In the early nineties, during the 'transition' from apartheid, some of us took the position (against protestations that we were being too cynical) that the end of apartheid was merely the retirement of an obsolete species of capitalism and that through the ANC, the capitalist establishment in South Africa would launder the bitter legacy of apartheid into the post-cold war neo-liberal mainstream, while consolidating and expanding South Africa's hegemony over sub-suharan Africa. This article by Michel Chussodovsky provides a view of how this process has unfolded:-
Joe W.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/37/076.html
Exporting Apartheid to Sub-Saharan Africa
By Michel Chossudovsky Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, author of The Globalization of Poverty: Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms, Third World Network, Penang and Zed Press, London, 1997. Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa, 1996. Complete footnotes and sources available from author chosso at travel-net.com.
The right wing Afrikaner Freedom Front (FF) headed by General Constand Viljoen plans to develop a "Food Corridor" extending across the Southern part of the continent from Angola to Mozambique. Afrikaner agri-business is to extend its grip into neighbouring countries with large scale investments in commercial farming, food processing and eco-tourism. The Afrikaner unions of the Orange Free State and Eastern Transvaal are partners; the objective is to set up White-owned farms beyond South Africa's borders.
The "Food Corridor", however, does not mean "food for the local people". On the contrary, under the scheme the peasants will loose their land; small-holders will become farm labourers or tenants on large scale plantations owned by the Boers. Moreover, the South African Chamber for Agricultural Development (SACADA) which acts as an umbrella organization is integrated by several right wing organisations including the Freedom Front (FF) led by Viljoen and the secret Afrikaner Broederbond. As South African Defence Force (SADF) Commander in Chief during the Apartheid regime, General Viljoen had personally ordered the attacks on so-called "African National Congress Targets" including the blow up of suspected anti-apartheid activists and critics. As revealed by former spy Craig Williamson from classified State Security Council documents, Viljoen was also responsible for Stratcom (Strategic Communications), a covert organization involved in frame-ups, political assassinations, bombings, torture, covert propaganda and "dirty tricks campaigns"...(Stefaans Brummer, "The Web of Stratcoms", Weekly Mail and Guardian. 24 February 1995).
The Freedom Front, although "moderate" in comparison to Eugene Terre'Blanche's far-right Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), is a racist political movement committed to the Afrikaner Volksstaat. The SACADA-Freedom Front initiative has nonetheless the political backing of the African National Congress as well as the personal blessing of President Nelson Mandela who has delegated Mpumalanga Premier Matthews Phosa to the SACADA Board of Governors. All the other governors are members of the Freedom Front.
Premier Phosa, a distinguished ANC politician and among the most prosperous black businessmen in Mpumalanga province (East Transvaal), is the architect of a proposed "regional economic block" between Eastern Transvaal, Mozambique and Swaziland. Premier Phosa is not only firmly behind the SACADA-Freedom Front initiative, he has also contributed to laying the political ground work for the expansion of White Afrikaner business interests into neighbouring countries. Phosa informed the provincial legislature in 1995 that "he is communicating with Afrikaner leader General Constand Viljoen to ensure that their separate initiatives are complementary".
In discussions with President Mandela, General Viljoen had argued that:
"settling Afrikaner farmers would stimulate the economies of neighbouring states, would provide food and employment for locals, and that this would stem the flow of illegal immigrants into South Africa". (see EU Backs Boers Trek to Mozambique", Weekly Mail and Guardian, 1 December 1995).
Viljoen has also held high level meetings on Afrikaner agricultural investments with representatives of the European Union, the United Nations and other donor agencies.
In turn, Pretoria is negotiating with several African governments on behalf of SACADA and the Freedom Front. The ANC government is anxious to facilitate the expansion of corporate agri-business into neighbouring countries. "`Mandela has asked the Tanzanian government to accept Afrikaner farmers to help develop the agricultural sector'. SACADA has approached some 12 African countries `interested in White South African farmers'". In a venture set up in 1994 under the South African Development Corporation (SADEVCO), the government of the Congo had granted to the Boers 99 year leases on agricultural land. President Mandela endorsed the scheme calling on African nations "to accept the migrants as a kind of foreign aid".
An earlier trek of White farmers to Zambia and the Congo dating to the early 1990s met with mixed results. Rather than tied to the interests of corporate agribusiness (as in the case of SACADA), the impetus was based on the resettlement of individual (often bankrupt) Afrikaner farmers without political backing, financial support and the legitimacy of the New South Africa.
The African host countries have on the whole welcomed the inflow of Afrikaner investments. With regard to regulatory policies, however, the Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade Organization (WTO) (rather than national governments) call the shots, invariably requiring (indebted) countries to accept "a wide open door to foreign capital". In this context, the liberalisation of trade and investment under donor supervision, tends to support the extension of Afrikaner business interests throughout the region. Moreover, in the sleazy environment shaped by transnational corporations and international creditors, corrupt politicians and senior bureaucrats are often co-opted or invited to become the "business partners" of South African and other foreign investors.
The Expropriation of Peasant Lands The "Food Corridor" will displace a pre-existing agricultural system, it not only appropriates the land, its takes over the the host country's economic and social infrastructure, it spells increased levels of poverty in the countryside. It will most likely provide a fatal blow to subsistence agriculture as well as to the peasant cash crop economy; it displaces local level agricultural markets and aggravates the conditions of endemic famine prevailing in the region. Jen Kelenga, a spokesperson for a pro-democracy group in Zaire sees the Boers "in search of new territories to apply their racist way of living".
The "Food Corridor" if carried through, could potentially alter the rural landscape of the Southern African region, requiring the uprooting and displacement of small farmers over an extensive territory. Under the proposed scheme, millions of hectares of the best farmland are to be handed over to South African agri-business. The Boers will manage large scale commercial farms using the rural people both as "labour tenants" as well as seasonal agricultural workers. While the project is meant to "bring development", and "transfer much needed agricultural expertise", the initiative is largely intent upon "exporting Apartheid" to neighbouring countries. The latter objective is in turn supported by the gamut of IMF-World Bank sponsored economic reforms.
Afrikaner investments in agriculture go hand in hand with the World Bank sponsored Land Law. The expropriation of peasant lands is often demanded by creditors as a condition for the rescheduling of Paris Club debts. Peasant lands (which formally belonged to the State) are sold (at very low prices) or leased out to international agri-business (eg. on a 50-99 years concession). The meagre proceeds of the land sales will be used to service the external debt.
The World Bank has put forth land legislation in Sub-Saharan Africa which abrogates the right to land of millions of small-holders. Identical land legislation is enforced throughout the region, the national level land laws (drafted under technical advice from World Bank Legal Department) are with some variations "exact carbon copies of each other":
"The constitution [in Mozambique] says that the land is the property of the State and cannot be sold or mortgaged. There has been strong pressure particularly from the United States and the World Bank for land to be privatised and to allow mortgages..."(Joseph Hanlon, Supporting Peasants in their Fight for Land, Christian Aid, London, November 1995.
South African companies and banks are also participating in the country-level privatisation programmes (under the structural adjustment programme) acquiring at rock bottom prices the ownership of State assets in mining, public utilities and agriculture. With regard to the latter, experimental farms, government research stations, State-owned plantations, seed producing facilities, etc. have been put on the auction block. With the deregulation of agricultural markets under World Bank advice, the State marketing system is either closed down or taken over by private investors.
Derogating Customary Land Rights
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