[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 115 (Thursday, September 4, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1661-E1663]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     ``SOUTH AFRICA AT YEAR THREE''

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JULIA CARSON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 4, 1997

  Ms. CARSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with my colleagues a 
speech given by James A. Joseph, United States Ambassador to South 
Africa, at the Meridan House International, Washington, DC, on May 20, 
1997. Ambassador Joseph's speech entitled ``South Africa at Year 
Three'' is an outstanding assessment of the impact of the democratic 
government since the first all race elections was held April 27, 1994. 
Ambassador Joseph states ``there is still much hope and high 
expectations in South Africa as it begins its fourth year of the new 
democracy.'' I am pleased to share Ambassador Joseph's wisdom with my 
colleagues.

                       South Africa at Year Three

                          (By James A. Joseph)

       The best way to assess the impact of three years of 
     democratic government in South Africa is to look at how the 
     new government defined its immediate and most urgent goals in 
     1994. The priorities of the new leaders were described as: 
     (1) establishing a legitimate government that would be both 
     democratic and an effective instrument for change; (2) 
     nation-building and reconciliation; and (3) reconstruction 
     and development.


                  Establishing a legitimate government

       The greatest challenge facing the ANC when it assumed power 
     was that of establishing a legitimate, effective and credible 
     government. Apart from the normal difficulties facing a 
     political movement that had never been in government before, 
     the ANC was faced with the altogether more daunting task of 
     transforming the entire nature of governance in South Africa. 
     Having inherited a state machinery designed to meet the needs 
     of a small racially defined minority, the ANC has had to mold 
     the institutions of government--under severe resource and 
     time constraints--to serve not only the interest of the 
     majority but the whole country.
       How successful has the ANC been in establishing a 
     legitimate and effective government? The legitimacy of the 
     government is accepted by all parties, but effectiveness is 
     too often in the eye of the beholder. The fact is, however, 
     that there are now representative governments at all levels; 
     national, provincial and local. There is a new constitution 
     which protects human rights, guarantees equal opportunity and 
     provides for open and fair elections. At the same time, there 
     is no more detention without trial, house arrests, bannings, 
     bombings and political violence have subsided. The press is 
     free, the far right has almost disappeared and many former 
     ideologues have turned out to be very pragmatic.
       South Africa is a country that works. Away from national 
     media coverage, streets are being tarred, refuse collection 
     being improved, schools being renovated and health clinics 
     being built and upgraded. In April, government officials 
     gathered in a rural village in the Northern Province to 
     celebrate the millionth person to receive water under the 
     government's program of bringing water to the people. More 
     than a million homes have been supplied with electricity 
     since the new government came into power. Two 
     hundred thousand new homes are presently under 
     construction and millions of children now benefit from the 
     school nutrition program, free medical care and free and 
     compulsory education. Many communities can now feel secure 
     on a piece of land they call their own, with over 250 land 
     distribution projects underway affecting over 57,000 
     households and 1.7 million hectares. Many families now 
     benefit from the farmer support program and extension of 
     agriculture credit. The national government, the 
     Parliament and the Courts are functioning well. Provincial 
     and local governments have been much slower in taking hold 
     in some places than others, but many are starting to 
     become delivery systems for needed services. It is 
     important to

[[Page E1662]]

     remember that the local government elections completed 
     last year established a legitimate but interim foundation 
     for local government. The final structure of the local 
     government system will come out of a review process that 
     will lead to legislation by the end of 1997.
       With the presentation of the 1997 budget to Parliament 
     earlier this year, the national government reached a new 
     level of credibility. Even the most ardent critic of the ANC 
     government admitted that the new budget was sound and the 
     performance of the Finance Minister and his team impressive. 
     This was a crowning moment in the marriage of legitimacy with 
     credibility.


