cc RonnieUsing the example of apartheid South Africa, Khadija Sharife reveals the history of how huge oil companies have used flags of convenience in the shipping industry to secure corporate capitalism.
If former apartheid statesman PW Botha is to be believed, the voluntary oil embargo cost the apartheid regime a great deal. ‘Between 1973 and 1984 the Republic of South Africa had to pay R22 billion more than it would have normally spent,’ he stated in 1986. The oil embargo was not created at the behest of collective-security organisations such as the UN's Security Council or recognised members of the international community, chiefly sovereign nations states. It was instead the product of immense collective mobilisation on the part of the African National Congress (ANC), in addition to other local and foreign movements, including NGOs.