Sanctioning Apartheid - KORA

Sntlcfioning Apartheid
to the anti-apartheid movement worldwide. The trip to
Gaborone by the South African Foreign Minister, Pik Botha, in
October, is a case in point, as Mmegi u~ Dikgang/The Reporter
points out
For one thing he [Pik Bothal was here during the very
week that all the Commonwealth Heads of State and
Government, apart from Britain's Mrs. Thatcher, were
&g for increased sanctions, to discuss action by the
Customs Union which would result in tying Botswana
economically, ever more closely to South Africa. He
chose to claim on his return to Pretoria that South
Africa was doing more to help Front Line Slates than
the Commonwealth and other donors are doing,
quoting Sua Pan and railways cooperation as two such
measures, and this claim was supported by the more
symphtic of the South African newspapers. He was
also able to accuse the American Soda Ash Consortium
of hypoaisy in trying to label Botswana's pro@
project an "investment in apartheid", calling it an alibi
for continuing their own exports to the land of apar-
theid.jO
The ambiguity which results is in the end a recognition that
relations between Botswana and South Africa-nomic and
politicahare part of a continuing struggle rooted in the contra-
dictions of the national, regional, and international systems. The
resulting analytical minefield clan only be effectively mapped by
keeping one's eyes on the prize of a liberated South Africa and
a peaceful and progressive pattern of development in the future
for the region as a whole.
Notes
. Migmnt Lrbour ad Tdhl Iifi: A Study of Conditimrs in the Bechuann-
lond Protect& (Landox Oxford U nkdy Ress, 1947). 1 have
developed cerkiin of these themes at more length in my B o w