Sanctioning Apartheid - KORA

Works, Ways and M-, Interior, and Energy4 reviewed the
bill and added amendmen&. In its final born, 1580
si@cantly tightened the language of the 1986 Act and added
tougher provisions, including: that no American can hold or
acquire any investment, including limnsI in South Africa 180 days
after the law is passed and that American businesses with over
24 employees have 90 days to terminate their business; that no
article from South Africa can be imported into the US. (exempted
are strategic metals); that no US. goods rrafl be exported to
South Africa (exempted are humanitarian and charitable materials);
and that no American can assist in the transporting of crude
oil or pz&oleum to %uth Africa.
When the bill m e to a floor vote in the How on 11
August 1988, it passed 244 to 132 and was sent to the Senate
where an identical bill, S. 2756, was intrcduced by Sen. Alan
Cranstan CIZKA) in the Senate Foreign Relations CommitLee. A
provision to prohibit any oil company sehg oil to South Africa
from acquiring new fed& oil leases was deletd' but the bill
did make it out of committ&y a slim 10-to-9 margin on
strictly party lines. But when it m e before the full Senate, it
sucrrumbed to a variety of problems. First, the Senate Majority
Leader, Robert Byrd (D-Wa), who had the power to decide
which bills would come up for a floor vote, did not support the
bill, and second, the bill did not have the suppart of moderate
RepubEm8 who had been willing to go dong with limited
sanctions in 1986. It is doubtful whether they would have gone
along with tougher sanctions in my event, but coming as it did
in the midst of he 1988 Presidential mpaign, no Senate
R e e k was willing to put President Reagan in a bind again
or undercut the campaign of George Bush. The campaign also
had an impact on Democrab. The Democratic candidate, Michael
Dukakis, strongly supported tougher sanctions, and he would
have been emb& by Denrocfats who voted against the bill
if it had come to a vote. Pdy, the bill got caught up in
international oontmvemies. Several newspapers editoridbed that
pasage of the bill would have alienated Suth Africa at a time
when delicate negotiations ova Namibia were in pmgrss
Cignaring the fact that sanctions and the threat of tougher
sanctions had played a consfmctive role in bringing South Africa