Apartheid South Africa and 'constructive engagement'

This is a belated response to the comments recently made by David Cameron, Conservative Party leader, regarding British policy towards apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. DC claimed the Conservatives were wrong to pursue 'constructive engagement', as opposed to 'sanctions'.

Introduction

Promiment amongst the left's long list of criticisms made against Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan is the refusal of both leaders to enforce sactions against apartheid South Africa during the 1980s. Prima facie, this greivance is understandable, as without a closer inspection of the historical and political situation, opposing such sanctions would seem to be, if not an endorsement of the racist regime, then at the very least a callousness towards the disenfranchised black population. This important and highly sensitive subject is worthy of closer inspection.

We need to ask whether the Thatcher/Reagan policy was wise, given the historical, geo-political and economic context, and whether the conventional view that opposing sanctions was morally wrong should be challenged.

This post will argue that:

a) The economic implications of the sanctions in respect of the black population are seemingly ignored.

b) There was in fact dipomatic work undergirding relations with South Africa that put substantial pressure on the apartheid regime to change.

c) The criticisms of Anglo/American policy fail to consider the implications of imposing sanctions for the West's geo-political strategy, in the light of the Cold War, a crucial battle for the long-term supremacy of democratic values and human rights.


A. Economics

It is related in an interview with a South African priest that the policy of 'constructive engagement', as opposed to the enforcement of sanctions, was morally wrong and that President Reagan's justification amounted only to an interest in profit, not the lives of the oppressed, and that Anglo/American policy halted, rather than hastened, univeral suffrage.

It seems that this argument fails to consider the fact that the lives of the oppressed would inevitably have been affected by the crippling of the South African economy. If the West was to 'disinvest', as it were, the day-to-day running of the mines would be put in jeapardy, and with them the jobs of thousands of South African blacks. In this respect, sanctions may have destablished South Africa in such a way that was detrimental to the people it aimed to help.

B. Diplomacy

The attempt to impose sanctions may have met with angry definance from the white political leadership. The UN had, after all, passed resolutions against apartheid with little effect. Given this, it is certainly questionable whether the 1986 sanctions proposals would have been effective. Diplomacy, which was the policy that Reagan and Thatcher pursued, was possibly the more viable option. And there is no doubt that these two Cold warriors were fully opposed to the apartheid system with all its injustices.

C. Cold War strategy

Its easy to forget, living as we do in a post-cold war world, just what the Communist threat looked like in the 1980s. It may not have been quite as great as the more hawkish elements may have claimed at the time, but it would not be wise to ignore the fact that Africa in the 1980s was deeply engaged in an ideological stuggle. Southern Africa was a hotbed of proxy activities. Whilst Ethopia was in the clutches of a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship, receiving aid from the Soviet Union, Angola was locked in what was to be a long and devastating conflict between Communist and anti-Communist forces. Relations with countries in the north were hardly cordial, with Libya being the primary example in that respect.

In these turbulent circumstances, it is generally understandable that the US would want an ideological ally in the struggle against Communist ascendency in the region. The South African government were a reliable ally in this important ideological struggle. This is not an insigficiant point. Many have argued that America was inconsistent and hypocritical in opposing Communist dictatorships but supporting other 'friendly' world leaders whose record on human rights was itself pretty dire.

But the argument, in this author's view, boils down to this. Full-blooded Communism in Southern Africa would have been a far more insuperable obstacle to freedom than an bizarre and unjust apartheid system in one country that was already in decline.

Conclusion

Naturally and indisputably, it is right to oppose human rights violations wherever they occur. But then 'constructive engagement' was not opposed to this principle. It merely considered sanctions an ineffective way of helping to achieve Anglo/American objectives in the region, one of which was to bring about the end of apartheid.