S. African Protesters Target U.S. Bank : Apathy on Apartheid Charged; Other Foreign Firms Pressed

About 40 demonstrators Tuesday took the campaign against South Africa’s apartheid policies to the Johannesburg office of the American banking giant, Citibank, asserting that it and other multinational companies are indifferent to the plight of the country’s 24 million blacks and thus have become supporters of the system of racial separation.

The demonstration against the New York-based bank was the first of a series intended to embarrass American, British and other European companies operating here, the protesters said, and to force them to take a more critical stand against South African policies.

“We came here to protest your indifference,” Sidney Mofumadi, acting Transvaal province president of the United Democratic Front, a multiracial coalition of anti-apartheid groups, told Citibank executives. He spoke at the start of the two-hour demonstration at the bank’s offices in downtown Johannesburg.

“Why are you keeping quiet about the massacres of our people?” he asked, referring to the recent police killing of 19 blacks near the industrial center of Port Elizabeth. “Anyone associated with the apartheid regime is an accomplice in these crimes.”

Citibank, one of the most progressive of the 350 American companies in South Africa, replied later in a statement that it regards apartheid as “morally unacceptable” and “deplores its continuation in South Africa.”

The bank, selected as a target for the initial protest because it is one of the most prominent U.S. firms in South Africa, said it has presented and will continue to present its views on apartheid and other subjects to the South African government as forcefully as it can.

Which Route to Change?

“Citibank remains committed to peaceful social reform,” the bank said, expressing a philosophy shared by most U.S. concerns here, “and in the bank’s view, this can best be accomplished by its continued presence in South Africa.”

The protesters did not explicitly demand Citibank’s withdrawal from the small but profitable market here. But they said that foreign firms should make their presence felt “in concrete terms,” as Mofumadi put it.

There was a sharp exchange between the protesters and Citibank officials as they discussed South Africa’s current turmoil from different perspectives.

“Are you so shortsighted that you cannot see your hand in the killing of our people?” Mofumadi asked, arguing that any support of the white minority regime, even the payment of taxes to the government, constitutes complicity.

“Nobody can condone the slaughter and killing of people on whatever side,” replied Neil Munro, Citibank’s personnel director and a white South African.

“We are saying,” Mofumadi rejoined, that “we want you to address the situation in concrete terms. Unless you reconsider your position and come out openly, then you will be part of the problem.”

Although Citibank announced several weeks ago that it will make no new loans to the public sector of the South African economy, it has aggressively sought business among private firms through its offices in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.

The United Democratic Front’s publicity secretary, Patrick Lekota, said that subsequent demonstrations will focus on other prominent U.S. and West European companies and that these might be coordinated with protests at their headquarters in the home countries.