South Africa Preparing to Face Sanctions : Whites Growing Belligerent and Vow to Resist Foreign Pressures

As threats of punitive economic sanctions mount, South Africans are preparing their retreat to the laager, that now-symbolic circle of wagons from which their pioneer forebears fought. From there, they say, they will resist all foreign pressure for faster and broader reforms and face whatever hardships result.

The national state of emergency imposed June 12 has fueled the daily demands abroad for sanctions. But such calls have become rallying cries for many whites as President Pieter W. Botha evokes the strong nationalism of his Afrikaner people by declaring that South Africa will not be dictated to by foreign governments, that it will solve its problems in its own way and in its own time.

Botha’s critics on the far right and even to his left cannot find fault when he declares, “We are not a nation of weaklings. . . . South Africa will not crawl before anyone.”

‘Push-Back’ Time

But there is a mood of belligerence and aggressiveness, not just defiance, among the country’s whites today, a feeling that, as one commentator put it last week, “We have been pushed around too much and for too long, and now maybe it’s time for us to push back.”

“The sooner sanctions come, the better,” Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha said at the end of last week. “We will show the world we will not be made soft.”

Pretoria’s black-ruled neighbors are being bluntly warned that if sanctions are imposed on South Africa--and they have not actively fought them--they would be the first to suffer as retaliatory measures are undertaken.

They would be cut off from South Africa’s railways and ports, imports might be halted and exports restricted, 1.5 million migrant workers would be sent home, electricity and gasoline supplies from here would be reduced. One Johannesburg newspaper called on the government last week to give Zambia, an advocate of sanctions, “a short, sharp lesson . . . on the effects of countermeasures if sanctions were applied.”

Default Threatened

International banks that are owed upward of $24 billion by South Africa, one of the world’s major debtor nations, were told last week that Pretoria might renege on its debts if sanctions are applied.

“We are able to reciprocate with sanctions,” South Africa’s ambassador to Britain, Denis Worrall, told the House of Commons foreign affairs committee in London. “We could cause chaos in southern Africa, something that is not sufficiently recognized.”

“If there were sanctions on the scale (of those recommended by a special Commonwealth commission), then South Africa would consider not repaying its international loans. All Mexico and a few others need is a precedent, and it would bring down the whole Western financial system. . . . The point is, if you place South Africa in an extremist situation, that kind of consideration might apply.”

And the many Americans and West Europeans who come here on “fact-finding” and “mediation” missions are now being advised that the government will ensure that its white constituents suffer as little as possible under sanctions, implying that blacks as a result will suffer more. The government might well abandon even the limited reforms now envisioned, top officials are saying, rather than appear to be acting under foreign pressure.

“As far as we’re concerned, the world can go to hell,” a senior government official commented, “and that is precisely what we will tell anyone who butts into our affairs.”

To Pretoria, this is more than just jingoism and more than simply good domestic politics, but “a strategic decision of far-reaching consequences,” the official continued, speaking on condition that he not be quoted by name.

“After trying to deal reasonably with international pressures that were increasingly unreasonable,” he said, “we concluded that trying to deal with them at all was a serious mistake and not only compromised the success of our efforts at reform but threatened the future of the country itself.”

Liberation Belief

By declaring that it will not be moved by sanctions, however severe, South Africa believes it has “liberated” itself from all international pressure, depriving black “radicals,” such as the outlawed African National Congress, of significant political leverage that they once had.

The intention, according to government officials, is to force black leaders to negotiate with the government on a new “power-sharing” constitution and give up hopes of the “one-man, one-vote” system, which has won significant support abroad but is rejected by most South African whites, even many liberals.

“We have to make a choice--either we bow down to the world’s demands or we refuse to take any more meddling,” Pik Botha said, arguing that to agree to a political system based on one-man, one-vote would mean “ruin” for the country.

Prof. Carl F. Noffke, director of Rand Afrikaans University’s Institute of American Studies here, said that South Africa had come to this position “slowly and reluctantly” because it did mean “severing, at least psychologically, many relationships built up over very long periods.”

‘Serious Mistake’

“People feel that we are being punished and rejected by countries that used to be friends,” Noffke said, “and the more we have tried to reform, the harder we have worked for change, the more calls we get for sanctions. . . . There is a strong feeling now in many quarters that we made a serious mistake initially in trying to do everything possible to stop sanctions because this just made us appear weak and susceptible to pressure.”

Harald Pakendorf, a leading political commentator, who was ousted last month as editor of the Afrikaans-language newspaper Die Vaderland as being too liberal, summarized the government’s calculations this way:

“The threat of sanctions was worse than the actuality. Thus, as we cannot satisfy the demands made on us, we might as well look to ourselves first and the foreign reaction second. If we do get sanctions in some manner or, more correctly, slide a little deeper into the sanctions mud than we already have, then so be it.”

