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Going Beyond Sanctions
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# : |
12510 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1987 |
2,961 Words |
| Author
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Robert I. Rotberg
Robert I. Rotberg is president of Lafayette College in Easton,
Pennsylvania. |
The results of South Africa's recent election place ruling whites on an unswerving collision course with the country's vast black majority. An unexpected but clear swing to the far right indefinitely postpones the prospect of a negotiated settlement to the increasingly bitter and bloody conflict that has convulsed South Africa since 1984. Just as white South African voters may have responded to fears of black African political and social gains, so the young black Africans who lead protests in the segregated townships and their exiled allies of the African National Congress (ANC) will react to the election by stepping up their attacks on those who now control South Africa.
The elections have brought little reassurance to South Africa's majority or to liberal whites, and their outcome has compelled Western governments to reexamine their approaches to change in South Africa. Are the limited sanctions now invoked sufficient? Should broader approaches be considered? Or will continued disinvestments suffice?
Slightly more than two million of South Africa's three million registered white voters cast ballots on May 6 and chose representatives in the House of Assembly, one of parliament's three houses. Coloreds (persons of mixed descent) vote separately for representatives in a second chamber; Asians send delegates to a third house. But the chambers are unequal in power; the white assembly dominates the others. Black Africans have no vote and no fourth house. Yet there are 25 million black Africans, 2.6 million Coloreds, 0.8 million Asians, and only 4.7 million whites in South Africa.
Since 1953 the National Party, controlled by Afrikaners,
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