International relations
Main article: Foreign relations of South Africa
South Africa officially took possession of South-West Africa after it was captured from the Germans during World War I. Following the war, the Treaty of Versailles declared the territory to be a League of Nations Mandate under South African administration. South Africa formally excluded Walvis Bay from the mandate and annexed it as an enclave. The Mandate was supposed to become a United Nations Trust Territory when League of Nations Mandates were transferred to the United Nations (UN) following World War II, but the Union of South Africa refused to agree to allow the territory to begin the transition to independence. Instead it was treated as a de facto 'fifth province' of the Union. The South African government turned this mandate arrangement into a military occupation, and extended apartheid to South-West Africa — later re-named Namibia by the UN.
In 1960, South Africa's policies received international scrutiny when British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan criticised them during his Wind of Change speech in Cape Town. Weeks later, tensions came to a head in the Sharpeville Massacre resulting in more international condemnation. Soon thereafter, Verwoerd announced a referendum on whether the country should sever links with the British monarchy and become a republic instead. Verwoerd lowered the voting age for whites to 18 and included whites in South West Africa on the voter's roll. The referendum on 5 October that year asked whites "Do you support a republic for the Union?" — 52% voted 'Yes'.
As a consequence of this change of status, South Africa needed to reapply for continued membership of the Commonwealth, with which it had privileged trade links. Even though India became an independent state within the Commonwealth in 1947 it became clear that African and Asian member states would oppose South Africa due to the apartheid policies being enforced. As a result, South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth on 31 May 1961, the day that the Republic came into existence.
Miners reading the newspaper after a riot in a mine on the Witwatersrand was brutally suppressed[edit]
Sanctions
On 6 November 1962, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 1761, condemning South African apartheid policies. On 7 August 1963 the United Nations Security Council established a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa. Following the Soweto uprising in 1976 and its brutal suppression by the apartheid regime, the arms embargo was made mandatory by the UN Security Council on 4 November 1977 and South Africa became increasingly isolated internationally. Numerous conferences were held and the United Nations passed resolutions condemning South Africa, including the World Conference Against Racism in 1978 and 1983. A significant divestment movement started, pressuring investors to refuse to invest in South African companies or companies that did business with South Africa. South African sports teams were barred from participation in international events, and South African culture and tourism were boycotted.
After much debate, by the late 1980's the United States, the United Kingdom, and 23 other nations had passed laws [8] placing various trade sanctions on South Africa. A divestment movement in many countries was similarly widespread, with individual cities and provinces around the world implementing various laws and local regulations [9] forbidding registered corporations under their jurisdiction from doing business with South African firms, factories, or banks.
In an analysis of the effect of sanctions on South Africa by the FW de Klerk Foundation, it was argued that they were not a leading contributor to the political reforms leading to the end of Apartheid[10]. The analysis concluded that in many instances sanctions undermined effective reform forces, such as the changing economic and social order within South Africa. Furthermore, it was argued that forces encouraging economic growth and development resulted in a more international and liberal outlook amongst South Africans, and were far more powerful agents of reform than sanctions.
[edit]
Western influence
Olof Palme, depicted on a poster by Cuban artist Rafael EnriquezWhile international opposition to apartheid grew, the Nordic countries in particular provided both moral and financial support for the ANC. On 21 February 1986 – a week before he was murdered – Sweden's prime minister Olof Palme made the keynote address to the Swedish People's Parliament Against Apartheid held in Stockholm. In addressing the hundreds of anti-apartheid sympathizers as well as leaders and officials from the ANC and the Anti-Apartheid Movement such as Oliver Tambo, Palme declared:
"Apartheid cannot be reformed, it has to be eliminated."
