“Chapter 15: The Roles of Sanctions and the Contributions of African Americans in the March from Apartheid to Freedom in South Africa, 1913 - 1914” in “Full Text”
CHAPTER 15
The Roles of Sanctions and the Contributions of African Americans in the March from Apartheid to Freedom in South Africa, 1913-1994
Ngozi Caleb Kamalu
Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville, North Carolina, U.S.
INTRODUCTION
Based on the experience of Apartheid South Africa, sanctions indeed work as effective tools of international diplomacy and national transformation. Sanctions had failed in the past as instruments of statecraft partly because they were not universally applied, not strong enough, and not strictly enforced. African Americans in all works of life—e.g., U.S. Congress, sports/entertainment, religion, Civil Rights and lobbying establishments, or groups—had played enormous roles in the fight against apartheid. Of course, the internal forces in South Africa, such as the activities of the ANC and Trade Unions, in the end helped to facilitate an election resulting in making President Nelson Mandela as the first Black president of South Africa in April 1994. In future cases of sanctions and embargoes, the international community should monitor the progress of sanctions and close all loopholes. While there was overwhelming evidence—as shown by the South African example—that sanctions worked, there was equally compelling evidence that they failed in the past because they were either not strong enough or not strictly enforced. The international community should, in the interest of future cases, articulate effective ways to make sanctions more comprehensive. This practice would ensure that the target nations might be stopped much sooner regarding human rights violations and perhaps more lives could be saved in the process. Presently, post-Apartheid South Africa is a testimony that when people of good will are unified, the sky is the limit in their potential to promote the universal principles of democracy, freedom, equality, and the rule of law around the globe.
BACKGROUND
The road to the end of apartheid in South Africa from its inception in 1913 to its dissolution in April1994, pursuant to the election of Nelson Mandela as the first Black president of South Africa was long. But few have any clear knowledge or idea about it and its nature, scope and effects, and challenges as an abhorrent policy of racial segregation on the African Indigenous population of South Africa as well as the debates surrounding how best to end that evil system. Post-Apartheid (also known as New) South Africa turned 23 in April 2017.
The birth and origin of Apartheid could be traced to the racial segregation and White supremacy that were the pillars or cornerstones of South African policy long before apartheid began. This predisposition was in fact manifested in the controversial Land Act of 1913, passed three years after South Africa’s unification on May 31, 1910, which came out of the amalgamation of four previously separate British colonies: Cape Colony, Natal Colony, Orange River Colony, and Transvaal Colony. South Africa gained independence from Britain in 1934, and the confluence of the two events – codification of the 1913 Land Act and the 1910 unification—marked the beginning of territorial segregation. Under this Act, Black Africans were forced to live in designated reservations, making it illegal for them to work as sharecroppers. This policy was vehemently opposed by the African National Congress (ANC).
It was not until the release of Nelson Mandela, Leader of the African National Congress (ANC), in February 1990 that the opportunity of negotiation with President F.W. de Klerk was realized. The cooperation of these two idealist and transformative leaders culminated eventually in the creation or drawing up of a new South African constitution. In 1993 a breakthrough occurred when both sides made concessions. The efforts of these two statesmen would later be rewarded with the conferring of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
The social and political context in South Africa was further complicated by the resultant miseries of both the Great Depression and World War II, which brought increasing economic dislocation and woes to South Africa and convinced the government to strengthen its policies of racial segregation and nativism. In 1948, the Afrikaner National Party won the general election under the slogan and party platform “apartheid” (which literally means racial segregation or separation). Their goal was not only to separate South Africa’s White minority from its non-White (Black) majority, but also to separate non-Whites from each other, and to divide Black South Africans along tribal lines to decrease or marginalize their political power. This “divide and conquer” political strategy was also designed to undermine the universal democratic principle of majority rule. In other words, to distort and dilute the political power of the Black majority in South Africa, which had traditionally been based on one person, one vote.
The racial policy of Apartheid was more deeply institutionalized by 1950 when the government banned marriages between Whites and people of other races, such as mixed color, and prohibited sexual relations and interracial marriages between Black and White South Africans. In fact, the Population Registration Act of 1950 provided the basic framework for apartheid by classifying all South Africans by race, including Bantu (Black Africans), Colored (mixed race) and Whites. A fourth category, Asian (meaning Indian and Pakistani), was later added. The legislation had other collateral damages or consequences. For example, in selected cases, the legislation split families. For instance, parents could be classified as White, while their children were classified as Colored.
A series of Land Acts set aside more than 80 percent of the country’s land for the White minority, and “pass laws” required non-whites to carry documents authorizing their presence in restricted areas. To limit contact between the races, the apartheid government established separate public facilities (drinking fountains, libraries, schools, restaurants, movie theaters etc.) for Whites and non-Whites, limited the activity of non-White labor unions, and denied non-White participation in national government.
Under Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, who became prime minister in 1958, Apartheid policy took on a geographic/community or neighborhood dimension. Verwoerd refined apartheid policy further into a system he referred to as “separate development.” Under the separate development concept, there was the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 that created 10 Bantu homelands known as Bantustans. Under the law, separating Black South Africans from each other enabled the government to claim there was no Black majority, thereby reducing the possibility that Blacks would unify into one national organization. Hence, this arrangement permitted every Black South African to be designated as a citizen of the Bantustans, a system of “homelands” that supposedly gave them full political rights but effectively removed them from the nation’s participatory and body politics.
