Limited Action Against Apartheid

But the short-term effect may be to rally whites behind Vorster

As expected, the U.N. Security Council voted 15 to 0 last week to impose a mandatory arms embargo on South Africa --the first time the U.N. has ever taken such action against a member nation. As U.N. resolutions go, this one seemed calculated to prove modestly effective. To be sure, it failed to create a defense crisis for South Africa, which is virtually self-sufficient in arms production. In fact, over the short run the U.N. vote may even have played into the hands of South African Prime Minister John Vorster, who is anxious to rack up a big majority in the country's Nov. 30 elections and can now point, once again, to the importance of national unity in the face of worldwide censure.

But by taking a 1963 voluntary arms embargo on South Africa and making it mandatory, the U.N.--and particularly its Western members--served notice on Pretoria that it strongly disapproved of the country's recent crackdown on black leaders and organizations and was prepared, from now on, to turn this disapproval into limited action. Said U.S. Ambassador Andrew Young: "We have just sent a very clear message to the government of South Africa."

The final resolution was a compromise between the council's five Western members (the U.S., Britain, France, West Germany and Canada) and their three counterparts from Africa (Benin, Libya and Mauritius), representing the U.N.'s 49-nation African group.* Earlier in the week, the U.S., Britain and France all vetoed African efforts to impose economic sanctions against Pretoria--a step that would have caused real damage not only to South Africa but also to the Western powers and many smaller nations that trade with it. In the end, the African members settled for a permanent arms embargo. The Western members had wanted a six-month cutoff provision in the measure, to give the South Africans an inducement to ease up on apartheid and repression, but they decided to accept the permanent embargo. "This will assuage us," remarked Ghana's ambassador, Frank Boaten, "but only for a while."

In Washington, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance announced that the U.S., which has observed the 1963 voluntary arms embargo, will extend that policy to cover all previously exempt police and military equipment, including spare parts and maintenance gear. In addition, said Vance, as evidence of "our national concern" over "the regrettable recent steps" taken by South Africa, the U.S. will withdraw the naval attache from its embassy in Pretoria and recall the commercial officer from its consulate in Johannesburg.

Unfortunately, both the U.N. and U.S. actions managed to confound the moderate white opposition in South Africa. Even Colin Eglin, leader of the anti-apartheid Progressive Federal Party, took Jimmy Carter to task for being "more concerned with posturing than reform" --meaning, presumably, that Carter's efforts to lean on South Africa could only help Vorster and his National Party in the forthcoming elections. The government, which held 123 of the 171 seats in the previous Parliament and is trying to win wider support from the English-speaking whites, was playing the theme of "perfidious America" to the hilt. As Opposition Politician Zac de Beer put it, "If one listens to government propaganda, he would almost believe that the voters are being asked to choose between Mr. Vorster and President Carter."

There was even a war bulletin to boost the government's support. From Defense Minister Piet Botha came the news --leaked at a National Party meeting --that seven South African soldiers and 61 "enemy" troops had been killed in an engagement with SWAPO guerrillas in the Angola-Namibia border area, the biggest clash since the Angolan war ended 18 months ago. As for the political effect of seven military funerals held simultaneously, few knowledgeable South Africans disputed National Party Politician Stephan du Toil's assessment that a lot of undecided voters will go over to the government side. ' -

* In the General Assembly, meanwhile, the African group succeeded in passing eight resolutions restating U.N. condemnation of South Africa's administration of Namibia (SouthWest Africa) and demanding that the territory be granted independence under terms sought by the South-West African People's Organization (SWAPO), the nationalist front favored by the U.N. One resolution, in fact, obliges the U.N. from now on to pick up the tab for SWAPO's New York offices.

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