Other Western countries adopted a more ambivalent position. Until 1986, both the Reagan and Thatcher administrations in the US and UK followed a 'constructive engagement' policy with the apartheid government, vetoing the imposition of UN economic sanctions on South Africa, as they both fiercely believed in free trade, and seeing South Africa as a bastion against Marxist forces in Southern Africa. Thatcher declared the ANC a terrorist organisation [11], and in 1987 famously said that anyone who believed that the ANC would ever form the government of South Africa was "living in cloud cuckoo land".[12]
By the late 1980s, however, with the tide of the Cold War turning and no sign of a political resolution in South Africa, Western patience with the apartheid government began to run out. By 1989, a bipartisan Republican/Democratic initiative in the US favoured economic sanctions, the release of Nelson Mandela, and a negotiated settlement involving the ANC. Thatcher too began to take a similar line but insisted on the suspension of the ANC's armed struggle [13]. Britain's significant economic involvement in South Africa provided some leverage with the Botha administration, with both the UK and the US applying pressure on the government, and pushing for negotiations.
[edit]
Total onslaught
By 1980, South Africa was the only country in Africa with a white government and a constitution discriminating against the majority of its citizens. As international opinion turned decisively against the apartheid regime, the government and much of the white population increasingly saw the country as a bastion besieged by communism, atheism, and black anarchy. Considerable effort was put into circumventing sanctions, and the government even developed nuclear weapons, with the help of Israel [14], which have since been destroyed.
Negotiating majority rule with the ANC was not considered an option, at least publicly; this left the government to defend the country against external and internal threats through sheer military might. A siege mentality developed among whites, and although many realised that a civil war against the black majority could not be won, they preferred this to "giving in" to political reform. Brutal police and military actions seemed entirely justifiable. Paradoxically, the international sanctions that cut whites off from the rest of the world enabled black leaders to develop sophisticated political skills, as those in exile forged ties with regional and world leaders.
The term 'front-line states' referred to the countries in Southern Africa geographically close to South Africa. Although the front-line states were all opposed to apartheid, many were economically dependent on South Africa. Thus, in 1980 they formed the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC). The aim of SADCC was to promote economic development in the region and to reduce dependence on South Africa. Furthermore, many SADCC members also allowed the exiled ANC and PAC to establish bases in their countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid#Other_minorities
So it seems that Reagan and Thatcher seemed to support Apartheid government because it combatted communism. I am glad Margaret Thatcher was proven dead wrong. I like what the Swedish PM said about Apartheid, but i always thought the Nordic countries and Canada were morally better then America or Britain.
Main article: Foreign relations of South Africa
South Africa officially took possession of South-West Africa after it was captured from the Germans during World War I. Following the war, the Treaty of Versailles declared the territory to be a League of Nations Mandate under South African administration. South Africa formally excluded Walvis Bay from the mandate and annexed it as an enclave. The Mandate was supposed to become a United Nations Trust Territory when League of Nations Mandates were transferred to the United Nations (UN) following World War II, but the Union of South Africa refused to agree to allow the territory to begin the transition to independence. Instead it was treated as a de facto 'fifth province' of the Union. The South African government turned this mandate arrangement into a military occupation, and extended apartheid to South-West Africa — later re-named Namibia by the UN.
In 1960, South Africa's policies received international scrutiny when British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan criticised them during his Wind of Change speech in Cape Town. Weeks later, tensions came to a head in the Sharpeville Massacre resulting in more international condemnation. Soon thereafter, Verwoerd announced a referendum on whether the country should sever links with the British monarchy and become a republic instead. Verwoerd lowered the voting age for whites to 18 and included whites in South West Africa on the voter's roll. The referendum on 5 October that year asked whites "Do you support a republic for the Union?" — 52% voted 'Yes'.
As a consequence of this change of status, South Africa needed to reapply for continued membership of the Commonwealth, with which it had privileged trade links. Even though India became an independent state within the Commonwealth in 1947 it became clear that African and Asian member states would oppose South Africa due to the apartheid policies being enforced. As a result, South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth on 31 May 1961, the day that the Republic came into existence.
Miners reading the newspaper after a riot in a mine on the Witwatersrand was brutally suppressed[edit]
Sanctions
On 6 November 1962, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 1761, condemning South African apartheid policies. On 7 August 1963 the United Nations Security Council established a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa. Following the Soweto uprising in 1976 and its brutal suppression by the apartheid regime, the arms embargo was made mandatory by the UN Security Council on 4 November 1977 and South Africa became increasingly isolated internationally. Numerous conferences were held and the United Nations passed resolutions condemning South Africa, including the World Conference Against Racism in 1978 and 1983. A significant divestment movement started, pressuring investors to refuse to invest in South African companies or companies that did business with South Africa. South African sports teams were barred from participation in international events, and South African culture and tourism were boycotted.