One of the negative consequences of apartheid was that the government forcibly removed Black South Africans from rural areas designated as “White” to the homelands, sold, expropriated, or seized their land, and transferred them and, in some cases, sold them at little or nothing to White farmers. Consequently, between 1961 and 1994, more than 3.5 million people were forcibly removed from their homes and relocated or transplanted in the Bantustans, where they were plunged into poverty, neglect, and hopelessness, having been robbed of their land and community possessions.
With the tightening of restrictions on Black Africans, resistance to apartheid within South Africa took on a new twist from non-violent demonstrations, protests, and strikes to political action and eventually to armed resistance. Having formed a coalition with the South Indian National Congress, the ANC organized a mass meeting in 1952, during which attendees burned their pass books. In 1955 under the aegis, auspices, and sponsorship of a group calling itself the Congress of the People, some who had attended the meeting adopted a Freedom Charter, a platform, or manifesto declaring that “South Africa belonged to all who lived in it, black or white.” In reaction, the government broke up the meeting, arrested several people, and charged them with high treason.
In 1960, at the Black township of Sharpeville demonstration, the police opened fire on a group of unarmed Black demonstrators who were affiliated with the Pan-African Congress (PAC), an offshoot of the ANC. The group had arrived at the police station without passes, inviting arrest as an act of resistance and civil disobedience. Several Black individuals were reported killed and many more wounded. The Sharpeville massacre incident convinced many anti-apartheid leaders that they could not achieve their objectives by peaceful means. Thus, this development thrust the PAC and ANC into establishing military wings even though neither had posed a serious military threat to the apartheid state. By 1961, most resistance leaders had either been captured and sentenced to long prison terms or executed, including activist Nelson Mandela, founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), the military wing of the ANC. Mandela was later incarcerated from 1963 to 1990. Mandela’s long imprisonment with hard labor drew international attention and helped garner support for the anti-apartheid movement on a global scale.
The resulting incidents and clashes with the apartheid regime showed that the handwriting about the regime’s demise was on the wall. In 1976, thousands of Black children in Soweto, a Black township outside Johannesburg, who demonstrated against the Afrikaans language requirement for Black African students, were met with the police, who opened fire with tear gas and bullets. The protests and government crackdowns that followed this brutal treatment, combined with a national economic recession, exposed South African apartheid government for what evil it really was. It also increased the attention and scrutiny by the international community that saw and exposed apartheid as an antithesis of peace or prosperity to the nation. Consequently, the United Nations General Assembly denounced apartheid in 1973, and in 1976 the UN Security Council voted to impose a mandatory embargo on the sale of arms to South Africa. Subsequently, in 1985, the United Kingdom and United States governments followed suit by imposing economic sanctions against the apartheid regime.
Under intense and unrelenting pressure from the international community, the National Party government of Pieter Botha instituted some bogus artificial reforms, including abolition of the pass laws and the ban on interracial sex/dating and marriage. Nevertheless, the reforms fell short of any substantive change and expectations. By 1989, Botha was pressured to step aside in favor of F.W. de Klerk. His resignation put forth a new human face to apartheid. De Klerk’s government also repealed the Population Registration Act as well as most of the other legislation that formed the legal basis for apartheid. A new constitution was later enshrined, which enfranchised Blacks and other racial groups, taking effect in 1994. Elections that year (April 1994) eventually led to a coalition government with a multiracial non-White majority, marking the official end of the apartheid system with the election of President Nelson Mandela as the first Black president of post-apartheid South Africa.
This chapter retraces the nature, scope, and effects of apartheid as an abhorrent policy of racial segregation on the African Indigenous population of South Africa as well as and revisits the debates surrounding how best to end the evil system of apartheid. It traces the history of the South African sanctions movement, assessing the extent to which sanctions induced political change in South Africa to determine whether sanctions were effective tools of political pressure and reform in South Africa. The chapter explores the nature and objectives of sanctions as an instrument of political transformation, contributinge to both literature and general theory available on sanctions as an instrument of political liberalization in general and in South Africa in particular. Extending beyond South Africa, it identifies some of the strengths and weaknesses of sanctions as an important element in international diplomacy, and as an example, it shows the impact of Black U.S. legislators in the shaping of American policy toward South Africa. Finally, the chapter determines the contributions of Black lobbyists, entertainers, sports stars, and educators in the anti-apartheid struggle. Throughout the chapter, “new South Africa” denotes South Africa in the post-apartheid era, from April 1994 to the present.
