TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/86/86capts.10

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                                                                                July 7, 1986

WORLD

The Debate over Sanctions


Pride as well as pocketbook is at stake for Pretoria's white
rulers


Every time a paroxysm of black unrest grips South Africa,
followed by a crackdown by the white government of State
President P.W. Botha, statesmen and politicians in Western
capitals begin asking, Is there a way, any way short of military
action for the world to force Pretoria to change its racial
policies?  Last week, as South Africa's current state of
emergency entered its third week, the debate flared once more.
Its focus: whether recent events require a major step-up in
economic sanctions against South Africa, and whether such
pressure would really contribute to banishing apartheid.

The week's discussions centered in the Hague, where leaders of
the twelve members of the European Community met to ponder the
subject. In the end, they settled for weaker recommendations
than many observers had expected. They called on South Africa
to release Black Leader Nelson Mandela, who has been in prison
for 24 years, and to lift its ban on the African National
Congress, the country's oldest black political organization,
which today conducts a limited and largely ineffectual guerrilla
campaign against the Pretoria regime from nearby Zambia.

The E.C. decided that after Britain takes over the presidency
of the organization for six months beginning July 1, British
Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe will visit South Africa in
the hope of establishing a dialogue between the country's
government officials and black leaders. The Europeans also
declared that in three months they will decide on "further
measures" that might be needed, including a ban on new
investments in South Africa and a curb on the import of South
African coal, iron and steel, and gold coins.

The West European leaders might have felt more urgency had
South Africa been sputtering out of control. But the country
appeared to be relatively quiet--at least insofar as could be
determined by the press, which under the de facto censorship was
more or less obliged to take the Botha government's word for it.
A series of minor terrorist explosions took place in Durban,
Johannesburg and the Eastern Cape, and at week's end police
killed four black guerrillas near the Botswana border. Wildcat
strikes and worker "stayaways" continued in about 100
supermarkets and other retail stores, underscoring reports that
around 180 union officials remained in detention, along with
perhaps 1,600 other blacks. Out of an estimated 3,000 arrested
since the emergency was declared on June 12, about 1,200 were
thought to have been released. In a separate development,
treason charges against four black trade unionists were dropped
after the judge ruled that taped evidence appeared to have been
tampered with.

In addition to a CBS cameraman who has already left the country,
two more journalists were expelled: Richard Manning, the
Newsweek bureau chief in Johannesburg, and Dan Sagir, a Israeli
who represented the newspaper Ha'aretz. From Amnesty
International, the London-based human rights organization, came
reports of three more raids on black churches and the detention
of entire congregations. Amnesty International also reported
that Zwelakhe Sisulu, a black South African editor and member
of a prominent activist family, had been arrested.

Helen Suzman, the best-known opposition figure in the South
African Parliament, read from a list of several hundred
individuals believed to be in detention, demanding to know how
many South Africans were actually in custody and how many of
those were under 21. Declared Suzman: "South Africa has become
like El Salvador and Argentina, where thousands of people go
missing and the governments won't acknowledge where they are or
whether they are dead or alive." At week's end Parliament
adjourned until Aug. 18, depriving journalists for the next
seven weeks of information elicited by the parliamentary
questions of opposition legislators like Suzman.

The Pretoria government is trying to keep news of its repression
away from world attention precisely because it knows that such
accounts can inflame international opinion and increase
pressures for more sanctions. Many countries already have a
wide range of restrictions on contacts with South Africa,
ranging from sporting events to the sale of oil. It was in an
atmosphere of protest that the House of Representatives two
weeks ago passed a bill calling for a ban on all U.S. trade with
South Africa, except for strategic minerals necessary for
national defense. In the Senate, a milder bill is expected to
pass later in the summer.

Though the U.S. maintains very tough trade sanctions against
such countries as Cuba, Viet Nam, Kampuchea, Libya, North Korea
and Nicaragua, the Reagan Administration opposes any similar
action toward South Africa. So far, Washington has banned the
sale of arms, oil and certain police equipment to South Africa,
withdrawn from sports and cultural exchanges, curtailed
government loans and stopped the sale of Krugerrand gold coins
in the U.S., but Reagan opposes the adoption of additional
measures. Moreover, the Administration argues that America's
ability to influence the Botha government's policies is
marginal, even though the U.S. is South Africa's largest
trading partner. Still, Washington is clearly miffed at
Pretoria's new crackdown, coming as it did at a time when the
U.S. had hoped that Botha was becoming more moderate. Said
Chester Crocker, the Assistant Secretary of State for African
Affairs: "We think that what the South African government has
done is to shoot itself in both feet."

