africa which suffer through refusal to become client states of South Africa;

GC24 1971 ROP, pp. 42, 119, 289-293, 324