Sanctioning Apartheid - KORA

South Africa's credit rating and it has had to turn to trade a-edits
as a key saurw for financing its inkmational trade and for
im-g capital goods. Six countries4Zreat Britain, the United
StatesI We Gmnany, Switzerland, Fmce, and Jawpply most of these credits, John Lind and David Koistinen show that
trade d t s have given South A£riea breathing space and that if
they were all cut off at once, South Africa would be put in a
major predicament as it would have to raise $4 billion to $7
billion in foreign exchange to finance trade, an almost impossible
task.
Another area in which South Africa is vulnerable is oil
importation, where, despite South African efforts to achieve self-
SUfhdency through its coal-tooil conversion plants, it still
depends on imports for about twethirds of its liquid fuel needs.
Moreover, Piquid fuels are funnelled to a few mitical areas: the
transport sector and the police and military. Jaap Woldendorp
details the extensive propans and laws %uth Africa has
initiated to meet its oil needs. The United Nations has adopted
an 02 ernbargo, but it has not been effectively carried out, largely
because of the opposition of the United States and the United
Kingdom in the U.N. Security Council, and because there are oilproducing
countries, oil tcade~~, and shipping companies that are
wilhg to supply South M s needs at a premium price. An
August 1983 report prepared for the Commonwealth Commie
of Foreign A4inisters on Soufhm Africa concluded that if the
100phoIes in oil exportation to South Africa were tightened, it
wdd add mother $2 a h l to the price South Africa pays for
oiL5
A third pressure point is gold. South Africa provides over
a third of world gold production and gold yields about 35% to
40% of all of South Africa's foreign exchange earnings. Moreover,
an elevated gold price on world markets allows South
Africa to cushion the shock of sanctions. It has long been
argued, however, that the implementation of sanctions against
South African gold would be a complex challenge because of the
diHiculty of tracing the origin of gold and because it would
dinupt the world gold xmdcet But lan Lepper and Peter
Robbins present an imaginative plan for a ban on South African
gold that can be implemented through the cooperation of nations