West told to stockpile key S.A. minerals
NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg A former president of the World Bank, Mr Robert McNamara, has urged Western nations to begin stockpiling key minerals exported by South ’Africa in preparation for a clash over its racial policies. In one of the strongest condemnations of apartheid delivered by a foreign visitor to South Africa, Mr McNamara said, “South Africa's racial policies warrant international concern because I believe unless they are fundamentally redesigned they will eventually lead to a catastrophic racia’l conflict that will have serious ramifications throughout the Western world. “Because the South African Government continues to refuse to make any fundamental change in its racial policies, violence appears inevitable.” Mr McNamara. who headed the World Bank from 1968 . to. 1981 after seven years as United States Defence Secretary, gave the annual chancellor’s lecture at Johannesburg’s Witwatersrand University. He said the United States would be unable to support South Africa if it faced a military threat from antiapartheid forces, even at the risk of South Africa’s falling into the Soviet sphere of influence. “South Africa's official reaction to such a United States position might well be to terminate its exports of
the four key minerals it now supplies to the West — chromium, manganese, vanadium, and platinum. These materials are essential to Western industry and defence," he said. “In anticipation of such retaliatory action by South Africa, the United States and the other Western nations should begin now to increase their stockyiles." Mr McNamara said that to minimise the impact of a possible cut in South African mineral exports, the West
should develop alternative sources of supply and draw up plans to share limited supplies. South Africa’s mineral wealth includes an estimated 81 per cent of the world's chrome reserves, 78 per cent of its manganese, 75 per cent of its platinum, and 49 per cent of its vanadium. Mr McNamara predicted that the present system of white political domination in South Africa would not last another generation.
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Press, 27 October 1982, Page 24
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330West told to stockpile key S.A. minerals Press, 27 October 1982, Page 24
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