(FORTUNE Magazine) – Harry F. Oppenheimer, 76, former chairman of South Africa's Anglo American Corp. and its sister, De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd. -- a gold, diamond, and industrial empire founded by his father, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer -- is a lifelong foe of apartheid, a system he calls ''immoral'' and ''impractical.'' But he also opposes disinvestment by U.S. companies, he told FORTUNE in an interview at his Johannesburg headquarters. Excerpts: Why are you against disinvestment? All the change for the good that has come about in South Africa has really been due to the growing economy. It has caused more and more black people to leave the rural tribal areas and come to the big cities to be educated so that they can hold down skilled jobs -- which the apartheid policy envisaged they would be excluded from. (But growth) depends on having the foreign investment in South Africa go on. Anglo American has a 40% interest in a company that owns 14% of Phibro- Salomon, a New York investment bank and commodities firm that is withdrawing from South Africa. How do you feel about that pullout? I regret it very much. At the same time I can quite understand that their interest in South Africa, compared with their huge business in America, is so small that it isn't perhaps worth their while to go on with it and suffer all the attacks to which they are subjected in America on that account. Of course, if you have a factory or a mine, you can't remove that to America, and that, I think, some of the people who are so keen on disinvestment seem to forget. Do you have a doomsday disinvestment scenario? (Disinvestment) is going to result in still greater unemployment, a major factor in the disturbances that are taking place. The rhetoric behind the disinvestment campaign adds to the disposition of unemployed people to go in for violence, and it also forces the government to take steps to insulate the South African economy from the rest of the world. South Africa will certainly end up suffering a great deal, but if it is forced to cut itself off financially and economically, it lessens the ability of foreigners to influence what is going on. In a ''fire sale'' of U.S. assets, who would buy them? Well, I suppose if they are simply throwing their interests away at very low prices, a big South African company would tend to go in for that, but I don't think that is in the interest of South Africa. The money used to buy American companies would be much better used to start new enterprises here. Is Anglo American moving money out of South Africa? No, that is not so. We are very willing to diversify outside the country but only if we see good business. We don't do it simply in order to do things abroad. We really are a South African company, and there's no getting away from that. Can South Africa survive disinvestment? Of course. What is more, I'm sure that change will come. There is now a major consensus among business people in South Africa that influx control (which restricts movement by blacks) and the pass laws associated with it must go. But change by violence and change by peaceful negotiation are not the same. When you make changes in African circumstances by violence, you get one-party states. There are a great many people who don't only want to get rid of racial discrimination, they also want to get rid of the private enterprise system. Have South African businessmen done enough to steer this country toward reform? You know, one has never done enough. But I think that serious business people, particularly over the past ten years, have been very conscious of the business risks and also their moral duties in this matter. After all, business people are not only just makers of money, they are also men. Business people who previously supported the government are now demanding serious political change. Could disinvestment be headed off by releasing Nelson Mandela? (Jailed for over 20 years, Mandela is the leader of the African National Congress, an outlawed group that advocates violence to overthrow the white minority government.) I think the release of Mandela certainly has a very great symbolic importance. I think the government are very ill advised not to release him. Of course, their position on the African National Congress is an understandable one, so long as the ANC says that their only way of handling the situation now is by increased violence. But the ANC might be willing to think again about the use of violence if the government thinks again about its attitude, first of all to Mandela, but (also) about the rate of change. The government ought to talk to the ANC. In fact, it's the only hope. I met Mandela twice. He came to see me once in this office. He was an impressive fellow, a tall, powerful- looking man with a strong voice, a good speaker. But that's a long time ago. I haven't met with ANC people, but I would like to. Should the U.S. lessen its pressure on South Africa? It's no good thinking that just by making life difficult in South Africa you will make the government change their mind -- they're not that sort. I sometimes wish they were. They can become rather bloody-minded too, can these people.