Sanctioning Apartheid - KORA

policy that has evolved declares that the isolation of apartheid
Mtutions will continue, while direct contacts and exchanges
between anti-apheid groups inside and outside the country can
be broadened so that the "culture of liberation" can flourish The
National Executive of the African National Con- has
a d d this poky and organizations associated with the mass
democratic movement have created a cultural desk with elected
representatives from cultural organizations which will make
policy and make decisions on spet5.k boycott issues. This does
not necessarily mean that there will always be darity on which
events, groups or individuals will be given a blessing, but an
important shift has taken place.=
Although the focus of this collection is on the extemal
p- that crtn be brought to bear on the South African
regime, the contributors understand full well that, in the final
analysis, the challenges mounted by opposition movements
within South Africa will be more decisive in determining the
manner in which the apartheid system is ended. Sanctions are
not a secret weapon that can magically topple the apartheid
regime on their own. They contribute more when they operate
in tandem with the efforts of the South African Mass Democratic
Movement to force the South AErican regime to recognize the
necessity of totally dismantling and not merely reforming the
edges of the apartheid &ce. F. W. de Kl&s reformist moves
have not been inconsequential, but he remains a dogged defender
of group rights-which is a cornerstone of apartheid4 he has
not addressed the necessity for fundamental political and
~oeeonoglic change. A recent report prepared for the Commonwealth
nations puts the argument for sanctions this way:
Sanctions are a diplomatic tooL They are a spur to the
negotiating process, not an alternative to it. . . . The
ulliaate god of sanctions is political-to promote
negotiations. The intermediate goal is to create a
growing group of people who will press for genuine
talksI and thus help to build a lobby for negotiations. . . .
We see the role of sanctions as making it inaeashgly
difficult to maintain even a "reformed" apartheid, thus
forcing white South Africans to realize that fundamen-
tal change must take place."