                   Working Through Political Parties

       One can not speak of governance without at least saying a 
     word about the role of political parties. Until two weeks 
     ago, the strategy of the National Party seemed to be both a 
     strategy of ``deepening'' and ``broadening'' its support 
     base. As explained to me by Roelf Meyer two weeks before he 
     got the ax, the former, the growth and development path, 
     sought to consolidate the NP's traditional white and colored 
     constituencies. The latter, the ``realignment path,'' was 
     designed to reach out to groups and individuals across the 
     political/color spectrum who may be looking for something new 
     in 1999, with a view toward forming an alliance capable of 
     challenging the ANC. After considerable exploration by Meyer 
     and a realistic report to the party of the image difficulty 
     of a political party still strongly associated with apartheid 
     in the public mind, the voices of Roelf Meyer and his 
     expansion-minded colleagues were silenced. Just before 
     leaving Cape Town last week, I spoke to one of the members of 
     the task force who told me that the National Party is now in 
     disarray with its future uncertain.
       The ANC is also undergoing transformation, but the changes 
     are of a different type. The 1994 deployment of its members 
     into three spheres of government, the public service, the 
     security forces and the diplomatic corps, left many ANC 
     branches in a depleted state. However, its structures are 
     beginning to demonstrate vitality, and in some instances 
     independence, again. New branches are being launched and 
     internal conflicts which seemed at one time to be tearing the 
     party apart are being more strategically managed and some of 
     the wounds healing. After being overwhelmingly re-elected 
     head of the ANC's Women's League, Winnie Mandela announced to 
     cheering supporters that she was ANC for life. Bantu 
     Holomisa, who was expelled from the ANC for bringing the 
     party into disrepute, is another case, but while he is 
     testing the waters for a new movement even he admits that the 
     ANC is likely to be the dominant party for awhile. I believe, 
     however, that one of the coming threats to party cohesion is 
     the growing importance of provincial issues and interests. We 
     will see more issue-based, ad hoc alliances as we are already 
     seeing in Gauteng.
       The IFP has undergone some face-lifting with a new Premier, 
     who was a widely respected Minister in the national 
     government, and new faces emerging in other areas of 
     leadership. But the IFP is still Buthelezi's party and his 
     emphasis on traditional leaders and traditional culture still 
     defines the parameters of party appeal. Great gains have been 
     made in collaborating with the ANC to reduce political 
     violence and there is now talk of collaborating in other 
     areas as well, particularly in meeting the needs of the 
     poor. The Democratic Party and the PAC seems destined to 
     attract far more media attention than followers.


