Sanctioning Apartheid - KORA

Sanctioning Apttheid 3
Man parastatals and on South African uranium oxide; and the
prohibition of certain exports such as computers, oil, arms, and
nuclear material from the US. She concludes that huse the
executive and legislative branches were split over the law,
"selective sancfions invite(d) misinterpretation and evasions" by
the executive bmd~ In other words, half-measures halfheartedly
imposed cannot be expected to have much of an imp&
Adding weight to McDougd's concerns is a 1989 Geneml
Accounting Office (GAO) report that found that while the State
Department had given the US Customs Service the names of 106
South African government agencies and parastatals, it had failed
to provide a list of the products produced by these institutions.
The GAUS conclusion was that "Customs dws not know which
South A£rkan products could have come from pamstatals.. .
and so mot devote special enfDrcemmt attention to them."'
Several chapters in this collection examine in more detail the
qu~~tiom McDougall raises about cornputas and strategic
mind. For instance, Thom Conrad's examination of
American computer sales to South Africa is a case in point of
how ambiguously worded restrictions have little practical effect
In 1978, the US government toughened the arms embargo by
placing restrictions on which agencies in the South African
government certain high tech items like computers couId be sold
to. Despite these regulations, US computers make their way to
the South African military and police, who use computers for
control of South Africa's black community. McDougall shares
Conrad's concern about controlling computer sales. She argues
that bemuse the Anti-Apartheid Act prohibits US. computers to
"aptheid enforcing agencies" does not mean that the computers
will not eventually make their usray to precisely the branches of
the government that should be off limits.
The Reagan adminisiration had designated ten mind
imported from South Africa as exempt from the pr0vision.s of the
Anti-Apartheid Act Sanford Wright considers three of the
meb.k-ehromium, vanadium, and the platinum group me*
and condudes that while Western countries rely heavily on some
of South Africa's strategic minerals, there are domestic and
international alternative sources of supply. Moreever, the US has
&dent stockpiles of these minerals to meet demand until new