Pretoria's Need to Crush Domestic Opposition to Apartheid While

WORK IN PROGRESS 1988 retoria's need to crush domestic opposition to apartheid while smiling on the world has led to a P foreign policy which often appears schizophrenic and contradictory. DAVID COETZEE reports from London on perceptions of this 'smiling death' policy, and the implications of events such as the Angolan peace talks, the US elections and persistent dirty tricks carried out by South African agents. 43 WORK IN PROGRESS 1988 outh Africa's twin policies of matic standing the movement has domestic repression and re only been able to achieve in the social gional destabilisation have ist and some African countries). brought their inevitable Nor was the gangsterism in the negative international re region ignored abroad. The capture of percussions - but at the South African commandos and agents Ssame time sharpened Pretoria's need in Botswana and Zimbabwe was well to call on its traditional Western allies reported, as was the attempted killing for help. in April of ANC exile lawyer Albie In Western Europe Pretoria's Sachs in Maputo, who was seriously major efforts were devoted to injured by a car bomb. attempts - often with the aid of organ At the time there were even press ised right-wing and neo-fascist politi reports in the US of FBI warnings cal pressure groups - to stem anti- against South African hit squads. In apartheid mobilisation and limit the the popular consciousness South sanctions movement Africa was fast acquiring the reputa Cuban President Fidel Castro: SADFs By the year end, however, Pretoria tion of a 'Papa Doc' state - and this was facing a Europe in which defeat at Cuito Cuanavale was historic could do no good at all for those of its Britain's Margaret Thatcher seemed diplomats seeking to assert more isolated than ever in her stri respectability in those international dent insistence on constructive forums still open to it. engagement with South Africa's It also made it more difficult for rulers. any Western politician wishing to be Domestic South African events, seen to do business with the regime - such as the banning of anti-apartheid as Thatcher does. groups and the trial of the Sharpeville Six, pushed West German leader Hel he South African government's mut Kohl to reassess his sanctions 'strike the enemy anywhere' stand in March • though no official strategy was presumably a con measures followed. Already, however, T sidered response to what South African exports had registered Defence Minister Magnus Malan saw a sharp decline in West Germany, the as the ANCs bid to present itself country's third largest trading part abroad as a government in waiting. ner. But Pretoria clearly had no idea of the The bid to cut off European Com extent of popular feeling in Europe munity (EC) funding for anti- and the US on the entire apartheid and racism issue - or of the pressure apartheid groups within South Africa even right-wing governments are also raised a storm of protest in EC under. institutions. This funding for 'accept able' opposition bodies is one way of So its diplomatic gains in Europe, avoiding sharper decisions about Foreign Minister Pik Botha: Some such as they are, have been those reg sanctions. Pretoria eventually backed diplomatic gains— behind closed doors istered in cloistered and secretive sur down on proposed legislation effec roundings - at the Nuclear Non-Prolif- tively blocking international funding into oblivion the chief conspirators in eration talks in Vienna in August, for internal anti-apartheid activities. the case of an attempted kidnapping where they succeeded in not being of ANC leaders. expelled, or the International Mone angsterism used as an adjunct The twice-attempted murder of the tary Fund (IMF) talks in Berlin in of policy, always so visible ANCs Brussels representative, God September, where they could at least inside South Africa and the frey Motsepe, and the successful mur bring the depth of their economic cri G region, was extended to der of Paris representative Dulcie sis to the attention of their banking Europe with no apparent concern for September in March, isolated Preto friends. diplomatic consequences - and again ria's best friends. In Vienna Pik Botha admitted brought a clamour of protest against Even in Thatcher's London, the what everyone knew - that South the South African connection. ANC representative was immediately Africa had nuclear potential. He want In London the embarrassed given round-the-clock police protection ed full participation in the Nuclear British security services bundled off (conveying ironically the kind of diplo Non-Proliferation treaty with guaran- 44 WORK IN PROGRESS 1988 tees that would cancel sanctions - that intruction to back-off from South South Africa could sell and buy urani African links. um without discrimination, and It was a blow to South Africa when engage in