                  Economic Empowerment of the Majority

       What we have seen in South Africa in the political 
     empowerment of the majority has not been matched by economic 
     empowerment. Unemployment, now estimated at between thirty-
     four and forty percent, continues to be one of the new 
     government's most difficult challenges. One hundred seventy 
     five companies are reported to have invested in South Africa 
     last year, but very little of this was job-creating 
     investment. In my view, the South African economy is in a 
     period of consolidation prior to heading for increasing 
     growth. The pundits estimate two- to four-percent growth in 
     1997 with the primary goal of the government's plan for 
     Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) of six per cent 
     growth by the year 2000. This clearly defines the challenge. 
     But I side with the optimists when I look at the performance 
     of the Mandela government since coming into office. After a 
     decade in which falls in GDP were more frequent than rises, 
     the Mandela era has brought both economic growth and single-
     digit inflation. The economy grew by 1.3% in 1993, 2.7% in 
     1994, 3.3% in 1995 and 3.1% in 1996.
       The pessimists will point to a rand which has slipped to 
     4.44 to the dollar, prime interest rates nudging over 20 
     percent, low reserves at 12.5 billion rand, a low savings 
     rate and public debt at 56 percent of GDP. And even the 
     government admits that achieving the GEAR goal of 400,000 new 
     jobs annually will be difficult, but, for 1997 at least, the 
     sale of 30 percent of the parastatal Telekom to the SBC/
     Malaysian consortium is expected to provide 50,000 new jobs 
     alone. It is useful to remind the pessimists, therefore, that 
     all of these are the problems the GEAR is meant to address 
     and South Africa has in three years already come a long way 
     toward overcoming the legacy of apartheid of a closed, 
     protected, stagnant, inefficient economy.
       What about the much repeated goal of black empowerment, a 
     concept that means different things to different people? 
     Black empowerment is a major factor in government 
     privatization strategics. The white apartheid government, for 
     all its anti-socialist rhetoric, created a surprisingly 
     socialist state. A startling 50 percent of South African 
     assets were in state hands when the Mandela government took 
     office. The apartheid state owned almost all of the electric 
     company, the telephone company, the national airline, the 
     arms industry, the railroads, busses, ports, hospitals and 
     television stations. It drilled for gas, logged forests, 
     mined some diamonds, grew mangoes and even ran water fun 
     parks. The new leaders have made a commitment to 
     privatization. They see it as a way of encouraging 
     efficiency, lowering prices and attracting more foreign 
     investors; but they want first to gain sufficient control to 
     ensure that privatization contributes to the empowerment of 
     the majority rather than simply increasing wealth 
     concentration in the hands of the white minority. If done 
     right, it is estimated that privatization could raise as much 
     as 30 billion dollars for public purposes.
       Another strategy for black empowerment is skills 
     development. The Minister of Labor's Green Paper on skills 
     development proposes a two percent payroll level to fund new 
     training programs for workers. The recent World Productivity 
     Report ranked South Africa 44th of 45 developing countries in 
     terms of human resource development. This is one of the 
     legacies of apartheid that will take some time to unravel.
       Black empowerment has been greatly aided by decisions of 
     the largest South African companies to unbundle. Anglo 
     American which controlled sixty percent of the Johannesburg 
     Stock Exchange (JSE) ten years ago has reduced its share to 
     24%. The top five conglomerates that together controlled 85% 
     of the JSE ten years ago have reduced their share to 67%. The 
     clear trend has been toward ownership by smaller, more 
     tightly focused companies. There is a paradigm shift in 
     ownership and distribution taking place that goes far 
     beyond the emerging black elite. There is a new crop of 
     blacks who describe themselves as the patriotic 
     bourgeoisie. They contend that they have the interests of 
     the country at heart and are not motivated exclusively by 
     self-interest.
       One of these is Cyril Ramaphosa who, after successfully 
     chairing the efforts to develop a new constitution, decided 
     to devote his considerable leadership skills to black 
     empowerment. As Chairman of Johnnic, he and Finance Minister 
     Trevor Manuel recently announced one of the most creative 
     initiatives to ensure wide participation in economic 
     empowerment. It seeks to make available nine million Johnnic 
     shares to individual black investors and smaller groups not 
     wealthy enough to participate in the original deal. The new 
     installment scheme involves a downpayment of six rands a 
     share, followed by another sixty rands in three years time, 
     by which time, if something near present growth and value 
     continue, the shares should be worth considerably more. This 
     may set a precedent for some of the privatizations that lie 
     ahead.
       One way of analyzing success in black empowerment is to 
     look at the Johnannesburg Stock Exchange where black control 
     of the JSE's market capitalization increased to almost 9% at 
     the end of last month from less than 1% in 1994. Another way 
     of determining success is to look at the fact that there are 
     now seventeen black controlled companies with a market 
     capitalization of more than twenty-seven billion rands.


             Reconciliation, Reparations and Rehabilitation

       Under the leadership of President Nelson Mandela and 
     Archbishop Tutu, South Africa has taken reconciliation among 
     former adversaries to a new level. Pundits debate whether the 
     spirit of reconciliation in South Africa has its genesis in a 
     form of African humanism known as ubuntu or whether, as some 
     contend, it is simply a political strategy necessary for the 
     progress of the new democracy. But what is not debatable is 
     that after a slow and uncertain start, the formal process 
     represented by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has 
     flushed out more of the truth than seemed likely just a few 
     months ago.
       The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has received more 
     than 8,000 applications for amnesty. The National Party has 
     taken the position that terrorist forces threatened South 
     Africa, that officials carried out lawful orders, and only 
     renegade members, acting independently, committed abuses. 
     While NP top leadership accepts moral responsibility for 
     apartheid, their position is that they did nothing wrong. The 
     ANC, on the other hand, has submitted a 139-page document to 
     the Commission detailing the many individual acts for which 
     its members are seeking amnesty.
       The Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, 
     which led to the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation 
     Commission, also requires the Commission to make 
     recommendations to the president on the reparation and 
     rehabilitation of victims. Much of the Commission's work has 
     focused on amnesty applications, leaving them very little 
     time to give attention to the reparations and rehabilitation 
     mandate. The victims who have testified before the Commission 
     have generally asked for very limited reparation, medical 
     treatment, a tombstone, the restitution of land, etc. But 
     there is a widespread recognition that white society 
     benefited directly from the apartheid system that for