THE DEBATE OVER APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA SANCTIONS
Much of the debate about the utility of sanction as an instrument of statecraft has revolved around its effectiveness. Bronwen Manby has defined sanctions as “the governmental measures imposed by individuals, governments or international organizations, rather than nongovernmental actions by companies or individuals used as a tool of retaliation against external aggression or other violations of international law.”[1] Others, including Richard Olson, see sanctions as legal policy instruments used to enforce international law.[2] When sanctions are imposed, their objectives have been to induce changes in the domestic policies of the target states for the purpose of achieving the national interests of the states or entities imposing the sanctions.[3] The effectiveness of sanctions as a means to force South Africa to reform its policy of apartheid, which the United Nations condemned as a “crime against humanity,” generated heated debates. Two main arguments against sanctions were posited. One was that sanctions against South Africa would not work because of the inconsistent and arbitrary use of them, but that trade sanctions against South Africa by the international community would not achieve their desired goal because of South Africa’s ability to circumvent it to the extent that any impact would be so minimal and ineffective that it would not be able to translate into substantive policy change.[4]
Prior to the independence of Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) in 1980, the same argument was propagated until sanctions were considered necessary to change the intransigent behavior of Ian Smith’s White minority government in Rhodesia. Nonetheless, the impact of the sanctions was limited by the ambivalence and selective enforcement attitude that U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s administration showed toward it because Congress passed the Byrd Amendment in 1971, which exempted Rhodesian chromium from the sanctions.[5]
Another competing argument against sanctions was that they would be counterproductive. Rather than causing a change in South Africa’s behavior, sanctions would unleash some negative effects and unintended consequences that are usually dysfunctional to the primary intended goals and objectives. In the case of South Africa, opponents that the sanctions would not only fail to bring down the minority government of South Africa but would undermine the economic interest and well-being of Blacks whom it was designed to protect, by undermining overall South Africa’s economy and creating massive employment. The consequence would be, it was suggested, the regime’s intransigence and resistance to political change and reform.[6]
The counter-productive impact of sanctions appeared to drive the liberal white opposition candidates in South Africa to argue that sanctions would not succeed in bringing about the collapse of the government in South Africa but would obstruct the process of fundamental change whose effect would undermine the South African economy and hence weaken the economic muscle blacks had successfully used to bring about reform through economic pressure.[7] This mode of thinking influenced American foreign policy toward South Africa during U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s administration. Chester Crocker, the chief architect of American policy of “constructive engagement,” noted:
While urging that American interest depended strongly on encouraging positive reforms, Crocker warned that the possibility of reforms might be damaged if trade or investment between South Africa and the United States were undermined through the imposition of sanctions.[9]
Crocker suggested that while the blueprint for change in South Africa should never be imposed from an external entity, the responsibility of the United States as a global actor would be to help create a regional climate amenable to compromise and accommodation among states.[10] Sanctions are designed to achieve at least four salient goals.[11]
- Compliance: make target state of South Africa change its policy and comply with rules of international law and behavior. In other words, South Africa to must abandon its apartheid policy in lieu of a constitutional and multiracial democratic system.
- Subversion: Cause economic destabilization in order to create hard conditions–e.g., inflation, declining standard of living, and mass unemployment–and generate mass discontent and internal opposition as a way of undermining or overthrowing the regime.
- Deterrence: Not only to discourage other states from emulating the behavior and conducts of the target state, but to deny it the moral, political, economic, and military support necessary to sustain an army that would enable it to contain or suppress internal and external opposition or even to engage in military adventures.
- Symbolism: Sanctions are imposed, not necessarily to produce results or change of attitude, but to serve as a public expression of a community’s moral disapproval of an act.
The primary aim of sanctions against South Africa was to force it to abandon its policy of apartheid. In pursuit of this goal, numerous United Nations resolutions called for international sanctions “until clear evidence of profound and irreversible progress toward reform was achieved in South Africa.”[12] In 1986, the Commonwealth Heads of Government issued a declaration on steps South Africa must take before sanctions could be lifted to include the lifting of the state of emergency; repeal of apartheid laws; release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners and detainees; the unbanning of the African National Congress (ANC), Pan-African Congress, and other political parties; and the resumption of constitutional and multiracial dialogues.[13]
It was therefore based on the fulfillment of the criteria outlined above that this investigation would measure the effectiveness of sanctions on political change in South Africa–i.e., the extent to which the behavior of the target state, South Africa, was changed by the imposition of sanctions. Thus, the central thesis of this investigation is that internationally imposed sanctions, made possible primarily by the contributions of African Americans, were responsible for bringing about political change in South Africa.
HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF SANCTIONS AGAINST SOUTH AFRICA
The amalgamation of the Dutch-speaking Afrikaners and the English-speaking elements formed the Union of South Africa in 1910. With the ascendancy of the National Party to power in 1948, apartheid (policy of racial separation and separate development) was introduced as an official policy. In South Africa’s House of Assembly in 1963, Prime Minister Hendrik F. Verwoerd noted that the apartheid policy was designed to guarantee “white control and supremacy over non-whites.”[14] Since then, the General Assembly of the United Nations condemned apartheid as “a crime against humanity and obstacle to international peace and cooperation.”[15]
The international community never coalesced around the issue of apartheid until the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960. Even the unilateral sanctions imposed by India at the urging of Nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi to protest South Africa’s oppression of its Indian minority group in 1946 showed limited effect.
The Sharpeville incident occurred on March 21, 1960, when Black South Africans protesting the state law to carry “reference [Pass] books” at the Sharpeville Police Station were attacked by the South African police and defense forces. A total of 69 persons were killed while 180 were wounded. This incident enflamed world anger against South Africa and generated a serious global response in 1962 when the United Nations General Assembly called on its members to cut trade and transportation links with South Africa. In August 1963, the sanction was expanded to include a mandatory arms embargo.[16]
In 1973, world hostility to the Pretoria Regime and sympathy to the oppressed majority in South Africa culminated in the recognition of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan-African Congress (PAC) as the “authentic representatives of the majority of the South African People.”[17] It should be noted that the emergence of the non-aligned movement as a global actor in the multi-polar world appeared to reinforce antiapartheid coalitions against South Africa’s apartheid system. Moreover, the impact of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after the October War of 1973 between Israel and the Arab states gave impetus to popular international support against South Africa.