After much debate, by the late 1980's the United States, the United Kingdom, and 23 other nations had passed laws [8] placing various trade sanctions on South Africa. A divestment movement in many countries was similarly widespread, with individual cities and provinces around the world implementing various laws and local regulations [9] forbidding registered corporations under their jurisdiction from doing business with South African firms, factories, or banks.
In an analysis of the effect of sanctions on South Africa by the FW de Klerk Foundation, it was argued that they were not a leading contributor to the political reforms leading to the end of Apartheid[10]. The analysis concluded that in many instances sanctions undermined effective reform forces, such as the changing economic and social order within South Africa. Furthermore, it was argued that forces encouraging economic growth and development resulted in a more international and liberal outlook amongst South Africans, and were far more powerful agents of reform than sanctions.
[edit]
Western influence
Olof Palme, depicted on a poster by Cuban artist Rafael EnriquezWhile international opposition to apartheid grew, the Nordic countries in particular provided both moral and financial support for the ANC. On 21 February 1986 – a week before he was murdered – Sweden's prime minister Olof Palme made the keynote address to the Swedish People's Parliament Against Apartheid held in Stockholm. In addressing the hundreds of anti-apartheid sympathizers as well as leaders and officials from the ANC and the Anti-Apartheid Movement such as Oliver Tambo, Palme declared:
"Apartheid cannot be reformed, it has to be eliminated."
Other Western countries adopted a more ambivalent position. Until 1986, both the Reagan and Thatcher administrations in the US and UK followed a 'constructive engagement' policy with the apartheid government, vetoing the imposition of UN economic sanctions on South Africa, as they both fiercely believed in free trade, and seeing South Africa as a bastion against Marxist forces in Southern Africa. Thatcher declared the ANC a terrorist organisation [11], and in 1987 famously said that anyone who believed that the ANC would ever form the government of South Africa was "living in cloud cuckoo land".[12]
By the late 1980s, however, with the tide of the Cold War turning and no sign of a political resolution in South Africa, Western patience with the apartheid government began to run out. By 1989, a bipartisan Republican/Democratic initiative in the US favoured economic sanctions, the release of Nelson Mandela, and a negotiated settlement involving the ANC. Thatcher too began to take a similar line but insisted on the suspension of the ANC's armed struggle [13]. Britain's significant economic involvement in South Africa provided some leverage with the Botha administration, with both the UK and the US applying pressure on the government, and pushing for negotiations.
[edit]
Total onslaught
By 1980, South Africa was the only country in Africa with a white government and a constitution discriminating against the majority of its citizens. As international opinion turned decisively against the apartheid regime, the government and much of the white population increasingly saw the country as a bastion besieged by communism, atheism, and black anarchy. Considerable effort was put into circumventing sanctions, and the government even developed nuclear weapons, with the help of Israel [14], which have since been destroyed.
Negotiating majority rule with the ANC was not considered an option, at least publicly; this left the government to defend the country against external and internal threats through sheer military might. A siege mentality developed among whites, and although many realised that a civil war against the black majority could not be won, they preferred this to "giving in" to political reform. Brutal police and military actions seemed entirely justifiable. Paradoxically, the international sanctions that cut whites off from the rest of the world enabled black leaders to develop sophisticated political skills, as those in exile forged ties with regional and world leaders.
The term 'front-line states' referred to the countries in Southern Africa geographically close to South Africa. Although the front-line states were all opposed to apartheid, many were economically dependent on South Africa. Thus, in 1980 they formed the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC). The aim of SADCC was to promote economic development in the region and to reduce dependence on South Africa. Furthermore, many SADCC members also allowed the exiled ANC and PAC to establish bases in their countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid#Other_minorities
So it seems that Reagan and Thatcher seemed to support Apartheid government because it combatted communism. I am glad Margaret Thatcher was proven dead wrong. I like what the Swedish PM said about Apartheid, but i always thought the Nordic countries and Canada were morally better then America or Britain.
