DEBATE                                               TRANSFORMATION 7 (1988)
THE STATE OF APARTHEID:
Assessing sanctions at year one.
                                 Mike Fleshman and Jim Cason
    A year after Congress overrode his veto and imposed limited sanctions
on South Africa, US President Ronald Reagan remains adamantly opposed
to the use of economic pressure against his 'old friends' in Pretoria. In a
report to Congress in early October, Reagan declared, 'I continue to believe
that punitive sanctions are not the best way to bring freedom to South Africa'.
    The President said that while sanctions had had minimal impact on the
South African economy they had nevertheless somehow contributed
significantly to black unemployment and in some cases had concentrated
'marginally^ more economic power in white hands - although the report
concedes that black South Africans are disenfranchised economically as well
as politically under apartheid. Reagan also noted that the sanctions had
accelerated corporate disinvestment, which he charged hurt blacks by
eliminating many of the educational and social welfare programs US
corporations had been funding.
    'In addition', the report continues, 'our sanctions measures have made it
more difficult for the United States to persuade the South African
government to act responsibly on human rights issues, to move towards
negotiations, and to restrain its behaviour in the region'.
    But if the arguments against sanctions are tired and familiar, the harsh
tone of the report is not. After one year of sanctions, Reagan acknowledges
        I regret that I am unable to report significant progress leading
        to the end of apartheid and the establishment of a nonracial
        democracy in South Africa. No clear and credible plan has
        been devised for negotiating a future political system involving
        all people equally in South Africa, and many of the legitimate
        representatives of the majority in that country are still banned,
        in hiding, or in detention. The Government of South Africa has
        not ended military and paramilitary activities aimed at neigh-
        boring states. Instead, such activities have been stepped up...
        (including) the increase in unexplained deaths and disappear-
        ances of anti-apartheid activists throughout the region.
    Strong stuff, coming from an administration which has been one of the
staunchest defenders of the 'reformist' Botha government. But policy
changes have not accompanied the changes in rhetoric. Instead of additional
sanctions - 'that would be harmful to United States strategic or economic


  TRANSFORMATION                                              FLESHMAN & CASON
  interests - all the administration can offer is 'a period of active and creative
  diplomacy' somehow leading to negotiations between the government and
  its black opponents.
      The administration's refusal to recommend new sanctions prompted
  House Ainca subcommittee chairman Howard Wolpe to accuse Reagan of
  'apologizing' for apartheid and has set the stage for a confrontation with
  Congressional liberals. Both the House and the Senate have begun to hold
  hearings on the Presidential report, and a range of additional measures will
  be proposed.
      A comprehensive sanctions bill, introduced by Representative Ron
  Dellums, is already before Congress. This legislation would mandate
  complete corporate disinvestment and cut off all trade (except 'strategic
 metals').
      Other bills would deny tax credits to US companies in South Africa,
 would prevent US oil companies from operating inside South Africa, and
 would ban the importation of South African diamonds. A fourth bill,
 introduced by Texas Democrat Mickie Leland, would prohibit investments
 in the United States by 'certain South African mining interests'.
      In the House, meanwhile, action on any of the proposed additional
 sanctions measures has been postponed until at least Spring 1988, and
 Congressional staffers are not optimistic about passage of new sanctions
 even then. Significantly, since its introduction last spring, the Dellums bill
 has garnered only two co-sponsors in the 100-member Senate, and just 65 in
 the House.
      At the heart of Congressional indifference towards sanctions is the
 demobilization of American public opinion around South Africa. It's now
 been eighteen months since South African censors effectively removed the
 compelling images of racial violence from the nightly news, and the public
 has moved on to other more visible issues. Indeed, US television networks
 have been so cowed by South African press restrictions, that CBS refused
for almost six months to air an hour long documentary on children in
detention filmed secretly by Walter Cronkite for fear of official retaliation.
      Compounding this problem is the public perception that US policy
shifted against apartheid with the passage of sanctions. The clear moral
imperative that inspired such critical efforts as the Free South Africa
Movement during 1984-85 has ironically been diluted by the very success of
last year's sanctions campaign.
     Over the past year US anti-apartheid activists have struggled to find new
issues and new campaigns to revive public outrage about apartheid. A
number of campaigns to focus attention on detentions have been initiated,
including some involving prominent members of Congress and TV
personality Bill Cosby. TransAfrica is attempting to inject Southern Africa
into the presidential race through its 'Faces Behind Apartheid' television ads
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  FLESHMAN & CASON                                           TRANSFORMATION
  targeting Kansas Republican Bob Dole for his voting record on sanctions.
 But those efforts have met with only limited success.
