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PAGE 16
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, NOVEMBER 4, 1986
The size of the vote, especially from Republican senators bolting against
their own President, indicated the issue bad become enmeshed in U.S.
domestic policies.
In fact, the man who led the Republican backlash,
Senator Richard Lugar, admitted it had become a •domestic civil rights
issue.• No Republican Senator, if he were running for office in November,
was about to be tagged with a •racist• label by an opportunistic
challenger. South Africa's Foreign Minister Roelof •pik• Botha, who made
several phone calls on the eve of the Senate vote to try to persuade a
change, reluctantly admitted:
•rt is clear the decision was taken
regardless of our reform program and no reason or argument could stop this
emotional wave•••• It was an emotion-laden, steamroller current,• he said.
·This became an internal civil rights issue in the United States.•
Mr. Botha was condemned by some Senators who charged he was •interfering•
with U.S. politics. (What has the U.S. Congress been doing for the past
year?) Mr. Lugar said Botha's action was •an affront to the decency of
the American people.•
Legislators were irritated when the Foreign
Minister said South Africa would stop buying
o.s.
grain if South Africa's
farm exports were blocked.
(•Foreign bribery• and •intimidation,• they
charged.)
Time and time again, key Senators claimed that the
o.s.
had to take a
•moral stand• and •get on the right side of history.• Kansas Senator
Nancy Kassenbaum said, •we have to show whose side we're on.• Critics
charged these senators, however, with pursuing •feel good• policies. The
attempt to force America's system values on others was evident in many
comments. Senator Ernest Hollings of South Carolina said in defense of
the Senate's action:
·This is not an intrusion into South African
affairs. This is an affirmation of the American dream: 'We declare these
truths to be self-evident, all men are created equa1.
1
•
Critics charged however that the action only gave support to
revolutionaries inside South Africa and pulled the rug out from under
moderate black forces.
It widens and enflames racial tensions.
"The
thrust of this legislation,• said Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina,
•is to bring about violent, revolutionary change, and after that,
tyranny.• Of course, most of the Senators don't think that will happen,
or hope such a result can be avoided. The Sept. 30 editorial in THE WALL
STREET JOURNAL commented on the tragic track record of recent
o.s.
interventionism, as well as looking at the bill's tricky protectionist
twist:
The final bill is•••heavily freighted with hypocrisy. With its
long list of South African goods that the
o.s.
will not import,
it is a protectionist bill with grandiose moral pretensions.
The pr!me benefits will go �American producers who compete
with South African products. The primary victims will be South
African workers, many of them black••••
Sanction advocates claim the O.S. must bring real muscle to
bear. Look at what we accomplished when we intervened in the
Philippines, they say.
South Africa, however, is not the
Philippines. In the Philippines a democratic opposition was
waiting in the wings.
In South Africa, with its fragmented
multiracial and multiethnic communities, potential successors