Sanctioning Apartheid - KORA

Sanctions against South Africa: LPsotho's Role 343
distinct aroma of South African disinformation. Pretoria in
practice as opposed to rhetoric has displayed little interest in
encouraging democracy in its neighbors, and is much more likely
to be opposed to King Moshoeshoe II for the simple reason that
he, sometimes dubbed the "mildly marxist monarch" by irrever-
ent expatriates in Lesotho, is well known to espouse views very
inimical to Pretoria
Eff eds of - Sanctions
The starting point for any discussion of the effects of
sanctions has to be the disclaimer that it is very difficult to
&truss the effects of sanctions in the best of circumstances,
because sf the substantial u~lceriahties involved, but it is almost
impossible to be at all precise if the exact specification of the
sanctions under discussion is unknown. One is forced, therefore,
to make some assumptions about the nature of the sanctions to
be considered.
The types of sanctions we will consider are two, namely
those that close markets to South African exports, and those that
deny South Africa legal access to imports from certain source,
typically of high technology products. In addition, we will make
some comments on effeds of campaigns against investment in
South mca.
The first of these kinds of sanction is by far the more
important for Lesotho, and, to be blunt, their imposition is easily
the most positive development for the Lesotho economy for
several years. It is crucial to carefully explain why this is so, and
how it can be without Lesotho doing anything that, in its view
at least, could reasonably be regarded as attempting to defeat the
purposes of sanctions against South Africa--although opinions
might differ about that, even if one had complete sympathy with
Lesotho's decision about policy.
To understand why this should be so, we will need to
review briefly the economic situation of Lesotho and the
economic development strategy it has pursued since independence.
htho now has a population of approximately 1.6
million people, about 84% of whom live in rural areas. However,