     Attempts to revitalize the sanctions and divestment movements in the US
 have been further hampered by the conflicting signals about sanctions
 coming from the democratic movement inside South Africa. Over the last
 year there has been an increasingly visible debate within, particularly the
 trade union movement, over the impact of sanctions and disinvestment on
 black workers and the state. As international sanctions, combined with the
 deterioration of the South African economy, have begun to cost jobs in such
 industries as automobile assembly, some trade unionists have begun to
 question the desirability of sanctions and disinvestment.
     A resolution on sanctions passed by COSATU in 1987 called for
 comprehensive mandatory sanctions against the regime, but went on to say
 that 'selective sanctions ... as currently applied will not be effective against
capital or the state; that they cause serious regional unemployment, and that
they often serve the interests of the imperialist states rather than the South
African working class'. The resolution, echoing arguments that sanctions are
ineffective and hurt blacks most, is often cited by the administration and big
business as proof that black workers oppose sanctions.
     COSATU's increasingly ambivalent attitude towards corporate
withdrawal from South Africa has also begun to undermine the divestment
movement - by far the most important and successful anti-apartheid
campaign in the United States. Divestment and selective purchasing actions
by hundreds of private institutions and dozens of state, local and city
governments now deny tens of billions of dollars in investment capital and
hundreds of millions of dollars in sales to US corporations who operate in
South Africa. But COSATU's sanctions and disinvestment resolutions make
no call for corporate withdrawal, and disinvestment is pointedly excluded
from a list of selective sanctions endorsed by the COSATU congress earlier
this year.
     The recently announced 'disinvestment' agreement between the Ford
Motor Company and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa
(NUMSA), a COSATU affiliate, appears to be even more damaging to the
sanctions and divestment movement. As reported by the US press, the
accord requires Ford to transfer 24 percent ownership in its South African
subsidiary to NUMSA, with the remainder of Ford's shares to be sold to the
Anglo American Corporation, which already holds a majority stake in the
Ford operation.
     The agreement thus eliminates all of Ford's direct investments in South
Africa, but at NUMSA's insistence, will continue the parent company's
licensing, sales and transfer agreements with the South African firm.
Anti-apartheid activists in the US point out that many local divestment and
selective purchasing laws include corporations with such licensing and sales
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 TRANSFORMATION                                            FLESHMAN & CASON
 agreements. They also charge that the transfer of shares to South African
 unions is part of an increasingly sophisticated US corporate strategy to
 neutralize the divestment movements and drive a wedge between the unions
 and the international solidarity movement.
     Adding to this perception of softening support for sanctions within the
 labour movement have been increasingly vocal attacks on sanctions and
 disinvestment from the 'workerist' faction of intellectuals clustered around
 the black labour movement. Indeed, in recent months the strongest
 opposition to disinvestment and incremental sanctions has seemed to come
 from the intellectuals - and not from black trade unionists themselves.
     This summer, several studies critical of the impact of sanctions and
 disinvestment were prepared by white workerist intellectuals for COSATU
 and the Catholic Bishops Conference. The studies, intended for internal
 discussion and review and not as position papers of the federation, were then
 leaked to the press in an apparent attempt to influence the debate in the
 United States. These reports received wide press coverage, particularly in
 The Wall Street Journal and the ultra-right Washington Times and are being
 cited by conservatives and big business as evidence that inside South Africa
 the trade unions and the churches oppose sanctions.
     In the United States, the surge of academic, corporate and institutional
interest in South Africa has created a growing demand for information and
research on virtually every aspect of South African society, from the economy
to education, to black public opinion. This is giving the researchers, drawn
from South Africa's predominately white academic community, an influence
in the debate here that appears to be disproportionate to their numbers and
to their role back home. Their relationship to the liberation movement, and
to the democratic movement inside South Africa, is often unclear to their US
audiences. The ideological and tactical debate within the progressive
movement, and the political views of the academic 'experts' who come to the
United States are often poorly understood. Moreover, the rigorous defense
of clearly defined political positions inside South Africa can have a much
different interpretation outside, with conservatives eager to portray
disagreement as division within the ranks.
    This is not to discount the importance or legitimacy of the debate on
sanctions inside South Africa. It is easy to understand the dilemma of a shop
steward at a US multi-national in South Africa explaining COSATU's
support for sanctions. But there is growing sentiment in the United States
that the debate is not being accurately represented here, and that individuals
and organizations hostile to the ANC and to sanctions are using their
privileged access to the West to weaken the international sanctions drive.
The unprincipled manipulation of this important debate by people with
uncertain mandates is beginning to pose problems for the US movement and
for future sanctions efforts.
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