The Botha government had undertaken one reform after another over the last two years but felt it received no credit for any of them, Pakendorf said, and instead faced even greater demands. The feeling in the Cabinet now, he said, is that the uncertainty posed by the threatened sanctions is paralyzing and must be ended. Even the most reform-minded ministers have come to the conclusion: “Let them do their damnedest; at least we know where we stand then, know what we are in for.”

‘Underlying Strength’

But the government has also sought to reassure whites that they will not suffer too much because the country has “sufficient underlying economic strength” to withstand the pressure and that blacks will be the real victims of any international sanctions. It also argues that neighboring countries need South Africa as a market and a supplier and will be badly hurt by any sanctions against Pretoria. And the West, it is said, needs South Africa’s minerals and the profits that it earns here too much to impose total sanctions.

Such factors might make it easier to explain why South Africa is calling the world’s bluff, but given the scope of the threatened sanctions, it was a brave--some here say foolhardy--decision.

Legislation is pending before Congress in Washington that would virtually end South Africa’s trade with the United States and require the 275 American companies still operating here to withdraw. Although President Reagan continues to oppose such sanctions, the Administration is looking for ways to use U.S. influence here more effectively.

Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, another staunch opponent of sanctions, is under increasing pressure at home and from other members of the Commonwealth and European Communities to take a much tougher line with South Africa. Several Commonwealth countries, among them Canada and Australia, are acting on their own rather than waiting for Britain to agree to a program of international sanctions.

Bonn’s Influence

West Germany, another major South African trading partner and until recently a believer in quiet persuasion, has become harshly critical of Pretoria since the imposition of emergency rule, and Bonn could swing the Common Market toward stronger sanctions.

Other countries have adopted a variety of sanctions recently--bans on imports of South African fruit, prohibitions on new investments, restrictions on high-technology sales, cancellation of coal and iron ore purchases--and some, such as Sweden, have also increased their assistance to the African National Congress and groups caring for South African refugees.

“In these circumstances, to say that we will show the world how tough we are in South Africa is appalling arrogance,” said Ray Swart, a member of Parliament from the opposition Progressive Federal Party, commenting on Foreign Minister Botha’s defiant challenge on sanctions last week. “He is inviting sanctions as if he has some sort of death wish.”

But within National Party circles, there are businessmen and economists who see some benefits in a “siege economy,” a situation they see as inevitable, and their arguments are helping the government to rationalize the country’s prospective isolation.

Protected Market

For some businessmen, the withdrawal of foreign firms from South Africa means a chance to buy established companies at a fraction of their value; for others, the prospect of trade restrictions means a domestic market protected from foreign competition.

But there are also those, according to Aubrey Dickman, senior economic consultant to the Anglo American Corp., South Africa’s giant mining and manufacturing conglomerate, who “see a siege economy as a way out of a recession” and have encouraged the government’s go-it-alone line.

“They are motivated mainly by frustration and despair,” Dickman said. “Their escape route is to shelter domestic industry behind controls, which will involve lowering living standards by reducing the range of consumer goods and probably increasing inflation. As they see it, this will be the trade-off for the provision of more jobs.”

Dickman granted that South Africa would enjoy a short-term boom as unused industrial capacity is put into production and the country develops a “hothouse economy,” much as white-ruled Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, had under international sanctions.

But the long-term result, he continued, would be economic stagnation as capital investment dried up, industrial plants were not modernized or replaced and government controls on prices, wages, new investment and imports and exports were all increased, squeezing out what little vitality remained in the economy.

Precautionary Moves

Many South African companies have begun taking precautions to protect their markets and ensure continued supplies of vital raw materials in the event of broad sanctions. Imported raw materials are being stockpiled at factories. Dummy companies are being set up in Europe and the Far East to act as middlemen on high-tech purchases, and others are being established in neighboring black-ruled countries, such as Lesotho and Swaziland, as fronts for South African firms. Even the state-owned South African Airways is making plans to lease its aircraft for operation from neighboring countries so that South Africa will not be completely isolated.

“The siege economy is the economic equivalent of the laager mentality,” Len Abrahamse, chairman of Syfrets, a large finance house, said recently. “The idea that South Africa can opt for a siege economy is absurd. A siege economy can become reality only if we conduct our affairs in such a way that we are indeed isolated from the rest of the world. . . . “

“A minority political view exists: ‘To hell with the rest of the world. What does it matter if we don’t win the approbation of Bonn, Whitehall, Washington, Paris or wherever? Let us retreat politically into the laager.’ A siege economy is the same philosophy, and it’s a philosophy of despair.”