Route May Cut Neighbors’ Dependence on S. Africa

On a recent misty evening here on the coast of Africa, four giant cranes were loading Zimbabwean asbestos into the deep hold of a ship bound for Europe. A 1940s steam engine carrying Zambian copper announced its arrival with a long, hoarse whistle.

Beira’s port, moribund only a year ago, was bustling. Out on the gentle water of the Indian Ocean, a mile or so from shore, two giant freighters quietly waited their turn.

“This is the front line of the front line,” port official Francesco Ernesto said. “That is the reality.”

Southern Africa’s best hopes for some degree of economic independence from South Africa are tightly wrapped up in a three-year, $280-million rehabilitation of this port and the Beira Corridor, 198 miles of guarded and frequently attacked pipeline, railroad and highway that link landlocked Zimbabwe with the sea.

But despite increased use of the corridor, the black-governed nations that border South Africa, calling themselves the “front-line states,” remain heavily dependent on trade with that country, ruled by a white-minority government. And independent economists in the region say that even a fully rejuvenated Beira Corridor will not be enough to wean southern Africa’s economies from South Africa.

Hobbled by severe economic problems at home, the front-line states--Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe--recently were forced to back away from their many vows to impose sanctions against what some of their leaders call “the racist regime” in South Africa.

Cold economic reality had collided with political rhetoric: South Africa could crush its neighbors’ economies simply by halting trade with them. As a South African official in one of those countries observed wryly, “They just made a few calculations.”

Southern Africa has sound reasons for maintaining an economic relationship with Pretoria. South Africa is a large market for goods from the front-line states, South African products are cheaper to import than those from Europe, and the most cost-efficient way to ship almost anything in or out of landlocked southern Africa is usually through South Africa’s ports.

Zimbabwe, for example, has the strongest, most diversified economy of any black-governed country in southern Africa--and South Africa is its largest trading partner. Zimbabwe’s imports from South Africa last year soared 37%, to $375 million, and exports rose 28%, to $213 million. Most of the remainder of Zimbabwe’s international trade passed through South Africa’s ports.

A year ago, Zimbabwean Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, in the forefront of the push for international sanctions against South Africa, said his country would impose sanctions by the end of 1986. He later renewed the promise, setting the deadline for earlier this year.

But so far there have been no sanctions. Mugabe now says his promises depended upon the willingness of the other front-line countries to go along.

A few weeks ago, Mugabe suggested to Zambian President Kenneth D. Kaunda that their countries cut air links with South Africa. Kaunda declined, saying it would be pointless unless the rest of black Africa joined them.

Mugabe then wanted Zimbabwe to impose sanctions alone, but the country’s business community howled its protest. Business leaders pointed out that the country was in the midst of the worst economic downturn in seven years of independence and was in no financial position to do battle with its major trading partner.

Links With South Africa

The interrelationships between South Africa and its neighbors run deep.

Flights between capitals of the front-line countries and Johannesburg, regularly packed with businessmen and tourists, are among the most profitable routes for both South African Airways and the national airlines of the front-line countries.

The region provides much of the work force for South Africa’s mines as well. Nearly 58,000 Mozambicans officially work in South African mines, and 17,000 work on South African farms. In addition, Pretoria says, there are about 230,000 illegal workers from Mozambique.

South Africa is spending $2 million to help upgrade the deep-water port in the Mozambican capital of Maputo. The reasons are purely economic; Maputo is the closest port to the Transvaal region of South Africa.

Damaged by Rebels

At the same time, much of Mozambique’s infrastructure has been destroyed over the last decade by a right-wing guerrilla group, the Mozambique National Resistance, or Renamo for short. Most Western military analysts in the region say Renamo receives substantial South African support.

There are many paradoxes. The insurgents attack the Beira Corridor a couple of times a week, for example, while South African pilots fly a Beira-based DC-3 filled with grain to feed thousands of Mozambicans dislocated by the war. The pilots work for an air-charter firm hired by the Mozambican government.

“It’s an amazing situation, huh?” says Prakash Ratilal, vice minister of the government agency coordinating foreign relief in Mozambique. He shrugs. “It is possible to give with one hand and take with the other.”

Economic Influence Strong

South Africa’s economic influence appears to permeate this region of the world where anti-apartheid rhetoric seems to be loudest.

A Mozambican official in Beira, complaining recently about the poverty and war in his country, demanded to know “why the United States doesn’t tell South Africa to stop doing this to us.” A calendar on the desk of his secretary features color photographs of Cape Town and the advertising slogan, “Vacation in South Africa.”

Maputo’s largest hotel serves Castle Lager, “the great South African beer,” according to the label, and restaurants in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, routinely serve South African wines, which are judiciously not listed on the menu.

“We don’t argue that we are not dependent on South Africa for many, many things,” says Rui Fonseca, executive director of the Beira Corridor Authority. “This is our goal--to liberate ourselves. We want development to break our ties with South Africa.”

Corridor Offers Opportunity

Fonseca and others see an opportunity for liberation in the Beira Corridor, which stretches across the narrow waist of Mozambique and is the shortest route to the sea from Harare.