The global oil cartel acting under pressure from African members of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) imposed an oil embargo against South Africa in 1973. The consequence of this embargo was that it greatly undermined the economic relations that existed between Iran and South Africa under the Shah who was at the time South Africa’s greatest supplier of oil. This trend, however, continued until the Iranian revolution in 1979. The embargo was not without its price. According to a study by a New York-based Africa Fund in association with the American Committee on Africa published in November 1988, the OPEC oil embargo to South Africa between January 1979 and January 1988 cost South Africa $20 billion just to secure oil on the spot market.[18]
In 1976, the Soweto uprising once again catapulted South Africa into center-stage. On June 16, 1976, school children in the Black township of Soweto protested South African decision to introduce Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in primary schools. Prior to this date, English was the medium of instruction. In the brutal response to put down the protest, South African forces killed about 1,000 pupils with thousands more severely injured. In an emergency meeting, the U.N. Security Council issued a resolution declaring that the situation in South Africa “constituted a threat to international peace and security” and imposed a mandatory arms embargo under its charter.[19]
No substantive measures were mounted against South Africa despite its global image of an outlaw until 1985, following the turn of events in which the South African regime cracked down on Black demonstrators and proclaimed a state of emergency in 36 magistrate districts that resulted in mass arrest. There was growing pressure on Washington to reconsider its policy of “constructive engagement” in favor of mandatory economic sanctions including divestment. In reflecting the situation in South Africa and its impact on American policy, Chester Crocker, the U.S. Secretary of State for African Affairs in the Reagan Administration, addressed the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, on August 16, 1985:
AFRICAN AMERICANS AS MAJOR PLAYERS IN THE ANTI-APARTHEID MOVEMENT
I: THE SULLIVAN PRINCIPLES
The Sullivan principles were the ideas floated, pursued, and promoted by Philadelphia Baptist minister Leon Sullivan at the middle of intense protest in the United States by students and civil society that universities and corporations divest from South Africa. Sullivan argued that corporations that agreed to certain fair labor and employment standards in South Africa should not be subjected to protests or divestiture. He further argued that the principles would be part of a compromise between those who wanted labor reform and those for total divestiture, thereby allowing for substantive and tangible change and improvement of the social and economic conditions of the Black majority in South Africa.
Before official American sanctions movement in the 1980s, many substantive changes in South Africa were inspired by the work of Reverend Leon Sullivan, who proclaimed a set of principles in 1977 and guided investment in South Africa. The Philadelphia-based civil rights leader was not new to political change, both nationally and internationally. In the 1960s, during the Civil Rights movement, he organized boycotts of retailers who discriminated against Blacks and other minorities in employment. Also, he had established skills training centers for Black youth in several cities and African nations. For example, in 1971 when General Motors (GM) was under pressure to diversify, Rev. Sullivan was hired to direct this transition in GM. At this time, he used the bully pulpit to challenge GM to facilitate its divestment operations in South Africa. Sullivan’s six principles for divestment of American Corporations in South Africa were as follows:[21]
- Integration of eating facilities and restrooms.
- Nondiscrimination in employment.
- Equal pay for comparable work.
- Institution of vocational training programs.
- Hiring of more Black supervisors.
- Increased corporate support for improvements in housing, schools and health facilities for Blacks.
To give legitimacy to the principles, Sullivan pressured other companies, including General Motors, to embrace them. By 1985, many multinational corporations had signed on. The Sullivan Principles were later amended to include pledges to recognize Black labor unions, publicly oppose apartheid, and pay a fair minimum wage. The slow pace of change in South Africa, even many years after the introduction of the Sullivan Principles in 1977, renewed opposition by some activists in the anti-apartheid movement who believed that the Sullivan Principles reinforced apartheid by ascribing for cosmetic change and focusing on procedural rather than substantive change.
For example, Richard Rothstein showed that in 1984, many years after the adoption of the Sullivan Principles, the unskilled workforce demographic was 96.6% non-White while managers were 5% non-White. Equal pay meant little if Black and White South Africans rarely did comparable work; desegregated restrooms in de facto segregated work areas lacked even symbolic effects and support of signatories to the Sullivan Principles in the tune of $300 million to improve Black schools; and housing and health facilities did very little to improve the living conditions of 25 million Black South Africans.[22] All the criticisms never deterred Rev. Sullivan’s resolve to carry his principles to a conclusive end. To monitor compliance to his principles, Sullivan hired the consulting firm Arthur D. Little (ADL) to conduct the analysis and pay special attention to fees paid by levy on each Sullivan signatory. ADL Vice President D. Reid Weedon adopted standards of measurement: making “good progress”; making “progress”; “needs to become active”; and “failure.”
While Weedon based his scores on surveys examining empirical data, such as the number of Black and White employees in each job category, Sullivan relied extensively on face-to-face interaction. Thus, he frequently traveled to South Africa to inspect and advise management on how best to comply with his principles–desegregation of the work facility, implementation of minimum wage policy, and bargaining with Black labor unions. As failing grades were awarded to American subsidiary corporations like Carnation, W.R. Grace, and Celanese in South Africa, the parent firms in the U.S. fired the managing directors of their subsidiaries. On many occasions, the South African businesses raised wages comparable with those paid by American companies that paid Sullivan’s minimum wage. Hence, the Sullivan reform was successful.
