South Africa's vulnerability to economic sanctions

Extract

Official boycotts of trade by individual countries and UN sponsored economic sanctions against South Africa have been on the international agenda for a good many years. India and Pakistan were the first countries to declare an official boycott of trade with South Africa in the early 1950s although Pakistan withdrew her boycott in 1956. As long ago as 1963 some twenty-five countries,, largely in Africa and Asia, had declared an official boycott against South Africa, In addition attempts to organize unofficial voluntary consumer boycotts against South African products such as fresh and canned fruit, wine etc., began as long ago as 1959 in Britain and the Scandinavian countries. Since 1973 there has been an embargo on oil sales to the Republic by the Arab members of OPEC and a UN embargo on arms sales in 1977, Voluntary consumer boycotts have failed to reduce the level of sales in Western countries. Even in the case of countries that officially boycott South Africa, trade has not been eliminated entirely if one looks at official statistics. But besides officially recorded trade, there is a good deal of trade via intermediaries. It is well known, for example, that South Africa continues to recieve some arms supplies from Western countries in this way. In the case of oil, while 90 per cent of South Africa's supply came from Iran, which refused to join a partial embargo until the Shah's fall, most of the balance is still supplied by countries like Bahrain, Oman, Quatar and the United Arab Emirates, which subscribe to an official embargo. This oil gets to South Africa, probably without the knowledge of the governments concerned, via intermediaries of the major international oil companies. The vulnerability of South Africa to an oil embargo will be discussed at some length later.