Muddy Sanctions

There are two fundamental problems with President Reagan’s tardy and reluctant turn to sanctions against South Africa:

--His plan is not as good, not as effective as the program put together by the House and Senate conference committee.

--His motive, turning to soft sanctions just to try to head off the more effective legislation in Congress, will communicate a message to Pretoria of continued ambiguity in the White House.

In his message Monday, the President said that “there is no time to waste,” and on that there can be no disagreement. But the fact is that a good deal of time has been wasted, the better part of five years, while he has played with “constructive engagement.” That has encouraged a stubbornness in South Africa that has set back internal reforms and delayed independence for Namibia, the last of the African colonies.

Condemning and deploring apartheid is not enough. The white rulers need to be shown as well as told that apartheid has to be abandoned if they are to continue to enjoy the advantages of open relations and trade with the Western nations.

The President fumbled when asked why he could not support the congressional legislation. He seemed unsure of the content. Secretary of State George P. Shultz said subsequently that the principal White House reservation had to do with the “overhang” of what Congress had devised--that is, the threat of stepped-up sanctions if the modest initial measures failed to produce constructive change. That is a weak argument. The strength of the congressional legislation is the clear picture that it provides of the consequences of continuing apartheid--a mandated incentive for action. The vital weakness of the President’s proposal is the absence of any message on what he intends next if South Africa clings to its odious policies.

At least Reagan has embraced a number of the proposals made by members of Congress, including limits on bank loans and on nuclear and computer technology sales, and incentives for American companies respecting the Sullivan Code of just practices in South Africa. The President has proposed a multimillion-dollar expansion of scholarship and human-rights programs in South Africa. And he has proposed a citizen committee that could, if made up of experts, accelerate development of a better government policy toward South Africa.

The President suggested Monday that he is reshaping his policy of constructive engagement into a policy of active engagement. That will be useful only if a new policy is reflected in the letter that he is sending to South Africa with his returning ambassador. That letter will be effective only if it overcomes the impression left by the President on Monday that he is only reluctantly, only defensively being forced into a somewhat tougher policy.

“There is no substitute for statutory action which has the full support and prestige of both the legislature and executive branches of government,” Rep. Dante B. Fascell (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, commented. He is correct. And that is why Reagan’s determination to veto the proposal supported by the vast majority of both House and Senate clouds communication when the United States should be speaking clearly and unambiguously.