Sanctioning Apartheid - KORA

SOUTH AFRICAN SANCTIONS
BREAKING IN SOUTHERN AFRICA:
TEE CASE OF SWAZILANE)
Introduction
Alan R. Booth
Of all the ucerhinties and ambiguities surrounding the
Western world's slapping of economic sanctions on South Africa
during 1986, one thing is definite. South African attempts to
obscure their effects on its economy, and to cover its tracks in
evading them, have been quite effective.
Government censorship of the South African press has made
it quite useless as a source for "sanctions-breaking" research.
Govenunent figures on foreign trade, which were always
obscured, becarme increasingly secret-the first d t y , rdy, of
sanctions. Customs and excise figures have continud to be
published, but information on harbor traffic and shipping
schedules, for instance, have been curbed; while South Africa and
its trade partners' figures have begun to include Namiiia and
other neighboring states.'
So statisticians have had to make do with sumglary figures.
Export statistics indicate that when gold is fadored out, some of
South Mca's eomodity exports are feeling the pinch of