II: THE CONYERS AMENDMENT
As a result of tremendous pressure put onto the U.S. Congress by the public and some interest groups, especially Trans-Africa, many members of Congress were persuaded to introduce several anti-apartheid bills. On March 7, 1985, Rep. William Gray (D-PA) and others co-sponsored the H.R. 1460, known as the Anti-Apartheid Act of 1985. The act stated that “bank loans, new investments, sale of computers and software including the sale of South African Krugerrands in the United States be banned.”[23]
Additional language of the bill provided that new investment and Krugerrand sales might be waived by the President if the South African government met one of the conditions. The waiver was to be in effect for one year but could be extended for six-month periods thereafter; each time, the South African government met conditional requirements but with the approval of both Houses of Congress.[24] On May 8, 1985, two amendments to H.R. 1460 made by Rep. Ed Zschau (R-Calif.) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) were accepted on the floor of the House of Representatives, respectively. The Zschau amendment encouraged the president not only to consult with other countries on future implementation of anti-apartheid measures, but to make annual reports to Congress on the status of apartheid and human rights in South Africa.[25]
The Conyers Amendment prescribed the prohibition of all nuclear assistance to South Africa, including equipment, material, and technology. With an emphasis on divestment, Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Calif.) introduced an alternative amendment to include mandatory disinvestments and denial of landing rights in the United States to South African aircraft.[26]
Given the mood of Congress on the issue, President Reagan saw the possibility of passing a harsh sanction against South Africa as a fait accompli. His strategy became to undercut it by proposing a watered-down version. On September 9, 1985, by Executive Order, President Reagan announced a series of anti-apartheid measures. After proclaiming his opposition to legal discrimination and condemnation of the Congressional anti-apartheid bill as both draconian and strategically futile, he stated that the aim of sanctions should not be to punish South Africa, because it would injure the very people the United Stated was trying to help. He then threatened a veto.[27]
THE COMMONWEALTH GROUP
At this time, the Commonwealth Group with historic ties to South Africa was meeting in the Caribbean. In October 1985, the 49-member Commonwealth in a summit in Nassau established a small group of “Eminent Commonwealth Persons” to encourage the process of political dialogue in South Africa. The group was co-chaired by Rt. Hon. Malcom Fraser, Former Prime Minister of Australia, and General Olusegun Obasanjo, former Head of the Federal Military Government of Nigeria. The Eminent Persons Group (EPG) mandate was issued in the “Nassau Accord” or the “Commonwealth Accord” on South Africa. The agreement called on South Africa to “initiate in the context of a suspension of violence on all sides, a process of communication across lines of color, politics and religion with a view to establishing a nonracial and representative government.”[28]
The EPG noted that the South African government was not yet prepared to negotiate fundamental changes, countenance the creation of genuine democratic structures, or face the prospect of ending its White-dominated minority government. It, nonetheless, predicted that South Africa’s continuation of its policy of apartheid would lead to violence along with loss of lives and property unless pressure could be applied through sanctions.[29]
Having refuted the assertions of the opponents of sanctions that sanctions do not work, the EPG issued a declaration:
“There is no guarantee that sanctions will work, but greatly increased international pressure involving the use of sanctions offers the only chance to avert the tragedy of which we speak involving the destruction of all Western interests in South Africa. Even if we knew that sanctions would not work (and nobody will make that assumption with any validity), we would still be in favor of the West applying sanctions.”[30]
TRANSAFRICA
In October 1986, the Anti-Apartheid Act was passed when President Reagan’s veto was overridden by Congress. In a testimony before the House Sub-Committee on Africa on aid to the South African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), Randall Robison, Executive Director of Trans-Africa, said that passage of the anti-apartheid law was an indication of American stand against apartheid. But Robinson observed that the impact and effectiveness of the sanctions would be better realized over time as more nations embraced it.[31] Also, in a statement by Robinson before the Sub-Committee on Africa and the Sub-Committee on International Economic Policy and Trade Committee on Foreign Affairs in the U.S. House of Representatives, Robinson gave an assessment of the first 17 months of the Sanctions Act. He identified two major flaws of the act and accused the Reagan Administration of sabotaging and undermining the true spirit of the act by deliberately failing to execute the law faithfully by letting federal agencies write implementation regulations full of loopholes; gutting and circumventing the ban on South African uranium imports by the exemption of uranium hexafluoride, a gaseous form of uranium oxide; failing to penalize foreign countries taking advantage of the sanctions, as required by the Act; sidestepping the prohibition of food and agricultural products by the continued importation of South African lobster provided they were processed “offshore”; declining to organize meetings with other governments to coordinate pressure on South Africa as required by law; and vetoing resolutions in the United Nations Security Council calling for international adoption of American sanctions.[32]
On July 10, 1991, President George Bush announced that his administration was ending the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act. He justified his action to end sanctions on the basis that a profound transformation had occurred in South Africa and that the progress so far made toward dismantling apartheid was irreversible.[33] He, however, noted that many aspects of the sanction—which included an arms deal with South Africa, support of IMF, and export-import bank loans to South Africa; and a ban on intelligence cooperation under the 1987 Intelligence Authorization Act—remained in effect. Before the Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 was repealed, the New York Times reported that “American imports from South Africa had declined by 35% between 1985 and 1987 and had cost South Africa an estimated amount of $417 million in export earnings.”[34] Numerous appeals were made by Nelson Mandela, who stated that the presidential action was premature and could have been delayed until more progress in dismantling apartheid was evident. Others were those of the South African Human Rights Commission and the Amnesty International, asserting that the action be withdrawn because at least 850 legitimate political prisoners remained in South African jails.[35]
THE SPORTS GROUP
There was no doubt that President Bush exploited both international and domestic political climate to announce his decision. First, the announcement came a few hours after the international Olympics competition. The United States’ boycott of the Olympics had held prior to this time perhaps due to the work of Dr. Leroy T. Walker of North Carolina Central University, the president of the U.S. Olympic Committee. Dr. Walker, an African American educator, was a retired professor of physical education (1945-1983) and Chancellor of North Carolina Central University (1983-1986). Furthermore, Arthur Ashe, the Black American tennis star, was the Captain of the U.S. Davis Cup tournament. Consistent with his anti-apartheid commitment, Ashe had used his good offices to persuade players like John McEnroe and others to boycott South Africa against the regime’s very attractive financial offers and other incentives designed to lure them against the collective will of the international community.
