Trevor McDonald, ITN/Channel Four
Prime Minister I suppose it is no surprise to you that President Kaunda takes great issue with your Government's policy that it is possible to make apartheid obsolete by in fact investing more in South Africa?
Prime Minister
Well, it was not really by investing more in South Africa. What I am saying is where apartheid has been eroded—and it has very considerably—a lot of that erosion has been due to very successful companies; companies that have expanded, companies therefore that have trained more people in more highly skilled jobs, companies that are paying the rate for the job, and it is the erosion of apartheid among those companies; they have got good housing, good jobs, a good standard of living, good educational standards and of course the job reservations gone. They would help with the pass laws to go. Now it is those companies that in practice are dismantling apartheid, and where I take issue with Kenneth KaundaKenneth—and with a number of others—is when they say “You should shut down those factories, turn the people off, make them unemployed. Never mind that they do not have Social Security Benefit, they have got to suffer anyway” , and I say “No” . I see nothing that will help in [end p1] depriving people of a job and indeed making it such that they cannot keep their children so we have two different views.
Trevor McDonald, ITN/Channel Four
Emotive language is no stranger at these conferences. Doctor Kaunda says that in fact that policy is fattening up people for the slaughterhouse of apartheid.
Prime Minister
I think they are highly emotional phrases and I think that is just absolutely wrong. It is helping to break down apartheid and to people like Kenneth Kaunda and others I say, “Well, how is it that one million people from your countries voluntarily go to work in South Africa?” Because they get better jobs, sometimes better conditions and they have a remittance to make then to their home people in other African countries. There is no doubt that apartheid in well run business is breaking down. That is the main engine for breaking it down. You will never get the sort of conditions you want for millions of black people in Southern Africa unless you get it on an expanding, more flourishing, thriving economy. They are helping to bring it about and this would be the peaceful way of breaking down apartheid and it has got to go. We are not arguing about that.
Trevor McDonald, ITN/Channel Four
Can I put to you another point made by Kenneth Kaunda which is that if the situation was the other way round: if the majority of the people were in fact white and they were being oppressed by a small black minority, reactions of Western countries including your own—I suppose Doctor Kaunda is also talking about the United States—might have been entirely different on the sanctions issue? [end p2]
Prime Minister
I do not think that they would have led to sanctions. I do not think that they would have led to violence. The point was put not only by Kenneth but also by Mr Mulroney just supposing in Canada there had been five million black people with apartheid against some twenty million white people. Well, the question scarcely needs to be raised to be answered had that happened in Canada. Either it would have been extremely well run and people would have voluntarily stayed there in spite of the difficulties, much more likely that, or have filtered straight through to the United States where they have fantastic chances, fantastic opportunity. The real problem in South Africa is that there is not a parallel at all. The real problem in South Africa is that in spite of all of the criticisms of it—and we are the first to criticise apartheid—it is still by far the best run economy in Africa. There are more people now coming up to a, with matriculation among black South Africans [word missing?] than among white.
Trevor McDonald, ITN/Channel Four
Cheap black labour, Prime Minister?
Prime Minister
No, no, cheap black labour is gradually being broken, first by the Sullivan code of conduct, second by the fact that they have to train more and more people for more highly skilled jobs. Look, surely if you say “Cheap black labour” you will find that they are paid less in other countries otherwise they would not all go to South Africa voluntarily.
Trevor McDonald, ITN/Channel Four
I think the point is though that they could be paid more? [end p3]
Prime Minister
They are being paid more than in surrounding countries. That is why one million of them leave the countries who are complaining and go to South Africa for a better standard of living and they make money. The real trouble is that on Kenneth Kaunda 's argument—and do not forget Zambia should be a rich country: rich agriculturally, rich in raw materials; it is not. Their real problem is that in spite of everything South Africa is the best run economy, it often helps to keep others going; when they have drought, it is from South Africa that they can get maize, it helps to keep others going and the black people there have a higher standard of living and will get a far higher standard of living and apartheid will go.
