South Africa: Straight Talk on Sanctions

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William Minter (1986). South Africa: Straight Talk on Sanctions. Foreign Policy, No. 65 (Winter 1986-1987). Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC.

Type	journal article
Scope	Wider apartheid literature
Method	policy analysis
Period studied	1960–1986
Regions	South Africa, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, SADCC states, United States
Themes	sanctions divestment, macro fiscal finance debt, business and state, politics ideology elections, resistance social movements, comparative theory, labour markets wages
Citation key	minter1986

Argument

Minter argues that the 'sanctions never work' slogan is false and that comprehensive sanctions are the only non-military route to bringing the apartheid regime to negotiate. Drawing on the sanctions literature (Baldwin; Hufbauer and Schott) and the Rhodesian precedent, he holds that sanctions work cumulatively and over the long term, not immediately. He distinguishes apartheid as a narrow ideology from the broader century-old system of white privilege, and argues the latter cannot be reformed from above. Short-term costs to blacks and to neighbouring states are acknowledged but he contends they will be outweighed by long-term gains, and that whites and business, whose commitment to reform rises with perceived threat, will bear much of the burden.

Evidence and method

Secondary academic studies (Baldwin 1985; Hufbauer and Schott/IIE 1985), press reports (Financial Times, Financial Mail, Johannesburg Star, Sunday Times polls), SADCC and Zimbabwe studies, a 1965 CIA memorandum, Shipping Research Bureau oil estimates, US congressional reports, and statements by business leaders and officials.

Place in the debates

• Sanctions effectiveness (do sanctions work against South Africa?) (see Sanctions, disinvestment and the anti-apartheid movement). Strongly pro-sanctions: judged by cumulative, long-term and indirect effects, sanctions have a respectable record and comprehensive measures could bite; partial sanctions are only modest in effect.
• Sanctions vs. constructive engagement/negotiation (see Sanctions, disinvestment and the anti-apartheid movement). Rejects the dichotomy as false; Pretoria lacks the will to negotiate until weakened by sanctions and internal pressure.
• Who suffers from sanctions (blacks vs. whites, neighbouring states) (see Sanctions, disinvestment and the anti-apartheid movement). Short-term hardship for blacks acknowledged, but whites probably hurt more proportionately; the front-line states back sanctions despite vulnerability.
• Liberal vs. revisionist view of business, industrialization and apartheid (see Sanctions, disinvestment and the anti-apartheid movement). Closer to the revisionist side: white business, notably Anglo American built on cheap black labour, profited from the system and favours reform only under threat; liberal patience is a 'broken record'.
• Afrikaner laager hypothesis (see Sanctions, disinvestment and the anti-apartheid movement). Rejects it as a myth; pressure can fragment Afrikaner and white unity.

Findings

• The 1985 refusal of bank credit showed that South Africa was vulnerable to external financial pressure. (p. 14)

  Pretoria's own "sanctions can't hurt us" line went out the window in 1985, when bankers refused to roll over some 60 per cent of South Africa's $24 billion foreign debt

• The 1985 bank action was political, linked to divestment protests and US municipal pressure, so government action matters alongside market pressure. (p. 14)

  The chain reaction by international banks began in New York, where the city government was moving to cut off ties with banks granting loans to South Africa.

• Capital flight after Sharpeville and Soweto was reversed by renewed loans once repression restored order, teaching Pretoria that repression restores confidence. (p. 15)

  But each time, as new repression re-established order, in flowed fresh loans from banks and from the International Monetary Fund to help shore up domestic business confidence.

• The IIE study's cost benchmarks imply sanctions would have to cost South Africa roughly $3-5 billion a year to destabilise it. (p. 16)

  Thus destabilizing or reforming South Africa, with its 1984 GNP of some $74 billion, would require sanctions that cost Pretoria some $3-$5 billion annually.

• The oil embargo, despite leakage, was the costliest sanction imposed up to 1986. (p. 17)

  In the early 1980s the oil embargo cost South Africa an estimated $2 billion annually in extra expenses, in addition to the $3 billion base cost of oil

• The selective sanctions passed by the US Congress and EC would impose significant but not decisive costs. (p. 18)

  The economic impact thus could be significant, but hardly decisive.

• Disinvestment may hit white employment more than black, since US subsidiaries are capital- and skill-intensive. (p. 10)

  chances are that white unemployment would increase proportionately more than black, since the white-black ratio in capital- and skill-intensive U.S. subsidiaries is far higher than in the work force as a whole.

• White business's commitment to reform depends on perceived threat, and Anglo American profited from cheap black labour. (p. 20)

  Its commitment to reform is likely to vary directly with the threat perceived to the status quo.

• Front-line states bear heavy costs from South African pressure and still support sanctions. (p. 13)

  A 1986 SADCC study estimated the damages at $10 billion for the 1980-1984 period

• Rhodesia shows that sanctions can exact long-run costs and bring the regime to serious negotiation. (p. 9)

  began negotiating seriously only in 1979, as the toll taken by sanctions and guerrilla warfare mounted.