Given the state of internal politics in the United States, it was conceivable that a presidential veto could be sustained since it was unlikely to muster two-thirds majority votes in both Houses of Congress necessary to override a presidential veto.[36]
On September 24, 1993, Nelson Mandela, President of the ANC, appearing before the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, asked that economic sanctions against South Africa be lifted except embargo on arms sales and the withdrawal of full diplomatic recognition until a newly elected multiracial government was established following the election of April 27, 1994. This request in effect marked the end of nearly two decades of international isolation of South Africa.
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL IMPACTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF SANCTIONS
Sanctions inflicted enormous costs on South Africa. In 1989, it was estimated that South Africa lost about $2 billion per annum just to break the oil embargo through purchases it made on the spot market and its cost of developing and operating SASOL oil-from-coal facilities. Also, estimates showed that South Africa faced a debt crisis that caused the value of the Rand to drop to half of its 1984 exchange value. Not only did the situation induce massive export of capital between 1985 and 1988, but it also forced the South African Trust Bank to forecast in 1988 that sanctions would cost South Africa not less than R40 billion ($20 billion) from 1985 to 1990 and that the average income per capita of White South Africans would decline by 10%. As the Africa Fund study observed, during this period most of South Africa’s $22.6 billion short-term foreign debt was due in less than one year. In September 1985, virtually, all external lending to South Africa ended after Pretoria declared a debt repayment standstill as a result of the growing refusal of foreign bank to provide new loans.[37]
Economic impacts of sanctions had far-reaching implications not only on the economic sphere of South Africa, but on its politics as well. Its impacts unleashed a plethora of political reforms that support Anthony Marx’s informed observation:
In January 1985, a coalition of six employer groups that claimed representation of 80% of the South African work force issued a communique calling for political liberalization and substantive reform of the apartheid system of government.[39] In August 1985, another group of four South African businesses recommended to the South African government that no meaningful economic reform would endure without a concurrent political liberalization and urged the government to open communication with the ANC.[40] Consequently, in May 1989, the Reserve Bank of South Africa warned that economic stagnation would undermine South Africa as a nation state if political reforms were not initiated, at least to head off potential additional sanctions.[41]
It was not surprising, henceforth, that in September 1985 a delegation of South African business representatives in a symbolic gesture flew to Lusaka, Zambia, to demonstrate the urgency of a political negotiation between South Africa and the ANC. Zambia, under President Kenneth Kaunda, was an ardent supporter and host of the ANC liberation organization and its membership. Although these moves might have proved insignificant, they nonetheless put in motion a political climate tolerant of political discourses and negotiations. Hence, the move for political change was symbolized by President F.W. de Klerk’s inaugural speech in September 1989 that it was time for South Africa to restore its image and end its global isolation, economic disintegration, and political divide.[42] This policy announcement was followed by the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990. On February 2, 1990, F.W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC, the Pan-African Congress, and other national liberation movements abolished in 1960, and he began the process of dismantling the legal structures of Apartheid. At the heart of apartheid was the Public Safety Act of 1953 that allowed the president not only to declare a state of emergency but also to suspend normal judicial procedures and remedies.
Another pillar of apartheid was the Internal Security Act of 1982, which permitted South African Security Forces to detain suspected political activists indefinitely without charge or trial and denied suspects access to legal counsel, family members, and private doctors. Also at the root of apartheid is the Group Areas Act under which the government classified, controlled, and maintained neighborhoods according to race. Although specific legislation regulating the pass laws and influx control was abolished in June 1986, subtle practices continued under the disguise of trespassing laws, housing, and work permits.
In December 1991, the South African government embarked on serious negotiation with Black organizations aimed at laying the framework for the construction of an interim administration in which the National Party and the African National Congress would share power. Before real and substantive discussions and commitments were made, F.W. de Clerk wanted to clarify doubts that he might be negotiating with the mandate of the National Party or in short, the support of majority of White South Africans, especially in the wake of the election of February 1992 at Potchefstroom in Northern Transvaal. In the election, the right-wing Conservative Party won, having based its campaign on the platform of scrapping the negotiations for multi-party democracy and returning the country to White minority rule. This result appeared to dislodge F.W. de Clerk’s efforts. In a strategic move designed to measure the opinions and attitudes of Whites toward political negotiations and liberalism and to strengthen his hand in the negotiation, F.W. de Clerk called a “Whites only” referendum on March 17, 1992. By a landslide, 68.6% of the White electorate supported the constitutional talks by the National Party.[43]
The Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) made real progress despite some initial setbacks emanating from the early reluctance of the Pan African Congress to participate after boycotting the first two rounds of CODESA talks; the assassination of Chris Hani, head of the South African Communist Party; the ANC’s temporary break off from negotiations with the National Party shortly after the June 17, 1992 killing of 40 people in Boipatong; and the disagreement between the government and the ANC over how much majority of an elected national assembly would be needed to ratify a new constitution. The ANC insisted on 70%, while the government held onto 75%. The impasse led to a temporary suspension of the talks by the ANC on June 23, 1992.
