HILARY JOFFE: Global capacity for sanctions far more effective than in the days of apartheid
As a student in the UK in the 1980s it wasn’t uncommon to come across peers who had sworn off oranges. Outspan from SA was out, and so too were the oranges from Gen Pinochet’s Chile, or any number of other autocracies.
Trade, sport and cultural boycotts had some impact on apartheid SA. But it was the financial sanctions of the late 1980s that were most effective in helping propel the National Party to the negotiating table in the end. After SA lost its access to international loans after the notorious Rubicon speech in August 1985, it was just a few short years to the release from Robben Island of Walter Sisulu and four other ANC leaders in October 1989, and then of Nelson Mandela in 1990...
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