[[Page E1663]]

     over forty years used exploitative and brutal means to limit 
     black opportunity in order to extend white privilege. The 
     extent of the brutality and violence revealed by the TRC has 
     far exceeded what even the most ardent critic of apartheid 
     had considered possible.
       It now appears that wealthy South Africans may be asked to 
     pay a once-only tax to help fund reparations for victims of 
     gross human rights violations. The ANC advised the Truth and 
     Reconciliation Commission on May 13 that those who prospered 
     under the apartheid system should finance meaningful 
     reparations for the victims of gross violations of human 
     rights on both sides of the apartheid conflict. According to 
     the ANC statement to the TRC, ``it would be useful if the 
     commissioners could apply their minds to considering the 
     necessity and viability of ensuring that the Doctrine of 
     Odious Debt is given recognition in mobilizing some of the 
     resources that would help make the reparations more 
     feasible.'' The Doctrine of Odious Debt was used by the 
     ANC government as a rationale for forgiving South Africa's 
     debt to Namibia. Fundamental to the concept are the old 
     principles in Roman and Roman-Dutch law that the wrongdoer 
     should not benefit from the wrongdoing.


                            Quality of Life

       Some whites in South Africa see the quality of life as 
     deteriorating. The privileges they enjoyed by being the 
     exclusive beneficiaries of apartheid are being threatened and 
     in some areas curtailed. The black majority who were kept 
     outside the mainstream economy by design are demanding a fair 
     share of the economic pie. A recent report on focus group 
     discussions conducted in South Africa found the mood of 
     community leaders across race and party lines to be one of 
     ambivalence. Some local community leaders are impatient and 
     nervous about the future. At the same time, most blacks 
     believe that they must be patient and that the country is 
     moving in the right direction. This patience is not to be 
     confused with disengagement or passivity. Rather, it is a 
     realism rooted in the belief that changing four decades of 
     apartheid will take more than three years. Those who have 
     enjoyed the benefits of freedom; those who take access to 
     water and electricity for granted; those whose children have 
     long had good schools available; those who have had good 
     health care when and where they needed it; and those who were 
     safe in their suburban homes while criminals were permitted 
     to prey, sometimes in collusion with the police, on township 
     and squatter village residents at will, are more likely to 
     use a different yardstick to measure the quality of life in 
     the new South Africa.
       Yet, there is one thing on which all South Africans agree. 
     It is the common feeling that unless the crime rate is 
     reduced the quality of life will be significantly impaired. 
     There is an obsession with crime in some quarters, an 
     obsession fed both by reality and a long period of isolation 
     and psychological exile from the rest of the world. Many 
     South Africans are convinced that the high level of crime 
     they are experiencing is somehow unique to South Africa. The 
     government has been greatly limited by the desire not to 
     restrict newly granted liberties and by a police force beset 
     with corruption, poorly trained and whose only major 
     responsibility in the past was to support the maintenance of 
     a police state. They know nothing about community policing 
     and, in some instances, have no desire to learn. But none of 
     this takes away from the fact that crime must be reduced and 
     the government has a very limited window of opportunity in 
     which to do it.
       More is being done, however, than is commonly assumed. The 
     government has an anti-crime strategy and a recent report 
     indicates that it is succeeding in some areas. Crime was down 
     in nine categories in 1996, but every high profile bank 
     robbery, rape or murder reminds leaders that more must be 
     done.
       The bottom line is that there is still much hope and high 
     expectations in South Africa as it begins its fourth year of 
     the new democracy. As a black leader in a small community 
     that seems to have every reason for despair put it, ``We are 
     doing very well. You can actually see things like houses. 
     Look at the electricity. Look at the clinics now. We must 
     admit all races. So there are actually tangible, measurable 
     changes.'' The majority population in South Africa continues 
     to startle many by the genuineness of its approach to 
     reconciliation and the vast reservoir of hope and goodwill 
     that remains.

     

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