Also, heated debate involved the fate of one of the stickiest issues in South Africa: the homeland (Bantustans), which constituted fragmented geographic areas that served as reservations for the African labor force. The ten Bantustans were Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, Gazankulu, Kangwane, KwaNdebele, KwaZulu, Lebowa, Qwa-Qwa, Transkei, and Venda. While some parties, including the ANC, agreed to incorporate the Homelands into independent South Africa, other elements, especially the elites of Bophuthatswana, insisted on the maintenance of their sovereignty, which was conferred to four of their homelands, including Ciskei, Transkei, and Venda, with no international recognition of such status outside South Africa.
Upon breaking the deadlock or at least clearing major hurdles, the peace accord was signed by 29 parties and organizations on September 14, 1992. Prominent among the signatories were the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Communist Party (SACP), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the Inkatha Freedom Movement of Chief Buthelezi, National Party (NP), and the Pan African Congress (PAC).[44]
In his opening address to parliament on December 20, 1991, and reiterated on January 24, 1992, F.W. de Klerk articulated the views of the ruling National Party to amend the present South African constitution to serve as the transitional constitution, which would prescribe equitable representation of Blacks in the legislative and executive branches of government. In turn, the ANC took the position that the present ruling parliament and constitution be abolished to give way to an interim elected legislative government to serve as the supreme and governing authority until a new constitution and constituent assembly were put in place. Although both the National Party and the ANC agreed on the need to set up a transitional government, they pondered on how to arrive at a new constitution and the way to constitute the provisional government.[45]
April 27, 1994, was set by the parties involved in the negotiation as the date to elect a constituent assembly that would not only write a new constitution but serve as the first post-apartheid legislature. On September 24, 1993, the South African Parliament passed a legislation designed to create a transitional council. This cleared the way for Blacks to join Indians, Whites, and the Colored as active participants in the affairs of South Africa.[46] The opportunity to test this newly won freedom came during the April 27-29, 1994, multiracial elections. On May 6, 1994, the South African Independent Electoral Commission announced the final vote tally. The African National Congress (ANC) won 12,237,655 (62.6%) of the votes to 3,983,690 (20.3%) for the National Party, while the Inkatha Party won 10.5% of the votes.[47] The overwhelming electoral victory by the ANC symbolized the birth of a new multiracial, constitutional, and democratic South Africa.
CONCLUSION
Political liberalization took place soon after tighter international sanctions were imposed on South Africa. While sanctions are not the only causes of political change in South Africa, their impact as the major factor that induced political change cannot be disputed despite the loopholes inherent in their enforcement. The monetary cost of sanctions at least made it cost-ineffective for South Africa to maintain the apartheid system and its security forces that suppressed popular agitation in the townships. The cost of maintaining apartheid translated into the redirection of resources away from social goods to internal security needs. The falling living standard of Whites convinced the ruling elites of South Africa that it was in their best interest to support meaningful political reform.
The goals set forth by the international community that must be satisfied by South Africa before sanctions were lifted had all virtually been met. They included the lifting of the ban on political parties; the resumption of multiparty negotiations to chart the path to a constitutional government; the release of political prisoners; the repeal of major apartheid laws; and the administration of the multiracial elections of April 27-29, 1994. These were made possible by no other factors in large part but sanctions, and without the unrelenting efforts and work by numerous African Americans, the sanctions would not have been possible. The work of a few African Americans that featured immensely in this endeavor include Representative William Gray (D-PA) who cosponsored the H.R. 1460 that prohibited all nuclear assistance to South Africa, including equipment, material, land, and technology. The amendment by Ronald V. Dellums (D-California), proposed mandatory divestment by United States and the denial of landing rights to South African aircraft on U.S. soil.
In October 1986, Randall Robinson, the Executive Director of Trans-Africa, an African American lobby, testified before the Sub-Committee on Africa to call attention to the Reagan administration’s lax enforcement that allowed federal agencies to write implementation regulations full of loopholes; exemption of the importation of uranium hexafluoride and lobster from South Africa; failure to penalize foreign nations taking advantage of sanctions; and failure to support resolutions in the United Nations Security Council calling for international adoption of American sanctions. Other key African American personalities in the fight against apartheid were the late Arthur Ashe, Rev. Leon Sullivan, and Leroy Walker, former president of the U.S. Olympic Committee. All these efforts enabled Congress to monitor the progress of sanctions and to close further loopholes. While there was overwhelming evidence as shown by the South African experience that sanctions worked, there was equally compelling evidence that they failed to work in the past because they had been neither strong enough nor strictly enforced. The international community should in the interest of future cases articulate ways to make sanctions more comprehensive. This would assure that the target nation could receive deserved consequences much sooner and perhaps more lives could be saved in the interim.
