{"id":97807,"date":"2013-12-10T16:27:25","date_gmt":"2013-12-10T16:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yvesengler.com\/?p=464"},"modified":"2013-12-10T16:27:25","modified_gmt":"2013-12-10T16:27:25","slug":"our-shame-canada-supported-apartheid-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/our-shame-canada-supported-apartheid-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Our shame: Canada supported apartheid South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s enough to make one who knows even a little history gag.<\/p>\n

The death of Nelson Mandela has led to an outpouring of vapid commentary about Canada\u2019s supposed role in defeating South African Apartheid. \u201cCanada helped lead international fight against Apartheid\u201d,\u00a0noted a\u00a0Toronto Star<\/i>\u00a0headline while\u00a0a\u00a0National Post<\/i>\u00a0piece declared,\u00a0\u201cCanada\u2019s stance against apartheid helped bring freedom to South\u00a0Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding this self-congratulatory revisionism, Canada mostly supported apartheid in South Africa. First, by providing it with a model. South Africa patterned its policy towards Blacks after Canadian policy towards First Nations.\u00a0Ambiguous Champion<\/i>\u00a0explains, \u201cSouth African officials regularly came to Canada to examine reserves set aside for First Nations, following colleagues who had studied residential schools in earlier parts of the century.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada also supported South African apartheid through a duplicitous policy of publicly opposing the country\u2019s racist system yet continuing to do business as usual with this former British Dominion. It\u2019s true that in 1961 John Diefenbaker\u2019s Conservative government called for South Africa to be expelled from the British Commonwealth. But this position was not a moral rebuke of apartheid. \u201cNothing has been more constant in Diefenbaker\u2019s approach than his search for a tolerable way of averting South Africa\u2019s withdrawal,\u201d commented an External Affairs official at the 1961 Commonwealth meeting where South Africa left the organization. Diefenbaker pushed for South Africa\u2019s exclusion in an attempt to save the Commonwealth. The former British colonies \u2013 notably in South Asia and Africa \u2013 threatened to leave the Commonwealth if South Africa stayed.\u00a0This would have been the death of the British Empire\u2019s Commonwealth. Diefenbaker\u2019s lack of principled opposition to apartheid helps explain his refusal to cancel the 1932 Canada-South Africa trade agreement.<\/p>\n

Sentenced to life in prison in 1964, Mandela, joined 1,500 black political activists languishing in South African jails. In June 1964 NDP leader Tommy Douglas told the House of Commons: \u201cNelson Mandela and seven of his associates have been found guilty of contravening the apartheid laws \u2026 [I] ask the Prime Minister if he will make vigorous representation to the government of South Africa urging that they exercise clemency in this case\u201d? Lester Pearson responded that the \u201ceight defendants \u2026 have been found guilty on charges of sabotage and conspiracy \u2026 While the matter is still sub judice [before the courts] it would, I believe, be improper for the government to make any public statement on the verdict or on the possible sentences.\u201d This author found no follow up comment by Pearson regarding Mandela.<\/p>\n

Widely viewed as a progressive internationalist, Pierre Trudeau\u2019s government (1968-1984) sympathized with the apartheid regime not the black liberation movement or nascent Canadian solidarity groups. Throughout Trudeau\u2019s\u00a0time in office, Canadian companies were heavily invested in South Africa, enjoying the benefits of cheap black labour. In October 1982 the Trudeau government delivered 4.91 percent of the votes that enabled Western powers to gain a slim 51.9 percent majority in support of South Africa\u2019s application for a billion-dollar IMF credit. Sixty-eight IMF members opposed the loan as did 121 countries in a nonbinding vote at the U.N. General Assembly. Five IMF executive directors said South Africa did not meet the standards of conditionality imposed on other borrowers. The Canadian minister of finance justified support for the IMF loan claiming that \u201cthe IMF must be careful \u2026 not to be accused of meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign states.\u201d A few months later, Ottawa opposed IMF funding for Vietnam because of its occupation of Cambodia (largely to stop the Khmer Rouge\u2019s killing).<\/p>\n

Officially, the Trudeau government supported the international arms embargo against South Africa. But his government mostly failed to enforce it. As late as 1978 Canadian-government financed weapons continued to make their way to South Africa. Canadair (at the time a Crown company) sold the apartheid regime amphibious water bombers, which according to the manufacturer, were useful \u201cparticularly in internal troop-lift operations.\u201d (The official buyer was the South African forestry department.) In the early 1970s the Montr\u00c3\u00a9al Gazette discovered that the RCMP trained South African police in \u201csome sort of liaison or intelligence gathering\u201d instruction.<\/p>\n

Supporters of apartheid would say anything to slow opposition to this cruel system. At a 1977 Commonwealth meeting, Trudeau dodged press questions on post-Soweto South Africa suggesting that Idi Amin\u2019s brutal regime in Uganda should be discussed along with southern Africa. For its part, the\u00a0Globe and Mail<\/i>\u00a0argued in 1982 that \u201cdisinvestment would be unwittingly an ally of apartheid\u201d since foreign investment brought progressive ideas.<\/p>\n

After decades of protest by Canadian unions, churches, students and others, Brian Mulroney\u2019s Conservative government finally implemented economic sanctions on South Africa in 1986. The Conservatives only\u00a0moved after numerous other countries had already done so. \u201cThe record clearly shows\u201d, notes\u00a0Ambiguous Champion<\/i>, \u201cthat the Canadian government followed rather than led the sanctions campaign.\u201d Unlike Canada, countries such as Norway, Denmark New Zealand, Brazil and Argentina also cut off diplomatic ties to South Africa. Even U.S. sanctions, due to an activist Congress, were tougher than those implemented by Ottawa.<\/p>\n

From October 1986 to September 1993, the period in which economic sanctions were in effect, Canada\u2019s two-way trade with South Africa totaled $1.6 billion \u2013 44 percent of the comparable period before sanctions (1979-1985). Canadian imports from South Africa averaged $122 million a year during the sanctions period.<\/p>\n

Canada did business with the apartheid regime and opposed the liberation movements. Ottawa\u2019s relationship with the African National Congress (ANC) was initially one of hostility and then ambivalence.<\/p>\n

Canada failed to recognize the ANC until July 1984 and then worked to moderate their direction. In an August 1987 letter to the Toronto Star, Foreign Affairs Minister Joe Clark explained the government\u2019s thinking:\u00a0\u201cCanada has been able to develop a relationship of trust with the \u2026 African National Congress that it is hoped has helped to strengthen the hand of black moderates.\u201d<\/p>\n

With apartheid\u2019s end on the horizon, Ottawa wanted to guarantee that an ANC government would follow pro-capitalist policy, contrary to the wishes of many of its supporters. The man in charge of External Affairs\u2019\u00a0South African Taskforce said that Ottawa wanted an early IMF planning mission to the country to ensure that the post-apartheid government would \u201cget things right\u201d from the start. One author noted: \u201cThe Canadian state\u00a0has entered fully in the drive to open South Africa to global forces and to promote the interests of the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ottawa\u2019s policy towards apartheid South Africa was controversial among Canadians. There was an active solidarity movement that opposed Canadian support for the racist regime and to the extent that Canadian politicians played a role in challenging South African apartheid it was largely due to their efforts.<\/p>\n

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It’s enough to make one who knows even a little history gag. The death of Nelson Mandela has led to an outpouring of vapid commentary about Canada’s supposed role in defeating South African Apartheid. “Canada helped lead international fight against … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1235,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-97807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}