With money pledged mostly by Western European countries, Mozambique has repaired the railroad track and steam engines, dredged the harbor and is rebuilding port berths while constructing a container-loading facility and a new oil terminal.

The Italians are installing a new communication system along the rail line and the government of the Netherlands is sending 10 administrators to help run the port.

The line suffers from a shortage of locomotives and rail cars, and Fonseca is trying to persuade the United States to donate 25 new diesel locomotives; so far the Americans have kicked in $5.5 million to repair nine steam locomotives.

Travel in Daylight

About 30 trucks and four trains make the trip across the corridor every day, traveling only in daylight. A corridor pipeline carrying oil to Zimbabwe has operated near capacity for several years.

Traffic at the port has increased 80% this year, operating at about 3 million tons a year, although that still lags considerably behind the nearly 5 million tons 20 years ago. Some of this year’s increase is attributable to incoming shipments of grain and relief supplies, but Zimbabwe and Zambia also have been using the port more.

Beira’s port and corridor fell into disrepair soon after 1975, when Mozambique won independence from Portugal, and Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia and ruled by a white-minority government, closed the border and began shipping its tobacco and minerals through South Africa’s ports.

Zimbabwe Troops Help

By the time Zimbabwe reopened the border in 1980, the corridor was under frequent attack by Renamo guerrillas and the port was a rusty relic. Now Zimbabwe has 6,000 to 10,000 troops guarding the port and corridor in Mozambique. But minor sabotage along the line is common.

“Many people say we’ll never get it going because of Renamo, and I agree there is a major security problem,” said Denis Norman, of the Harare-based Beira Corridor Project, which is helping raise money for the rehabilitation.

“The fighting can be contained, but Mozambique can’t do it alone,” Norman added. “I believe it is beholden upon us as a neighbor to put something worthwhile on our eastern flank.”

Although port chief Fonseca believes Beira will be able to handle “anything the South African ports can handle” by 1990, most economists think the port is too shallow for about half of Zimbabwe’s exports.

Beira’s Role Questioned

“Beira is never going to be the alternative to South Africa,” says an economic analyst for a Western embassy in Harare, “but the beauty of it is that it would actually be cheaper than going through South Africa.”

Maputo has a deep-water port, but the rail line connecting it with Zimbabwe runs through areas of heavy guerrilla fighting and is not open. A functioning railway line to the ports in both Maputo and Beira would save Zimbabwe businesses $100 million a year in transportation costs, officials say.

The biggest obstacle to economic independence from South Africa, however, is not the transportation network but rather the sad state of domestic economies of southern Africa.

“The outlook for the entire region is pretty bleak at the moment,” said Tony Hawkins, a professor of business studies at the University of Zimbabwe.

Zambia Economy Troubled

Zambia is plagued by falling copper prices and debt payments that eat up all its foreign exchange earnings. When the government halted subsidies on cornmeal last December, the resulting price rise triggered rioting that left 15 people dead.

The countries closest to South Africa, such as Botswana, would have bare shelves if trade with South Africa suddenly stopped. Without South Africa’s ports, Botswana would not be able to export its beef at anything approaching a competitive price.

Zimbabwe is beset by a severe shortage of foreign exchange, high unemployment, an enormous budget deficit and the beginning of a serious recession. In such tough times, businessmen there say, it becomes even more important to select the most economical ways of importing and exporting. Dealing with South Africa usually is cheaper, easier and quicker.

A Harare office that needed a slide projector recently called a manufacturer in South Africa, placed an order and took delivery a week later. The office’s only alternative to South Africa would have been Europe, and months of waiting for delivery.

Mugabe Critical of U.S.

Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Mugabe has been a leader in the call for sanctions against South Africa, and he has been one of the most vituperative critics of the United States and its policies in southern Africa. He called for U.S. sanctions against Pretoria last year, about the same time that he made his own promises of sanctions. Congress adopted sanctions, over President Reagan’s opposition; Zimbabwe did not.

When Mugabe threatened sanctions against South Africa, he did not have a good idea of what the consequences might be, political analysts in Zimbabwe say. The consequences of an economic war with South Africa would be devastating to Zimbabwe, they say.

“Political philosophy comes naturally to Mugabe, but he has to be pushed in the economic direction,” says a Western diplomat who knows the prime minister well.

For its part, South Africa seems to be in no mood for a big economic battle with the front-line countries, which are an important market for South African goods. The loss of Zimbabwe’s transshipping business, for example, would be painful, although not fatal, to South Africa.

South Africa has attempted to intensify the front-line countries’ dependence on it, however, offering preferential rates for transporting tobacco, one of Zimbabwe’s biggest exports.

However, it also has threatened to apply pressure. The number of Mozambican miners working legally in South Africa has been cut by half in the last decade, and Pretoria has warned of further reductions. South Africa needs the miners, but Mozambique needs the jobs more--and the foreign currency that the miners send back.

“It’s always been an uneven relationship,” says a Western political analyst in Harare. “South Africa determines what the relationship is going to be, and you cannot predict how South Africa is going to behave.”