*The United Nations arms embargo on South Africa imposed by the Security Council in 1963 has been systematically violated openly or secretly by practically all major Western powers, reported the Swedish expert on Africa affairs, Zdenek Cervenka, in the May issue of Africa magazine.
To defend their strategic and economic interests in the region, the imperialists have had no scruples about arming the racist regime in Pretoria to the hilt. The violence used by this regime to keep down the more than 17 million oppressed blacks in South Africa is well-known. In 1960, for example, the South African police shot 69 Africans dead during a peaceful demonstration against the 'pass laws' in Sharpeville.
More and more - as the South Atrican invasion of Angola graphically revealed - Pretoria is playing a police role throughout southern EQUATOR According to a Bill presented to the South African Parliament on 28 January, Pretoria's field of milltary operations is to be extended to be equator - - 1,200 miles north of the Angola-Namibia border. The Bill would allow South African troops to intervene in Angola, Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Burundi or Gabon 'to prevent or suppress all armed conflicts outside of the Republic that are or could become threats to the Republic's security.
This policy of dynamic defence" is the stick behind Pretoria's policy of 'detente" and dialogue' with black Africa.
On 31 March, Senator Owen Horwood announced that South Africa's military budget in the 1976-77 fiscal year would reach $1,800 million, an increase of 40 per cent over 197576 and almost double military spending in 1974-75. This huge military build-up has been made possible by the NATO powers, either through the direct sale of weapons or through technical and economic assistance designed to allow South Africa to achieve "self-sufficiency' in arms production.
NATO The US-based Africa Research Group has noted that 'nearly all the NATO countries permit their corporations to invest in the South African armaments industry. They place no restrictions on the transfer of military know-how, including the sale to South Africa of blueprints and patents for military production. For • example, the entire South African army and police force are equipped with NATO FN rifles, manufactured in South Africa under licence from NATO. All these governments permit their citizens to accept jobs in the South African arms industry.?
In February 1970, the Nixon administration adopted a United States strategy option for southern Africa code-named Tar Baby (Option 2 of National Security Study Memorandum 39). Based on the premise that the whites are here to stay and the only way that constructive change can come about is through them, Tar Baby's policy was to maintain public opposition to racial repression but relax political isolation and economic restrictions on the white states.
To get around the UN Uganda, Kenya, Zaire, Congo, Rwanda, bargo against South Africa, Tar Baby proposed that the US enforce arms embargo against South Africa but with liberal treatment of equipment which could serve either military or civiliam purposes'. Using this formula, Washington has sold South Africa millions of dollars worth of 'dual purpose' equipment - that is, military hardware under a civilian cover.
AIRCRAFT US aircraft exports to South Africa, for example, jumped in value from $25.6 million in 1970 to $80 million in 1972. Among items sold by the US to South Africa have been Bell helicopters, which can be used in police or military operations; C-141 Starlifter and C-130 Hercules transport planes, which were used by Pretoria to supply its invasion force in Angola; and US-made Pipers and Cessnas, which are used by the South Atrican Air Commandos, a paramilitary flying militia trained for counter-insurgency operations.
The top arms supplier to South Africa today is France, which sold Pretoria $60 million of military equip ment in 1975. By the end of 1974, France had exported to South Africa at least 40 Mirage interceptors, fighter-bombers and reconnaissance planes; 92 Alouette, Super Frelon arms em- and Puma helicopters; 20 Panhard AMX 30 tanks; 12 Mystere and Transall transport planes; three Daphne submarines; three missile gunboats; and a large number of aircraft engines, rockets, anti-tank missiles, armoured cars and machine guns.
In addition, Paris has provided, licences for the construction in South Africa of Panhard and Levasseur armoured cars (which were used in Vorster-plenty of arms to smile about the Angolan invasion), 60mm and 90mm machine guns, and MirageMilan bombers. At present France is supplying South Africa with 45 Mirage F-1 jet fighters, the most advanced military aircraft built in France, to replace South Africa's older Mirage Ills. South Africa is scheduled to build its own Mirage F-1 jets under licence by 1977. South Africa and France have also cooperated to develop the Cactus (Crotale) ground-to-air missile system.
to South Africa is Italy - with arms sales to Pretoria of $33 million in 1975. In 1967, South Africa began jet.
ISRAEL equipment from Israel guerrilla war."
Another major NATO arms supplier bly in Bonn recommended to the LIONS production of the MB-326 M Impala jet under an Italian licence, and by 1973 had built 200 of these planes. In 1973, Italy granted South Africa another licence - this time to assemble and later produce the MB-326 K Israel, which sold South Africa $ 13.6 million of arms in 1975, is emerging as another of Pretoria's main suppliers. On 9 April, the South African Prime Minister John Vorster arrived in Tel Aviv for a governmentsponsored visit which is widely thought to have spawned a major •There are reports from Johannesburg, reported the Sunday Times on 11 April, that South Africa wants to • buy the Israeli-made Kfir (lion cub) delta-wing warplane and other military Africa may also hope to benefit from Israel's hard-won experience of NATO as a whole made a synch ronised tilt towards the South African regime in the early 1970s. In November 1972, the NATO AssemNATO Ministerial Council that it give SACLANT (Supreme Allied Command, Atlantic), which is based Council, meeting in Ottawa, formalised NATO's moves towards broadening its area of operations to include southern Africa.
One example of the intimate relationship between South Africa and NATO is 'Project Advokaat", a highly sophisticated surveillance system located at Silvermine, 20 miles north of the Simonstown naval base in South Africa. The surveillance system, with a range of 5,000 miles covering the whole of Africa, the entire South Atlantic Ocean, and much of the Indian Ocean, can plot the course, size armament, number of personnel and other statistics of virtually any ship or plane within that radius.
NUCLEAR Most dangerous of all, however, is the South African regime's development - once again with Western aid - of a nuclear weapons capability Twenty-six per cent of the world's Known reserves of uranium are located in South Africa and South African-occupied Namibia. Furthermore, South Africa has developed a process for the production of enriched uranium, which is essential both for the production of nuclear weapons and for nuclear power staIn April 1975, South Africa's first pilot plant for the production of enriched uranium went into operation at Valindaba near Pretoria. Shortly after India exploded its first nuclear device on 18 May 1974, Louw Alberts, the vice-chairman of the South African Atomic Energy Board, remarked that our nuclear programme is more advanced than that of India.
GERMANY Pretoria's nuclear programme has received invaluable assistance from West Germany. In fact, South Africa's uranium enrichment process is believed to be based on the 'nozzle separachnique developed by the NucWomen 5