Word: pretoria
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Opponents of sanctions argue that since blacks make up as much as 65% of South Africa's labor force, they will suffer the most in loss of jobs if the country's economy is seriously hurt. While this is true, it is a fear apparently being exaggerated by Pretoria to ward off sanctions. Massive unemployment does not seem likely unless many more nations join in a total trade embargo against South Africa than now seem willing...
...main leverage South Africa can apply in its trade with the U.S. is its near monopoly of some strategic metals, which worries the Pentagon. If Pretoria decided to retaliate against U.S. sanctions, it could refuse to sell these materials. South Africa holds 84% of the world's known reserves of chromium, which is essential in the production of stainless steel and superalloys used in the defense, aerospace, chemical and power-generation industries. Private stocks of chromium in the U.S., which does not mine the ore, would last only a few months. South Africa has 81% of the world's platinum...
...form of official blackmail, the Pretoria government has been threatening to take reprisals against its black neighboring countries if sanctions get too severe. It is in a solid position to do so. Nearly all foreign trade for Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland passes through South Africa, as well as 90% of Zimbabwe's. Some 350,000 foreign workers are legally employed in South Africa, almost 85% of them in mining, and they could be fired. Many of its neighbors are dependent on South Africa for electricity, which could be cut. Pretoria, however, rarely mentions the benefits it gains from these relations...
...Presidents, Ronald Reagan and P.W. Botha, agree on at least one thing: South Africa's problems will be resolved by its own people, in the main without reference to the world at large. Indeed, the reform program that Pretoria has carried out over the past two years, including an end to the color bar in sex and marriage and legalization of black residence in urban areas, was announced in Botha's speech opening Parliament in January 1985, months before South Africa became front-page news in the U.S. and Western Europe...
...military forces and police, including reserves, total almost 500,000 very well-equipped men and women. "There is no sign of demoralization on the part of the security forces," says Michael Hough, the director of Pretoria University's Institute for Strategic Studies. "Only massive outside intervention on behalf of the A.N.C. could conceivably tilt the balance...