Sanctioning Apartheid - KORA

Sanctioning Apartheid
would probably have been a Nkomati-type agreement long ago
between South Africa and Botswana. South Africa needs the
productive base in soda ash in Botswana. That it deepens
Botswana's dependence in general (which it does) and that it
helps South Africa withstand the pressure of sanctions (which it
does) are therefore not the only issues to be considered. It also
strengthens Botswana in certain ways in its relations with South
Africa. That this is contradictory should not be surprising, given
the contradictory nature of relations in this regional capitalist
periphery.
Finally, and most speculatively, some of the evidence would
suggest that South Africa's regional policy may be changing
somewhat. Some years ago South Africa proposed a political and
economic "constellation" of states in southern Africa, to be
formed through diplomacy and with the carrot of South African
aid. When that initiative failed, South Africa turned to the policy
of destabilization and set about systematically attacking its
neighbors for the real and supposed excuse that they were
providing aid and comfort to South Africa's enemies, the African
National Congress in particular. Punitive raids, the funding and
training of so-called "freedom fighters" like in Angola and
~ A M in O Mozambique, and other forms of subversion were
repayment for the southern African nations' refusal to go along
with apartheid.
Now, however, the arena of the struggle against apartheid
has widened (very marginally in most respects) to include what
has become world opinion on the side of imposing some kind of
sanctions on South Africa. The cost of maintahhg apartheid has
gone up, if marpdly. The South African economy has to
respond to the sanctions environment and one means of doing so
is to return to its regional base. It needs to protect and expand
its market in southern Africa as a cushion against the loss of
overseas markets. It needs to secure as wide a net of raw
materials in southern Africa as possible in order to cushion the
effects of overseas supplies drying up with sanctions. It needs to
create positive economic inducements to gain the cooperation, if
indirect, of its neighbors. Perhaps we are in for another shift in
South African policy because of the sanctions environment. It
might be appropriate to finish with an extract of an opinion piece