Interests protected

Significantly, it would be Western interests operating in South Afria which would also be hurt by such measures. These interests are therefore protected by the Western anti-sanctions position. Over half of the foreign investment in South Africa's $11 billion a year minerals indirstry is British, while another 20 percent is American. West Germany, France and Japan remain important investors.

British and American interests control almost half of the shares of South Africa's largest mining finance house, Anglo-American, and participate in the exploitation of black workers in the gold mines. The giant US firm Newmount Mining obtains almost 30 percent of its income from its South African holdings, which include mines producing copper, vermiculite, iron and coal. The reported rate of profit in these holdings is some three times that of US mining investment in the rest of Africa, largely because the black work force in South Africa receives such low wages.

Several recent events seem to indicate that a new phase is coming in the struggle for Southern Africa. For instance, heightened aggressiveness on the part of South Africa as seen in its scuttling of the Geneva conference on Namibia, raids into Angola and Mozambique and the reported sighting of a "nuclear Hash" off the South African coast.