Growing campaign against South African interests

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32734, 11 October 1971, Page 11

Growing campaign against South African interests

(By

DENIS WEDERELL)

While H.A.R.T. and C.A.R.E. are making the running against apartheid on the sports field, the New Zealand University Students’ Association (N.Z.U.S.A.) has been doing some research into the relationship between several New Zealand companies and South African business and financial interests.

The students’ first study of the Rothmans organisation was hurriedly put together and gaps in the documentation had to be bridged by commonly accepted assumptions or the fervour of the advocates of a cigarette boycott.

While sufficient to persuade student association executive members who had already made up their minds about the rights and wrongs

of the matter, it would not have borne too close an examination. But . now N.Z.U.S.A. believes it has built a case against Rothmans, on the ground that its products and profits are dependent upon the exploitation of black labour, which will stand any scrutiny.

A document now being circulated among constituent student organisations purports to show that at least 50 per cent of the shareholding in Rothmans Tobacco Company, Ltd, is

not open to New Zealanders. This is the company in which 4600 individual shareholders, “99.6 per cent of whom are registered as New Zealand residents,” hold among them half of the 7,183,778 shares in the company, an average of 78 shares each.

The principal shareholder in this company is identified, in the N.Z.U.S.A. circular, as Rothmans (N.Z.), Ltd, which owns 35 per cent, Partnership Investments, Ltd, hold, ing the remaining 15 per cent. “No other shareholder holds more than 1 per cent of the share capital.” N.Z.U.S.A. then traces the parentage of Rothmans (N.Z.), Ltd, back through Rothmans Holdings (N.Z.), Ltd (a 50 per cent shareholding) and Butland Tobacco, Ltd (the remainder), and then in direct line (the proportion of ownership varying only between 99.9 per cent and 100 per cent) to the parent company, Rembrandt Controlling Investments (of South Africa). Primary sources The primary sources of this information are cited, and prove to be largely published material from recent annual reports of the companies concerned, from returns to the British Board of Trade,' and also from private inquiries made in this country. A secondary source is Beermans Financial Yearbook 1968.

Some of the data were obtained as a result of inquiries made by N.Z.U.S.A. itself, said the president, Mr David Cuthbert, in an interview in Wellington, and some through the Anti-Apartheid Movement (London). -

As a result of the earlier investigation, now clinched by this further report, Rothmans products are now banned on one university campus and will be banned on others as catering rights and retail outlet leases come up for review. N.Z.U.S.A. is now looking wider. Mr J. M. Clark, international research officer of the association, is inquiring into the ownership and business associations of the Royal Interocean Lines, which maintains a six-weekly service between New Zealand and South Africa with the Tjinegara and the Straat Banka; the New Zealand Insurance Company, whose South African subsidiary in 1969 contributed 7 per cent of the company’s total direct premium income (three offices in South Africa and one in Salisbury, Rhodesia); the South British Insurance Company; and Crown Lynn Potteries.

“When more information is gle'aned from the annual reports and other documents ... we may be able to draw up a plan of tactics that we can use on the ‘specific company’ to force disengagement from the South Africa scene,” says Mr Clark in a circular to affiliated associations. “Church groups and the Government will be very important tools in such tactics.” Dam project N.Z.U.S.A. has taken note of the success of the campaign, in Britain and in Europe, against the Cabora Bassa Dam project on the Zambesi River, in Mozambique. Cabora Bassa will be bigger than Kariba and will benefit, jn addition to Mozambique, Malawi and South Africa.

It began with participation from British, Swedish, Italian, French, Portuguese, and South African firms but gradually student and other anti-apartheid protest built up to the point where the Swedish and Italian Governments withdrew credits from their contractors, strong

pressure was brought on the French, and Barclays Bank, of Britain, also withdrew support. Barclay’s Bank was favoured by many British adademics and students because of its widespread overseas interests, so it was more vulnerable than some other British banks. But the investments of the protesters were proportionately small. Barclays was obliged to meet the anti-apartheid movement’s demands because of the demonstrations against it. Students, and others, publicly withdrew their money, and said why they were doing so; they picketed some of the larger branches of the bank; and named Barclays as a major supporter of apartheid. Consequently Barclays withdrew from the Cabora Bassa Dam project so far as it was able to—some contracts, to which it was already heavily committed, are continuing, according to Mr Cuthbert—and it has since joined some other overseas firms with South African branches by increasing the wage rates of its African and Coloured staff. Boycott of goods N.Z.U.S.A. is also supporting the campaign of the Apartheid Information Service, based in Auckland, which has launched a New Zealand-wide boycott under the slogan, “Don’t Buy South African Goods.” “Compared with the kind of digging we have to do to get out trade statistics, company reports, and so on, sports boycotts are easy,” said Mr Cuthbert during the interview. “But now that we have seen what can be done, with Rothmans, we are workon these other companies. “We are naming the names. We are naming the companies and their products. We are naming their agents, with their telephone numbers and post office box addresses, and we are looking for the support of the unions, of tobacco, fruit, and wine growers in this country, and of shopkeepers. I think we’ll get it.” He is not concerned about the economic hardship which might be done to African or Coloured workers and their families in the process. During the sixties, spokesmen for the banned African National Congress said that their people were ready to suffer such hurt, provided the boycotts brought down the political system in South Africa. “And this has been reaffirmed in recent years,” said Mr Cuthbert. “We have no doubts on that score.”