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The Breakdown of the Arms Embargo against South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Sean Gervasi
Sean Gervasi*
Affiliation:
the Subcommittee on Africa, U.S. House of Representatives, 14 July 1977
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Extract

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee,

As you know, the United Nations Security Council called for an arms embargo against South Africa in 1963. Its objective was to prevent South Africa’s acquiring foreign weapons with which to build a modern military machine. South Africa did not have then, and lacks even now, the capacity to produce sophisticated modern arms economically. The Council reasoned at the time that if South Africa were denied supplies of modern arms it would find it difficult to resist the growing internal demands for dismantling apartheid. Many states saw the arms embargo as the best way to ensure peaceful change in southern Africa. And the call for an embargo was issued with that explicit purpose in mind.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , Winter 1977 , pp. 27 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1977 

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References

Notes

1. Resolution 181 (1963) of 7 August 1963 (S/5386).

2. Statement by Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson, United States Representative, in the Security Council on the South African Question (United States Mission to the United Nations: Press Release No. 4233, 2 August 1963).

3. Idem.

4. Subcommittee on Africa, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Hearings on the Implementation of the U.S. Arms Embargo, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1973, p. 137.

5. Ibid., p. 53, footnote.

6. Testimony of David Newsom, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, ibid, p. 148.

7. Ibid.

8. Barakat Ahmad, “South Africa’s Military Establishment,” Unit on Apartheid, United Nations, December 1972, p.3.

9. The South African Minister of Defense recently indicated that 45 per cent of the defense budget is spent internally. See White Paper on Defense, 1977, Department of Defense, Pretoria, p.12. Reliable sources indicate that in addition to the 55 per cent of the budget on foreign purchases South Africa also spends large sums of money outside the defense imports, as much as Rand 200 million. An American journalist has concluded that the equivalent of two thirds of the defense budget is spend on defense imports. See Jim Hoaglaad, “U.S. Firms Imprint on South Africa Deep,” Washington Post, 16 January 1977.

10. This figure is given by U.S. Senate sources.

11. There are, of course, other weapons in the inventory which have been left out of account here, notably: artillery, anti-aircraft guns, missiles, non-combat military aircraft, etc.

12. In many cases it is possible to arrive at much larger totals for individual items simply by collating all the available industry sources.

13. The reference is to the 1976-1977 edition.

14. It is, not clear whether the new U.S. administration has allowed further deliveries of U.S.-licensed items produced in Italy and Portugal. However, delivery was apparently continuing at the end of 1976.

15. Barakat Ahmad, op.cit., p.5.

16. The S.A.A.F. has 300 MB-326M strike/trainer and 100 MB-326K strike jets. It has been assumed here that only 200 of the MB-326M dual-role jets can be used for combat. In theory they could all be used for that purpose

17. Confidential industry sources indicate that a further 35 Alouette III and Puma helicopters have been transferred to South Africa in 1977.

18. Cline, Ray S., World Power Assessment, Washington, D.C., 1975, pp. 92 and 93Google Scholar. This table refers to “overall power.” In an earlier section Cline excludes South Africa from a ranklist of “nations perceived to have conventional military capability of more than local significance.” However, he includes countries such as Burma, Bulgaria, Mongolia, Qatar, and Spain.

19. This is an estimate based upon data from South African sources.

20. See Kaplan, Irving, Area Handbook for the Republic of South Africa, Washington, D.C., 1971, p.731 Google Scholar. The figure is bound to be considerably larger today, but 200,000 is used in the text as a reasonable estimate.