Trevor McDonald, ITN/Channel Four
Do you understand when people say it is almost the politics of despair when you say, when the British Government gives its perception that it will take fifteen or twenty years for apartheid to end?
Prime Minister
I have not said that it will take fifteen or twenty years. I have noticed that there has been a very much more realistic debate this time. Of course their emotions run high. But the debate has been much more realistic and the change has to come from within and that change is coming from within. That I think is the really encouraging part about this debate. Change is coming from within and it is only a question of time. I think the policy of despair and I think the policy of agony is when other African countries and some others say violence is the way and closing down companies that are in fact giving people and families a good living. That is the [end p4] policy of despair—not mine; theirs.
Trevor McDonald, ITN/Channel Four
Is there some fundamental inconsistency in your position? You have taken some measures against South Africa—measures you call them, your Government calls them. Yet at the same time you are now saying that one must try to build up the economy so that apartheid can be rendered obsolete. Is there any inconsistency there?
Prime Minister
I do not think there is inconsistency. We have in fact adhered wholly to the United Nations' mandatory resolution on arms. That is a mandatory resolution and where you have oppression I think it is absolutely right that we should do that. It is not about bringing about the end of apartheid. It is a thing that we should have no part in supplying arms to do that. Then when it comes to a certain number of other things, yes, I have to some extent gone along with the Commonwealth really to try to demonstrate that we wanted to use those things to make a clear signal to South Africa that we wanted this system dismantled.
When you actually go on to sanctions that would throw millions of people out of work and into starvation, that is where I part company from them and also we part company on another thing so many of the people who have fought apartheid from within have said “Look, if you try to put on sanctions, do not think you will bring about the end of apartheid. You will not. You will prolong it because you will get more and more oppression from within and people will become more and more determined not to have their policy [end p5] decided from outside.” In spite of all that, I come back to the same point: there are a million black South Africans from other countries who go into South Africa to earn a better living there than they can in their own economies.
Trevor McDonald, ITN/Channel Four
Can I turn to Fiji, Prime Minister? What is the British Government's reaction to what has happened today?
Prime Minister
Deeply sorrowful, deeply sorrowful. All my time here in the Commonwealth we have had a Fiji representative. It has been Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau.—We have always regarded at as an excellent country, a country of really democratic principles and that it should now break the link to the Crown is both a great shock and a great anxiety. We do not quite know whether they will apply to come in as a Republic. The view which I took foreshadowing what may happen in the speech at the opening of the Commonwealth countries is that, “Look, you do not leave countries in their hour of need,” and I just had very much in mind that Fiji is much more likely to come back I think to a democracy which we all want—and whether she would stay a Republic or not, I do not know—much more likely to get back to the standards which we knew if she keeps a Commonwealth link and as I said, you do not abandon countries in their hour of need. There are at the moment four countries in the Commonwealth which have military Governments and twenty-six which are republican so either on a military Government or a republican Government there is nothing on that which would mean that they should go. [end p6]
Trevor McDonald, ITN/Channel Four
So Britain would not vote then or would not cast its weight for Fiji to leave the Commonwealth, is that what you are saying?
Prime Minister
I think Fiji has far more chance of coming out of the deeply disturbing situation which she is in now, where you have gone to a military Government and away from a democracy, if she keeps the Commonwealth link. I am also adducing the argument that there are at the moment in the Commonwealth, sitting round that table four countries with military Governments. We have not turned those out because they have left democracy and gone to military Governments.
Trevor McDonald, ITN/Channel Four
Can I quickly end, Prime Minister, by a bit of domestic news? We gather that the Conservative party is cutting its link with Saatchi and Saatchi. Is this a mood …?
Prime Minister
I am not here to answer those questions. I am here to answer on the Commonwealth. I am not in touch with the party at the moment. I am myself here on Prime Ministerial business.