Evidence ledger

Sources used

Source	Kind	Period	How used
CIA memorandum 'Sanctions and the South African Economy', 3 September 1965, National Security Country Files, Box 78-79, LBJ Library	state archives	1965	Cited as an example of the 'boycotts simply do not work' view held by sanctions opponents.
Hufbauer and Schott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered (IIE, 1985), 103 cases	secondary literature compilation	historical cases to 1985	Supplies success rates and cost-to-GNP benchmarks used to estimate the scale of sanctions needed against South Africa.
Baldwin, Economic Statecraft (Princeton, 1985)	secondary literature compilation	historical	Conceptual support that sanctions work sometimes, are judged too narrowly, and do not need 100% compliance.
Elizabeth Schmidt, 'The Sanctions Weapon: Lessons from Rhodesia', TransAfrica Forum, November 1986	secondary literature compilation	1966-1979	Source for quotations from white business leaders that Rhodesian sanctions bit.
Mark Orkin, Disinvestment: The Struggle and the Future (Raven Press, 1986)	secondary literature compilation	1986	Supports the claim that foreign investment is concentrated in capital-intensive sectors, so disinvestment hurts white employment proportionately more.
Colin Legum, Johannesburg Star, 21 July 1986; Stephen R. Lewis, CSIS Africa Notes, 27 March 1986	newspapers periodicals	1986	Source for regional trade dependence and South Africa's trade surplus with SADCC states.
SADCC studies on costs of sanctions and of South African destabilization (1986), as cited via Green and Thompson in Destructive Engagement	commission or official report	1980-1986	Provides estimates of $7 billion sanctions cost and $10 billion destabilization damages to neighbouring states.
Standard Bank Review (Johannesburg), November 1985	newspapers periodicals	1985	Quoted to show South Africa's economy is small, open and dependent on foreign trade and confidence.
South African Digest (Pretoria), 24 July 1961; Senator Dick Clark, U.S. Corporate Interests in Africa (Senate Foreign Relations Committee Print, 1978)	commission or official report	1960-1976	Documents IMF and bank lending resuming after Sharpeville and Soweto repression.
Secret Oil Deliveries to South Africa, 1981-1982 (Shipping Research Bureau, 1984)	other	1981-1982	Basis for estimate that the oil embargo cost South Africa about $2 billion annually.
House Foreign Affairs Africa Subcommittee study, March 1982	commission or official report	1982	Cited on the weakness of U.S. arms embargo enforcement.
Financial Times (London), 1 July 1986	newspapers periodicals	1986	Source for $6 a ton 'political discount' and about $240 million loss from coal boycotts.
London Sunday Times surveys of white South African opinion, 1 September 1985 and 3 August 1986	household or labour survey microdata	1985-1986	Shows shifts in white attitudes to apartheid and one person, one vote.
London Sunday Times poll of rural Africans, August 1986; Ilanga poll reported in Sunday Tribune, 5 May 1985	household or labour survey microdata	1985-1986	Used to assess black support for sanctions and Buthelezi's standing versus Mandela.
Business and press statements: Financial Mail 1 Feb 1985 (Chettle); Daily Dispatch 15 Mar 1986 (Oppenheimer); Sunday Tribune 8 Dec 1985 (Relly); Weekly Mail 28 Feb-6 Mar 1986; Johannesburg Star 26 Sep 1985 (Sparks); New York Times 7 Jan 1986	newspapers periodicals	1985-1986	Quoted to show business attitudes to reform and sanctions, and the rand's effect on whites versus blacks.

Inference

Quantification: Illustrative figures.

Policy argument by historical analogy (Rhodesia, Chile, Uganda), reliance on secondary sanction-cost benchmarks (IIE) applied to South African GNP, and selective use of press quotations, polls and reported cost estimates; no original data analysis.

Key claims

Claim	Basis	Strength
Sanctions have achieved important successes elsewhere, including Rhodesia, despite the claim that they never work. (p. 45)	IIE study of 103 cases, Baldwin, Schmidt on Rhodesia business leaders; historical examples asserted.	Partial data
Destabilizing or reforming South Africa would require sanctions costing about $3-$5 billion annually. (p. 57)	Applies IIE cost-to-GNP ratios for successful cases to South Africa's 1984 GNP of $74 billion.	Partial data
Existing sanctions (the oil embargo, arms embargo, coal boycotts and the 1985 bank debt cutoff) have imposed real costs on South Africa. (p. 58)	Shipping Research Bureau oil estimates, Financial Times coal discount, House subcommittee, press reports of the debt rollover refusal.	Partial data
Selective sanctions enacted by the U.S. and EC would cost Pretoria hundreds of millions annually but not billions, given offsetting gold price rises. (p. 59)	Extrapolation from the examples of oil, arms and coal costs.	Illustrative or anecdotal
Sanctions would hurt black South Africans in the short term but probably hurt whites more, and disinvestment could even raise black employment. (p. 51)	Reasoning about capital-intensive foreign firms (Orkin), Allister Sparks quote, claims about white living standards; no employment data.	Illustrative or anecdotal
Neighbouring states are already suffering from South African pressure and still support sanctions, since costs of non-sanction exceed sanction costs. (p. 54)	SADCC damage estimates ($10 billion, 1980-84; $7 billion sanctions cost) and Green and Thompson.	Partial data
Afrikaner and white opinion is not monolithic and may shift under pressure; most urban blacks favor sanctions. (p. 60)	Sunday Times white opinion surveys, Ilanga and Sunday Times polls, with cited polling caveats.	Partial data

The author's caveats

Notes that economic projections are uncertain, that IIE estimates 'cannot substitute for detailed predictions', that opinion polls on sanctions are disputed (treason risk, wording effects, Transkei results confiscated), and that leakage and gold-price effects limit impact.

Gaps in the evidence

The argument depends on cross-case IIE averages and press-reported cost estimates rather than a South African macroeconomic model of sanctions' sectoral and employment effects by race. Firm-level employment and ownership data, trade and capital flow statistics, and reliable polling would test the distributional and political claims better; some such data existed in official South African statistics and company records, while later archives and survey data now allow ex post assessment.

Replicability: Data poorly documented.