Beating the Ban

International economic boycotts rarely work, but few have fared worse than the boycott of South Africa by Russia and 17 African, Asian and West Indian countries. This week the United Nations' Special Committee on Apartheid will will begin a two-week meeting with the aim of persuading more nations to bar trade with South Africa. The world, says Committee Chairman Diallo Telli of Guinea, faces a choice between "violence on the one hand, economic sanctions on the other" -- a threat that black South Africans will ultimately revolt unless economic pressures force the government to change its ways.

The sanctions so far have neither defused the boom of Africa's richest nation nor diminished its role as a prime salesman to the world. Since the boy cott began four years ago, British and U.S. investment alone in South Africa has risen 50% to $3.7 billion, South Africa's gross national product has in creased 20% to $8.6 billion, and the Rand Daily Mail's stock market index has nearly quadrupled. With exports of products as varied as wheat and mining machinery running at a record $1.5 billion rate, South Africa boasts an inter national payments surplus of $200 mil lion, could write off its few debts with a mere four months' gold production.

Detours. A few South African companies, of course, have felt a boycott pinch. When Denmark stopped shipping small arms to South Africa in 1960, it also reduced its own imports by more than 50%. Clothing shipments from South Africa to Black Africa fell from $12 million in 1959 to $5,000,000 last year. The profits of South African Airways have dwindled because its planes, banned from the Black African airspace, must fly the time-and-money-consuming "apartheid route" over the Atlantic to Europe.

Black Africa, however, has done little to make the boycott stick. South African steel, autos and sugar find their way into most of the nations supporting the ban. Reason: South Africa's advanced technology, low labor costs and modest shipping charges result in price tags many Black Africans find irresistible. "My country," sighs Northern Rhodesian Prime Minister Kenneth Kaunda, "cannot afford to boycott South Africa."

A Question of Need. If a boycott is to work, it must be supported by the U.S. and Britain. Their purchases of such items as gold, copper and diamonds account for one-third of South Africa's trading income. They oppose the boycott, saying publicly that it would hurt black workers more than the white businessmen, but confiding privately that they need South Africa as both a supplier and buyer. The U.S. and Britain have banned arms shipments to South Africa, but in April British Labor Leader Harold Wilson, an Oxford-trained economist, questioned the wisdom of a full-scale boycott. "Sanctions which hit at the people without influencing its government would be futile and tragic," said he. "The imposition of a trade boycott is an act little short of war."

Wilson may also have had in mind a boycott's effect on British industry, which sells $500 million worth of goods yearly to South Africa. If such sales were blocked, thousands of British workers could lose their jobs.

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