Whether the time has come to lift sanctions will be a topic of fierce debate in Washington this summer. Certainly, de Klerk has taken historic steps in less than two years on the job. But has he gone far enough? A report card:
De Klerk has overcome bitter resistance from South Africa’s right wing in dismantling the legal framework for discrimination. Nonwhites are now allowed to live and own land anywhere they want. However, he rejected a proposal that would have allowed some 3.5 million nonwhites who were forcibly removed from land, homes and businesses under apartheid to seek compensation. For staying the course, de Klerk deserves an A-minus.
De Klerk hasn’t addressed the social cost of apartheid. Pretoria still spends four times as much to educate a white child as it does to educate a black child. At least 13 racially biased laws are still on the books, including a 1973 act that provides whites with bigger state pensions than blacks. After taking power in 1948, de Klerk’s National Party created thousands of jobs for its own ethnic group, the Afrikaners. Blacks, meanwhile, must fend for themselves. “Market forces will govern this whole process,” Planning and Provincial Affairs Minister Hernus Kriel said in February. “The removal of the Group Areas Act will not solve our housing problem. because the majority of black people do not form part of the higher-income group.” For social change: C-minus.
De Klerk hasn’t revealed just how much political power he is willing to give blacks. He rejects the African National Congress’s demand to have a popularly elected “constituent assembly” write a new constitution. De Klerk wants roundtable talks with all political parties, including blacks who collaborated with the government under apartheid. Many blacks suspect he has a hidden agenda for entrenching white privilege. The ANC accuses the police of fomenting black-on-black violence in the townships as a way of weakening its influence and says it will boycott negotiations until the fighting is quelled. De Klerk’s grade on real political reform: incomplete.
President Bush would like to reward de Klerk’s reforms by lifting sanctions, imposed in 1986 over President Reagan’s veto. He says Pretoria has met four of five conditions Congress set for ending the economic boycott; the only one remaining is the release of all political prisoners. Bush also wants to get the sanctions debate out of the way fast, so the Democrats can’t drag it into the next campaign. The White House is preparing to send a team of lawyers to examine claims by the ANC that South Africa still holds nearly 1,000 political prisoners (the government says many of these are common criminals). “The law is very clear,” said Bush. “When the five conditions are met, the sanctions will be lifted.”
Liberal members of Congress oppose lifting sanctions now. Echoing the ANC, they say that would encourage de Klerk to delay more meaningful concessions on a new political deal for blacks. “What he has done is merely to bring about changes which maintain the status quo,” Nelson Mandela said in a recent broadcast interview. American antiapartheid leaders argue that de Klerk has yet to demonstrate his commitment to good-faith negotiations, another condition of the sanctions law. Some sanctions should remain until a new constitution gives blacks the right to vote, they say. Sen. Edward Kennedy urged the administration to begin “serious consultations” with Congress and warned of court action if Bush lifts sanctions on his own.
In fact, the decision on U.S. sanctions won’t have much bearing on the complex power struggle that lies ahead in South Africa. Foreign investors will be leery of South Africa until township violence is curbed and a new investment policy developed. And with the core constitutional issues unresolved, further confrontation is inevitable. The ANC has called for a massive affirmative-action program for “the men and women who in the past have been disadvantaged by discrimination.” And despite the collapse of the Soviet empire, many ANC militants still believe in “scientific socialism” and wholesale nationalization. De Klerk has moved further and faster than almost anyone expected. But South Africa still has a long way to go before apartheid will truly belong to history.