END NOTES
Bronwen Manby, “South Africa: The impact of Sanctions,” Journal of international Affairs, 46, 1 (Summer 1992) ↑
Richard S. Olson, “Economic Coercion in World Politics, with a Focus on North-South Relations,” World Politics, 31 (July 1979): 471-494. ↑
Bronwen Manby. Op Cit. ↑
“U.S. Policy Toward South Africa: Pro and Con” Congressional Digest (October 1985), 235. ; See also Kim R. Nossal, “International Sanctions as International Punishment,” International Organization, 43, 2 (Spring 1989) 301. ↑
Marc Levy, “Rhodesia Becomes Zimbabwe: The U.S. and the Internal Settlement,” (Revised Version), Kennedy School of Government Case Program, Doc. C16-91-827.0 (1988), 2.; Johan Galtung, “International Economic Sanctions: With examples from the Case of Rhodesia,” World Politics, XIX (1967): 378-416; James Barber, “Economic Sanctions as a Policy Instrument,” International Affairs, 55 (July 1979): 367-84. ↑
Margaret P. Doxey, “International Sanctions: A Framework for Analysis, With Special Reference to the U.N. and South Africa,” International Organization, 26 (Summer 1972): 527-50. ; Richard C. Porter, “International Trade and Investment Sanctions: Potential Impact on the South African Economy,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 23 (December 1979): 579-612. ; J.P. Hayes, “Divided Opinions on Sanctions against South Africa,” World Economy, 11 (June 1988): 267-80. ↑
See Bronwen Manby. ↑
Chester A. Crocker, “South Africa: Strategy for Change,” Foreign Affairs, 59, 2 (Winter 1980/81), 324. ↑
Chester A. Crocker, 327. ↑
Ibid, 346. ↑
Gary C. Hufbauer and Jeffrey J. Scott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: History and Current Policy (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1985), 985; Also, Jahann Galtung, “Pacifism from a Sociological Point of View,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 3 (March 1955): 69-71. ; Joel Feinberg, Doing and Deserving: Essays in the Theory of Responsibility (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970): 96-97. ↑
The Declaration on “Apartheid and its Destructive Consequences” adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, 1989. ↑
Communique of the Commonwealth Heads of State Review Meeting, London, August 3-5, 1986. ↑
Quoted in “South Africa Fact Sheet,” (New York: The Africa Fund, November 1988). ↑
Ibid. ↑
General Assembly Res. 1761 (XVII), 1962. ; See also Security Council Res. 181 and 182, 1963. ↑
Newell M. Stultz, “The Evolution of the U.N. Anti-apartheid Regime,” Human Rights Quarterly, 13 (Fall 1991): 18-19. ↑
“South Africa Fact Sheet,” (New York: The Africa Fund, November 1988). ↑
U.N. Security Council Resolution 418 (1977) ↑
Congressional Studies Quarterly (October 1985), 226. ↑
Richard Rothstein, TAP, Vol. 7, #27, July1 – August 1, 1996, pp. 1-10. ↑
Ibid, 3. ↑
Congressional Studies Quarterly, October 1985, p. 226. ↑
Ibid. ↑
Ibid, 242. ↑
Ibid, 231. ↑
Malcolm Fraser and Olusegun Obasanjo, “What to do about South Africa,” Foreign Affairs, 65 (Fall 1986), 154. ↑
Ibid. ↑
Ibid, 161-162. ↑
Hearings on aid to SADCC (Southern African Development Coordination Conference): Testimony of Randall Robinson, Executive Director of Trans-Africa before the House Sub-Committee on Africa, Washington, D.C., March 18, 1987. ↑
Prepared Statement of Randall Robinson, Executive Director of Trans-Africa before the Sub-Committee on International Economic Policy and Trade Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, Wash., D.C., March 23, 1988; See also Testimony by Randall Robinson before the Sub-Committee on African Affairs Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, October 22, 1987. ↑
New York Times (July 11, 1991). ↑
Ibid. ↑
Ibid. ↑
Ibid. ↑
Quoted in Bronwen Manby, OP CIT. ↑
Quoted in Anthony W. Marx, “International Intervention in South Africa: The Difficult Transition to Development Assistance,” Journal of international Affairs, 46, 1 (Summer 1992). ↑
Wall Street Journal (January 9, 1985). ↑
Financial Times (August 30,1985). ↑
New York Times (June 4, 1989); See also Washington Post (June 2, 1989). ↑
New York Times (September 21, 1989). ↑
South Africa Review, 4, 3 (March 1992); Khehla Shubane, “South Africa: A New Government in the Making,” Current History (May 1992): 202-207. ↑
Patrick Lawrence, “South Africa: The One Year of Negotiations,” Africa Report (Jan.-Feb., 1992): 48-50.; Patrick Lawrence, “South Africa: Deadlocked,” Africa Report (July/August 1992) 55-57; Patrick Lawrence, “South Africa: Finding Common Ground,” Africa Report (May/June 1993) 25-27.; Anne Shepherd, “South Africa: Keeping the Peace,” Africa Report (July/August 1993) 57-59; See also Anne Shepherd,” South Africa: Problem Child,” Africa Report (May/June 1993) 28-31. ↑
Patrick Lawrence, “South Africa: Coming to a Compromise,” AFRICA REPORT (March/April 1992): 45-48; See also Denis Herbstein, “South Africa: Getting Out to Vote,” Africa Report (July /August 1993): 60-62. ↑
Greensboro News & Records (September 25, 1993), A9. ↑
Ebony Magazine (August 1994), 68. ↑
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