SOUTH AFRICAN URANIUM

Sanctions against South Africa imposed by Congress prohibit the import of uranium. But Congress made no rules about the uranium that is shipped to the US only transitionally, namely for enrichment by the DoE and subsequent shipment to other countries. In early July, crawling the extra mile so typical for the spineless wimps of the Reagan administration, the US Treasury ruled that this type of shipment is also banned.

This use of human rights as a political ploy by which the ad-ministration seeks to ingratiate itself with the media is particularly galling because of its gross inconsistency: the decision was taken by the very same US Treasury that is breaking the law in permitting imports of goods manufactured by slave labor in the Soviet Empire [AtE Mar 84], despite the notification to that effect served by Com-missioner von Raab of the US Customs Bureau more than three years ago. This latest act is, of course, perfectly consistent with the general policy of persecuting South Africa, which grants full human rights only to whites, while courting the Soviets, who grant human rights to nobody.

Hypocrisy is not the only issue here. What is rejected from the partially free must come from the total slaves. Since sanctions went into force, imports of chrome ore from the USSR have increased almost fourteenfold to 6,440 tons/month, according to Barrons, and those of antimony by a factor of 98. Both are strategic metals.

South African uranium is very cheap because it is mined as a by-product of gold: the (not very rich) uranium ore is manufactured into yellowcake by a flotation process separating it from the gold tailings, which have been brought up from the mines anyway and would otherwise go to waste.

The Treasury decision is, among other things, a stab in the back of 340,000 black miners, who are on strike right now. [When was the last time you heard of a strike by Soviet miners?] And they are not just South African miners. Perhaps 100,000 come from other African countries, stagnant in socialist economies, work here; and more would come if they could. They can't, because South Africa has a well-guarded fence along its border to keep illegal immigrants out [Is that what the Berlin wall does?], and many of them brave the lions and tigers of Kruger Park to sneak in. The direction from racist, barbarically repressive regimes into partially free South Africa should tell us something: people do not vote with their feet against human rights. But Schroeder, Dellums and the other human-rights orators vote against them with their hands.