Panhandling for Apartheid

IN A RECENT edition of Business Week, a 16-page advertising section full of glossy color photos and long-winded explanations tried to convince American companies to invest in South Africa. "Economy set to surge ahead," claimed the ads, which explained the country "is undergoing a process of adjustment and consolidation."

But a few days before the magazine came out, South Africa formally abandoned pretense and admitted to the world that it has reached a state of economic crisis. At is press conference in Pretoria, Finance Minister Owen Horwood announced that his government urgently needs a $1.1 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. The request for aid represents an abrupt turnaround, and it raises important questions about the world's most ostracized nation.

Since 1974, South Africa has been barred from the General Assembly of the United Nations because its occupation of its neighbor Namibia violates international law, and because its internal system of racial laws--called apartheid--are universally repugnant. A white minority of mixed European descent makes up only 15 percent of the South African population, but they hold over 80 percent of the land and completely exclude the Black majority from voting All public areas are segregated.

Not surprisingly, South Africa is a police state. The task of keeping over 25 million people in a permanent state of powerlessness, combined with the effort required to occupy an outside country, makes military force the chief government tool and the central feature of South African life. As Gen W. Black, Director-General of the South African Defense Forces put it. "We already exist in political, economic, ideological and military circumstances usually associated with a state of war." The country imprisons a higher percentage of its population than any other nation, including the Soviet Union Military spending increased by $450 million between 1975 and 1980.

Fabulous gold mines traditionally provided the South African government with money to sponsor military adventures throughout the southern part of Africa while controlling the situation at home. But the price of gold plunged from $820 an ounce in 1980 to $300 in mid-1982. A severe economic crunch has resulted, and South Africa is learning the hard way that billions spent on weapons and prisons drain resources and cripple an economy.

MOST OF THE WORLD objects to using U.N. money to help South Africa, but most of the world does not control the United Nations. A study prepared by a U.N. group last year criticized the IMF, a special finance agency of the U.N., for giving South Africa a disproportionate amount of aid, used to maintain the apartheid state and finance its arms buildup. The report points out that Nigeria last year made a net contribution to the IMF of nearly $600 million, while South Africa had a net debt of $10 million. Unlike similar U.N. documents, the study was not published and translated as an official report. When asked why the study received such a small and delayed distribution, one delegate said. "I think you had better ask the United States government that."

As the most powerful member of the IMF, the United States could easily influence the Nov. 3 IMF meeting next week, when the latest loan to South Africa will be considered. But the U.S. Treasury Department handles American involvement in the IMF, and Treasury officials say privately that they do not plan to block the loan. Last month, 35 congressmen pressured Treasury Secretary Donald Regan to oppose any such loan request; it seems to have made little difference.

The Reagan Administration has sought closer relations with South Africa; high-ranking South African military officials have visited U.S. administrators, and President Reagan has relaxed previous restricitons on selling nuclear materials to South Africa. In assisting the regime, Reagan disregards the nearly unanimous consensus among experts that despite its extensive police state and military, the government of South Africa will eventually fall.

Revolutionaries in the African National Congress have long been in the midst of a growing guerilla war with the South African police and military. That battle, combined with economic no trade sanctions many nations have established, have weakened South Africa, as have the depressed gold market and the military economy itself. If the United States allows the billion-dollar loan next week, the president will strengthen links with a state that may be enduring a prelude to its long-awaited death throes.