State of Siege

An economic siege in Southern Africa has begun. The Commonwealth, minus its nominal leader, Great Britain, has endorsed limited economic sanctions against the South African government, and the European Community will likely follow. The South African government has vowed in retaliation to strangle at least two of its dependent neighbors. The two nations that ought to be out front in repudiating the immorality of apartheid, the United States and Britain, have settled for roles as followers rather than leaders. Both should now turn to sanctions of their own.

The 49-member Commonwealth agreed on Wednesday to sever air links and consular ties with South Africa; ban the importation of South African produce, coal, steel, iron and uranium, and prohibit new bank loans. Pretoria, in turn, says that it will impose import licenses, levies on goods traveling across its country, and stricter border controls against its black-ruled neighbors.

Pretoria’s moves are an effort to show that Western sanctions will not be cost-free. South Africa’s neighbors, Zimbabwe and Zambia among them, depend on South African railways and ports for their imports and exports. South Africa itself is their largest trading partner.

South Africa will suffer, too, but nobody knows just how. If the economy sours, blacks will no doubt be the first to be laid off. But sanctions will also squeeze the perpetuators of apartheid, which is the whole point. The Commonwealth measures appear to strike the proper balance between carrot and stick. They will pinch the South African economy but not choke it. They will leave the door open to wider measures should the government not budge, and they can be lifted easily if it does. The sanctions will demonstrate the Commonwealth’s outrage at Pretoria’s racist regime. Most important, they will show the moderate black leaders that the West is on their side.

The Commonwealth’s sanctions may have still another positive effect: They may drag President Reagan and Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher into accepting sanctions themselves. Their stubbornness has been appalling, their shortsightedness self-defeating. Together they have nourished Pretoria’s delusion that it is a friend of the West, and have alienated South Africa’s black leaders. Reagan must see his morally and politically bankrupt policy for the disaster that it is, and accept the limited economic measures that Congress is certain to pass. The clock in South Africa is ticking, and the time for U.S. sanctions has arrived.