If anything, the British government's opposition to sanctions
is even stronger than the Reagan Administration's. Despite
rising public outrage at South Africa, as evidenced by a large
demonstration in London last Saturday, Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher contends that such measures would be as ineffectual as
those taken in the 1960s and '70s against the white rebel
government in Rhodesia. She believes that they would hurt black
South Africans, not to mention the independent black states to
the north, long before they would have any real impact on
apartheid. Thatcher is also obviously concerned about Britain's
estimated $8 billion direct investment in South Africa, the
largest of any nation, and the possible loss of 120,000 British
jobs at home if total economic sanctions were adopted.

Nonetheless, the Thatcher government faces a meeting of the
Commonwealth on Aug. 2, at which Britain is likely to find
itself a minority of one on the subject of sanctions. Last
month, after a visit to South Africa, some members of the
Commonwealth's Eminent Persons Group declared that the worsening
situation made sanctions a necessity. At least one Commonwealth
leader, President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, has threatened to
pull his country out of the organization unless Britain adopts
a firmer policy on the South African issue. So last week the
British government took the symbolic step of inviting Oliver
Tambo, leader of the African National Congress, to meet with
Lynda Chalker, a minister of state in the Foreign Office.

At the Hague, Britain found a willing ally in West Germany,
another of South Africa's leading commercial partners. Bonn
consistently opposes trade sanctions as counterproductive and,
in any event, considers them pointless in this case without the
cooperation of the U.S. and Japan. Several of the smaller
powers, including the Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland, called
in van for the E.C. to take stronger action.

Most of the argument against sanctions is based on South
Africa's relative strength. The country produces much of what
it needs, including armaments, nuclear power and more than 50%
of its oil through a coal-liquefaction process. Three of its
leading exports-- gold, platinum and diamonds--are rare and easy
to sell. Others, such a chromium and manganese, are in high
demand for strategic reasons. Yet it would be wrong to conclude
that South Africans are unconcerned by the debate: a recently
published opinion survey of the country's whites showed that 71%
believe the South African economy is not strong enough to
prevent sanctions from hurting.

One area of proven vulnerability is finance. Last year, after
several American and European banks demanded immediate payment
on short-term loans to South Africa because of the
deteriorating situation, the country virtually panicked. The
level of the national currency, the rand, plummeted, and in
September the government declared a moratorium on repaying its
$14 billion in short-term bank loans. Says Jamaican Prime
Minister Edward Seaga: "If Pretoria will not listen to
arguments based on rights, it will listen to arguments based on
rands." But no one expects measures against South African trade
to be nearly as effective as the banking action. Some
businessmen somewhere will always find ways to beat the boycott
and make a profit.

Many American and European officials have begun to argue,
however, that the effectiveness of economic sanctions is not as
important as the political statement they represent. As such,
the measures are aimed as much at South Africa's standing in the
world community as at its pocketbook. Said Pennsylvania
Congressman William Gray III, a strong advocate of House action:
"Sanctions are a statement of where we stand as a nation, not
an attempt to bring a government down."

Though sanctions would almost certainly hurt the blacks that
they are designed to free from oppression, practically all black
political leaders in South Africa have called for them. As
Archbishop-elect Desmond Tutu put it, "Blacks are saying, 'We
are suffering already. To end it, we will support sanctions,
even if we have to take on additional suffering.'" Moreover,
some proponents of sanctions insist that the arguments against
such action, while still valid, are increasingly irrelevant.
As they see it, the world has exhausted, without effect, every
moral and social pressure that can be exerted on the Pretoria
government. If South Africa is to avoid the disaster that many
feel is over the horizon, every measure, even if imperfect,
should be seriously considered as a way to deflect it from its
course. The debate over sanctions raises tempers as well as
issues. Even Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the head of the Zulus,
the largest black tribe, and as certified an antiapartheid
liberal as Helen Suzman are against them. But pressure for
sanctions can only intensify as long as South Africa wields its
police might to enforce repressive policies.

--By William E. Smith. Reported by Peter Hawthorne and Bruce
W. Nelan/Johannesburg, with other bureaus.