PERSPECTIVES ON SOUTH AFRICA : Sanctions Have Done Their Job . . . : The pillars of apartheid have been removed, prisoners freed and talks begun. Now the trade ban must end.

The Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 is now acknowledged throughout the world as a substantial foreign-policy success for the United States.

Our law imposed limited economic sanctions on South Africa with stipulations that until political prisoners were freed, the apartheid statutes were repealed and the Pretoria government entered into good-faith negotiations with representatives of the black majority, the United States would continue sanctions.

The South African government has ended apartheid, has agreed to meet with all major parties and has also released Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners, or is in the process of releasing the last few. After making certain that all of this has taken place, President Bush will lift sanctions.

I drafted the Anti-Apartheid Act with the assistance of Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff and the benefit of three days of committee hearings in the final days of July, 1986. In action on the Senate floor, a few additional sanctions were added and the bill passed, 84-14.

I persuaded the House leadership to adopt the Senate bill and thus avoid a time-consuming conference and the probability of a pocket veto by President Reagan. The bill was passed by overwhelming majorities over Reagan’s unfortunate veto--the only foreign-policy veto override of his presidency.

Ultimately, the European Community and Britain adopted very limited sanctions. The Commonwealth nations did much more, but most other countries did nothing, choosing short-term national gains and threatening U.S. policy.

Pretoria asserted that our policy would simply hurt South African blacks but never move the governing group.

Five years have passed. Courageous citizens of South Africa, black and white, have moved mountains to save their country. Those who opposed all sanctions now claim that our policy had virtually no impact. But people around the world who genuinely cared about the future of South Africa, then and now, understand the importance of our constructive friendship.

All credit should go to President Frederik W. de Klerk, African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela, Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, apartheid opponent Helen Suzman and a host of other South Africans who have turned their country around. But I doubt that they would have been in a position to do so if the United States had not responded to a call for world leadership in 1986. We fashioned a simple but direct act of Congress that spoke to the cause of political freedom and demanded an end to institutionalized racism in practical terms that could be understood and implemented with a minimum of additional suffering.

We have won our point and the contending parties in South Africa are going to need solid and sophisticated support in making a transition to countrywide democracy and economic growth for all citizens. To not take constructive action now is to risk a social backlash that could leave South Africa difficult to govern.

A few members of Congress demand that U.S. sanctions remain so long as Mandela and the ANC find the leverage useful. Many of those same members used to argue for a truly “scorched earth” policy of imposing a total cut-off of relationships.

But a majority in Congress rejected a total cut-off in 1986 and should likewise reject meddling favoritism toward one party in the negotiations now. In fact, all over America, city councils, state governments, college boards of trustees and other groups must dismantle their various sanctions and begin a rigorous study of how Americans of goodwill can contribute to the building of democracy and market economics for the benefit of all South Africans.

The future of the African continent may be largely determined by how well the transition from apartheid to universal democracy works, and by how much support a rejuvenated South Africa can give first to its neighbors and ultimately to a wide circle of African states.

During the final debate on overriding President Reagan’s sanctions veto, I argued that, “Tragically, our influence may be so limited that the government of South Africa will pursue headlong a course bound to lead to destruction of that government. We are not destroying that government. That government is self-destructing. At this point, as a friend of that government, we are saying, ‘wake up.’ ”

Indeed, we were heard and understood by South Africans. A catastrophic racial civil war (once thought inevitable) was averted. In our country, large majorities of blacks and of whites, of Republicans and of Democrats, said that racism was wrong, here and abroad. Americans also said that we have a historical mission to assist reforms needed to save lives and to promote our ideals of political and human dignity.

Now, as in Berlin, another curtain has fallen. After the celebration in Germany, it turns out that building democratic institutions and economic prosperity is tough going. So it will be in South Africa. All Americans who continue to care about South Africa have ample room to help ensure that a truly monumental transition is helped by our generosity of spirit and practical deeds.