international exchanges in its Chilean ally, dictator Augusto nuclear technology. The negotiations Pinochet, was rebuffed in a popular continue. poll in October. Pik Botha had visited It seemed the West and the Soviet Chile in March with a stopover in Union decided to treat Pretoria with Brazil and then Uruguay. the respect accorded an unexploded Elsewhere on the continent the bomb: unpredictable, possibly deadly. military, as the determinants in their They were agreed that it should countries' politics, were slowly being remain where it could be watched. forced back under democratic control. The same powerful anti-apartheid forces revealing themselves in West he gangsterism which spilled ern Europe have also been visible in over into Western Europe was the USA. There the long- hidden polit more visible in the southern ical forces of the black and Hispanic Gone: Chilean dictator T African region. Augusto Pinochet communities, mobilised in the Rain Botswana and Zimbabwe were bow Coalition after the last presiden both raided, and there were assassina tial election, were focused in an tion attacks, but in the past year both unprecedented fashion on apartheid. countries have sharpened their securi These grassroots forces showed in ty, and Pretoria's agents have been the spread of anti-apartheid sanctions captured and put on trial - an impor legislation • in March this year there tant blow to the myth of military and were no fewer than 48 bills before the racial invincibility. senate carrying some reference to The dual-track policy on Mozam South Africa. The Sullivan Code was bique was continued - support for the recognised as futile and disinvestment Renamo bandit groups, together with became a steady stream; US compa official offers of economic assistance to nies were announcing their withdraw Maputo. Mozambique's policy toward al from South Africa each week. Sanc South Africa has been simply to tions campaigners began working on demonstrate in the most visible possi 'non-equity ties' - the links main ble way who the aggressor is, and tained by the US multinationals who finally to undercut Pretoria's support got out. in the West. In this President Joaquim Chiss- assive falls in trade, espe ano had some success: when British cially relating to coal, steel Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe vis and uranium, were already ited Mozambique in September, he M being registered and still- called on Pretoria to stop arming Ren stricter anti- apartheid legislation amo - the first time he has done so was on the cards. Gone: Bavarian prime minister Franx Josef Strauss publicly. The US general accounting office These issues, however, became a reported in September that evep the allies - Israel, Far Eastern and Latin sideshow alongside the war with ten 'strategic minerals' excluded after American states - was also touched. Angola this past year. South Africa right-wing pressure from the 1986 Israel, under US pressure, had started off with - and may still have - anti-apartheid law were not so strate already lowered its visible level of mil the kind of hubris shown by Israel as gic after all. itary collaboration with South Africa. it went into Lebanon. The generals In March, Anglo American supre Japan was made aware - under US and the politicians in an increasingly- mo Harry Oppenheimer said there prodding - that it had overtaken the military state could not but believe in was 'no early prospect of a turn in the US as South Africa's main trading their invincibility. They failed to take sanctions tide', and he described SA- partner, and instructed its business seriously enough the African army to US relations as being at an all time men to draw back. But anti-apartheid their north, and they fell. low. pressures are not yet strong in Japan, The victory of the combined Fapla- Nor was this deterioration restrict and businessmen have not taken Cuban forces at Cuito Cuanavale was ed to the US. Pretoria's second tier of much heed of their government's called historic by Cuban President 45 WORK IN PROGRESS 1988 them into serious negotiations. South Africa may find itself for a time on the side of its old allies and protectors, the US Republicans, represented by Chester Crocker, as they try to negoti ate, each with a view to its own inter ests, the rescue of Unita. But in the long run no-one is still interested in backing South Africa's hold on Namib ia, or its destabilisation of Angola. n the teeth of defeat, PW Botha talked to his main African ally, Zaire's Mobuto Sese Seko, and I announced large-scale diplomatic victories to come with unnamed African states. But in the one place a deal had been done - tiny Equatorial Guinea - Nigeria promptly instructed it to cut the links, which it did. On the issues of Namibia, as on Angola, the US and South Africa were no longer on parallel tracks.

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