Sanctioning Apartheid - KORA

Trnnsnrriioml Mnnufiwturing-Finance Links 14!5
of imported madhay and equipment continued to be important
boSouthABxL
Those who object that sanctions might hurt blacks never
point out thatI on balance, US ~nanufacturhg investment senred
to reduce black employment. At the peak of their South African
in~eSbent# US firms directly eglployd less than two percent of
South Akica's black labor force. At the same time, their import
and manufa- of high tech machinery a d equipment -bled
relatively scarce skilled white personnel to manage the qanding
modern sxbr and the growing military machine while maintaining
and heightening controls over an increasingly restive black
labor force8 To put it bluntly, their advanced technical inputs
saved M y to help build up the integrated military-industrial
complex that perptwted minority rule.
The rapid spread of computers throughout South Afrlea-giving
it one of the highest, if not the highest, per (white) capita
use in the world-qreswts only one asp& of the accelerated
introduction of advanced tedmolagies supplied by US transnational
coqmrations. The modemhtion of the domestic transport
industry facilitated the shipment of goods to and from ports and
aties tluou&hout the nation and the region, as well as the
movement of troops and police throughout the townships and to
the bordera The increased use of electronic devices facilitated
automation of manufa-& mining and even agricultural
operations, augmenting productivity while reducing the nuatber
of blacks employed per unit of output. The chernimls industry
not only produced synthetics that replaced l d y grown, more
labor-consu.mhg cultivation of fibers, but helped South Africa
acquire the potential for manufacturing napalm and other
&deal weapons.
By €he 1980s, the Sauth Afrimn regime's deliberate policy of
encouraging investment to "reduce dependence" on black labor,
coupkd with the impact of the international crisis, had generated
growing numbers of black unemployed. Official statistics do not
adequately record black unemployment. They parti&ly ignore
the qxdd plight of black women, ford to supplement their
families income by leaving home to take wage employment for
whites. Unofficial data suggest that by the mid-1980s as many
as 30 to 40 pencent of the black labor force had access to neither