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South Africa Embattled

By John de St. Jorre
America and the World 1986
Article Summary and Author Biography

Examines the nature and extent of Botha's reforms, and their failure culminating in the 1986 state of emergency. Despite his policies to defeat or co-opt all opposition groups both black and white, the confrontation between government and anti-government forces is deepening. Traces how and why South Africa reached the top of the US and Western political agenda, which led to the end of Reagan's policy of constructive engagement and the failure of the Commonwealth's EPG, and the beginning of disengagement. The effects of sanctions and South Africa's policies towards the front-line states are polarizing the country and worsening the crisis throughout Southern Africa.

John de St. Jorre, author of South Africa: A House Divided, is currently editing a series of monographs updating the Thomas Commission report, South Africa: Time Running Out, of which he was a senior writer. He spent two months in southern Africa in early 1986.

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There has been a clearing of the decks, both inside South Africa and in U.S. relations with that country, during the past year. The South African government, after almost two years of stop-and-go repression and appeasement, decided by midyear to take a much tougher line against black resistance and put its reform plans on hold. The United States surged out in front of South Africa’s other major industrial trading partners by imposing substantial sanctions against Pretoria, with Congress overriding President Reagan’s veto in the process. All this decisiveness shot a few more holes through the tattered sails of the Administration’s "constructive engagement," leaving U.S. policy adrift in a rising sea.

These events may have clarified the situation, but they have also narrowed the Administration’s policy options and diminished its leverage. The South African government is clearly no longer expecting any favors from its Western "friends" as it cracks down hard on its opponents, black and white, prepares its counter-sanctions strategy, and conditions its white population for a less opulent, but still good life in a siege state.

Further tightening of emergency regulations at the year’s end indicated that black resistance was continuing, although the effectiveness of that challenge is increasingly difficult to judge due to the South African government’s almost total censorship of the local and foreign press. What is clear, however, is that Pretoria has not yet been able to crush dissent and restore the atmosphere of relative calm that prevailed in the country before the crisis began in September 1984.

In the United States, a process of disengagement seems to be under way. The Anti-Apartheid Act, passed into law over the President’s veto last October, sent a strong signal to South Africa’s whites that their ultimate salvation does not lie with the U.S. cavalry. Using up some of the ammunition in the policymaker’s arsenal, the United States has distanced itself from the white government. Major U.S. companies are pulling out, adding a private-sector component to the policy of public ostracism decreed by Congress.

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