Sanctioning Apartheid - KORA

Sanctioning Apartheid 7
and by carefuIy monitoring bullion refiners and "middlemen"
who might try to sell the gold, and compensating for the loss of
the 600 tons of gold that South Africa annually produces by
drawing on the large reserves of gold which most nations keep.
The question is often raised as to how black pple Ln South
fica perceive the sanctions isme. A number of polls have been
taken which have raised even more controversy since in a
number of cases the questions asked in the polls have been
framed in such a way as to elicit a certain answer. The most
recent survey was done by the South African Chamber of Mines
and not surprisingly it found that 811% of black South Africans
were oppased to disinvestment and sanctions {and the results
were fortuitously released as a delegation of South A6ican
derg-en was meeting with President Bush): David Hirsch-
mann takes a different tack His chapter is based not on a poll,
but on intensive interviews with a focus group: 93 second- and
third-level urban African leaders representing a wide range of
o?ganizations and viewpoints. The strength of Hirsdrmann's
research is not that he reduces the views of the people he
interviewed to swne easily quantifiable result, hi that he
provides their testimony on a series of issues. He dues identify
some trends in thhkhg which are worth noting. that this group
of black South A£ricans was generally suspicious of US policy
despite the passage of the Anti-Apartheid Act, that they were
aware of the sophistry of American corporations in divesting
from South Africa, that hostiIity towards American pow in
South Africa had not abated, and that more and more blacks
were identifjhg apartheid with capitatism.
Opponents of sanctions argue that, because the Anti-
Apartheid Act has been ineffective, sanctions are an ineffedive
and inappropriate tactic to combat apartheid. But conhibutions
to this volume provide ample testimony that the Act has not
been as &&ve as it might have been because of how it has
been interpreted and implemented, compared to its ori@
intent Dgspite all the resenrations that bve been raised about
the Act, a case mn be made that it played a very positive role in
forcing the Reagan administration to reexamine its decided tilt in
favor of the South Afrimn regime. The Act reaeeted a genuine
outpouring of American public sentiment against the apartheid