Three widely separated concerns in American thought came together in the
early 1970s to provide a setting in which the Congregation for
Reconciliation progressed from the local to the national scene with a
social-action project.
First, the Vietnam war was finally winding down. Pressure for immediate
withdrawal of troops mounted in Congress. The Cambodian incursion in the
spring of 1970, followed by the killings at Kent State and Jackson
State, sparked nationwide student protests demanding an immediate end to
the war. In this context much concern for avoiding. such future
conflicts developed, and American national interests abroad became a
focus of assessment.
Second, for at least a decade, support for white-minority-ruled states
in southern Africa has been on America's agenda of moral issues. This
issue gained a great deal of public attention in 1965 when Rhodesia
(Zimbabwe), under pressure from Great Britain to decolonize,
unilaterally declared independence. The white-dominated regime of
President Ian Smith increasingly implemented a system of racial
segregation. In 1968, the United Nations enacted mandatory trade
sanctions against the regime. Guerrilla attacks shortly before Christmas
in 1972 led Rhodesia to close its borders to Zambia, its black-dominated
neighbor to the north. Rhodesia's guerrilla skirmishes called attention
to the nearby Portuguese colonial territories of Mozambique and Angola,
where revolutionary independence movements have been active for many
years, recently with increasing intensity.
Third, consumer groups such as the Nader organization gained national
attention during the latter 1960s in calling for business
concerns to consider more seriously the social and environmental
consequences of their actions.
The theme of corporate responsibility coalesced with the growing
interest in racist regimes in southern Africa to focus debate in this
country on the proper strategy for companies with investments in that
area. In the past few years stockholder proposals and all kinds of
protests on the ethics of investment by U.S. corporations-not only in
South Africa but also in its neighbors Namibia, Rhodesia, Angola, and
Mozambique-have abounded. The suggestion that investments be withdrawn
has borne little fruit.
American companies in southern Africa have tended to respond to these
protests in two ways. First, by refusing to take advantage of customary
racial disparities in pay, and thereby upgrading black employees in
these countries, some have argued they are establishing a precedent for
the white governments. Second, others have argued that their stimulation
of the economies of these countries will gradually undermine their
racist policies. In 1973, seventeen corporations faced stockholder
proposals urging withdrawal, fair employment practices, or disclosure of
investments in southern Africa. This protest is coordinated by a
coalition of Protestant church groups called the Church Project on U.S.
Investments in Southern Africa.
[1]
The Gulf Oil Corporation is the largest single American investor in
Portuguese Africa. In 1954 it began prospecting in Cabinda, an enclave
of Angola located on the Atlantic Ocean between the two Congos. Its
first important oil strike was made in 1966. By 1969, it had invested
$130 million in developing the field.
[2]
In 1972, the oil production rate rose to 127,000 barrels per day, representing approximately 3.9 percent
of Gulf's total world petroleum output. In the same year, Gulf paid $61
million to Portugal in taxes and rights.
In June of 1970, the Ohio Conference of the United Church of Christ
passed a resolution for a boycott of Gulf products. The denomination's
missionary ties with Angola had prompted the resolution. In the war of
national independence there, Protestant missionaries have often sided
with the insurgents. The resolution's
supporters claimed that Gulf, through its taxes, contributed financially
to the colonial war against independence. Gulf, in response to the call
for a selective patronage campaign, threatened to sue the Ohio
Conference. The
Washington Post picked up the story, and it received
wide coverage across Ohio.
