Letter to the Editor Are economic sanctions against South Africa

I read your analysis of the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting operation with some interest. In your editorial Flin Flon shouldn’t suffer for apartheid (N.M., Oct 3/88) by stating “. * * Take any action that will put pressure on South Africa * * .,” you seem to suggest that economic sanctions may be useful. In other words, by causing economic dislocation, lack of opportunity unemployment, hunger and misery in South Africa, for black and white people, and at the same time causing some more unemployment and lack of opportunity for white and black people in Canada, you will have helped South Africans. Let us assume that South African sanctions make one iota of sense. Let us further assume that South Africa using similar distorted logic were to decide that because of apparent injustices, squalor, and lack of opportunity on Canadian native reservations, South Africa would seek to force Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting to close its Flin Flon complex. As a major employer of Canadian native people, how on earth would such closure help red, or white people or Flin Flon generally for that matter?

In like manner, after Canada imposed agricultural sanctions against South Africa, how were brown natal sugar workers helped, and how were white and black Canadian workers helped when Lantic Sugar in Oshawa closed its doors as a direct result of this inane government economic sanction?

It should be clear by now that private industry has historically done more to cause racial harmony and brotherhood than all the Mulroneys, Bothas, Clarks, Mandelas, or Tutus, and all others of their ilk who have never held real productive jobs. For these tax or charity funded characters to mandate the removal of industry is a repugnant, sinister self-serving ploy, and sheer lunacy to boot. Rolf Posma Oshawa, Ontario