Pro And Con: Conflicting views on sanctions

As gnawing as the problem of apartheid is the question of what opponents can do about it. The Reagan Administration maintains that the way to influence South Africa’s white minority government is to continue doing business with the country. Others, including South African Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, claim economic sanctions are a way to get P.W. Botha’s government to change its policy. Last week anyone seeking to choose between the two opinions had reason to be more confused than ever.

In Washington the Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on South Africa urged that the U.S. press its allies to strengthen economic and political . sanctions against South Africa. That was not what the Reagan Administration had expected to hear from its own committee. The White House set up the twelve-member panel of specialists from business, diplomacy, labor and politics last November in hopes of deflecting congressional pressure for stiff sanctions. Now nine members of the group, including former IBM Chairman Frank Cary and onetime Transportation Secretary William Coleman Jr., indicated in a 72-page report that the Administration’s policy of constructive engagement with South Africa has turned out to be ineffective. They said only stronger economic and political sanctions would force the South African government to negotiate with the black majority.

Three dissenters were vigorous in their objections. Lawrence Eagleburger, former Under Secretary of State, Roger Smith, chairman of General Motors, and John Dellenback, a retired Republican Congressman from Oregon, argued in 13 pages of alternative opinion that “evidence suggests that it is in the context of a growing economy that South Africa has the greatest likelihood of resolving its basic problems.”

Meanwhile in South Africa, the country’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference, which last May came out in favor of sanctions, was now concerned about their shortcomings. In an interim study the bishops said sanctions have not affected official policy and have punished South African blacks. Said the report: “The whole issue of economic pressures has clearly had a totally counterproductive effect on government thinking. Government attitudes have become noticeably more and more defiant, more so than when sanctions were threatened.” The bishops’ study also found that while blacks were willing to endure hardship to end apartheid, “if the policy is likely to produce a loss of their vitally needed jobs, most blacks prove to be tentative about pressing the issue.”