TALKING POINTS FOR THE DDI SOUTHERN AFRICA: ECONOMIC VULNERABILITIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91B00874R000100200004-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 16, 2011
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: July 14, 1986
• Content Type: MISC

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/09/16: CIA-RDP91 B00874R000100200004-6
14 July 1986
TALKING POINTS FOR THE DDI
Southern Africa: Economic Vulnerabilities
South Africa's dominates a regional economic network that provides significant economic
benefits to neighboring black countries and gives Pretoria considerable regional leverage. We
have little doubt Pretoria will make good on its threat to retaliate economically against
neighboring countries if the West imposes new economic sanctions against South Africa.
Such moves would impose major and immediate hardships on regional economies. Pretoria's
neighbors have no ready or economically feasible alternatives to their dependence on Pretoria,
and would feel the effects almost immediately. All will almost certainly turn to the West for
relief.
South Africa's major leverage comes from its control over transportation links and the flow of
migrant labor. 11
-- Pretoria controls 75 percent of the region's rail network and has the area's most
`
efficient ports.
-- Some 350,000 workers from neighboring states are legally employed in South Africa `%`C.'
and probably between 200,000 and 700,000 work in South Africa illegally. Remittances
from legal workers alone probably support some 3 million addition people in
neighboring countries.
-- South Africa is a major supplier of chemicals, petroleum, machinery, finished
consumer goods, and grain and other foods for the region. South Africans also have
invested heavily in neighboring economies.
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Pretoria earns about $1.2 billion in foreign exchange from trade and other economic ties to '
neigboring countries, but would suffer little if it imposed selective economic sanctions.
-- Pretoria would lose more than $100 million in revenue if it cut regional rail service.
-- Foreign workers makeup nearly 40 percent of the mining workforce, but Pretoria iI
convinced--probably rightly so--that the dismissal of selected workers would cause Wl
Pretoria's Likely Moves
In the event of new Western economic sanctions, Pretoria's initial response probably will be
measured, designed primarily to showcase its regional economic might and indicate to the
West the cost of sanctions to the region.
-- Pretoria's threat earlier this week to reduce revenues going to neighboring members
of the regional customs union probably was in part a signal to the West that they
mean business.
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-- Opening salvos from Pretoria are likely to include expelling selected foreign workers
or disrupting selected rail links.
-- Pretoria also could engage in a campaign of economic sabotage, perhaps attacking
Zimbabwe's oil routes through Mozambique, or striking at Angola where its leverage is
limited.
Neighboring Countries' Options
Neighboring African countries have no realistic short-term options for lessening their
dependence or developing economically feasible alternative routes for imports and exports.
-- Althernative transportation routes through Angola, Mozambique, and Tanzania either
already are being used to capacity, incapble of handling additional traffic because of
poor maintenance or operating problems, or unreliable because they pass through
politically unstable and militarily insecure areas.
-- Alternatives for shipping crude oil and refined petroleum products--such as from
Dar es Salaam via the Tazara pipeline--are prohibitively expensive.
-- There is little effective contingency planning these countries can do, other than to
plead with the West, and particularly the US, that they need and deserve special and
substantial economic relief.
i Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/09/16: CIA-RDP91 B00874R000100200004-6