Politics 88 : Jackson Tells Plan to End Apartheid

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, campaigning in Brooklyn’s ethnic melange of white, black and Latino communities Saturday, outlined what he called a “plan to end apartheid” in South Africa.

Jackson, raising an issue of African policy that he said his Democratic rivals are largely ignoring, said: “You all write this down: I have a plan to end apartheid in South Africa.”

Jackson spoke to about 100 local black leaders at a Brooklyn restaurant, then repeated his remarks in a series of rallies in churches, gyms and in the open streets where he drew cheering throngs, some as large as several thousand people, on a bright, sunny day.

“We must have a view of the world that produces American influence, not reduces American influence,” he said with his trademark rhetorical cadence. “We want peace and justice in Latin America, the Middle East, Afghanistan and South Africa.”

Sketches Broad Outlines

Sketching only the broad outlines of an anti-apartheid policy, Jackson said that as President he would begin an assault on South Africa’s system of racial separation by negotiating an end to the guerrilla wars in neighboring Angola and Mozambique, and then would remove South African forces from adjacent Namibia.

After the withdrawal of foreign troops--Cuban and South African--from Angola, Jackson said he would proceed to bolster the economies of the black “front-line” nations so as to sever their dependence on South Africa and end Pretoria’s “economic hegemony in the region.”

“South Africa is not a state. It is an empire with a state headquarters. Its tentacles go 3,000 miles to the north,” Jackson said. By breaking black Africa’s ties of economic dependence on South Africa, he said, “We cut the legs off the octopus.

“Then we have a full-scale boycott unless there are full, fair and free elections as we demanded in the Philippines and Nicaragua,” Jackson added.

Withdrawal of U.S. Firms

In the absence of free elections, Jackson said, U.S. corporations would have to withdraw from South Africa.

“American corporations must come out of South Africa with the option to relocate in the front-line states or wherever they choose,” he said.

Jackson has put forward several of these ideas along the campaign trail, but this was the first time he drew them together in the form of a plan.

He fleshed out his proposals with few specifics, however, saying nothing, for example, about how he would induce anti-Marxist guerrillas, fighting the Soviet-supported regimes in Angola and Mozambique with South African help, to come to the bargaining table or to lay down their arms.

Jackson’s chief suggestion for bolstering the economic independence of South Africa’s impoverished neighbors was to complete the so-called Beira Corridor, a costly transportation and trade route intended to give Zambia and Zimbabwe access to the sea--free of South African control--through Mozambique.

Some Points Unclear

He left unclear, however, how the front-line states could be relieved of their dependence on South Africa for jobs, and what means he would use to force American corporations out of South Africa--a step that is opposed by some of apartheid’s moderate black opponents in South Africa.

Jackson’s foray into foreign policy was in keeping with a pledge he made last week to begin dealing more specifically with “issues of governance” as the primary campaign moves into its last lap in the big industrial states.

Turning to the Caribbean and Central America, Jackson repeated his statement of last week that some Panamanians are starving as a result of U.S. economic sanctions, an assertion that he has said is based on an assumption that if supplies of currency are cut off, people are unable to buy food and therefore starve.

He called for coupling the sanctions with food and medical aid to be distributed by the International Red Cross.

On the Middle East, Jackson repeated his broad, standing formula of offering to arbitrate “mutual security for mutual recognition” by Israel and the Palestinians and an exchange of “land for peace.” While offering no new insights to his thinking on Middle East policy, Jackson said his views are consistent with those of Israel’s opposition Labor Party.