Shultz Claims ‘Progress’ for U.S. Policy on S. Africa

Secretary of State George P. Shultz defended the U.S. policy toward South Africa today, arguing that it has achieved “a good measure of progress” toward changing apartheid, the system of racial segregation.

“The idea that our policy is simply reinforcing the status quo is an utter misconception,” Shultz said in a speech to the National Press Club.

“We are engaged as a force for peace and for constructive change throughout southern Africa. This is the only responsible course, and we will not be deflected from it,” he said.

The secretary insisted, “We cannot have influence with people if we treat them as moral lepers, especially when they are themselves beginning to address the agenda of change.”

Shultz took a dim view of various measures in Congress to force U.S. corporations to disinvest from South Africa, or even to refuse to allow further investment unless there is more change.

He suggested such actions would be “more likely to strengthen resistance to change than strengthen the forces of reform. It ignores the harm that such an approach will inflict precisely on the black majority whom the advocates of boycotts, embargoes and sanctions purportedly want to help.”

Arguing that “we must not stand by and throw American matches on the emotional tinder of the region,” Shultz said that although everyone agrees that apartheid must go, “indignation alone is not a strategy.”

He said the U.S. policy in the region must be “coherent, considered and effective. We simply cannot afford to let southern Africa become a divisive domestic issue--tearing our country apart, rendering our actions haphazard and impotent, and contributing to the ugliest and most violent outcome.”