Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [325]
In my speech to the conference I pointed out just how damaging sanctions and disinvestment were to those we were allegedly trying to help. I gave the example of an Australian firm which had just closed a fish-canning factory near Cape Town putting 120 non-whites out of jobs. I noted that a general ban on fruit and vegetable exports would destroy between 100,000 and 200,000 non-white jobs — and all those affected would have no social security benefits to fall back on. Nearer the knuckle, I said that I well understood why neighbouring countries had not imposed the whole range of sanctions. Eighty per cent of Zimbabwe’s external trade passed through South Africa. A million migrant workers earned their living there. Over half of Lesotho’s GNP came from their remittances. So I was more firmly convinced than ever that sanctions were not the answer. Of course, such arguments cut little ice with those determined on gestures.
As usual, the main decisions were deferred for the — this time mercifully quite brief — retreat at the Lake Okanagan resort up in the mountains. The discussions took place and meals were provided at a central hotel with individual chalets dotted around it. It was bitterly cold at Lake Okanagan. But the Africans, of course, felt it more than I did. They turned up at the central hotel with blankets over their shoulders. Rajiv Gandhi obviously considered that exercise was the best way to keep warm and always seemed to appear in a tracksuit having jogged between meetings.
The atmosphere at our discussions was not much warmer. I was not prepared to go along with the draft communiqué which they wanted. At a dinner given by Rajiv Gandhi back in Vancouver I was left to kick my heels for forty-five minutes on my own waiting for other heads of government to turn up. They had in fact been holding a press conference on South Africa to which I had not been invited and of whose existence I was unaware.
But we had given as good as we got. In reply to the sanctimonious criticism of our Canadian hosts, I had figures released which showed that Canada’s imports from South Africa had risen. It was a useful comment on the Commonwealth heads’ sincerity. Not just Mr Mulroney, but almost everyone else it seemed, exploded with indignation at this intrusion of fact upon rhetoric. My suspicion that in this the political leaders were out of step with the people was confirmed when I received a rapturous reception from the crowds in Vancouver: one man kept on shouting ‘Hang in there girl, hang in there.’ I did.
Visits to Black Africa
Whatever Kenneth Kaunda thought of it, I was now determined to pay a visit to black Africa. It seemed absurd to allow the public arguments about South Africa to get in the way of that. I knew perfectly well from private discussions with African leaders that many of them wanted closer links with Britain. They also generally respect strength in leaders. No one gets very far in African politics without being tough. I also intended to use my visit for a purpose which was to become still more important during the rest of my premiership: I wanted to spread the message that a combination of limited government, financial orthodoxy and free enterprise would work for prosperity in underdeveloped countries as well as it did in the prosperous West. I chose Kenya and Nigeria for my first African political safari. In both cases this was with good reason.
Kenya was the most pro-western, most free enterprise of the important black African states. Nigeria was the most populous African state — one in four Africans is a Nigerian — and a country of huge potential, if only it could achieve sound public finances and public administration. Both President Moi of Kenya and General Babangida